Toy Story Meets James Cameron's Avatar In The 1990s' Best-Kept Action Movie Secret - MCE Notices | California State Portal

Pixar’s flagship franchise, the mighty Toy Story, has more in common with James Cameron’s Avatar franchise than you might assume at a glance.

Both were responsible for pushing the envelope of visuals in blockbuster movies, with Toy Story pioneering CGI animation and Avatar hitting new heights for motion capture performance and super-rich environments. And just as Avatar is essentially about an outsider integrating his way into a tight-knit clan, becoming one of them, then defending said clan from a raft of villainous forces across several sequels, the Toy Story series is essentially about an outsider (Buzz Lightyear) integrating his way into a tight-knit clan (Andy’s toys), becoming one of them, then defending said clan from a raft of villainous forces across several sequels (Stinky Pete, Lotso…).

Toy Story and Avatar also serve as two of cinema’s true critical and commercial juggernauts, making plenty of cash at the box office without compromising on quality. Ahead of Toy Story 5‘s release, Woody and Buzz have managed to enjoy three stellar adventures and a very good fourth, whereas Avatar‘s two sequels are arguably better than 2009’s original.

Given their monstrous success and thematic assonance, one might question why Hollywood has never tried merging the two into some kind of bow-wielding plastic Frankenstein’s monster. Sure enough, Hollywood did exactly that in 1998. The result lacked the same financial pull, and reviews at the time were less than enthusiastic, but the movie left a lasting impression upon its youthful audience, and its reputation has grown with age as a result.

The Hybrid Of Toy Story & Avatar Is Eerily Similar To Both

Releasing just three years after Toy Story, Pixar’s influence upon Small Soldiers is palpable. The notions of toys coming to life and talking, of possessing their own personalities and emotions, and especially of fighting other toys all create parallels between Woody vs. Buzz and the Gorgonites vs. the Commando Elite. Even just the overall concept of storytelling through the eyes of a pint-sized plaything with no real experience of the outside world and drawing humor from that demonstrates a closeness in spirit.

But whereas Toy Story is locked into the innocence of youth, centering around a kid obsessed with cowboys and astronauts, Small Soldiers pitches itself a few years older, speaking to youngsters who are more interested in making their action figures fight each other in the most epic showdowns the playroom has ever seen.

This is where Small Soldiers begins looking a little more like a precursor to James Cameron’s Avatar. On one hand, you have the Gorgonites as stand-ins for the Na’vi. Both are portrayed as technologically-shy nature lovers with deep connections to their respective ancestral homes. Small Soldiers‘ Commando Elite is the equivalent of Avatar‘s villainous RDA in terms of being a militaristic force with no morals and a very itchy trigger finger (posable or otherwise). It has been said before, but Tommy Lee Jones’ Major Chip Hazard really is the cinematic doppelganger of Stephen Lang’s Colonel Miles Quaritch. The hair, the voice, the attitude, the personality – the resemblance is just uncanny.

Just like Avatar, the story of Small Soldiers is essentially a war between the peaceful nature group and the angry militia group, driven almost exclusively by the main villain’s personal burning hatred for those unlike himself. The pacifist underdogs win, of course, but only thanks to the assistance of some virtuous humans who join the fight.

Small Soldiers Is One Of The ’90s Best Hidden Gems

The Commando Elite stand on a bedroom floor in Small Soldiers 1998

Anyone who owned a copy of Small Soldiers on VHS in the ’90s knows exactly what the rest of the world is missing out on. Sure, it doesn’t have the wit and polish of Toy Story, nor the grandeur and scale that would define Avatar over a decade later, but Small Soldiers makes the absolute best of its own little corner of the ’90s action-adventure sandbox.

The lore behind the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite is understandably basic, but intriguing enough to cast an aura of imaginative fantasy in the way genuine toy lines for He-Man and Transformers have. Small Soldiers‘ human characters bring a smarter edge to the script, particularly with the likes of David Cross among the cast, and Joe Dante’s direction manages to make action sequences with one-foot-tall combatants feel surprisingly big. If nothing else, few movies utilize household objects as inventively.

The best trick Small Soldiers pulls lies in its fine tonal tightrope. Dante has previously spoken about his original intention to make Small Soldiers for teens and how, despite being reined in by sponsors, parts of his initial plan survived into the final cut (via DenOfGeek). The end result is a film that’s ostensibly for kids, but with enough violence and grit to earn its place as an action flick. In the hands of a director who hadn’t made two Gremlins movies, such a potent blend could prove disastrous. Instead, it becomes Small Soldiers‘ USP.

Small Soldiers Is A Rare ’90s Movie That Would Justify A Remake Or Sequel

So many modern remakes or revivals of iconic ’80s and ’90s movies are unnecessary, either because the originals were already perfect or because catching lightning in a bottle is impossible to do twice. Small Soldiers is a rare example of a movie from that period that could actually benefit from a modern eye.

With 2020s standards, Small Soldiers could embrace that harder style Joe Dante envisioned. With current CGI, Small Soldiers could increase its scale through more toys, bigger battles, and more expressive expressions. And with the benefit of hindsight, a new Small Soldiers movie would do well to minimize the human characters in favor of focusing far more on the real stars: the toys.

The time is ripe. Only as recently as 2025, Small Soldiers co-writer Alan Rifkin addressed the film’s ending and whether the Gorgonites ever made it home, proving just how much ’90s kids remain invested in Archer’s lovable mob. And with AI on the rise, the original movie’s backstory (toys being juiced-up by military-grade computer chips) is far more apt than it was back in 1998.

Indeed, a Small Soldiers remake almost became a reality in the 2010s. A new take on the premise was scripted, but became one of many prospective 20th Century Fox releases that fell off the moving truck during the relocation to Disney.

Hollywood often makes the mistake of reinventing bona fide classics. The very concept of remakes is better suited to diamonds in the rough that never received the credit they deserved, but retain a passionate audience, and Small Soldiers falls neatly into that very category.