Review of The Brave Little Toaster (1987) by Sam S — 28 Aug 2017

This has been my favorite film for a bit over 15 years. That's the majority of my life by the time I'm writing this review. Every time I come back to it, I have something new to appreciate about it. I would like to clear it up for readers of this review before going into it, however, that this movie may be distributed by Disney, but Disney took no part in its creation. One could better explain that a lot of big names in Pixar worked in this movie, and thus, I'd call it Pixar's spiritual first movie, as later Pixar films also take concepts similar to this and go with it.

VISUALS: The visuals are muted for the majority of the film, and giving each character certain color associations was definitely wise. It prevents the audience from mistaking one character over another very easily. The backgrounds are wonderfully made, and each place in this movie has a unique feeling and a different color pallete to further distinguish different places.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: I've given this a section different from visuals because I feel the cinematography does a wonderful job of conveying certain concepts in awesome ways. In many scenes, the characters are depicted as small in comparison to everything else around them, and the characters are frequently looking around at their surroundings. It does a lot to amplify how big the world around them is and how small they are in it, further the sense of wonder(or horror) of the outside world, and create the sense of isolation they've had over the years. It's about their first time outside the old cottage, and they're curious about it all, and rightfully, they recoil from the sensory overload at some points as well. Everything is shown exactly when it needs to be seen.

ACTING: The voice work is amazing! Jon Lovitz definitely took his role and just ran with it. And while others find Blanky's voice to be grating, I find it to be genuine and adorable. The reason he sounds more childish than the rest of the cast is because, well, he is voiced by a child. Deanna Oliver did fantastic conveying a motherly, supportive tone. This is a very human film, despite the fact that the characters are exactly the opposite of human realistically.

MUSIC: Where do I begin with the music? The background music is fantastic and makes one feel like they're in a dream, or as some have described the movie, in a nightmare. The music is grand, but when things settle down, there is no music. It helps the movie feel more natural when the characters are having modest discussion. It takes so many advantages with what it's got. The lyrics are also amazing and fit with each song, and there are subtle messages that accompany the larger ones in it.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: This movie has characters that keep their little quirks, but change through the course of the movie. Each movement and expression is heavily informed by who each character is and what they're feeling. And their voices do awesome at conveying emotions! Their development feels natural and smooth, but it doesn't turn them all into totally noble heroes by the end of the movie. They feel like normal people who went through traumatizing things recently, but have managed to get the happy ending they needed and deserved.

It's likely that in events following the movie, they'll probably feel some horror at the thought of what they went through here. But as we see from the film, they'll be okay because they went through it together, and they've built a fellowship through their suffering that they didn't have before. At the beginning of the film, they're divided, they are constantly fighting. Things that would have outraged them at the beginning, they're shrugging off later on.

Each character's arc is unique, and they each have very specific implications to go along with them both about themselves and each other. One could do a lot of speculation and analysis to further build the characters and the story around them in a way that I haven't quite been able to do for other things.

For very elaborate example, Radio is a model of radio that was very popular in the fifties, so it would be likely Rob's parents handed a family heirloom down to their son. To further add to this, World War 2 had closed only five to ten years before his model's popularization. The effects of the war would still be felt by that time, and it would be reasonable to place him as the oldest among the main group.

OVERALL: Overall, I joined this website just to review this movie, because I love it and wanted to give my input. This movie will probably always be my favorite of all time.