The Prospector and Lotso

Pixar's Feature Films Toy Story / Lightyear
#1

For those of you who haven’t seen Toy Story 3 yet, Caution: Spoilers Ahoy!

Ever since Toy Story 3 showcased at ShoWest, I’ve been reading reviews about how [spoil]the film’s villain[/spoil] Lots-O-Huggin Bear and how he is too much like Toy Story 2’s, the Prospector. Some say he’s a nice homage, others have said he’s a near direct rip off of the character. [spoil]They draw attention to how both are extremely likable characters with tragic backstories, even if they have devious undertones, yet can also appear severely threatening at certain times of the film.[/spoil]

I definitely don’t agree with them. I think Lotso is way more of a villain than the Prospector ever was, definitely more threatening. Is Lotso’s character a direct rip off of the Prospector? Who do you think is more sinister or scary?

#2

I’d say that his backstory is more of a mix between [spoiler]Jessie’s and The Prospector’s. And maybe what Woody went through in TS1.

Character-wise, he’s like the Anti-Woody.[/spoiler]

EDIT:

For some reason, I disliked Prospector more than Lotso. The shock of learning that Prospector was manipulating everything behind the round up gang made me dislike him.
Though yeah, Lotso is the greater of two evils.

#3

Yeah, I agree. Personally, after seeing Toy Story 3, [spoil]I feel that while Lotso and the Prospector are very similar in the sense that they are both against children-toy relationships, Lotso is much more sinister in the sense that the Prospector was not. I mean, Stinky Pete was a toy that had never been sold before and was obviously could not understand the toy’s love for children and vice versa, his evil monologue was much less affective. Lotso, on the other hand, completely understood this, as he was loved by a child once. That’s why during his end argument was so much more powerful, and he ultimately won the argument against Woody. Not to mention how he turned out to be a complete monster, even after the toys saved his life. [/spoil]

#4

I thought they were similar but it didn’t worry me.

#5

I think they have somewhat similar role in the film, being the older toy that hates children and trying to get the heroes to leave their owner, but they’re not entirely the same character.

But the description you gave for what people are complaining about…aren’t MOST villains like that!?

#6

Exactly my point, that’s why, to me, they make no sense.

#7

By far [spoil]Lotso is more evil than Prospector. Instead of Prospector just wanting to separate Woody from his friends, Lotso was hell-bent on kiling Woody AND his friends. He was a complete monster, and the evilest Disney Villain since Chernabog (Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia).[/spoil]

#8

Sitting up at 2 am talking off the top of my head…

Oh, and I’m going to spoiler tag this whole thing just to save the trouble of switching in and out of spoiler tags.

[spoiler]I did not think Stinky Pete and Lotso were alike, apart from sharing the Common Villain Motivation: A negative experience makes them bitter, and that bitterness takes over their lives and drives them to villainous acts. In the Pixar canon alone, I’d say Pete, Syndrome, Muntz, Lotso, even Randall and Chick Hicks, always stuck in second place, share the same basic motivation. And it goes way beyond Pixar, to classic Disney villains like the Wicked Queen in Snow White (“Now I’LL be fairest in the land!”), and way beyond Disney as well (Tom Riddle, anyone?). In “Meet the Robinsons,” the Bowler Hat Guy sums it up perfectly in his big “Don’t let it go!” speech.

Among the Pixar villains, Stinky Pete is closer to Muntz, I think, in that he’s completely self-focused. As long as his goal isn’t threatened (going to the museum, capturing the bird) he’s fine, even pleasant company. But get in the way of what he wants, and all bets are off. Lotso I see as closer to Hopper, in his use of cruelty and manipulation to seize and hold power. He gets pleasure from dominating the other toys, and making sure they are as miserable as he is. There is a moment, in the flashback, when Lotso “snaps,” when he goes off on Big Baby, that seemed really adult to me, in almost a “Dysfunctional Southern Family Drama” way (not sure I want to say “Tennessee Williams,” but Mr Pricklepants would know what I mean). In a weird way, Lotso seems like one of the more mature and complicated Pixar villains.

I want to toss in one more thing here: Lotso’s backstory was interesting, because it plays off the plot of “Which one is ‘our’ Buzz?” in TS2, and plays into the scene where Lotso tells Ken to forget Barbie because there are millions exactly like her, and Ken replies, “Not to me.” Lotso snaps because he finds out he’s not unique - but, I’ll bet if he had gone back in to Daisy, she would have recognized that he was “her” Lotso, and things would have turned out all right for him.[/spoiler]

#9

WOW, I think that pretty much sums up all of the differences between Lotso and Stinky Pete in one nice box. Nice one, Karly05.

#10

Lotso was [spoil]far worse a villain[/spoil] than Stinky Pete. It’s not entirely his fault that [spoil]he was “abandoned” and “replaced” by Daisy, but like karly05 said, if he had just gone back to her she would have recognized that he was her Lotso, and he wouldn’t have to lie to Big Baby & Chuckles, and wouldn’t have turned into a monster.[/spoil]

What made Lotso [spoil]pretty much fall was the fact that he wasn’t only cruel to newcomer toys at the daycare, but even the ones he considered to be “cool” enough to be in the Butterfly Room, he had not one thing nice to say about him the entire time (As Karly pointed out with Ken about Barbie). This fact turned against him when Woody told Big Baby the entire truth about what happened to them & Chuckles. Not only dig Big Baby realize Lotso was a monster and throw him in the dumpster (BTW, did anybody else think that was epic?), but (with hesitation) all the other toys (Twitch, Chunk, Sparks, Stretch) realized it as well, especially Ken, who realized he’d rather be with his love than take orders from an evil bear any day, and went through many things for it to be that way.[/spoil]

