Joe Dante and Hideo Kojima are close seconds but no director was more right about the future of war than Barry Levinson with the 1992 box office flop Toys.

February 28, 2026 - 03:28 UTC

61
93
3059
Man, Levinson went through a short period leading up to Wag the Dog where he was turning out some stinkers. Jimmy Hollywood and Disclosure come to mind. Not enough people gave credit to the themes of Toys: automated technologies in war and production are harmful to human spirit and imagination.
1
0
7
And whimsy is its own reward :)
0
0
2
Yo that wide shot is fucking brilliant
1
0
3
if you enjoy that, definitely check the whole movie out if you can. the visuals are consistently wonderful
0
0
2
I love this movie so much
0
0
1
TOYS RULED
0
0
2
I unironically loved this movie.
0
0
0
I remember seeing that movie in the theater and coming out dazed
0
0
0
the music is a wild choice
0
0
2
That movie was such an odd yet fascinating watch. And yes, super accurate. Deserves a Criterian release.
0
0
1
That's pretty good. On the other hand, it wasn't exactly a new idea by the 90s (though under-explored). Where I think people lacked vision was the control system. That Moore's law all but guaranteed cheap pocket computers and spy movie TV cameras, which you need to make weaponized toys really work.
1
1
7
Ever read Dick Tracy comics from the forties?
0
0
1
I just watched this! It's amazing!
1
0
6
My wife has been trying to get me to watch it for years. Finally we found it through a pirate streaming service
0
0
3
one of my favorite robin williams performances of all time.
1
0
15
my favorite ll cool j performance of all time, with deep blue sea as…well it’s second
1
0
8
Kojima had to cut a scene from MGS2 because he had predicted 9/11, and then 9/11 happened days before the game went gold.

This is cute too, though
0
0
4
I don’t even remember this scene but it’s pretty alarming in today’s messed up situation.
0
0
0
michael gambon beast mode throughout this whole movie. and honestly a great performance from LL Cool J
2
0
42
LL was pretty amusing in the film, didn't seem to take himself as seriously
0
0
17
The running gag where he enters scenes wearing camouflage the colour of the background was genius.
0
0
3
🫡
0
0
0
This movie holds up ridiculously well
0
0
5
the meeting where they're all skeletons on the scanner is also phenomenal
2
0
48
That Cinefex issue is somewhere in my house
1
0
4
the guy they realize still has surgical scissors inside him
0
0
25
It's wild when movies get specific details about the future right -- and it's not the movies you expect.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americathon
0
0
1
One of my favorite movies as a kid. It only got better with age.
0
0
4
I have been thinking about this too much
0
0
0
I do enjoy how it sounds like LL Cool J is trying to yell his lines at 1:40 over the blaring soundtrack
0
0
21
Love that movie so much I got a pin for it on ebay. There's cool hats and jackets with the same logo but those are a bit pricey.
0
0
5
This is what i've been saying all the time.
0
0
0
it was so ahead of its time that people simply didn't understand how prophetic it was; the Soviet Union had just fallen in December of 1991, and most in America felt (to the extent they really thought about it) that at the end of the 20th century, the world was finally realizing an enduring peace
0
0
11
That dude sounds EXACTLY like Richard Harris
0
0
0
Is Toys any easier to watch since the last time I did? I remember at the time it only being available on out of print DVD and VHS.
0
0
2
It’s all the same on the video screens
0
0
3
Is that Dumbledore?
1
0
1
No. Thats one of the actors who played him. But it is not him.
1
0
6
The visuals/sets go crazy in that one
1
0
7
Joan Cusack’s costumes and wigs, too!
0
0
3
god I'd forgotten how completely unhinged Gambon is in this
1
0
6
I love Gambon but I dunno what accent he was going for here
4
0
6
Basically every part of this scene is correct down to the cost of drones getting cheaper. Insane to do both this and Wag The Dog.
3
0
543
yeah but he wrote it in 1979 bsky.app/profile/compellor.bsky.social/post/3mfvf6td3t227
5
1
467
Finally, another human being that talks about Wag the Dog
1
0
5
👀
0
0
0
So many interesting ideas in there.
0
0
1
That move is kinda bad, but it is also kinda great.
0
0
1
I remember renting this movie thinking it was going to be fun, whimsical, another great Robin Williams comedy.

