quote: I personally got really choked up at the part where, after Andy gives away all of his other toys, Bonny sees Woody and goes, "hey, my cowboy doll!" and reaches for him. Andy, who from the beginning was planning to bring Woody to college, pulls back and won't give it to her.
That moment was really very wrenching, because you just didn't know who to root for. Neither character was "wrong", and going either way would have still led to a fulfilling end to the story (such as Andy alternately keeping Woody and always having a reminder of his childhood as he grows up and raises his own family). All of the possibilities flash by in that split second of indecision. There is an incredible build-up of tension that is only ultimately resolved when Andy finally decides to give up Woody.
It is the very definition of a catharsis.
Ding ding ding!
It's not just catharsis for that moment, though. That scene is the carthartic moment for all the tension of the film. I had no idea how they were going to come up with a satisfying ending that didn't compromise either Andy's growth into adulthood or the toys' loyalty (to Andy and each other). During the incinerator scene I honestly thought Pixar had decided to go for a noble death together moment because there was no happy and narratively satisfying ending possible. But they pulled it off in a way that honored all of the characters. And I cried.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't actually consider the population of this thread to be a representative sample of anything.
I'm not criticizing people for crying. I'm mostly mystified and...I don't know, a bit skeptical. Really? It was sweet and poignant and I saw all the earlier movies, too, but...that much?
Maybe it's because Andy, while a perfectly nice kid, is always separate from the toys, so you don't form any particular attachment to him. It's like someone telling me about their cat. I completely believe them when they love their cat, but that doesn't mean I love their cat. And nobody even died - the cat was placed with another family and could be visited at any time. Andy's college is within driving distance and the little girl is a family friend. It is, like I said, sweet and poignant, but not devestating.
I get that it is a moment about growing up, but that circles back to my original thought: growing up isn't sad.
I think what you're missing in people's reactions is that Andy is not the protagonist of the movie. It isn't a moment about growing up, it's a moment about letting go -- not Andy letting go of toys, but their letting go of him. They're the point of view character for parents and foster parents and teachers and child-care workers and everyone who's ever been the center of a child's life and loved it and known that if they do their job right they will cease to be the center of that child's life. And it's wonderful and sad.
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quote:I am observing that people seem to be doing a lot of crying for something that was sweet and well-done, but not exactly sob-inducing.
Y'know, 'sob-inducing' is pretty subjective, katharina. There doesn't have to be anything better or worse about a person if they do or don't cry at certain things, though you appear to have suggested otherwise more than once in this thread, with remarks such as:
quote:I get that it is a moment about growing up, but that circles back to my original thought: growing up isn't sad.
Is there no aspect of growing up that cannot ever be sad to anyone without there being something wrong? People crying =/ thinking growing up is an overall sad experience.
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I know other people who didn't cry, and I can totally see those people surrounded by sobbing people (or at least a pretty large chunk of sobbing people) and going "seriously? wtf?"
I can watch a bland documentary about World War II and not cry. I can also watch Horton Hears a Who are tear up every single time I see Horton staring into the abyss of infinite clovers, the look of hopelessness on his face, and the decision to keep trying, no matter what, to find the speck upon people live, most of whom don't even believe he exists.
I can also, for the record, watch a good movie about World War II and cry my eyes out. I also know that most people don't tear up when they watch Horton Hears a Who. (It's something that for some reason resonates with me in particular).
People don't cry based on how sad the information you give them is. If they did, I could make you cry right now just by saying "Lots of children died in World War II." Or if those numbers are too big (and overused), then perhaps "Somewhere out there is a little girl whose parents are dead and can't find food." Making people cry (via art) is a craft, involving music, cinematography, pacing, character development and other techniques, depending on the artform.
And Pixar is really damn good at it.
First of all, they are approaching a fairly large target audience (in terms of the crying thing, anyway): college age kids who haven't played with their toys in a while, and the parents of those kids who are bout to (or have already) given up their children to the world. I'm not sure whether you fall into either of those groups. There probably are people who DO fall into those groups and still didn't think it was sad and/or beautiful enough to cry, because not everyone has identical experiences and brain chemistry. If you truly believe toys should be given up completely when you reach adulthood and there's nothing sad at all about that, well, even if you are in the target demographic you're probably not going to be affected as much. But a major part of the craft of making large numbers of people cry is to tap into experiences that large numbers of people have.
