Yeah, everyone talks about the scene where they're heading to the incinerator, but just because it's the climax of the film's suspense doesn't make the onion cutting begin. To me, that was neither a tragic scene, nor anything really upsetting. I guess the concept of an impending doom doesn't mean much to me.

No, for me Toy Story meant something different. I remember growing up really modestly, seeing my first film in the theaters with my mom at age 8. That movie was Toy Story, and it was amazing! The scenes were fantastical, and the toys were just like some I had at home! To me, there could have been no better representation of my imagination, and it was like seeing my dreams come to life - all of this from the first time I ever seen a film at the theater. It's like the movie was made for me (my name's Andy, too), and as a kid, I was always suspicious my toys were really just messing about when I wasn't around. I even had a wiener dog.

Anyway, as I got older, Toy Story 2 came out, and I was in a different place. No longer was I an innocent little kid, but I was in middle school (which was awful), and being exposed to all sorts of crazy new things, just like the characters in the movie. The scene where they are going through the city traffic reminded me at the time of how I had to deal with all the hazards at school, and the people zooming through the halls (let's just say middle school already sucked, and being the one white person in class didn't help). I got this movie on VHS, and often times I would run home from school to avoid getting beat up by a group of kids, and I would escape to Andy's house, where all his toys loved him, and he had friends. "You got a friend in me" really meant something to me, because I felt like I had none.

Then the third one came out. By this time I had been in college, traveled the world, gotten jobs, girlfriends, and cars. For all intents and purposes, I was a completely different person, and really didn't even remember how fond I was of the first two, at the time. But then there's the scene at the end, the scene you referenced, where Andy pauses before handing over Buzz and Woody. My heart immediately sank. It's actually making me tear up a bit now, but that's when I knew that I, along with Andy, was no longer a child, and I would never again experience the wonderment of childhood, or the freedom of living a life only limited by my imagination.

That series, that movie, that scene, had summed up my entire life, and the characters weren't just animations on a screen, but they were reflections of who I was and the man I had become. In a way, the Andy in the movie was me. Though I had shed myself of the childish affects and temperaments, I'll never lose the memories of Buzz and Woody. They meant more to my childhood than I thought possible. They will always have a friend in me.