Toy Story 4: Pixar's Tribute to Regression

        It was about this time last year that I came across the one person who actually hated Toy Story 3.

         I was reading Jason Sperb’s book “Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Age of Digital Cinema” as part of my research for my essay on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. It was in one of his chapters on the Pixar phenomenon that he shared this observation from the ending of Toy Story 3:

“If Andy lets go of his childhood nostalgia and moves on, then Toy Story fans don’t really have to, as the narrative recognition in the potential value in such an act is sufficient. Actually moving on becomes indefinitely deferred in an endless cycle of consumption (rewatching the movies, purchasing new versions of the movie, purchasing more and more Toy Story-related merchandise, rewatching them yet again with the next generation of children, and so forth). Pixar’s own nostalgia for itself and its nostalgia for consumerism are so intertwined because the products themselves are purely commercialized in not only their function but also their aesthetic.”

I respectfully disagree with this assessment because it assumes that adults cannot interact with nostalgic artifacts without frustrating the maturation process, that a 24-year-old would only watch Toy Story to stay the scythe of the grim reaper and the tax attorney. It assumes that adults have nothing to gain by reminding themselves of the ideals and aspirations they had as kids, and that’s just not something I can get behind.

Certainly, there’s a fine line between a refreshing indulgence in nostalgia and just never growing up, and walking it is a balancing act. (I’ve offered my own take on walking the line in my Roger Rabbit/Detective Pikachu comparison.) But surely Toy Story 3, one of the greatest cinematic studies of moving on and letting go, surely this film is nothing less than a Michelangelic dissertation on the threshold of maturation, right? Surely the Toy Story films are safe, right? I would think so, but then I remember . . .

Despite some initial mild grumbling about “but Toy Story 3 wrapped up everything so perfectly,” Toy Story 4 opened to outstanding reviews and box-office plentitude. Toy Story 4 collected most of the same trophies as its 2010 predecessor, including a worldwide gross of over a billion dollars, the Best Animated Picture Oscar, and general hoopla. Initial skepticism dissolved into excitement bordering on reverence.

         I was very much a part of that crowd that agonized over Toy Story 4’s official announcement back in 2014, which certainly influenced how I received the film when I finally did get around to watching it, a good year after the film was released. But despite all my friends in the Disney community assuring me “just give it a watch and you’ll be a believer” and “it somehow works even better than Toy Story 3,” I was not impressed. My worst fear was that it would just feel unnecessary, but post-viewing I found that my ire with the film went much deeper. At the risk of being the biggest killjoy, I’m here to declare that not only was Toy Story 4 unnecessary, not only does it have the weakest writing in the franchise, not only does it have nothing to offer intellectually, but also that Toy Story 4’s biggest accomplishment is making “growing up” into something easy, shallow, and regressive.

Let’s start with the big question first . . .

 

Did We Need Another Toy Story Movie?

       The age-old problem: when you have a story audiences adore, both media creators and consumers alike naturally want more of that story. But as you add more hats onto the franchise, the spirit of the brand becomes exponentially unstable and diluted.

Maybe all Toy Story 4 actually needed was James Cameron?

    As studios extend the lifeline of any given project, there’s always the need to find something new to say. Some franchises choke on the first follow-up, and some manage a good sequel or two before they start rambling. Then there’s the Terminator 2 or Aliens phenomenon where the sequel is “holy crap, even better than the first!” But these are rare, and even these franchises both eventually succumbed to creative entropy. Eventually, a franchise either starts gumming on rinds or else it transgresses central tenants of the mythology in an effort to do something “new and unexpected.” The most recent Star Wars movies come to mind as an example of studios trying to both honor and remix a mythology only to leave everyone, especially longtime lovers of the brand, feeling cold. (This coming from one of like eight people who actually kinda liked the sequel trilogy.)

But with Toy Story it’s not just the usual game of jenga tower. Toy Story 3 went out of its way to declare itself the end of the Toy Story feature film continuum. How do we know this?  Unlike most other franchises, the Toy Story films set a clear finishing line for themselves, and Toy Story 3 charged boldly into that line. The crazy thing? It paid off in spades. Cried the public, "What a perfect ending to the series!" A fourth "Toy Story" film seemed to be greenlit on the premise to recreate that all-encompassing sense of closure and finality, never minding how any follow-up to Toy Story 3 would undermine that film's thesis by virtue of simply existing.

