Just when you thought that Toy Story 3 couldn’t get any more exciting: enter Timothy Dalton!
The former 007, Hot Fuzz star and all-round nice guy, will be lending his voice to the Disney/Pixar threequel, Disney president John Lasseter announced today at a London-based Disney Animation Showcase.
Dalton will voice Mr. Pricklepants, a hedgehog toy with thespian tendencies. How he fits into the story, we’re not sure (could he be the story’s villain?), but if Dalton is allowed to keep his accent, he will be the first Brit to grace the Toy Story franchise, unless you count Andi Peters’ cameo in Toy Story 2. But we don’t. We really, really don’t. And neither should you.
Lasseter also gave us a sneak peek at a sequence from the film and the as-yet unreleased trailer. The clip showed Andy packing from college, and emptying all his toys into a black bin bag for storage in the attic. He hesitates over Woody and Buzz, finally putting Woody in the box of things to take for college. But all the toys are panicked - especially Woody, who's worried for his friends. When Andy is distracted by his little sister and leaves the garbage bag on the landing instead of upstairs in the attic, his mother takes it out to the kerb - and a frantic Woody has to save his friends from a rapidly approaching bin lorry.
We also saw the as-yet unreleased trailer, which showed bits of the same scene, but developed the story. Clearly the toys end up being sent to a daycare centre, where they are horribly abused by the little kids - and after that it's time for a break-out attempt to find a safe haven, and hopefully a new owner, in a cruel world. It looks every bit as good as its titanic predecessors.