The very beginning of Toy Story 3 introduces you to What Was, the happy playtime reminiscent of Toy Story 1 and 2. Most of the crying-target-audience has already seen those movies, so you are not merely introducing a happy "status quo," you are reminding them of characters they have already been invested in. You have the music from the original movie, talking about the power of friendship.
Then that song cuts out ominously on the words "our friendship will never die." And then the actual film begins.
The next scene has Woody holding a cell phone, desperately wishing he could say three words into the phone, desperately wishing Andy would pick him up and play with him so that those words wouldn't be necessary. Instead, Andy closes the phone and a few minutes later refers to the toys as junk.
The themes of loss and abandonment, the feelings of uselessness, the identification with trash, are repeated throughout the movie. Each repetition is pitch perfect, building up empathy with the characters. We see Lotso's origin story and think "Man, I wouldn't have done what he did, but at least a part of me would want to after getting abandoned like that." When we get to the incinerator scene, it's not just one intense scene, it's the climax of and entire movie expertly playing off of our sense of mortality and abandonment. The feelings build up, usually without actually inducing tears at any given point, but building up those tears inside us.
The scene at the end is not just a happy, beautiful moment, it is a happy, beautiful moment that closes of an entire movie of love and loss and fear. And the tears that the whole rest of the movie spent building up inside us come rushing out.
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I'm not going to apologize for not validating someone else's tears. I don't need random board to validate my feelings, and I'm not inclined to restrain my skepticism because someone else needs a "yes, yes, that is sad."
dkw, that's what some people have said, but then, the big "the moment I started crying" seems to be when the little girl also wants Woody, and Andy takes a breath. Which means it is the moment Andy lets go, and not the toys. It is a passing the torch moment, and passing the torch is a GOOD thing, as opposed to dropping or losing or snuffing out the torch. It means someone is there to accept the torch and it means life is still moving, that nobody is stuck.
There are a few comments that seem to say "You don't get it because you're not a parent" but the real WTH? for me are coming from the other non-parents. It isn't like parents are the only people who seem to be moved to tears by the movie. And I'm not a parent, but I have had people in my care grow to not need that kind of care anymore in the same way. I'm not unfamiliar with the process or concept.
quote:The scene at the end is not just a happy, beautiful moment, it is a happy, beautiful moment that closes of an entire movie of love and loss and fear.
Yep, I agree with that. It was a happy, beautiful moment.
Which is why...
quote:And the tears that the whole rest of the movie spent building up inside us come rushing out.
...is a little weird to me.
There's no way I'm the only person who feels happy and proud at happy, beautiful moments involving people I love instead of crying.
quote:college age kids who haven't played with their toys in a while, and the parents of those kids who are bout to (or have already) given up their children to the world. I'm not sure whether you fall into either of those groups.
I have read sniffling, teary reviews by people who fall into neither of those categories.
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Well, at this point I think everyone here has done their best to explain their own reaction to the movie, and the only thing left to note is that, well, we're all human beings who are all uniquely complex and react to things differently. Surprise?
quote:I have read sniffling, teary reviews by people who fall into neither of those categories.
I haven't gotten to talk to anyone who didn't fall in those groups, so I can't really comment on that. I assume that the quality of the movie is such that people who are predisposed to grow into (or have grown out of) the precise demographic would be more affected by the emotional strings that Toy Story 3 is trying to pull.
quote:I'm not going to apologize for not validating someone else's tears. I don't need random board to validate my feelings, and I'm not inclined to restrain my skepticism because someone else needs a "yes, yes, that is sad."
I'm currently unsure what I think about this (less this line, more earlier lines throughout the thread). A lot of the earlier lines came with what felt like a clear connotation of "this isn't sad, period, if you think this is sad you are a silly person, possibly with blatantly wrong views about the sadness-value of growing up."
And I'm sure there have been lines coming from the my side of the argument (if not in this thread, then definitely others) that came across as "you didn't cry? You're an inhuman monster!"
