HΘrnΣt MΘntana

No pussyfooting around, let’s just type: hardship-redemption-evolution subtexts are many and overlapping in this film. The most dire, and thus the most obvious, is the sequence at the end where the toys are trapped in a deadly waiting game as they’re pulled ever closer to a Sun-like smelting/incinerator/you name it machine in a dump. They look at each other forlornly and join hands, waiting to die. In fact, the core of the machine is very like the Sun, or at least the Sun of a couple years from now (reportedly). The Sun is supposed to become highly erratic and potentially destructive to neighboring bodies (as the toys will be destroyed by the machine). But wait, at the last moment, a light from above, the toys look up and this illumined cross shape (albeit with five points) appears above them. Oh, it is just the “claw” of a crane. And it whisks the toys out of harms way and deposits them on the ground. What does this sound like an allegory of? The Dark Rift of the Milky Way in proper alignment (in, oh gosh, 2012), a trigger of important events (probably benign). And what shape will reportedly be in the sky when this occurs? A cross. A “rosy” cross (a la Rosicrucians – “rosy cross”-ians – and the red cross of the Templars – and the plain ol’ Red Cross).

And who is operating the crane that saves the toys? Green alien toys.

After this and another scene at an address with the number 1225 (as in 25 Dec, the birthday of a few dying-and-rising figures in history) where a youth tells a toddler that he has to leave before investing her with responsibility (the protection of his toys), everything is harmonious in the playschool and the toys are partying with no end in sight.

So the crane rescue? That’s just one of the biggest “big payoff after mucho suffering” segments. As far as mucho suffering, how’s being locked up en masse just for being normal? It happens. The toys (minus a brainwashed Buzz and a stealthy Woody) are imprisoned. Before Buzz’s mind is wiped, he requests something from the main nemesis, a bear (a la the astronomical Ursa bears, two constellations that are close to the North Star, that never really set through the night and never go below the horizon). Buzz asks that his friends be given the same chance as him: to be above the masses, to be free and running things. The bear, Lotso, says that is not allowed, essentially saying outright that there would be sociological consequences if everyone were on the inside. This dynamic of “you’re with us or against us” happens a few times: like when, upon their arrival at the playschool early on, Woody splits from his gang because they don’t want to go back to their owner Andy.

Quick licks:
[a] in Andy’s room near the end of the film, we see seven stars on his wallpaper. There are seven stars in the Pleiades. Go read about that in regard to end-of-days thinking and the Northern Star (“Polaris”).
[b] Woody stresses the importance of midnight as the important hour to escape the playschool. The big encyclopedia on the Internet says that’s a sacred hour, and one of epiphanies. And when does the world end according to the Doomsday Clock? Midnight. The toys’ attempted escape at that point ends in quite an unfortunate fashion, and it all comes to a head soon after (the fore-mentioned fiery death machine).
[c] And to end (as all things must) on something seemingly trivial: a poster in Andy’s room says “None Shall Pass” on the bottom.

In a forest somewhere, a black knight is bleeding.