TOY STORY 3 SPOILER WARNING

Do NOT read this post if you have not yet seen Toy Story 3. While it’s centered on my upcoming WDW vacations, it reveals a major plot point of Pixar’s latest movie.  This is your

SPOILER WARNING!

SPOILER WARNING!

SPOILER WARNING!

Okay.  So I saw Toy Story 3 yesterday.  It was, as expected, a phenomenally great movie.  A worthy successor to the first two in the franchise.  I’m absolutely positive I’ll see it again in the theatre, probably sometime very soon.  There was, however, something that kept me from enjoying the movie to its fullest extent.  For the last several months, I’ve been seeing how one of the new TS3 characters, “Lots O’ Huggin Bear” (Lotso for short) is now a meet-and-greet character at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Apparently Disney has gone so far as to scent his meet-and-greet area like strawberries, in line with his character in the film.

Based on this knowledge, I obviously assumed Lotso was one of our new heroes.  A new friend to Woody and the gang.  If you’ve seen the movie, you know that this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Lotso is a bitter, angry, sadistic toy bent on dictatorship.  Throughout the entire movie, I kept expecting and waiting for Lotso to be redeemed.  For him to come to his senses, for Woody and Buzz to win him over and bring him back to the light side.  It never happened.  Even toward the end, when there was a golden opportunity for redemption during the conveyor belt scene, Lotso became even more despicable.

So now WDW has confused me.  Why is there a Lotso meet-and-greet?  There isn’t meet-and-greet for Syd (the human villain of the first movie).  There isn’t a meet-and-greet for Stinky Pete (the toy villain of the second movie).  Why would I want to meet Lotso, after the horrible acts I saw him commit?  I’d be more likely to want to punch him in his huggable gut than give him a hug.

There is only one way I can think of to reconcile the oddness of the situation.  In the movie, we saw that Lotso became so angry and bitter when, accidentally left behind one day, he trekked back to his owner’s home only to find he’d been replaced by another Lots O’ Huggin Bear.  I will force myself to choose to believe the Lotso I meet in the park this summer is not the bitter angry villain of our story, but rather Daisy’s second Lots O’ Huggin Bear.   For that matter, I guess one could assume that Lotso (and in fact, any of the Toys that have meet-and-greets in the parks) are generic versions of the Toys we know, as available in toy stores, rather than Andy, Daisy, or Bonnie’s originals.  After all, toys are not unique.

And before you make this comment – yes, I know I’m overthinking this situation.  Yes, I know I’m more obsessed than anyone rightly should be.  I’m okay with that.