This is related to a similar issue that's cropped up a lot on hatrack, in terms of the subtext of "you're dumb" that often comes from saying "you're wrong." Sometimes its intentional, sometimes not. I don't want this discussion to dominate this particular thread (I created another thread to address a variety of related issues). But I think your initial statements may have come across as more confrontational than you intended them to.
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Also worth noting that many people don't cry at weddings. Crazy humans, responding to identical stimuli differently.
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I understand why they say they do, and I think it's weird. Unless they are marrying someone crappy who is going to cut them off from the family, in which case...yeah, tears are good. And probably a little rage.
But weddings are happy occasions, usually. Hopefully. Unless the new in-law is someone like Orincoro, then weddings are a time for so much joy that spontaneous dancing and hugging break out.
*laugh* Y'all ever see French Kiss?
quote: Kate: OK. I know what you're saying. I'm not sexy enough. Jean-Luc: No, I did not say anything. Kate: I'm supposed to be this pouty girl who says "yes" when she means "no" and "no" for "yes" and I cannot do it, OK? Happy - smile. Sad - frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion.
posted
I know I got a little teary-eyed at the end of the movie. Personally, I think it was because I knew the characters well enough from the first two films and was happy to see them find a good new home and owner.
But I also found it a little sad. I get teary-eyed thinking about parents having to give their kids up for adoption, or kids losing their parents. I can’t imagine that without getting emotional. Also, I still get a little verklempt about my own toys growing up, most of which I don’t have anymore. I wish I had been able to give them all away to a deserving youngster the way Andy did.
The Toy Story movies manage very well to assign all the love and emotions we all thought our favorite toys had, and bring out the sense of loss and abandonment we know they must have felt when we finally grew out of them and neglected them. I know not everyone has tender feelings for those toys, but many do. The ending of Toy Story 3 brought those feelings to the surface.
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I'm just kind of jumping in on this discussion, but it seems like tears = extreme emotions. Not exclusively negative emotions but any emotion that is extreme enough. That's the way it works for me anyways. I was singing that "Letters from Home" song to myself yesterday and the part where the dad says he's proud of his son made me shed a few tears in the middle of the grocery store. That sort of stuff gets me every time, and it's not because I'm sad.
The way I see it, or at least the way it works for me, is that powerful moments evoke strong emotions which in turn usually evoke tears. My little sister graduating makes me tear up a little. Same with my big sister getting married and now being pregnant. I was fortunate enough to maintain a straight face at my actual wedding, but playing Simple Man on Rockband with my family right before my wedding brought a few tears to my eyes. The Holocaust Museum, specifically standing in an actual rail car that had people stuffed in to it, or seeing the actual shoes of children... yeah, I cried then too. Maybe I'm an overly emotional person, but crying to me is not in any way exclusively associated with negative emotions.
And yes, I did tear up at the end of Toy Story 3.
ETA: I understand not having the same responses I do. I don't think it's weird not to cry at weddings. But I do think its a little weird to not accept that people cry when they are overwhelmed (whether positive or negative) and that other people's overwhelmed-threshold might be different than yours.
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quote:Kate: OK. I know what you're saying. I'm not sexy enough. Jean-Luc: No, I did not say anything. Kate: I'm supposed to be this pouty girl who says "yes" when she means "no" and "no" for "yes" and I cannot do it, OK? Happy - smile. Sad - frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion.
On one hand,
On the other, I feel compelled to point out that the movement of facial muscles associated with crying (of both the happy and sad kind) is extremely similar to the muscle movements associated with laughter.
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quote:We need both laughter and tears to help us function in society. Crying relieves stress, reduces hormone and chemical levels in the body, and helps us return to a calm state. Laughter relieves stress, stimulates healing, exercises certain parts of the body, and helps in human bonding. That is why crying and laughing are beneficial to us both emotionally and physically.
Emphasis mine. While the article doesn't go into "Happy Tears," I think that Strangelove's statement about "extreme emotion" is pretty relevant. If your body is stressed, either in a good or bad way, tears help return it to a neutral state.
