Has something happened to American children?

Nora and James went to see Toy Story 3 yesterday whilst I was at work, with Daddy. I got home to find my admittedly slightly over sensitive daughter with gobbets of tears pouring down her face, crying in to McK's shirt and having a terrible time. She never wants to see it again! It's terrible, it's frightening and sad. And so forth.

McK explained the two specific areas of badness: the extended peril sequence and the sad goodbye. The sad goodbye I'm shrugging and at, knowing I'll be mopping up tears from the floor with a bucket when I see it. But the extended peril sequence sounds really rather frightening (extreme danger of incineration for all our lovely Toy Story friends). McK also described 'Big Baby' who sounded quite astonishing as a character - a post - video game influenced zombie baby doll!

...and I thought about those fear inducing elements when compared to Toy Story and Toy Story 2. These are wayyyyy way more sophisticated, surely? Toy Story / 2 are gorgeous films suitable for a whole family from 0-90. Sid *is* nasty but only cartoon villain nasty, similarly to Prospector Pete. The weird mangled toys in TS1 are really daunting and definitely scary, but they puncture the bubble *incredibly* quickly and the feeling of threat is relatively minor. Presumably Pixar have aimed TS3 at the same audience. In which case... what? Sorry? What has happened to American kids aged 6-ish and below? Are they suddenly all far more aware of death, killing, zombies and so forth? Is it a given that they can watch more violence and fear than previously?

Or have they just pitched it a bit older without realising?

(Note: Nora also cried with fear in "Up" which also, is recent. The tense peril in Up being really rather scary dogs ganging up on our heroes. Equally, I was a little bit quizzical at that, but not quite so much. What made Pixar think that kids could take the beautifully realised characters they love being under imminent threat of awful, violent death as being all part of the fun?

So I know everyone says it's a wonderful film n'all, and I'm sure it is. Just... something weird about it.

Ftr: the kids saw it in 2D. James really detests the glasses. nora was adamant she'd be ok, but every film we've seen in 3D with her she ends up taking them off. Please add that general negative review to the many, many anti-3D views that are gaining traction from viewing audiences. *I* don't like it either - being a glasses wearer, 3D is a  royal pain in the ass and I don't even see if after a few minutes anyway.