Lost Projects

Toy Story 3 (2008) – Lost Projects

/ Joe Baker / 2 Comments

In January 2004, then-Pixar CEO Steve Jobs announced that the Walt Disney Company would not renew its distribution deal with Pixar Animation. At the time, Pixar was quickly earning its status as one of the world’s leading animation studios, responsible for a string of box-office hits, including Toy Story (1995), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003). Anticipating the split, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner downplayed the fallout and Pixar’s discontent with the terms of their deal, arguing Disney could continue producing sequels to Pixar’s films without their involvement, since Disney retained the rights to Pixar’s characters and franchises under their original contract. To that end, Eisner launched a new animation studio in Glendale, California, dubbed Circle 7 Animation, named after Circle 7 Drive, where the studio was located, solely established to develop sequels to Pixar’s films without any input from their creative team, most of which were intended to be budget-friendly, direct-to-DVD releases.

Among Circle 7’s first projects were early drafts for Monsters, Inc. 2, Finding Nemo 2 and, of course, Toy Story 3. During this time, several ideas for a third Toy Story instalment were considered, including a whodunnit-style mystery in which Woody and the gang investigate a string of missing toys in Andy’s grandmother’s attic, and another where Andy’s mother remarries, leading to the toys becoming lost in Mexico, encountering knock-off versions of themselves, such as El Buzz and Mr. Papaya Head. Eventually, however, a screenplay by Jim Herzfeld was selected, with screenwriters Bob Hilgenberg and Rob Muir revising both the dialogue and the narrative as many concept artists, including Ric Sluiter, Jim Martin and Shane Zalvin, began developing the project’s visuals through a variety of sketches and art pieces.

In this rendition of Toy Story 3, Buzz Lightyear begins to malfunction, prompting Andy’s mother to send him back to the factory in Taipei, Taiwan, where he was manufactured, unaware that a global recall has been issued to destroy, rather than repair, all defective Buzz Lightyear units. Upon learning this, Woody, Jessie, Rex, and the rest of the gang embark on an international rescue mission, facing a series of chaotic and comedic set pieces, such as a tense encounter at a daycare centre inside the towering Taipei 101 skyscraper. Meanwhile, at the factory, Buzz narrowly escapes destruction by a machine known as “The Smasher” and teams up with a duo of faulty, recalled toys known as Cindy Scissors, a superheroine with bladed legs, and Rosey, a defective bed warmer doll, to deliver a letter to the company’s elusive founder, Mr. Kagoy. However, their journey is complicated by the arrival of Daxx Blastar, a flashy new Star Command toy intended to replace Buzz, who narcissistically confronts them. As all hope seems lost, Woody and the gang arrive to help expose the corrupt board members’ scheme to destroy all the Buzz Lightyear units, as Mr. Kagoy, who is secretly aware that all toys are alive, rescinds the recall order and promises to repair all the defective units and return them to their owners. As the gang prepare to head home, Daxx makes one last attempt to stop them, but is humorously thwarted and subsequently shipped off to Sid’s house, thanks to Jessie and the gang. The story concludes with a cheerful montage of Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys returning home to Andy, whilst the previously recalled toys, Cindy and Rosey, find new owners.

This proposed continuation of the Toy Story franchise would have been a mixed bag to say the least, expanding on the beloved world of sentient toys in bold and imaginative ways while regressing in others. For example, taking the characters out of the American suburbs to explore another country would have allowed Woody and the gang to venture through a rich tapestry of tropical forests and vibrant cities across Taiwan, setting itself apart from any locations we have seen in the franchise previously. Moreover, Buzz’s underlying character arc, from inevitable destruction to rediscovery, mirrors the existential themes of earlier instalments, while new characters, such as Cindy and Rosey, offer fresh perspectives on value, identity and rejection. Conversely, the narrative frequently exhibits signs of overreach, juggling multiple subplots, a sprawling cast of characters and locations, and a corporate conspiracy angle that risks overshadowing the story’s emotional core. Additionally, Daxx Blastar, the central antagonist of the film, is largely underdeveloped and almost cartoonishly evil when compared to the antagonists of previous entries, making the factory’s climactic showdown feel rather lacklustre. What’s more, some narrative turns, like Mr. Kagoy’s sudden awareness of the toys’ sentience, feel overly convenient and lack sufficient setup for what is supposed to be a grand reveal.