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Maybe it's the extreme emotions thing that doesn't produce tears in everyone. I cried at the Holocaust museum as well, which was sad. I felt full of joy and longing and happiness on many occasions, but it never makes me cry. Crying is reserved solely for sad emotions and sometimes anger if I'm not allowed to express anger as itself (I've cried at work because I was very angry about something and the alternative to crying would have been very bad for my career), but I've never cried for positive feelings. I cried at Up, but that wasn't a passing of the torch, it was the torch going out.
It reminds me a little of a talk a ward member gave on Father's Day. She said every year her goal is to make her dad cry, usually through a card or a letter or singing or something. I heard that and thought "Absolutely not." I have seen my dad cry on several occasions, and it is terrifying. He doesn't cry when he's happy and proud and loves me. He hugs me, smiles wide, tells inappropriate jokes, and tells me he loves me.
Maybe it's just culture. To me, tears mean something bad has happened. Maybe a necessary bad, but still: not good. I honestly prefer that. I don't enjoy crying, and I like it that when I am moved and happy and proud, I get huggy and smiley and bouncy instead of teary.
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I used to never cry at movies. It wasn't a conscious choice that I know of (although I did feel like doing so would make me a sissy). I think ingrained culture of manliness may have had a lot to do with it.
Until one day, the second time I saw (of all things) Revenge of the Sith, I just started crying when all the Jedi are dying and Yoda is clutching his chest. And ever since then I cry at movies pretty ridiculously, for both happy and sad things.
Since then, I've actually found crying to be pretty helpful. When I am going through a time period where I'm feeling slightly depressed, but not depressed enough to cry, I watch a movie with a particularly sad scene to trigger my own tears, which provides a feeling of catharsis. I've come to associate crying WITH that feeling of cartharsis, so it's become an all around positive for me.
Sad triggers ARE more reliable than Happy triggers, I admit. (I've watched the Incinerator scene on youtube several times and still find it moving, whereas I've watched the Ending scene twice and it doesn't really affect me, at least in isolation).
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quote:I felt full of joy and longing and happiness on many occasions, but it never makes me cry. Crying is reserved solely for sad emotions and sometimes anger if I'm not allowed to express anger as itself
I think that this explains the disconnect. I also hate crying when I'm sad. But I love tears that are a result of witnessing something beautiful and touching. I don't think there's anything wrong with *not* using tears in that way, but you seem to be not acknowledging that it a common phenomenon that many people feel.
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What? If I didn't acknowledge it, then this conversation wouldn't exist.
If you are saying I am not validating it, that's true, but that's not a problem.
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Raymond, I was genuinely moved and cried at a TV show recently, and I remember being surprised by that. But I can't remember what show it was and whether it was sad or happy or poignant or something in between. Dang it - I need to look at my journal and see what it was.
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I think there are some subtle distinctions that aren't being clearly communicated here.
First, there are still two different conversations at work: one is whether children growing up is sad. The other is whether it's a good/understandable thing to cry at things that are happy. The former is a little more complicated, so I'm focusing on the latter in this post.
Multiple times you've described the phenomenon of crying at happy times as "weird." And I don't know what you mean by that. I use the word "weird" to describe myself, in a positive light, because I think things that are weird are great and I think the world should be more weird. But I know that for most people, "weird" implies something that is bad and should not be, as oppose to something merely different. From the context of your posts I get the sense that you are intending a negative connotation, but I'm not sure.
A paraphrased statement of yours from earlier was:
quote:Since you decided that the reason we disagree is because a failing of mine rather than present your side...
I'd like to address this, again focusing specifically on the "crying at happy times is weird." I'm trying to present my side clearly here:
• I do not think it matters whether you personally cry at happy moments. Laughing and dancing are great ways to accomplish the same thing (namely, working out a particular kind of stress).
• I think it matters somewhat that you are confused by the people who do cry at happy moments. Specifically, I think that when PeopleA are doing something that PeopleB don't understand, PeopleB should make an effort to understand it rather than writing it off as something weird and incomprehensible that PeopleA do. In the case of crying at happy moments, it really doesn't matter much (at all). But I think the principle is important in general, because maintaining the practice makes one better at resolving conflicts. If you disagree and continue thinking we're weird, though, I'm fine with letting this conversation end because it's not that important.
