Toy Story 4

Toy Story 4 was just shy of a monumental let down. Being of the generation who grew up watching the Toy Story films as they were being created, the first Toy Story movie was as much of a monument to my childhood as it was to Pixar itself, being their first animated feature film. The sequel was a good exploration of Woody's character background (and a nod to all the avid collectors out there) and the third was a beautiful tear jerker that saw our beloved toys both nearly destroyed and wonderfully saved by a new future with a new owner to love and treasure them just like we all do.

Toy Story 4 did NOT fit this beloved story arc much at all. To begin, the marketing for the film was clearly doing their best to scrounge up whatever bits they could from what was believed to be these new and hilarious characters that were now the focus of this final chapter (especially Sporky). Wrong! Sporky, Bunny, and Ducky were hilarious absolutely hilarious, but their shortcomings simply fall to poor writing (and no fault of the actors themselves, I am a big Key and Peele fan). Their minute roles made them out to simply be humorous extras who appear every now and then for a quick one-liner then promptly exit the scene until the next appointed moment of comic relief. What a waste of some great characters that could've potentially brought some fresh new perspectives to the table of what life is like for toys.

The separation of Bo Peep and Woody gave so much heartbreaking life to their simple romance from the previous films that her return was expected to be nothing less of a glorious and romantic reunion. Wrong! Instead Woody's feelings for her slowly fizzle as she chooses a life of strong independence over love. Strong women who can fend for themselves are certainly honorable and deserve great respect, but being in love with someone doesn't make them weak. In fact, love actually strengthens people more often than not. It was simply a shame to see a great love relationship be friend-zoned simply because Bo Peep jumped on the "I don't need no man!" train.

Take those things, throw in some of Buzz listening to his own pre-recorded toy playtime sayings as if they were his conscience, a lot more direct involvement between the living toys and the humans, the fact that 90% of the film takes place in literally two settings (a carnival and an antique store that they return to at least 4 times), and then add a unicorn infatuated with the idea of sending Molly's dad to jail just to top it all off.

Truly, the one good story in this movie is that of the new character Gabby Gabby. Gabby's character arc was indeed one to be enjoyed, from the outwardly evil appearance stemming from her genuinely selfish intent that leads you to believe she is the antagonist, to how her story suddenly takes not one but two unexpected turns and ends up reminding us once again how toys can make such an immense impact on the imagination, emotion, and comfort of children. It's a shame that such a moving chain of events was embodied within one minor character instead of the whole film.

Bottom line, if you're a big fan of the previous three movies and are expecting this to give you that same fun-loving and heartwarming feel, dont, this movie is not for you. The film is certainly entertaining, funny, and interesting, but it by no means feels like a Toy Story movie, and especially not the conclusion of it all. By the end of it, we see our once beloved characters choosing paths that just don't seem to fit who we know and love them to be. It would've been wise for Pixar to leave it at a beautiful trilogy that starts well, ends well, and leaves us feeling like we all miss the days of when our daytime hours were spent with toys and imagination. It's just very sad that such a feature film would come from the team that managed to make a hilarious Toy Story short film about a support group of rejected kids meal toys (It's on Disney Plus, called "Small Fry", check it out). Where was that clever creative genius? Unfortunately, Pixar's current creative team clearly ran out of ideas and decided to try and further milk a story that had already been finished, thus leaving the audience with the taste of old, sour milk in its mouth.

The movie is well put together but the feeling is just gone in my opinion 4 was simply one too many

And forky was a bad character in my opinion

The Toy Story series is loved by so many people because of it's depth and tender storytelling. This was a disaster. The story line seemed lazy and their were very few funny scenes. Maybe under 10's will like it but I think the rest of us are just going to pretend this never happened.

I know time is up to dust off a few gender-driven stereotypes. For that, "Frozen" was a landmark. But there's a fine line between creating new characters and promoting their differences and deconstructing old characters that belong to a whole other storyline in order to promote a difference, that's when I get the feeling that Disney is dangerously toying with its own legacy.

