Toy Story 2: the film that was about to be lost due to an incredible mistake

The seventh art throughout history has given the world of entertainment and popular culture an endless number of productions that have transcended everyday life. From the actors who give life to all kinds of characters, the plots of different film genres, as well as the affection that can be given to a title for materialized ideas, have marked generations for life.

Contrary to what is sometimes thought, the stories behind Hollywood's greatest productions are not limited to the fiery love stories, epic battles or comedies that can be seen on the big screen. But the behind the scenes of each film is in itself quite an experience.

Who has not heard of the lack of chemistry between some supporting actors in certain films or scandals concerning their producers or companies. But what we are going to tell here is by far different, because eliminating a film almost entirely shortly after its already announced release is something that happened to one of the greatest entertainment houses in the world: Disney and Pixar.

The most popular mouse house on the planet has one of the least known but most shocking stories. It all started during the recording of one of his most important films in history: Toy Story 2.

It was around 1998 when someone at Pixar's Richmond studios, distractionally ran the “remove” option on their computer and in just a few seconds they almost completely lost all Woody and Buzz Lightyear files, including the work of the entire production staff.

Perhaps nowadays it would be difficult to think that wrongly squeezing an option could not be enough reason to lose a long time's hard work, since many of the new technologies have all kinds of ways to back up a file, be it photos or videos.

Currently there are all kinds of backups that smartphones make, including, they constantly talk about the digital “clouds” that Google or Apple have for free or paid. But for that year none of that existed and no matter how rigorous the protocols were to take care of the entire process of a film, it was much easier that everything could be lost with just one mistake and that there were no digital backups or second copies, since it was considered that information could be leaked or sold.

Oren Jacob, associate technical director of Toy Story 2, told TNW that he was looking for a specific scene from Woody when the collapse began.

And, to ensure that everything related to one of the most famous cowboys in history was in optimal condition, Jacob tried to see the whole image on his computer, but when he had an option that marked an error, indicating that the directory did not exist, he realized that the content of the film was compromised or that the device was no longer working.

At first he thought that he had been moved by a button that he had no knowledge of or did not understand if it was just a technical error that could have a solution, but his amazement and fear grew when he noticed that little by little more scenes, character attributes and items began to disappear to the degree that the entire product marked as unrecognized or as if it would never have been, even though the film had already been announced and even the advertising company started a few days later.

“About 150 people are working on the animation, modeling and editing of what they hope will be the next big success of the animation studio of the creator of other great classics such as The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty and Encanto (winner of the 2022 Oscar for Best Animating Film) however, one of those 150 people runs a rm —rf on his computer; he didn't know it but it had just caused the loss of 90% of the production of Toy Story 2, the sequel to one of the most important, successful and commercially speaking sagas was one of the top 5 most revenue-generating products for the mouse company in its history, according to Forbes magazine ”, said Oren.

But even though the tragedy had already happened, not all was lost, because almost like a miracle Galyn Susman appeared, a company worker who had just had a baby.

Due to her maternity leave, the woman was working from home and therefore Pixar had given her a complete team that was backed up by the entire film, so that she could continue her activities from home.

Galyn also received regular updates to the film, so the production team went to the mother's house, took on the team to take them to the company and when they turned it on they realized that it was almost completely updated. They just had to get down to work, sort the files and set the machines up and running so that they could finish as they planned one of the most endearing children's stories in history.

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