    The thematic throughline of the franchise has been the question of what happens to Woody and the others when Andy outgrows them. Toy Story 3 answered these questions: Woody and Andy parted ways because where Andy was going Woody couldn't follow, and there were other kids like Bonnie who needed the unwavering support that Woody knew how to provide so well. What would have happened after Bonnie outgrew Woody? Probably the same thing. The story had reached its natural conclusion. This is where Toy Story 4 runs into its fist problem: in order to claim the series had more to say, you have to first accept that the acceptance Woody felt during Andy's parting, heart-wrenching as it was, was nothing more than a red herring.

    And I’ve seen some argue that the centerpiece wasn’t Woody’s relationship with Andy, but his relationship with Buzz. There’s something there I’ll concede, the series effectively begins with Woody and Buzz’s partnership beginning, so maybe the series should conclude with it ending. Even so, it’s a more tenuous connection. Andy’s inevitable departure was baked into his relationship with Woody—it had build up, something that Buzz and Woody’s parting did not, and we'll talk more about that here in a few sections. The barometer of Woody's development has always been his relationship with the child he was in charge of.

    Had Toy Story 3 simply taken place during the unexplored years of Andy’s childhood, they maybe could have raked in the Toy Story films. The Chronicles of Narnia, another series interested in the beautiful impermanence of childhood, managed a full seven installments, but C.S. Lewis knew better than to go on writing after blowing up Narnia. "The Last Battle" even ends with the promise that this new Narnia "goes on forever, each chapter even better than the one before," but actually telling the story of that Narnia wasn't the point.

 

   Yes, we knew that Andy's toys were going to have other adventures, but there comes a moment where you have to decide you've gained all you can from a certain period of your life and take it with you to the next chapter. The greatest statements on leaving behind childhood have a sense of finality to them: Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, Stand By Me, Toy Story 3. If Pixar really wants to rewrite the book on leaving childhood behind, then they can show us they mean it and move on.

But surely we could excuse just one more time on the merry-go-round if the movie is really good, right? This is Pixar, after all. They know storytelling, don’t they? About that . . .

         What is "cHaRacTEr aRC"?

    Even though the creative team insists that this film was not only a creative necessity but also a natural outgrowth of the third film, we get the idea very early that this isn't quite the case. The first sign of trouble for Woody comes when we find out that Bonnie just isn't interested in playing with Woody anymore. From a narrative standpoint, this is setup for Woody to eventually realize that he is not fulfilling his function as a toy in Bonnie's toy box. Fine. But to call this a natural extension of Toy Story 3 ignores how smitten Bonnie was with Woody when she first found him in the tree outside of Sunnyside. Part of Woody's culminating journey in that film was realizing that even as his time with Andy had concluded, he still had it in him to bring happiness and security to other kids like Bonnie. This was very well articulated in that third film, but that doesn't really jive with this film's new direction, so Toy Story 4 retcons Woody and Bonnie's bond and calls it "an inevitability" ...

    There’s a lot about this film’s sloppy craftsmanship that is worth dissecting (Buzz Lightyear’s plummeting IQ, the not-funny side characters, the hoopla over the voice box, the blink-and-you-miss-it climax, etc.) I focus on Woody's crippled character arc as this film's original sin because that is where this movie's redundancy really comes into focus.

    The creative team’s go-to line for justifying another movie after TS3 is that “Toy Story 3 was the end of Woody’s time with Andy, but it’s not the end of Woody’s story.” What they mean is that Woody apparently still has some character flaw that needs to be resolved.

         The two most important pieces of a character’s development come down to his/her want and need. What do they mean? Exactly what they sound like.

    To explain, let’s look at some examples. In the first Thor movie, Thor wants to be king of Asgard so he’ll be powerful and respected/Thor needs to attain the responsibility and compassion that are necessary for a good leader. In Casablanca, Rick wants to fill the hole left in his heart after Ilsa suddenly left him/Rick needs to look past his own grief and let Ilsa and her husband play their part in the war effort. In the recent Star Wars trilogy, Rey wants a family name or heritage to which she can tether her sense of identity/Rey needs to find her connection to the universe through who she is as a warrior for goodness and through the people she loves—her real family.

