Let me preface this by saying I've never owned a JJP game and never thought I would. I'm definitely no fanboy of JJP. I also haven't seen TS4 and barely paid attention while watching TS3. I'm not a Toy Story fanboy either (though I do love the first movie).
Having said that, I'm looking forward to getting a chance to play this. The few other JJP games I've tried have left me cold. I know it's generally a selling point for JJP games to be "packed" but I've found them to be too busy. This doesn't look that way at all. It looks like it might be a fun game to shoot. The less-packed Stern games are fun for a reason--you need a balance. Given his career, I'm sure Lawlor knows this as well as anyone.
Speaking of Lawlor, I think I like that he designed the game to be approachable and for average and even below-average players. We'll see how it works, but his claim that such players should even be able to make it to the wizard mode definitely got my attention. As an average to below-average player, that sounds great to me. Of course, like with the toys there has to be a balance. I'm sure it would get boring if it were toooooo easy. I'm curious to find out if Lawlor could strike the balance. Of all designers out there, I think he has one of the better chances of pulling it off.
And it looks like they got all of the assets/IP from the movie (including the voices). Yes, it's not TS1, 2 or 3 but being focused on one movie (probably the only one they were permitted to license) might work out in terms of theme integration. I'm not feeling as disappointed about this as I thought I would.
Still, $12,000 is a lot. Heck, the $9,000 that Stern charges for LEs is a lot too, but this is 33% more expensive and $3,000 is meaningful. I can't wait to see if it's actually worth it.