Toy Story 3 Showed One Character's Fate In An Easter Egg You May Have Missed

There aren't too many perfect movie trilogies in the history of cinema. Personally, I think Sergio Leone's epic Dollar Trilogy is the epitome, alongside the first three Matt Damon-led Bourne films, and I'm sure many would argue that both Peter Jackson's legendary "The Lord of the Rings" movies and the original "Star Wars" trilogy belong in the category, too. Similarly, although the franchise eventually continued on after their release à la "Bourne," Pixar's first three "Toy Story" films are about as superb as it gets. Indeed, the "Toy Story" property always managed to keep improving and becoming a little better over the course of its first 15 years. That's an achievement not many trilogies can wholeheartedly claim.

The fact these flicks are actually animated features mainly aimed at kids — though we all know it's the adults/parents who cry the most watching them, myself included — somehow makes their accomplishment even greater. Why is that? Well, I could probably give you a dozen reasons, but the strongest one is that Pixar always treats its audience with heartfelt maturity. It's evident (especially after its more recent features like "Soul" and "Elemental") that the animation studio is trying to appeal to and steal the heart of older viewers, and it does so with a pretty high success rate. The "Toy Story" franchise is undeniably a champion at that, largely because an entire generation grew up watching and idolizing the friendship between Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), and the rest of Andy's (John Morris) beloved toys, and we cherish each film with an undying nostalgia.

"Toy Story 3" is the sublime culmination of that because it marks the end of childhood, serving as a bittersweet and heartbreaking goodbye that all of us had to go through at one point. And it often does so with subtle yet thoughtful call-backs, including the brief return of a character that many folks likely hadn't even thought about since 1995.

Who could forget Sid Phillips (voiced by Erik von Detten) from the original "Toy Story?" As you surely recall, Andy's next-door neighbor was a villainous bad boy who tortured his toys like an impassioned wannabe serial killer, all the while wearing a black T-shirt with a white skull on it. He was such an iconic antagonist that the "Toy Story 3" creatives couldn't resist bringing him back — if only briefly — as a young adult in the movie. No doubt, his cameo is practically impossible for devoted "Toy Story" fans to miss as well, seeing as his infamous shirt was likely burned into their memory as a kid when they saw the first film.

In "Toy Story 3," Sid appears quite early on as a garbage man, donning the same (although faded) black skull shirt under a yellow hi-vis vest with his headphones on, singing gibberish while tossing the trash bags into the back of a garbage truck. I guess this may be the mildest scenario of how his life turned out, considering how much of a violent and wicked little sadist he was as a child back in the 1990s. Still, it's nothing short of a brilliant idea for "Toy Story 3" to nod to the past this way. 

This Easter egg also serves to once again highlight the contrast between Sid and the good-hearted Andy, who's about to attend college in the film. Sid's truck even turns up once more near the end of the movie when Woody and his friends are escaping from Sunnyside Daycare, bringing the character's "arc" full circle. I mean, it's kind of genius that he unknowingly helps save the toys he treated so poorly all those years ago.