       In each case, the character starts the film wanting something, and pursuing that goal drives them forward. But as this character interacts with the plot and meets opposition, they undergo an internal transformation and learns what they need. By achieving this, the character becomes a better version of themselves. Films that understand the want/need dynamic become something not just entertaining or fun, but transformative. I bring up the Star Wars sequels here because they demonstrate how, even with plot elements flying in all sorts of directions, a series can have a sense of continuity and completion if the character's motivation is clear and constant.

         Let’s review Woody’s want/need dynamic in the Toy Story trilogy:

    #1: Woody wants the status of Andy’s favorite toy/Woody needs to be secure in his relationship with Andy.

#2: Woody wants his time with Andy to never end/Woody needs to learn to savor the time he does have with Andy.

#3: Woody wants a place in Andy’s attic so they’ll never really have to lose him/Woody needs to let Andy grow up.

There's a running theme throughout the first three movies where Woody wants his relationship with Andy to last forever but needs to embrace the impermanence of their time as something beautiful.

Which brings us to

# 4: Woody wants to support Bonnie the way he did Andy/Woody needs to find happiness in himself not his status as a child’s belonging.

    Okay. The movie claims Woody needs to learn self-love—not the worst thing. Learning to live for yourself has been a fascination of a good many movies over the last decade or so. But in the last three movies, when has thinking more of himself ever been the solution for Woody? Certainly not Toy Story 2 when we learned that it was better to be loved for a season than to insulate yourself for eternity. This discrepancy signals not a discovery of Woody’s character, but a shift in how the franchise defines maturation itself.

    This pattern is common among sequels that have nothing to offer their predecessors, especially when they come from Pixar or Disney. The second Wreck-it Ralph movie, for example, decided that Ralph had a latent emotional attachment fixation, despite him declining Vanellope’s offer to stay in Sugar Rush at the end of the first film. By planting evidence like this, said sequel can claim to be not just excusable but important. Disney and Pixar are willing to infect their characters with a disease just to prove to the audience they needed to be cured.

Moreover, telling us that Woody isn't whole because of his devotion to Andy tells us a few things:

1. What Woody felt as he watched Andy drive away wasn't actually closure but a mere imitation of it (how did we not see the signs?!)

2. Woody will never find closure anyway because he can never be as happy with any new kid as he was with Andy

    3. Woody’s loyalty, his defining characteristic, the trait that Andy in his final moments with Woody extols as “the thing that makes Woody special,” was actually a character flaw all along

    Woody’s want/need interaction is sloppy in this film, and it reflects in just how incoherent the storytelling is. Early on, Bonnie’s toys try reining in Woody from putting a little too much effort into keeping her happy, like when he sneaks into her backpack so he can supervise her in kindergarten. From a narrative standpoint, this is where the film needs to signal to the audience that the protagonist’s want is misguided—that Woody’s devotion to Bonnie is a little extra. The film might have pulled that off, except that Bonnie acts genuinely lonely, so much so that she actually builds a DIY friend and shows genuine distress when she loses him. Woody seems to know what he's doing (even if the creative team doesn't).

    This confused storytelling is perhaps most evident in their first rescue attempt of Forky. When things fall apart, Woody has to choose between escaping with Buzz and Bo or rescuing Forky from the clutches of Dragon the cat. Naturally, Woody tries to save Forky from being dismembered. This is very much in the spirit of the Woody who would go back to rescue Buzz from being blown up by a rocket or Jessie from being shipped off to Japan or all of Andy's toys from being interned under Lotso's tyranny, but again, this movie is really committed to the idea that every one of Woody's strengths is actually a flaw. So when their rescue plan unravels, everyone treats his decision to rescue another toy from the clutches of a mad woman like it’s some character deficit.