• If you are indeed assigning negative connotation to the people who cry at happy moments, beyond mere confusion, then I think that matters rather significantly and I would certainly care enough to continue discussing the matter until some kind of resolution could (hopefully) be resolved. Calling something "bad" just because you don't do it is a form of thinking that has caused a lot of problems in the world, and if someone is doing it with regards to people who cry at different times, it's likely that they're also doing it in regards to other issues that are far more significant.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: dkw, that's what some people have said, but then, the big "the moment I started crying" seems to be when the little girl also wants Woody, and Andy takes a breath. Which means it is the moment Andy lets go, and not the toys. It is a passing the torch moment, and passing the torch is a GOOD thing, as opposed to dropping or losing or snuffing out the torch. It means someone is there to accept the torch and it means life is still moving, that nobody is stuck.
That part is addressed in my earlier post, about catharsis. The moment where Andy lets go is still about what is going to happen to Woody. Woody is the protagonist, not Andy. And an ending where all the other toys go to a new child and Woody goes to college to sit on Andy's dresser and gather dust and eventually be forgotten, lost, or given away without his friends would not be a happy ending. Andy letting go gives Woody his happy ending, and the tears there were (for me) tears of relief.
Not that I examined them that closely at the time, but the release of tension = tears, for me and many people. Again, like sarmup said, that's what catharsis is all about.
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Actually I agree that that particular moment is about Andy, and the reason I was emotional (not quite crying yet) at that point was because I identified with Andy, even moreso because at that moment I was halfway convinced that the toys I had ignored for several years were somehow sentient.
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There are other moments when the focus is on Woody. But when Woody is inanimate, and the cameria is focused on Andy, and Andy is taking a breath and making a decision to let go of his toy, then that moment is about Andy.
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Raymond, I don't mean weird in a bad way. *grin* In other words, I really don't have any judgment here. Mostly, it's me lazily expressing my mystification about what seems like a storm of tears over a movie I enjoyed and found sweet and poignant but didn't even consider crying over.
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quote:I'm not going to apologize for not validating someone else's tears. I don't need random board to validate my feelings, and I'm not inclined to restrain my skepticism because someone else needs a "yes, yes, that is sad."
Well, I'm not surprised you're not going to apologize. But I am curious, who has asked you to 'validate' their tears? All that's been asked, so far as I can see, is for you not to imply scorn for them. That's very different.
quote:dkw, that's what some people have said, but then, the big "the moment I started crying" seems to be when the little girl also wants Woody, and Andy takes a breath. Which means it is the moment Andy lets go, and not the toys. It is a passing the torch moment, and passing the torch is a GOOD thing, as opposed to dropping or losing or snuffing out the torch. It means someone is there to accept the torch and it means life is still moving, that nobody is stuck.
You keep playing on this theme, with the implication that if it's a good thing, there ought not be tears. That's just plain silly.
quote:There's no way I'm the only person who feels happy and proud at happy, beautiful moments involving people I love instead of crying.
I don't know how else this can be explained to you in simpler terms, katharina: one can be happy and proud as well as crying and/or sad simultaneously. These emotions are not mutually exclusive. Whether they are for you or not is irrelevant: they're not for other people. It's pretty straightforward. I say that as someone who didn't cry at any point in the movie, though I did get choked up, because I can put myself in someone else's shoes and imagine why they might feel differently about it.
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quote:Raymond, I don't mean weird in a bad way. *grin* In other words, I really don't have any judgment here. Mostly, it's me lazily expressing my mystification about what seems like a storm of tears over a movie I enjoyed and found sweet and poignant but didn't even consider crying over.
Cool. Then the only other thing I can think to point out is that, in various threads, I think you have perceived malice when the actual culprit was in fact laziness, and you may want to keep that in mind both when making your own posts and when reacting to others.
In this particular thread, the post of mine in which you perceived malice DID in fact have residual malice in it that, but that malice was in reaction to malice I perceived in a post of yours. (In that particular circumstance, your laziness took the form of writing something that unintentionally came across as confrontational, and my laziness took the form of not waiting long enough for unnecessary negative emotions to fade away and stop clouding my writing process).
