Blu-ray

Toy Story 3 is possibly the year’s most surprising film. Given the narratives and themes explored so brilliantly by its two predecessors, it’s hard to imagine any new ground or fresh ideas that could be explored. And yet, thanks to the brilliance of the creative minds at Pixar, what could have been little more than a crass exercise in financial, rather than artistic, franchise filmmaking has emerged as the most exciting, creative and touching films since… well, since the last Pixar movie, in all honesty. Surprising then, and also one of the year’s very best films.

Picture: With it’s spectacular digital-to-digital transfer, it hardly comes as a surprise that Toy Story 3’s AVC 1.78:1 1080p encode joins previous Pixar animations Wall-E and Up as delivering some of the very best hi-def imagery around. Even when projected onto a 100inch+ screen, it’s next to impossible to find fault with the film’s insanely detailed and remarkably rich computer-generated visuals. If I’m being extremely nit-picky, there are a couple of instances of aliasing that become evident when blown up to this size, but the picture quality is still leaps and bounds ahead of 99 per cent of other discs on the market.
Picture rating: 5/5

Audio: Toy Story 3 made waves on its theatrical release as the first major Hollywood film to be mixed completely in Dolby’s Surround 7.1 cinema audio format. The quality and precision of that enhanced surround mix is perfectly realised on this Blu-ray release, albeit somewhat ironically in the form of a DTS-HD MA 7.1 soundtrack. Right from the opening action sequence, the mix delights with its sharp vocals, precise fidelity, expansive bass, and – most of all - the scale of the audio created by the enhanced positional effects and steering brought about by the additional rear channels. Trust me when I say that this is one disc that speaker and AVR manufacturers will be using to demo their systems for years to come.
Audio rating: 5/5

Extras: This Triple Play edition release offers up no less than four discs for your enjoyment – two Blu-ray platters, plus a DVD and Digital Copy of the flick. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t exactly skimp on bonus features either.

There’s not much on the first Blu-ray disc beyond the film itself, just the Day & Night short that accompanied it at cinemas, a new Buzz Lightyear Mission Log (about space travel) and a chat with the animators about creating all of the new characters. If you’re wondering about commentaries, for that you have to go to the second disc where you’ll find a Cine-Explore picture-in-picture presentation of the film with commentary by director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K Anderson, and an alternate (rather more techy) audio commentary from the animation team. Also included on this disc are various behind-the-scenes featurettes covering both Toy Story 3 and Day & Night, the epilogue presented without scrolling credits, a BD-Live trivia game, countless promo clips and trailers, and much, much more.
Extras rating: 4/5

We say: Another Pixar modern classic, another must-own Blu-ray package. What more do we need to say apart from, 'Buy it now'.

Walt Disney Home Entertainment, All-region BD/R2 DVD, £26 approx, On sale now
HCC VERDICT: 5/5