Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley details his career at Pixar in a new featurette promoting the film's IMAX release. Nine years after seemingly concluding the series with the poignant Toy Story 3, the animation powerhouse returned to their flagship franchise one more time with another chapter that serves as a fitting epilogue to the original trilogy. Despite numerous production woes (including a complete revamping of the script) and a fair amount of skepticism from fans, Toy Story 4 ended up being just as strong as its predecessors, delivering a funny and heartfelt summer adventure.
Cooley, who had directed a pair of Pixar shorts and co-wrote the Inside Out screenplay, made his feature debut on Toy Story 4, which was undoubtedly a daunting task. However, it was one he was very much prepared for thanks to his experiences at Pixar since he started working there as an intern in 2003. In a video, the filmmaker described his journey while offering advice to up-and-coming directors.
Today, Pixar unveiled the featurette, which is designed to advertise Toy Story 4's IMAX screenings. In the video, Cooley chronicled his career arc from working in the story department on films like Cars and Ratatouille to now being a director. You can watch it for yourself in the space below:
During Pixar's heyday in the 2000s, they rose to where they are today thanks to the contributions of talents like Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Brad Bird. While it's true those three are still very much involved at the studio (Docter is the new CCO and has Soul coming out next year), it's nevertheless vital for Pixar to find a new generation of storytellers to keep the tradition alive - especially with Toy Story 3 and Coco director Lee Unkrich leaving earlier this year. Cooley seems to have been building towards becoming a feature film director, and it sounds like he has a good grasp on what makes Pixar movies work. In the video, he says it's important for the narratives to come from a personal place and described his connection to new character Forky. Based on the response to Toy Story 4, Cooley did an excellent job continuing the franchise from a place of love and care.
Obviously, computer animation has evolved substantially since the original Toy Story came out in 1995, and Pixar always ups the ante from a visual perspective. Toy Story 4 looks stunning and beautiful, making it a must-see on the biggest screen possible in order to fully appreciate all of the work that went into it. Since this is the first Toy Story movie to be made in extra widescreen, IMAX viewing is almost a necessity in order to get the full effect. But even if one has to settle for a standard screening, there's no denying Toy Story 4 is one of the most intricate and immersive animated movies yet, fully realizing its world in phenomenal detail.
