An emotional experience that nearly broke me...

I have just had an experience that I really did not expect, I went to watch Toy Story 3 on my own and I sobbed and sobbed. This film was just amazing and it provided an emotional link between me, my wife and my children that I just simply did not realise was there, such is the genius of the film making. Other people other than Hammond's reading this may wonder what on earth I am talking about. The Toy Story films mean so much to my family. My girls have grown up with them and to both of them Woody and the gang are real - the films fuel their imagination and wonder and remind Amy and I as adults of that magic and the bond between a child and their toys; the special relationship that exists between the two that nobody can replicate or understand except 'owner' and 'toy'. We had it with our toys when we were children, in that time before our imagination started to waver and our mind was clogged with less innocent things. This is when the clever film makers at Pixar completely had me. Bearing in mind these characters mean so much to my children, the scene in the film in the incinerator when you believe all the characters are going to be burned alive in a scene reminiscent of Auschwitz just left you with such fear and worry about the sense of loss that Anna and Lucy would feel if this happened, it just crippled me completely. I was an emotional wreck. The same thing happened to Amy when she took Lucy a couple of weeks ago and I mocked her for it. How wrong I was and then I got it. These films are so special, they are as much for adults as they are for children and they are so clever that they pull on the love you have your children and beyond.They remind you of the innocence of your children and the magic of childhood that you have long since forgotten and these characters become so real to you as a adult that for an amazing hour and a half - you are a child again. The film removes all the rationalisation of adulthood and transports you back to a time where you directed your own play and your imagination took you wherever you wanted to go without constraint and worry. In that two minutes of film they took me to brink of parental despair as I wondered how my girls would react to the loss of their imaginary friends and how I would console them. The problem is they are not imaginary. The worry is that I believe in Buzz and Woody as much as my girls do. Amazing. Just simply amazing...