Toy Story 3. Pixar continues to be a powerhouse in the world of entertainment, and its reign began in 1995 with Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film which went on to change the realm of animation forever and introduced some unique characters that became part of pop culture.
In a world where toys come to life when humans aren’t watching, Toy Story follows Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), a pull-string cowboy who is his owner’s, Andy (John Morris), favorite toy. Woody also serves as the leader of the rest of the toys in Andy’s room, but everything changes when Andy gets a brand new toy on his birthday: Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), a space ranger action figure. To everyone’s surprise, Buzz isn’t aware that he’s a toy and is convinced he's an actual space ranger, creating a lot of tension between him and Woody and sending them on a dangerous adventure that changes their individual perspectives on friendship and life, while also forming a strong bond between them.
Throughout most of Toy Story, Woody struggled with Buzz’s strong belief of him being a real space ranger and not understanding he was actually a toy, but an almost tragic event in Buzz’s life, when he tried to fly and instead crashed down the stairs, made him finally realize the truth, which was obviously very shocking and thus sent him on an existential crisis. Although it’s understandable that Buzz went into a crisis following that painful experience, this scene has made way for a theory that gives a different explanation of why Buzz’s mentality and perspective suddenly changed, and it does so by connecting it to a key detail in Toy Story 3: the reveal of a switch on Buzz’s back.
In Toy Story 3, Buzz tried to negotiate with Lotso to have him and the rest of Andy’s toys move to the older children’s room at Sunnyside, but Lotso rejected the idea, and instead, he told his crew to switch Buzz to Demo mode by literally flipping a switch on his back that goes from “play” to “demo”. Buzz then goes back to his old ways, though more aggressive towards his former friends under Lotso’s command. Now, keeping in mind that Buzz has that specific switch, a theory posted on Reddit (via CBR) suggests that when Buzz crashed after trying to fly, the impact switched him from “demo” to “play”, giving him an existential crisis and turning him into pretty much a new toy, one that was now aware that he’s a toy.
Although this theory explains Toy Story makes a lot of sense, and as it’s unlikely it will be confirmed or denied anytime soon, it’s up to every viewer to decide what truly happened.
