I went to go see Toy Story 3 this weekend. Having seen and enjoyed the firsttwo, I was wondering how the trilogy would end. It would be an understatement to say that the first movie reinvented movies. It was the first computer animated feature film and the humanity it showed made everyone believe that computer animation could be as good (if not better) than hand drawn animation. So was the third movie any good?

Yes and no. It was a warm and funny movie that showed the obvious love the creators had for these characters. The love came shining through at the end with the sacrifices that Woody and Andy made. They both made decisions that were for the best for other people and did so selflessly and with only minimal hesitation. Yet in that hesitation, you could tell that they knew what they were giving up. The movie reminds us why we loved these characters and how a movie about a bunch of toys can remind us all of our own childhood and the changes that go through us while growing up.

The movie revolves around Andy leaving for college. As he cleans out his room, his mom tells him to make a decision with the toys: college, attic or garbage. After a mixup with the toys, they almost end up in the garbage truck and decide that being donated to the local daycare center. They are warmly greeted and then led into the toddler room where they are attacked and played with as they have never been played with before. The toys have to make an daring escape, past the guardian toys from the daycare center, and find a place to live now that Andy is moving on. The end is a wonderful touching reminder of why we love Pixar movies.

It still amazes me that a production company can make movies for kids, ones that kids love, yet make it so that adults want to see it as much (if not more) than the kids. This 11th movie in 15 years from the fine folks at Pixar show the technical advances that the company has made. But for all the technical advances, the company hasn’t lost its heart. While other animated features still rely on cute, wisecracking sidekicks, Pixar humanizes all their characters. There are no characters that feel like they were put there simply to have a character they can make into toys.

But I worry for Pixar’s future. After Toy Story 3, their next two films are Cars 2, Brave and Monster’s Inc. 2. By the end of 2012, three of the last four Pixar movies would have been sequels. Cars 2 especially feels like a marketing decision instead of a creative one. Cars the movie was arguably the worst of all the Pixar movies, but it was a marketing hit. Unlike their other movies, Cars had characters and settings that made for easy toy development and sales. Cars is arguably the best selling ancillary merchandise of all the Pixar movies, so it’s natural that the marketing wing would love a sequel. Time will tell if Pixar is in trouble for the future or now, but it’s more in question than ever before, even as Toy Story 3 has the biggest opening of any Pixar movie.