    I understand Bo being steamed over losing her sheep, but there appears to be some kind of gentlemen’s agreement to not acknowledge Forky as a sentient being with a soul. (For comparison, imagine a scene in Aliens where Ripley sets off to rescue Newt from the xenomorph queen and Hicks starts harping on her about how she needs to stop living in the past or something.) You can see the dialogue continually steering the conversation back to Woody’s ascribed obsession, ignoring Forky’s very real peril. When Bo presses Woody on why he's so bent on rescuing Forky, the dialogue plays as follows:

    Woody: Because it's all I have left to do!... I don't have anything else...

    Bo Peep: So, the rest of us don't count?

    Woody: That's not what I meant. Bonnie needs Forky.

    Bo Peep: No! *You* need Bonnie! Open your eyes, Woody. There's plenty of kids out there. It can't be just about the one you're still clinging to.

    Woody: It's called loyalty. Something a lost toy wouldn't understand!

    Bo Peep: I'm not the one that's lost.

You’re half-right, Bo. The one who is actually lost is Forky. Not that anyone cares.

In any film, sequel or not, the conflict should emerge naturally from the characters. Here, we see the characters being bent to shape what the writers want the conflict to be, which is why everyone's reaction to Forky's kidnaping feels so dishonest.

But in their defense, Forky is one of the most befuddling parts of the film. Let's talk about that.

     There’s something almost interesting about the questions a make-shift toy poses to the Toy Story universe. Not enough to warrant a whole extra movie, mind you, but I’ll recognize the potential. What does give a toy sentience or spirit? What does this say about a toy’s purpose? Is Forky the ace-in-the-hole Pixar has been teasing that justifies a fourth movie?

         Turns out no. There’s some obligatory dialogue from some third-tier characters about how weird this is, but other than that the film show no curiosity over the matter. Twenty minutes into the film, Forky's true function in the film becomes clear--his contribution is waiting patiently in Gabby-Gabby's cabinet while Woody does his best impression of character development--and this only sparks more questions from the audience. What does Forky's unusual origin have to do with Woody learning to move on? Couldn't this function have been performed by literally any other toy? Why did the writing team bother to bring up these questions if they weren't going to answer them? Just to show they could? Nothing about Forky's character or function makes any sense. Almost like they glued him together from pieces of literal trash.

       But hey, this is the movie that The Academy in 2020 recognized as the chef-d'œuvre of animated films over movies like Klaus and I Lost My Body, the same season in which the more thematically and stylistically ambitious Frozen II was not even nominated. So what do I know?

         I won’t paint with so broad a brush and say that nothing about this film works. (The Gabby-Gabby subplot, while not adding as much to Woody’s story as the film wants to think, strikes a nerve.) But Pixar’s making us swallow a lot of drivel for a passing taste of profundity. This isn’t technically Pixar’s worst film, but it does represent the worst of Pixar storytelling.

 

         What Statement Do They Think They’re Making?

      What usually wins everyone over is the movie’s final scene with Woody saying goodbye to Buzz and the rest of Andy’s toys so he can stay behind with Bo. I can see why in theory. If there's one thing that could punch harder than Woody saying goodbye to Andy, it would be Woody saying goodbye to his teammates, his friends.

         But I’d mention that literally every Disney forum/chatroom I follow predicted the film would end with Woody leaving the gang. They predicted this a good year before the marketing even started. Woody’s departure was the first thing fans knew about this film. I don’t know if that was the case for the filmmakers, but that’s certainly how it feels.

    The filmmakers know that they need some kind of emotional nuclear explosion for this movie’s ending if they are to convince audiences that, yes, we did need another Toy Story film. And having Woody say goodbye to Buzz and the others is really the only thing that will elicit tears in equal force to “So long, partner . . .” For a lot of critics and fans, this worked, at least in the sense that it made them cry like Toy Story 3 did. The problem is how the film prioritizes the emotional impact of this ending over the emotional logic.

    The film erroneously assumes that Woody saying goodbye to Buzz and the others is interchangeable with saying goodbye to Andy. Again, there was always a countdown on Woody's time with Andy because that's the cycle of youth. There was no build-up for Woody's departure from Andy's old toys. Quite the opposite, Woody's connection to Andy's toys has grown stronger over the course of the three movies. They've been through the fire together. (Almost literally. Remember?) Part of Woody's evolution in letting Andy go is realizing that he is making this transition with Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Potato Heads, Ham, and Slinky. Woody parting ways with his teammates is a sad thing, but not sad in the way the film thinks.

