No point in selling telling you about the movies themselves. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple decades you already know, or seen for yourself, these classics. Each of the three Toy Story films have or will have their own separate Blu-Ray release with a second disk in standard DVD format. So the big question is what else are you getting on this combo pack. Let me give the low down.
For one this trilogy combo pack will essentially be cheaper to get than buying the three movies separately. This is a very good thing for those of you who do not have any Toy Story Blu-Rays as this means you're coming out ahead of the rest of us who bought them separate. Also everybody's favorite talking point on this release is the inclusion of a digital copy for playing on your portables, a feature not included in the separate releases. So is that all the benefits of getting this package? Well you get a cheesy little carrying case that is pictured above, but that's pretty much it.
That's right ladies and gentlemen. No exclusive content. Three disks for each movies (Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital copy) along with a tenth disk that is likely the same supplemental disk that's included in the Toy Story 3 Blu-Ray. If you are looking for a collector's set with never-before seen footage, featurettes, outtakes, alternate endings and whatnot you won't find it here. However if you don't have any of the previous disks you will get a pretty sweet price, and for those moaning about digital copies you will get that too. Oh yeah... and the toy box "collector's" case. Toy Story Ultimate Toy Box Collection (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)
The Toy Story trilogy is amazing, as most would suspect. However the 3-star rating given to this product is NOT because of the movies, it is for the sub-par packaging they come in. For such a lucrative franchise I expected much more. The "toy box" design is certainly cool, keeping with the theme of Toy Story, but the disks sit inside a styrofoam container with little room to grab each disk. The flimsy quality of the actual toy box could be an issue in the making as I am not certain it will last that long. I wouldn't recommend leaving this for little ones to play with or use, in stead take out the disks and place them in slim jewel cases or possibly buy the 3-disk trilogy instead.
This is a case of having a great idea but being too lazy to execute it and give the best product worthy of the word ultimate.
- blu-ray discs, check
- dvds, check
- digital codes, check
- toy box, sturdy cardboard box. It's nice and for the price of the trilogy I won't complain
what I will complain about is the fact that the disc are not in jewel cases or circular plastic cases. The discs are placed in a piece of black foam. Nothing really special, just slots in the foam for each and every discs. You know what this is called? It's called lazy production value.
don't buy this product, you are better off just buying a combo pack sometime down the line. The Mediocre Toy Story Collection is not worth your money and is not worthy of these great films
I pre-ordered, since I loved the first movie as a child, and my wife, child and I loved the 3rd movie this summer (his recent birthday party was Toy Story themed). However, I want to know, what gives?!? These are children's movies, and they don't give better protection than the discs sitting in foam in a cardboard box? No individual protection, so this set will have to stay out of my child's reach, or I know I'll find an assortment of discs lying around my living room floor. The foam appears to have been made quite lazily, as a couple of the discs don't even sit right. It would've also been nicer if they had either labelled the area where each disc goes or staggered them differently. With the small spacing between discs, it's difficult to select a disc without smudging the others around it, at least if you have fat fingers like yours truly. Also, for an "ultimate" edition, there appears to be a severe lack of special features discs. I guess this is why the price dropped several times before release? I'm pretty sure this is the worst Pixar product I've seen...
If you buy all three Toy Story Bluray/DVDs, it's $65.47. You don't get digital copies of Toy Story 1 and 2, but you get cases for all three movies if you buy individually. The box set does not have any additional content so you're paying $15 for packaging and 2 digital copies...and no disc cases.
I don't typically write reviews, unless I am either overly thrilled with the purchase, or greatly disappointed. Unfortunately, this case is the latter.
The packaging is an absolute injustice for a trilogy of this caliber. Given the quality of all three movies and their popularity, I expected the royal treatment with this box set. What we get instead is cheap black foam that I can already see is leaving a fine residue on the discs as I remove/insert the discs. It is difficult to find the disc that you want to see, since the discs are packaged close together in line -- In order to find a particular disc, you need to remove several until you find the one you want. Also, there is no way to take the discs out or reinsert them without feeling like you will eventually damage them.
My recommendation -- spend the extra $10 and buy the movies individually. I wish I had.
I must say that I am disappointed at Disney for releasing a product in this manner. Here is a breakdown of the rating:
Movie - *****
Packaging - *
There are two primary groups this set appeals to, in my opinion:
Collectors ...
... but this is extremely impractical from the storage standpoint. The packaging takes approximately 4 times the storage space of 3 combo packs of this movie on a library shelf. The missing bonus materials content from The Ultimate Toy Box DVD set makes it even more difficult to justify the amount of space it takes up.
Parents ...
... that want all three movies playable on DVD, Bluray, or Digital Format. Since there are no real content frills added to the normal combo pack set of discs, the scenario that some parents prefer to have "one packaging" for all three movies instead of three separate media packs for frequent playback should be considered. On that end, the cheap cardboard packaging will not suffice. It not only will fall apart over a short period of time, but the way the discs are inserted lends themselves to be easily smudged and scratched by the young.
Content of the Set - ***
The content of the set did not include the previous Toy Story Ultimate Box Set DVD features, which is extremely disappoint given that I intended to replace the DVD box set with this but now I have to reconsider. You can find out what is missing by reading the reviews on that set. If it wasn't for the inclusion of the 2 digital copies of the first two Toy Stories, I would have rated it 2 stars.
Conclusion:
Buy it if you do not have kids handling the discs themselves and you do not already own The Ultimate Box Set from the previous release and don't care about the extra materials.
For those that have The Ultimate Box set, I would recommend simply buying the Blu-ray versions of Toy Story 3 for now and wait for the 3D version and perhaps then, Disney will come to its senses and release all three films in an all-inclusive "Toy Box" with EVERYTHING. (We can only hope.)
Since this review is more specifically about this "set," I have given more weight to it than the actual movies themselves. - Animation - Pixar - Disney - Blu-ray'
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