I wasn't expecting my overly empathetic ass to be crying during the toy on toy violence at the end.

I didn't realise the movie was a flop
0
0
0
Such an underrated movie...
0
0
0
There's also a scene in The Colour Of Money where Tom Cruise tells Paul Newman that the future of war is video gamers.
0
0
3
Well this is horrendously prescient!
0
0
4
Saw this in theaters when I was 10 and let me tell you it was NOT what I was expecting
0
0
4
North Vietnamese were shooting down lethal drones in the late 1960's but OK
2
0
4
The US was making more V1s than the Nazis by sometime in 1946. I mean we used to have Kettering Bugs in WW1 though they sucked ass and were not as good as the V1 by any stretch.
1
0
3
Firebee drones were nothing like the drones of today. They were more akin to remotely guided cruise missiles than anything else. And they weren't used for lethal purposes in 'nam, just usually used for signals intelligence or as decoys to bait the North's surface to air missiles.
0
0
2
Hideo does NOT get the credit he deserves, his predictions areoften remarkably good, he just recognizes the future they portend is as depressing as it is largely boring to live in, so he fights the tide by turning his fears into the weirdest fucking art he can
0
0
8
Yes. Also one of the most underrated performances of all time by LL Cool J.
0
0
10
Jesus. This was 34 years ago.
0
0
1
Such an underrated classic. I think about this movie all the time. Great cast, great performances, just too surreal for ppl at the time
0
0
2
You need to read the spiritual successor - Operation Bounce House. Takes this idea and runs with it for the streaming influencer era.
0
0
1
In high school, I watched Toys for class on two separate occasions in completely unrelated classes
0
0
1
He's cast as this cartoonish madman here, but this is an example of The Supervillain Writers' Dilemma (to loosely borrow from @ryannorth.ca's "How to Take Over The World"): how do you write a plot like this absurdly once you realize how plausible the premise could truly become
1
0
39
Much like Ben Kingsley in Sneakers, although that’s more of a caricature than a cartoon. Still, I was watching it in theaters, and thinking, here’s the only character in this movie who really gets how the world works.
0
0
8
cool that LL got to keep his preferred style of hat for the role
0
0
0
Jeux sans frontières.
0
0
1
It also had a top notch Joan Cusack performance and the soundtrack had one of Tori Amos' first ever solo songs. I think I rented it like ten times.
0
0
4
Kind of a funny coincidence Gambon hinting at his future Dumbledore work with the invocation of a phoenix
1
0
1
phoenixes existed before harry potter. there's even a whole city
1
0
10
Here we see Michael Gambon recontectualizing the phrase “Dumbledore’s army”
0
0
3
Whatever else the many detractors wanna say about it, they cannot deny that the art direction goes absolutely craaaaazy
0
0
19
Not a great film, but it has one of my favorite standalone scenes in any movie…

“This is some very innovative vomit…”
0
0
1
A seriously underrated movie featuring the only good actor named Cusack.
0
0
0
Toys is an amazing movie with a really well delivered message. Will need to revisit it at the weekend.
0
0
0
this is true and also: movie's got a banger soundtrack, so at least two things going for it
0
0
5
Not fiction, but it'll always blow my mind that Tesla (the good one) demoed a remote-controlled boat before 1900 and tried pitching it to the Navy.
0
0
4
Honestly the "beech nut/beach craft" moment still lives in my brain
0
0
0
Toys is the true definition of a cinematic one-off, the once in a lifetime folly every director has in them that they hope to make after one big success. After Levinson struck it big with Good Morning Vietnam and Rain Man, he got his chance. Toys is the sort of project no sane studio would touch.
0
0
4
toys hivemind strong

bsky.app/profile/maxkriegervg.bsky.social/post/3mdjyds45us24
0
0
15