IT’S Pixar time again.

The studio’s 21st feature-length film, Toy Story 4, was released two days ago, and though many if not most reviews were highly positive, some critics thought the series had come to a fitting end with its predecessor, Toy Story 3.

“Woody and Co will have you sobbing like a baby,” ran the headline in one review in a national newspaper last week, the reviewer being hugely impressed with the film’s emotional impact and with the “thought and care” that Pixar was “still prepared to lavish on [its] crown-jewel franchise.”

“Same fun, same charm – but now we need to let go,” was the headline above another review, the critic noting that while the film is “sprightly, sweet-natured and gorgeous to look at” it was “fundamentally repeating itself”.

It seems all but certain, however, that Toy Story 4, which propels Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys headlong into a new adventure, will become Pixar Animation Studios’ fourth $1 billion-grossing film.

When the first Toy Story made its bow, back in 1995, it was immediately seen as a great leap forward in animation – the world’s first computer animated feature film.

It was "a monumental landmark in animation history", writes Stephen Cavalier in his authoritative guide, The World History Of Animation. "It is the seismic moment when [director] John Lasseter and Pixar proved to the world that it was possible to make fully-developed, sympathetic characters with human personalities through computer animation."

Toy Story was a box-office smash, an instant classic, and a film that took its audience – adults and children alike – seriously. It was nominated for three Oscars, with Lasseter himself being presented with a Special Achievement Academy Award.

“Suddenly,” writes Cavalier, “the rush was on for computer-animated features.”

The rush became a torrent, with various Hollywood animation studios getting in on an increasingly lucrative trend in film-making and opening a new chapter in the history of animation, a history in which key moments had ranged from early Disney classics to works by influential figures as diverse as Tex Avery, Ray Harryhausen and Stirling-born Norman McLaren.

Today, the list of top-earning animation movies on the Box Office Mojo website is headed by such films as Incredibles 2 (the most recent Pixar film prior to Toy Story 4), Finding Dory, Shrek 2, The Lion King, Toy Story 3, Frozen, Finding Nemo, The Secret Life Of Pets, Despicable Me 2, and Inside Out. Merchandising tie-ins and DVD sales have also been hugely profitable.

In 2001, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences launched a new Oscar category, for Animated Feature Film. The first winner was DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek, followed in successive yea rs by Spirited Away, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, Happy Feet, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3, Rango, Brave, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, Zootopia, Coco, and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Of these 18 winners, no fewer than half were products of Disney Pixar.

Animated films have become increasingly sophisticated in terms of their storylines. Again, Disney Pixar has blazed an adventurous trail, giving the world films about a lonely little robot cleaning up a ruined Earth (WALL-E); an elderly widower who tethers balloons to his house in order to embark on one last adventure (Up); the control centre of the mind of an 11-year-old girl (Inside Out); and a young Mexican boy stranded in the Land of the Dead (Coco).

There was also that remarkably daring scene in Toy Story 3 when for a few minutes the toys resigned themselves to be an appalling fate, in a trash-incinerating facility. This, observed Empire film magazine, was “a scene of such intense, exquisite end-of-the-line poignancy — also the scariest moment of the whole [Toy Story] series — that it deserves comparison with Snow White’s terrified forest flight, or the shooting of Bambi’s mother.”

Indeed, much has been made of the emotional palette of the best animated films, and of the "life lessons" that can be learned from them. "Negative feelings are perfectly okay" is one such, gleaned from Inside Out. Bereavement and grief were powerful impulses in Up.

The software used in the making of the films has steadily grown more sophisticated, too.

As The Guardian noted this week, the first Toy Story film, in addition to being a critical and box-office success, also helped Pixar to win an “animation arms race, with visual effects going on to become a staple of blockbuster films”. The crucial weapon in all of this, the paper added, is RenderMan, a software tool that enables film-makers to create photorealistic computer images.

Toy Story 4 was made on an updated version of RenderMan, using ray tracing, which, says the Guardian, allows animators to achieve granular detail on light shading.

Rob Redman, editor of 3D World & 3D Artist, is quoted as saying: “The outdoor scenes in Toy Story 4 are really where it comes into its own. You get the blues and greens where the sky is bouncing off the floor: it makes everything feel lush and vibrant. "Realistic" is not quite the word, but it does feel more real. The textures feel more believable.”

The Spectator’s film critic, Jasper Rees, concurs. “The animation now has such a painterly exactness it may as well be real rain/stubble/tarmac up there on screen,” he writes.

And while Hollywood may dominate the world of animated movies it’s important to remember the influential work of, for example, Studio Ghibli, which is based in Tokyo.

It has made a succession of strikingly beautiful films, from Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro to Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke.

The Red Turtle, a superb animated fantasy – a French/Japanese production "presented by Ghibli" – was described in the following terms by the prominent critic, Mark Kermode: “A poignant, wordless tale of a man shipwrecked on a desert island, it boasts a sublime simplicity that unifies its complex elements into a singular, universal voice.

"Eloquent, profound and moving, it left me with a heart full of bittersweet joy, a head dizzy with dreamy visions and cheeks wet from tears that rolled like waves on a distant beach.”

INCOMING

THE big US studios have an impressive slate of animated films in the pipeline over the next few years. Some of them are sequels, taking the themes of the original hit film and exploring them further.

Disney's Frozen 2, the long-awaited follow-up to 2013's Frozen, the biggest-grossing animated musical of all time, will be in cinemas this winter.

Pixar has two films due out next year: Onward (US release date, March 6, 2020), about two teenage elf brothers "who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there"; and the newly-announced Soul, which will debut next June 19. The tagline reads: “Ever wonder where your passion, your dreams and your interests come from? What is it that makes you ... YOU?”

DreamWorks Animation Studios, home to everything from Shrek to Madagascar and How To Train Your Dragon, has a list that includes Abominable (this September) and Trolls World Tour (April 17, 2020).

The Box Office Mojo site lists several dozen animations that, sooner or later, will be in cinemas.