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quote:What? If I didn't acknowledge it, then this conversation wouldn't exist.
Maybe it's just my reading, but it seemed like you kept insisting that you didn't understand why people cried because it wasn't incredibly sad. Upon hearing explanations that people weren't just sad, you said you still didn't understand. It's not about validation, it just seems like there's some talking past each other happening.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: There are other moments when the focus is on Woody. But when Woody is inanimate, and the cameria is focused on Andy, and Andy is taking a breath and making a decision to let go of his toy, then that moment is about Andy.
posted
dkw, if you don't mind me asking, what is your age/gender?
I feel very strongly that that particular moment is about Andy. I'm not sure how much of that has to due with me being a college age male.
Edit: you know what, it's pretty much irrelevant, since on this point katherina and I are agreeing and we are most assuredly not the same demographic. I have to agree, when the camera is on Andy, and Andy is the one making a decision, and Woody is not doing anything, then that is assuredly an "Andy" moment, and I can't see how you can argue otherwise.
It's an Andy moment that is about his relationship with Woody, for sure, but that doesn't make it actually about Woody specifically.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Until one day, the second time I saw (of all things) Revenge of the Sith, I just started crying when all the Jedi are dying and Yoda is clutching his chest.
Funnily enough, Revenge of the Sith was the first time I had ever really cried in a movie for me too. I think John William's fantastic score for that scene had a lot to do with it.
... which only goes to show that it's not necessarily how sad something is, but how well the movie builds up emotions. I can't stop marveling at how expertly the buildup for Toy Story 3's finale was executed.
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I think the identification with Andy giving up his toys is there too -- it's a touching moment for a supporting character (Andy) and it's the mark of a great movie that Andy's sub-plot is well crafted, and evokes something fairly universal in the human experience of growing up.
But Andy's decision matters to the main narrative of the movie (and the series) because it massively affects the outcome for the protagonist -- Woody.
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Lots of movies have side characters who aren't the protagonist who nonetheless end up being important (in ways large or small) to the main plot and to the protagonist. But those characters also have their own arcs. Obviously the choice Andy makes will have a major impact on Woody and the central plot, but that doesn't mean that Andy isn't a character with his own story. The scene immediately afterwards is about Woody and how he is affected by Andy's decision, but the scene itself is the semi-conclusion to Andy's arc, and Andy is the one experiencing emotions we are intended to empathize with.
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I think we're intended to empathize with both. We don't turn off our concern for the impact on the main character just because the supporting character also has his own story arc.
The reason I found that scene moving had to do with it's impact on Woody. My post was clarifying that, in response to kat. The fact that you identified more with Andy doesn't make that scene not relevant to Woody's story, any more than the fact that it also impacted Woody negates it's importance to Andy.
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But as a film student, I can look at that shot and say with 90% certainty that while your empathy for Woody isn't expected to turn off for the shot, the intention of the shot, the way it's structured, is to put most of the focus on Andy.
I am intrigued that you had such a different reaction. I should probably follow my own advice from a few posts prior and try to understand my confusion. I'd like the clarify - the moment that Andy recoils from the girl, your first split second gut reaction is about Woody and what will happen to him, as opposed to what Andy is feeling as he recoils?
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It is possible for a scene to be "about" someone who is not doing anything in that scene. Imagine a courtroom drama in which the defendant is the protagonist. There might be a dramatic scene in which the judge reads a verdict. In that scene, it is possible that the protagonist is sitting still doing nothing but listening, yet the scene would be all about him because the verdict determines his fate. The Andy-Woody scene could be similar.
I'd think the scene could be about Andy, or about Woody, or about the relationship between both of them, depending on what is going on in your head as you watch the scene. The only person who could really know why they are crying during that scene would be the person doing the crying, because they are the one who knows what they were thinking about during the scene.