    Woody saying goodbye to Buzz, Jessie, and the others misunderstands what letting go and moving on actually encompasses. Let’s ask ourselves, what exactly is Woody leaving the gang for? His girlfriend, yes, but what symbolically? I’m not sure the filmmakers themselves really knew.

    The most common line I hear is something about Woody and Bo becoming champions of lost toys, helping them find their place in the world and such. I could have rolled with that. It would have given Woody a new outlet for his innate altruism, a means of finding self-fulfillment in a way that may have been unavailable to him with Bonnie. But helping lost toys find love takes up about two-and-a-half minutes of their time together, the last two-and-a-half minutes, actually. There's no indication that this is going to be a long-term deal for them. He’s not really moving on to anything. He’s just granting himself an early retirement. He’s escaping into a bubble where he and Bo don’t have to live for anyone but themselves.

       On that note, if they were really trying to tell us that what Woody actually needed was more self-love, what's his girlfriend doing there? And yes, I know that they were trying to use Bo Peep as a rallying-point for empowering childless womanhood, but they couldn’t have chosen a universe more ill-suited for that metaphor. Not only is Bo’s ethos of living for herself a contrast against the ecosystem of the first three Toy Story films, but Toy Story 4 makes the situation even more confusing with Forky, whose very existence is predicated on the notion that a child’s love is literally the breath of life. Make up your mind, Pixar: Do toys need kids or not?

         The ease with which Toy Story 4 dismisses Woody’s ethos reveals the film’s true interest in the Toy Story universe. It’s not that Woody had more growing up to do. Because the truth is by going off with Bo, Woody isn’t growing up; he’s regressing.

    The most frustrating thing about the film is how it crafts a fantasy for the midlife crisis crowd. A fantasy promising that when the going gets tough, you can just hang up the hat and call it goodnight. Your old flame will slide back into your life (still looking real good for her age) and rescue you from the pits of middle-age to whisk you off on another adventure, an adventure that’s high on thrills and low on risks or responsibilities. And it’s not just okay, it’s not just permissible—it’s a noble thing, a mature thing. A thing that made both Tom Hanks and Tim Allen tear up in the recording studio. We needed this movie ...

    The public likes to pretend that, though it is a branch of the Walt Disney corporation, Pixar is somehow exempt from the studio’s consumerist machinations and aims. Disney is for hot takes and "was this really necessary," and Pixar is for tissues and Oscars. We love roasting Disney and their Frankenstein remakes while giving a pass to Pixar’s mutant offspring. (I noted in part 2 of my Pixar series that while critics would sometimes acknowledge Pixar’s 2010 sequels not being as ambitious as their predecessors, these movies still frequently scored in the 90s on Rotten Tomatoes. Compare that to even decent Disney remakes like Aladdin which seldom earn a fresh rating.) We line up opening weekend with our popcorn buckets to watch the final final Toy Story movie, shed some tears at the appopriate cue, and walk out the auditorium congratulating ourselves for our newly acquired understanding of what it means to be an adult.

         When I say that this film represents the worst of Pixar storytelling, this is what I’m talking about: a string of calculated emotional punches absent of any thematic coherency or consistency slapped onto a pre-existing brand as a beacon for consumers. It speaks no hidden truth about human nature or the universe except that the commander-in-chiefs of entertainment will always find an excuse to plow already toiled ground for more seeds of cash, and we will always be more than happy to comply.

So Long, Partner . . .

         When I started writing this essay, I thought the worst-case scenario for Pixar would be a literal Toy Story 5. I had even sketched out “But who knows? Maybe Toy Story 5 will be better . . .” as my final line. Then Pixar dropped this little bomb back in December and I honestly still don’t know what to do with it.

         Is a Buzz Lightyear origin story better or worse than a straight-up Toy Story 5? It's difficult to say. Everything we know about the movie as of this publishing can be explained in one breath.

