Toy Story 3 3D

They're back! Walt Disney Studios' and Pixar Animation Studios' present "Toy Story 3," a story that reunites America's favorite animated toys. Woody (voice of Tom Hanks), Buzz (voice of Tim Allen) and the whole gang are back as Andy prepares to depart for college and his loyal toys find themselves in... day care! These untamed tots with their sticky little fingers do not play nice, so it's all for one and one for all as plans for the great escape get underway. More than a few new faces—some plastic, some plush—join the adventure, including iconic swinging bachelor and Barbie's counterpart Ken (voice of Michael Keaton), a thespian hedgehog named Mr. Pricklepants (voice of Timothy Dalton) and a pink, strawberry-scented teddy bear called Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (voice of Ned Beatty). (Gary Reber)

Special features on the Blu-ray Disc featuring the movie include the theatrical short "Day & Night" (HD 06:02), the featurettes "Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs: The Science Of Adventure" (HD 04:25) and "Toys" (HD 06:39), "Learn How To Take Your Favorite Movies On The Go" (HD 01:04), sneak peeks, and up-front ads. Special features on the Blu-ray Bonus Disc include a series of Family Play featurettes: "The Gang's All Here" (HD 10:24), "Goodbye Andy" (HD 08:04), "Accidental Toymakers" (HD 03:59), "A Toy's Eye View: Creating A Whole New Land" (HD 05:29), and "Epilogue" (HD 04:22); Cine-Explore Bonus View of the movie; an alternative commentary track entitled "Beyond The Toybox" featuring leads from story, tech, art and animation; "Roundin' Up A Western Opening" (HD 05:47); "Bonnie's Playtime: A Story Roundtable" (HD 06:31); "Beginnings: Setting A Story In Motion" (HD 08:15); "Life Of A Shot" (HD 07:00); "Making Of Day & Night" (HD 02:05); "Paths To Pixar: Editorial" (HD 04:40); three Studio Stories: "Where's Gordon?" (HD 02:18), "Cereal Bar" (HD 01:38), and "Clean Start" (HD 03:07); a Toy Story Trivia Dash game; a publicity "Grab Bag" (HD 03:54); Ken's Dating Tips (HD 01:36); two Lots-o'Huggin' Bear commercials; making of the commercials (HD 01:27); "Internet Chat" (HD 01:02); "Security Cam" (HD 01:14); "Gadgets" (HD 0:56); "Dancing With The Stars" at Pixar (HD 02:23); the TS3 Silence Trailer (HD 0:38); the TS3 Antipiracy Trailer (HD 01:01); five additional TS3 trailers; Character Intros (HD 02:09); a poster gallery; FastPlay, which allows the viewer to customize their viewing experience; and BD-Live functionality. The five-disc set includes a Blu-ray™ 3D, a Blu-ray Disc™, a Blu-ray Bonus Disc, a DVD, and a digital copy.

"Toy Story" was released theatrically in the Disney Digital 3-D format, as well as 70 mm (Horizontal IMAX DMR blow-up) (dual-strip 3-D and D-Cinema 3D). As with the simultaneously released Blu-ray Disc editions of "Toy Story 3D" and "Toy Story 2 3D," this 1080p MVC transfer faithfully duplicates Pixar's pristine digital source. The color palette is exceptionally vivid, with rich and warm hues that will dazzle your eyesight. The striking and bold colors are well balanced and pop off the screen! Blacks are deep and solid throughout, and shadow delineation is superb, with excellent resolution in the darker scenes. Resolution is incredibly detailed, sharp, and clear. As with the other releases, every element, whether in the foreground or background, is perfectly descriptive and defined with excellent dimensionality. The picture is absolutely pristine, with no noticeable artifacts or crosstalk ghosting, for a perfect visual 3-D experience. As with previous 3-D renderings "Toy Story's" three-dimensional world boasts incredibly realistic depth and exacting dimensional perspective, both with imagery rendered in the positive parallax view and the negative parallax view. Pixar's animators have made the most of 3D's immersive technique, to craft dimensional support for the storytelling. This is truly a reference-quality 3-D picture that deserves the highest praise. Once again, Disney and Pixar perfectly demonstrate what high-definition 3D is all about! (Gary Reber)

As previously stated in the release reviewed in Issue 151, this is the first "Toy Story" to be mixed in 7.1-channel lossless discrete DTS-HD Master Audio™. Unfortunately the added two channels are positioned to the far left and right back of the soundfield instead to the 90-degree side positions, due to the original theatrical mix in Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound, which does not adhere to the optimum home 7.1-channel format. This necessitates a rewiring of 7.1-channel sound systems optimized as to the recommendations preferred by Dolby® and DTS®, with the additional two channels positioned 90 degrees relative to the sweet spot listening position. Still, when the system is arranged for this presentation format, the spatial soundfield result is impressive, far more dimensional than just reproducing the soundtrack on a 5.1-channel system. Sonic imaging is superb and fully-involving, with compelling split surround activity that dramatically opens up the soundstage. Pans are delivered from the front of the room to the rear and surrounds. As with previous renderings, sound effects have been recorded with remarkable clarity and convey a compelling sense of poignancy. Dialogue is directionalized across the front stage, with good imaging, to match on-screen locations. Dialogue sounds even more natural and intimate, with good articulation in this presentation, using a technique to add emphasis to the on-screen characters while maintaining some center energy. The dialogue production is exemplary, with well-recorded voices that sound very natural and remarkably well-integrated with the visuals. As before, there is some directionality with voices, with off-center dialogue being rendered in between the screen channels. Randy Newman's music is very nicely recorded, with an involving, expansive presence that is impressively resolved in terms of instrument timbre and positioning. Fidelity is pristine. The .1 LFE channel is used effectively, with an extremely deep presence at times that develops the low end well, consisting of both subtle low-end foundation to the music and poignant, significant moments with substantial sub-25 Hz extension—particularly during the dump scene. The split surrounds are used liberally throughout to wonderful effect. The DVD English and the Blu-ray French and Spanish tracks feature Dolby Digital EX™ center back surround channel encoding (as on the previous "Toy Story" DVDs), which enhances surround envelopment in the back soundfield. Still, with the DTS-HD 7.1-channel rendering, the phantom sense of center back surround is still intact, though, not as prominent. This soundtrack, as do the other "Toy Story" soundtracks, stands as a superb sonic presentation with consistently satisfying holosonic® soundfield envelopment. This is definitely a superlative example of what creativity and a production of par excellence can achieve, with a fuller and more immersive soundfield experience through the use of eight channels. For added engagement, activate the D-BOX Motion Code encoding, which really enhances the sense of dimension with all sorts of motion effects. (Gary Reber)