Hold on tight to your flag pins, folks.
“Toy Story 3,” the No. 1 film of the weekend, the most successful flick from one the most consistently successful outfits, Pixar, has a surprisingly strong conservative message.
The familiar cast of characters from the “Toy Story” franchise came back for the third installment, including Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Mrs. Potato Head (Estelle Harris), Rex (Wallace Shawn), and Hamm (John Ratzenberger).
The toys’ owner, Andy (John Morris), is now 18 years old. He has a whole new slate of fun stuff to play with including video games and an electric guitar.
Andy stores the toys he used to play with in a chest full of discards in his room. Because he’s about to go off to college, the toys inadvertently end up being donated to a day care center.
Woody decides not to stay with the other toys at the center, and he heads off to find Andy.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the Sunnyside Daycare Center has a very misleading name. It’s here where the plot pulls some themes from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
The center is actually an animated dictatorship with an elite ruling class that is led by a despot teddy bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty). The power-crazed Lotso has his own toy thugs that dole out punishments and “torture” to any toy that fails to submit to the regime.
Woody finds out that his friends are suffering under the furry fist of the totalitarian teddy. The big tension arrives when, with Woody’s assistance, the toys attempt to escape from the toon banana republic.
Woody even has to deal with Buzz Lightyear, who has now been reprogrammed, i.e. brainwashed, into supporting the dictatorship.
Not only is “Toy Story 3” the most watchable movie of the summer, it is, in fact, one of the most watchable movies of the year, and an extra special treat for conservatives.
The film is a welcome excursion for the whole family, with kernels of courage, loyalty, self-sacrifice and forgiveness to blend with your popcorn.
Although there are a couple of innuendos that older kids may catch, profanity is happily absent. Freedom, and what it means when it is lost, is set forth in a seamless, heartfelt, elegant manner.
Ironically, the movie’s main theme flows from the mouth of Barbie (Jodi Benson) in a paraphrased line from the Declaration of Independence. “Authority is derived from the governed, not through control,” the famed doll proclaims.
James Hirsen, J.D., M.A. in media psychology, is a New York Times best-selling author, commentator, media analyst and law professor. He is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and has made several appearances there on various landmark decisions. Hirsen is the co-founder and chief legal counsel for InternationalEsq.com, a legal think tank and educational institute for the study of law in the media. Visit: Newsmax TV Hollywood
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