    One of Pete Docter's promises after he took over Pixar in John Lasseter's stead was the focus on new properties, a course correction after the studio's uncharacteristic dependence of sequels through the 2010s. The immediate future suggests Docter intends to follow-through. Between Toy Story 4 and Lightyear, we have last year's offerings, Onward and Soul, and forthcoming projects Luca and Turning Red, all original features with no ties to pre-existing titles. Pixar appears to be learning to slow down on the sequels and invest in new projects.

    Even so, Toy Story 4 has taught Pixar that middle-grade sequels don't cost them Rotten Tomatoes scores or awards season trophies. Anytime critics have asked about the man behind the curtain, Pixar has always justified their run of cash-grab sequels with the rationale that safe-bets give Pixar enough financial stability to pursue original projects (I guess it took sequels to Monsters Inc, Cars, and Toy Story just to fund Inside Out), but even Pixar's lowest grossing films were far from flops. Pixar turned to sequels more out of complacency than necessity. What's stopping Pixar from relapsing?

    What does technically-not-a-sequel Lightyear mean for Pixar's future? I honestly don’t know, but I honestly don't love that I'm having to answer this question at all.

I’m reminded of a comment TS4 director Josh Cooley made explaining his own enthusiasm for directing the movie:

"I think one of the big reasons the Toy Story films are so entertaining is the characters. Part of the excitement of seeing a new Toy Story film is seeing the characters you already know and love, and meeting what new toys Woody and the gang come across. It’s fun to see the toys we know again, but I am VERY excited for the audience to meet the new toys we’ve created for this story. Creating new characters that fit in the world alongside the classic ones was some of the most fun I had working on the film."

    I bring this up in part because there's a tendency in these kinds of internet pieces about unnecessary sequels and reboots to cast the creators of these projects as these devil-spawn capitalistic puppeteers. Maybe Josh Cooley is actively plotting the creative implosion of storytelling as we know it--I don't know him personally--but I think just as likely he's like us in that he loves Woody and Buzz and would jump at any chance to play around with them some more.

    When I say that I think this movie represents the worst of Pixar storytelling, I'm not saying that it was made with malicious design. Just listen to any interview with Tim Allen or Tom Hanks fangirling about being back in the recording studio. Or new cast members like Christina Hendricks or Tony Hale who can't believe they get to add their mark to the Toy Story movies. 

    I believe their excitement is genuine. It’s fun literally breaking the toy box open and getting to play with Woody and Buzz again. I’m sure the same thought occurred to Andy as he sat in freshmen chemistry. But unlike Woody or Buzz, unlike Pixar’s favorite audience of 20-30+ year olds who are still just so hung up over how cool their childhood was, Andy was allowed to graduate from this universe and move on to new adventures. We’re still stuck listening to Pixar playing the same tune they played back in 1995.

    The special franchising privileges signature to the Disney-Pixar machine also need to be taken under consideration. If fans wanted to play with Woody and Buzz again, they have theme park rides, video games, animated shorts, and everything in between. Not to mention all three Toy Story films that are still perfectly watchable. A 4th film was not a necessity. That’s nothing to say of how the time and resources spent courting 30 year-olds with nostalgia pains could easily be spent on fresh ideas, stories that their kids could claim as their own, films that could belong to them.

         It’s here that Jason Sperb’s prophecy on Toy Story’s nostalgia curse starts to feel uncomfortably on-point.

“If [Woody] lets go of his childhood nostalgia and moves on, then Toy Story fans don’t really have to, as the narrative recognition in the potential value in such an act is sufficient. Actually moving on becomes indefinitely deferred in an endless cycle of consumption.” Actually moving on becomes indefinitely deferred in an endless cycle of just one last sequel, one last goodbye.

         By sunbathing in Toy Story 4’s mirage of maturation, we excuse ourselves from having to ever actually grow up. We can come up with any number of excuses for another Toy Story film (Toy Story 4 may have been the end of Woody’s time with Buzz, but like was that really the end of Woody’s story? Will Woody’s cowboy heart ever truly be complete until he says goodbye to Bo? And what did happen to Andy's dad?) but I'm honestly hoping we're figuring out that it's time to not just say goodbye, but to move on.

            --The Professor