In my opinion, however, the biggest problem with this iteration of Toy Story 3 is that it shares far too many similarities with the franchise’s prior entry, Toy Story 2 (1999), with the gang setting off on a journey to recover one of their members (who has been taken by humans for one reason or another and is unlikely to return), while having a toy antagonist to contend with. As a result, this rendition of Toy Story 3 also lacks the emotional and satisfying conclusion of the actual third instalment, revisiting familiar territory and suggesting a new cycle of conflict, leaving the door open for further sequels and coming adventures for Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang, which simply isn’t fitting for a third instalment of an iconic series.

In summary, Circle 7 Animation was ultimately a strategic backup plan, an animation studio created by Disney to protect and extend its ownership of Pixar properties during a time of uncertainty. But, in January 2006, after Bob Iger succeeded Michael Eisner as CEO, Disney changed course. Iger opted to purchase Pixar outright for approximately £6.07 billion ($7.4 billion), bringing the studio’s creative and commercial power fully under Disney’s corporate umbrella. As part of the acquisition, Circle 7 Animation was shut down, with all of its in-development projects cancelled. Pixar’s own version of Toy Story 3, released in 2010, took a different creative direction and became a critically acclaimed and award-winning triumph. Today, the Circle 7 rendition of the film only exists in remnants, each a glimpse into a parallel timeline that never came to be, a fascinating ‘what if’ in animation history. With tighter writing and deeper character development, it might have stood as a worthy continuation of one of Disney and Pixar’s most beloved franchises. Personally, though, I feel the rendition of Toy Story 3 we eventually received is a near-perfect series finale (before the unnecessary sequels materialised), so I’m not too disheartened we never saw this iteration of the toys’ third outing.

Jurassic Park IV (2005) – Lost Projects

/ Joe Baker / Leave a comment

Before 2015’s Jurassic World brought dinosaurs back to the silver screen in the form of a glossy soft reboot, an earlier, radically different concept was drawn up for the fourth instalment of the franchise, with the aptly titled; Jurassic Park IV, set for release in mid-2005. This scrapped, now-long-forgotten sequel would’ve taken the series in a bold and contentious direction, concentrating its narrative on a crazed storyline revolving around genetically engineered dinosaur-human hybrids being deployed worldwide as weaponised combatants by a sinister organisation. While this ludicrous idea did reach the concept art and early scripting stages, the project was ultimately discarded, with executives fearing it would undermine the cinematic legacy and relatively grounded tone of the franchise’s earlier instalments, relegating the unproduced film to become an obscure yet fascinating piece of the franchise’s history, following the success of the 1993 classic that began its journey.

From the information currently available, this hybrid storyline seemingly first came about as a result of esteemed director and the series’ executive producer Steven Spielberg’s supposed dissatisfaction with the prior entry in the franchise; Jurassic Park III (2001), wanting the subsequent sequel to be more daring and worthy of being part of the renowned franchise, hence the jump towards more outrageous concepts. The previously mentioned hybrids were to be intelligent, humanoid, combat-capable creatures that blended human and dinosaur physiology. Among the early illustrations was a Triceratops hybrid, a fully upright, green-skinned creature with humanoid proportions, three toes on each foot and one prominent horn atop its head, the other broken. A Tyrannosaurus Rex hybrid, which stood upright like a human and bore reddish-brown and charcoal-black skin, retaining the creature’s stubby, two-fingered hands, now with more muscular, human-like arms. And, lastly, a Velociraptor hybrid, which went through numerous iterations, with concept artist Carlos Huante, who developed many of the designs, once referring to the creature as the “Raptor-Man” in a since-deleted post on Instagram. Depicting the creature as agile and lean with a humanoid frame augmented by raptor-like features, the Velociraptor hybrid was perhaps the most unsettling of the early designs, blurring the line between futuristic horror and evolutionary fantasy, with one design even bearing a high-tech weapon on its left arm.