To make myself more specific, I would have no problem with a film centering on a gender exclusive romance and maybe that will be "Frozen II" novelty, but I would have a problem if they made a sequel to "The Fox and the Hound" in order to suggest that there was more than a friendship between Todd and Copper. Watching "Toy Story 4", I felt betrayed by the way the whole relationship between toys and owners, that took a trilogy to be built, was demystified in one single film to shine a light on Disney's 'new order'.

All the previous "Toy Story" movies had a specific story. The first was exploring the psychology of toys within their relationships with their owners. Anyone could relate to that, kids who own toys and adults who used to. It also sealed the friendship between Woody and Buzz, as two of Andy's favorites, not rivals. The second film established the issue of growing up through the Jessie situation and the impeding doom of hormone-driven rejection. Still, Andy and Woody realized that they were not articles among others or valuable items to be worshiped, having ANDY written on their feet was their value and it was perfect while it lasted.

The trilogy ended with the perfect tone (and note), Andy, now grown-up, realizes that the sentimental value of his toys depend on their current utilization as much as their past, so he gives all the toys, including Woody, to Bonnie. For the first time, there's a voluntary separation between the partners, it's an end of era but also a new start. And the toys' "circle of life" has always been about children having toys not toys having children, the song wasn't "I've got a friend in you" after all. In that fourth opus, there's such an obsession with that notion of "having children" that it felt like they were procreating them. I'm not exaggerating, it's used so many times it became a whole overarching theme.

But I didn't have a problem with that because the film started with a rather touching scene. Feeling rejected by Bonnie, Woody follows her in her first day at school and helps her create a new toy, "Forky", I just loved the way the "Spork" came alive on the sole basis that he was considered a toy, and the way Woody felt responsible in a fatherly that wasn't totally out of place in the film's context. Because the motive was still Bonnie: he didn't want her to lose her new toy, Woody was still thinking of his owner, and that's the way all toys behaved, not because that's the way it should be, but because that's the way it was established as soon as the series began.

This is why I just hated the way Woody admitted at the end that he did that because he had nothing else to do, as if toys were supposed to have an existence of their own, and being a lost toy was an option. Woody cared for Bonnie and Forky and it was out of character to describe this as a weakness. But the film constantly shows Woody as a weak character, both morally and physically, and for that, the studios came up with the right contrast: Bo Peep who is of course the incarnation of the Disney heroine, she's brave, bad-ass, perfect, not one ounce of vulnerability and nothing is impossible to her. Meanwhile, Jessie was relegated to a tertiary character while she could have been the female lead after all.

The character of Gabby Gabby was a great addition though, acting like a Disney villain (especially with her scary minions-automatons) but displaying a hidden depth that broke my heart. That Gabby had the potential, but Bo was such a caricature that I could hear the marketing strategy behind her creation "let her awesomeness put Woody to shame" and she did a great job at that. Naturally, she's proud of not "having children" which seems to associate parenting with a form of commitment a girl should be proud to reject. Quite hypocritical from a studio whose main audiences aren't seniors.

Now, maybe I'm overanalyzing, but when you also have two toys who insist on "having children" since they've been "waiting for three years" and they're males, it's of course a nod to the right for adoption, which draws the obvious parallel between belonging to children and having children. Which says in subtext, women shouldn't make raising families a priority but it's clearly one for those who've been denied this right. The message isn't wrong but just off-topic in the context of a series where a/ toys have always been the possessed ones not the possessors, b/ when the possession was a mark of friendship and nothing else and c/ when viewers could relate to owners, even from the toys' perspective. By over-humanizing them to make them timely relevant, something of the series' charm was lost.

My view is rather conservative but only in the sense that I wished the spirit of "Toy Story" to be conserved the way it was in the first three films, I enjoy a progressive film like anyone, but I wish Disney could do that with new characters, not with series whose arcs were perfectly closed. But I think I see where they're coming from, they're probably preparing a spin-off prequel that will center on Bo Peep, so maybe "Toy Story 4" is only a vehicle for her. Ironic that in the film, it's a skunk.

Toy story was special because of the bonding between the toys themselves and between them and Andy. Now that they are with Bonnie, you'd expect to get that same feeling. It did not develop. In contrast, she bonded with Forkie and the gang was an excessory.