Toy Story should have been a trilogy. There, I said it.
The third film in Disney and Pixar’s series, released in 2010, was the perfect end to the story. Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the rest of the gang wound up with a new kid, Bonnie, when their original owner, Andy, went away to college. Poetic. Beautiful. You cried the first time you watched it. Admit it.
But then we got Toy Story 4 in 2019 – an epilogue of sorts that told a tale of identity, starting over and, bizarrely, made us care a great deal about a talking spork named Forky (Tony Hale). It was good – not great – but never truly justified its existence beyond making Disney a ton of money. That success brought us Toy Story 5, directed by series veteran Andrew Stanton, and although I still stand by my earlier statement that there should have only been three of these movies, I’m glad this one exists.
The film revolves around the very tangible reality that kids do not really play with toys anymore – at least not as much as they used to. Screens and devices take hold very early these days despite parents’ best efforts, and in this series’ world of sentient playthings, the end of the era of toys is downright terrifying.
Heck, it’s hard not to feel a tinge of terror in our world as technology engulfs pretty much everything we do, so we can relate to each of these characters’ tiny, plastic existential crises to some degree.
In the film, Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is having a tough time making friends with the neighborhood kids because playtime as we once knew it no longer exists. To help Bonnie connect with her peers, her parents buy her a LilyPad – a frog-shaped tablet device so she can play games and chat online. Of course, much like Buzz in the original film, Lily (Greta Lee) is a disruptor and takes over Bonnie’s world, much to the dismay of the toys. But we soon learn that Bonnie’s burgeoning addiction to technology and the new “friends” she has made aren’t making her happier. It’s an anti-technology cautionary tale on the surface at first, sure, but it winds up being a nice “tech-the-right-way” tale that both kids and adults can learn from.
Without getting into spoilers, I will say that it’s refreshing that this is truly Jessie’s movie. Yes, Woody – who left the group with Bo Peep (Annie Potts) to start a new life helping lost toys – does show up in this film eventually, complete with a bald spot and a paunch. And Buzz does have a fun subplot about finally asking Jessie to marry him (there are also 50 other Buzz Lightyears in this movie, who play into the film’s climax) but this film is really about Jessie trying desperately to help Bonnie find the right friend, even if that’s no longer her. If the “When She Loved Me” scene from Toy Story 2 still gets you choked up after all these years, bring tissues to your screening.
I’d love to say that we don’t need Toy Story 5, but perhaps we do. This was a wonderful, heartfelt sendoff for these characters and I’m grateful for this return to the toy box. Now, let’s not ruin it with Toy Story 6, OK Pixar?
Views: 0