The choice of a landfill for the climactic sequence fit director Lee Unkrich’s notion of Toy Story as a life-cycle trilogy. For the characters, the dump would be the equivalent of Dante’s Inferno: a grim, dehumanized landscape and final destination. Pixar artists studied real dumps to emulate, but they also heightened the elements to maximize the drama.

According to the lighting art director, Dice Tsutsumi, “The dump is the one scene out of all the Toy Story films that needs to feel absolutely real, believable, and scary.”