One thing I didn’t expect, or I was expecting but didn’t happen, I thought Lotso would [spoil]“redeem” himself by the end of the movie,[/spoil] being a Meet&Greet character and all. [spoil]It came to the point where I didn’t think he would, until Woody saved him. Woody, while did feel sad about Lotso’s backstory, really had no reason to save Lotso, but did anyway, and Lotso just turned right back around and stabbed them all in the gut by not turning off the Incinerator. (He shoulda ended up with Sid ^.^)[/spoil]

Prospector, on the other hand, [spoil] didn’t understand an owner’s affection, which Lotso did, didn’t treat newcomers badly for no reason, which Lotso did, and wasn’t offered a chance to “redeem” himself, which Lotso was (although the Prospector could’ve asked to go with Woody, Jessie, & Bullseye).[/spoil]

Overall, while both Stinky Pete & Lotso [spoil]were “monsters”, the Prospector had much greater reason to be one - the anger & frustration had been building up inside him his entire life, as opposed to Lotso being loved and snapping, lying to his friends, and turning into a monster simply because of one small mistake Daisy made (self-centered, much?). Soo yeah, they were both bad but Lotso had less reason to be, and went as far as trying to kill them whereas Stinky Pete just wanted Woody to go to the museum. [/spoil]

Then again, Lotso smells like strawberries… how [spoil]bad[/spoil] could he really be? :stuck_out_tongue:

#11

I agree with karly05.

And I’m gonna add a bit, Lotso are much more evil because externally, he’s a pink, warm-hearted, cute, strawberry-scented teddy bear. It’s like 2 babies situation where baby A is cuter than baby B, yet baby A is much more mischievous than the other baby. We, humans, tend to like something positive externally than inside.

#12

While everything is typical movie villain nature I can still understand why people are criticizing it. And that’s because it’s the same movie franchise. For 2/3 of the Toy Story antagonists to have the same formula is a little unbalanced.

That being said they are VERY different, and there have been so many good points made that I won’t even start to try and add my own, that would be redundant.

But I agree with those saying [spoil]Lotso was more evil.[/spoil] I couldn’t put my finger on it until recently, because with Stinky Pete we only got a small line of dialog leaving it up to us to assume where the chip on his shoulder comes from. Essentially that would make him easier to dislike compared to a character [spoil]who’s flashback we actually got to watch and could experience his pain.[/spoil] But as mentioned before it has to involve the fact that he [spoil]left the toys to die[/spoil] and also the way he [spoil]treated Big Baby and Chuckles,[/spoil] which is the reason I thought of after the fact, that contributes to him being worse than Prospector. The latter took selfish measures to get what he thought would be his happy ending, Lotso was out to [spoil]bitterly destroy the lives of toys around him because his happiness was taken from him.[/spoil]

#13

IMO, they both did terrible things but they rationalized this by what they’ve been through in the past. The only difference here is that Stinky Pete at least had good intentions for the Roundup Gang, while Lotso was out for revenge. Again, Stinky Pete isn’t quite as evil as Lotso, although there’s no other way to sum him up than as a villain.

#14

I haven’t yet seen Toy Story 3, so I can’t really compare the two. But certainly, Stinky Pete wasn’t a sadistic villain - just a very selfish and manipulative one.

#15

I think Lotso was far worse then the prospector. The prospector just wanted to show case his only value. since nobody wanted to play with him, the only thing he was good for was being a collectable. and a museums the perfet place for that. [spoil]Lotso thought since he got replaced. every other toy should have to feel his pain. he even directly liad to big baby and chuckles to try and make them believe that.[/spoil]

#16

[spoil]Lotso’s[/spoil] definately the more villianous of the two. Most of why I think this has been mentioned by other members, but I’d also like to add that during the climax of Toy Story 2, Pete mentions “Your choice Woody. You can to to Japan together, or in pieces. If he fixed you once, he can fix you again.” That indicates that he believed that Woody would be able to fixed and that perhaps he wasn’t going to kill him, just severly injure him. [spoil]Lotso[/spoil], on the other hand, [spoil]left 9 (my counting may be off though) toys to die in an incinerator.[/spoil] Not to mention that he probably had [spoil]his gang kill/injure any toys that tried to escape from Sunnyside.[/spoil]

#17

I fully agree with the comments that [spoil]Lotso was far more evil than Stinky Pete[/spoil]. In fact, as villains go, I don’t know that I would really call Stinky Pete “evil”. He was bitter and hard-hearted, because of his long time as a left behind toy on a store shelf, but he didn’t hate Woody and the rest of the Roundup Gang. He just didn’t trust or believe in children. [spoil]Lotso, on the other hand, hated children and other toys. When he snapped, part of his rage was directed at his replacement, even though he manifested it by lashing out at Big Baby[/spoil].

Also, I really like the point that some have been making that [spoil]if Lotso had gone in to Daisy, she would have recognized him as her Lotso. That device has been used many times before in stories that deal with children and lost toys. The replacement never measures up to the original. In fact, it would have been interesting if that had happened. Lotso goes back in, Daisy recognizes him, and the other, replacement Lotso becomes the bitter villain. But then we wouldn’t have had the Big Baby and Chuckles characters, both of whom were essential to the plot.[/spoil]

#18

I have to agree with a lot of the things talked about here. Everyone’s made some great points on the two characters that it’s hard for me to say much also. It was probably a concern at first that they might be too similar, but the more we got to know Lotso and see what he’s like it made it clear that he’s a different character entirely from The Prospector. I would say the only real similarity between them is that [spoil]Lotso got kind of a “Stinky Pete comeupance” in the end (Prospector with Barbie and Lotso with toys from the dump).[/spoil]