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To clarify earlier, my objection was to the "you" statements directed at me. That our disagreement was caused because "you {I}" was missing something. Whatever. That's when I bowed out, because it means the person I'm talking to wants me to either concur or admit fault. I am not interested in that kind of conversation.
dkw,
I understand that Andy's moment was important to you only in the context of how Woody would feel about it. That doesn't mean it was primarily about Woody - at least not enough to correct me when I said it was. There's a lot more evidence for my opinion about that scene than yours.
If the decision was about Woody, then the waterworks should have come earlier, when Andy tossed Woody in the college box and the other toys in the attic bag. That time, the decision was solely about the toys - Andy was barely in it. The one at the end was focused on Andy's face and his emotions during a similar decision process.
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quote:It is possible for a scene to be "about" someone who is not doing anything in that scene. Imagine a courtroom drama in which the defendant is the protagonist. There might be a dramatic scene in which the judge reads a verdict. In that scene, it is possible that the protagonist is sitting still doing nothing but listening, yet the scene would be all about him because the verdict determines his fate. The Andy-Woody scene could be similar.
I agree with this in theory. I think if the judge was also a character, who for some reason was emotionally involved in the outcome, and was clearly struggling making the decision, then the scene in question would be primarily (say, 75%) about the judge and the following scene where we see the defendant would be about the defendant.
I'd like to note again (for completeness sake) that I didn't actually cry during that scene, I cried later when the girl waves Woody's hand at Andy and he breathes in sharply. (While I was far more worried about Andy in that scene than Woody, I can see that as being a more 50/50 split between who is important, because that effectively IS Woody waving goodbye even those he's inanimate at the time.
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Thanks Tres, I was trying to come up with a good example, and the courtroom one is perfect.
To answer your question, Raymond, my attention was on Andy and what he was thinking, but the reason I cared was because of what his decision would mean for Woody.
kat, it wasn't "correcting" you. You said you didn't understand why people had the reaction to the scene that they did. I was offering an explanation for that reaction, from the perspecive of someone with the reaction that you said you wanted to understand. It doesn't negate your interpretation, it offers an additional one.
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What you said now is not what I percieved before. I think it's said in very different language this time.
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It can, but from a filmmaking standpoint I think it is definitely slanted towards Andy (again, an arbitrary number might be 75% Andy, 25% Woody). Whereas the scene where Woody waves goodbye is a 50/50 split, if we're focusing specifically on the filmmaking techniques.
quote:That's when I bowed out, because it means the person I'm talking to wants me to either concur or admit fault. I am not interested in that kind of conversation.
I have more to say about this, but I'd like to discuss it in another thread (in an abstract way, about effective posting methods for the forum in general). But I'd also like to avoid going down a path where that thread because a place for people to bring up old grievances for the sake of arguing who was right, so if you don't want me to bring it up there I won't.
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I don't remember being even close to crying at the end, but I was pretty choked up during the incinerator scene. As a whole I felt like the movie was an emotional roller coaster that had me all over the place.
On the subject of happy crying though, normally I would say that I've never even been close to happy tears, and 99% of the time, my response to happy situations is not tears. However, there were several moments while watching the second two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender that I was seriously choked up and on the verge of tears during happy moments (as well as sad). The very end had me choked up especially.
I think there's something about having a moment that you've been waiting for finally come that makes happy situations especially emotionally, and thus opens the door to tears. When you build up enough emotional investment in something and then finally see it come to fruition, it's a dam breaking, and all that emotional energy has to go somewhere. I think it's very likely that the scenes that made many of us emotional in Toy Story 3 would not have had the same effect in Toy Story 1.
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I see two posts have disappeared, one of which I never saw, the other one of which I have no idea why it would have been objected to. Bwuh?
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Raymond Arnold: I want to thank you for outing katharina as a cyborg. She won't understand why we cry until we have to dip her in molten metal to destroy her and protect all humanity from her race of killer machines.
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Unfortunately, not all emotions can be distilled into romantic comedies, however great the particular romantic comedy in question is:)
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I think it's more instructive to ask why she thinks Jesus was crying when surrounded by the Book of Mormon people's children.
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quote:Happy - smile. Sad - frown. The corresponding face for the corresponding emotion!
I feel compelled to note that quoting Meg Ryan dialogue in defense of emotional range is, well, um....*ducks*
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