Carlos Huante later claimed that the concept of the dinosaur-human hybrids was shut down almost immediately after Steven Spielberg and executives at Amblin Entertainment reviewed the artwork, as they believed the idea strayed too far from the franchise’s core identity, shifting its focus from scientific plausibility and natural wonder to over-the-top, militarised science fiction. Nevertheless, whether intentional or not, the first public hint of this odd creative decision came in October 2003, when palaeontologist and longtime franchise dinosaur consultant Jack Horner appeared on Minnesota Public Radio. In response to a caller’s question regarding the speculative “Dinosauroid,” a hypothetical, intelligent descendant of the omnivore Troodon, a relatively small, bird-like theropod, Horner cryptically answered that the caller should; “Keep Thinking About That for a Couple of Years,” adding; “Go See Jurassic Park IV,” suggesting the franchise would explore the notion of dinosaur evolution.

Interestingly, despite this concept of dinosaur-human hybrids eventually being axed along with this iteration of the series’ fourth instalment, a similar idea had actually appeared during Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights in 2002, an annual scare event often featuring well-known franchises from the horror and sci-fi genres, within the attraction; Project Evilution. In the story of the tropical jungle-themed scare maze, Dr. Burton, a deranged InGen scientist, had conducted twisted experiments, mixing human and dinosaur DNA to create dinosaur-human hybrids that would terrorise visitors, which may have influenced or prefigured many of the illustrations that emerged during the development of Jurassic Park IV.

Outside of the central dinosaur-human hybrid concept, the story of Jurassic Park IV would have focused on ex-Navy Seal Nick Harris, as he is covertly enlisted by John Hammond to travel to the now-restricted island of Isla Nublar to locate Dennis Nedry’s missing canister of dinosaur embryos, lost during the events of Jurassic Park (1993). After landing on the island, avoiding threats and recovering the canister, however, Nick would be captured and taken to an archaic castle in the Swiss Alps. There, Baron Herman Von Drax, the CEO of the corrupt organisation, the Grendel Corporation, would reveal they had created dinosaur hybrids that partially shared DNA with both humans and domestic dogs, which Von Drax had supposedly found a way to control utilising radio signals. From there, the rest of the story follows Nick as he is forced to train the dinosaur-human hybrids to obey Von Drax further, concluding with Nick obtaining complete control of the hybrids, leading to a gigantic action sequence where the carnivorous creatures chase down Von Drax, some even sporting bulletproof armour.

In summary, though shelved, this sequel and, by extension, the notion of dinosaur-human hybrids, remain one of the most absurd yet intriguing ‘what-if’ chapters in the franchise’s history. And, whilst this rendition of Jurassic Park IV never came to fruition, many of its concepts actually did via the eventual, aforementioned soft-reboot; Jurassic World, converting the idea of dinosaur-human hybrids to Jurassic World scientists combining various strands of dinosaur/animal DNA in an attempt to manufacture a formidable, marketable beast, inadvertently resulting in blood-thirsty creatures like the Indominus Rex and the Indoraptor, the latter of which even maintaining the idea of being used as a weapon, but in a manner that felt more grounded in the world established by earlier franchise installments. Additionally, protagonist Nick Harris shares several similarities with Chris Pratt’s ensuing character, Owen Grady, with the two not only sharing the same military background, but also serving as trainers to a squad of carnivorous dinosaurs. Still, in my opinion, discarding this original storyline for the franchise’s fourth instalment was definitely a wise move, narrowly avoiding a creative decision that could have morphed the series into something laughably ludicrous and utterly unrecognisable from what it once was.