Pixar Pint #21: Toy Story 4

Did we really need this?

Welcome back to Pixar Pints, our two-summer-long journey through all 26 Pixar films in release order.

Toy Story 3 came out in 2010 and grossed a billion dollars, so it didn’t take long for a fourth movie to begin production. It took nine years for Toy Story 4 to finish. It also grossed a billion dollars, so now a fifth movie is in production.

Let’s get into it.

…yes. That’s all I’m writing about this one. Deal with it.

Toy Story 4 quick facts

Release date: June 21, 2019 | Director: Josh Cooley (originally John Lasseter, who stepped down in 2017) | Music: Randy Newman

Starring: Tom Hanks (Woody), Tim Allen (Buzz), Annie Potts (Bo), Tony Hale (Forky), Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele (Ducky and Bunny), Madeleine McGraw (Bonnie), Christina Hendricks (Gabby Gabby)

John Ratzenberger as: Hamm, naturally

Budget: $200 million | Box office: $1.073 billion

Academy Awards: Won Best Animated Feature; nominated for Best Original Song (“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away”) but lost to “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman

Eli

Aesthetic: 4/10 | In the original Toy Story, my problem with the character models was mainly that the humans had no detail to them and tended to look and function like life-sized toys. In Toy Story 4, the toys have too much detail to them and tend to look and function like bite-sized humans. Both are jarring, but I think this end of the spectrum is a worse look because the entire point of this franchise is that the toys’ lives are supposed to be separate from the human world. This movie also greys that line by making the toys way more reckless with their actions in the immediate presence of humans than they were in the other three movies combined. On an unrelated note, thematically, the contrast between the dull and drab antique store and the super colorful carnival is…a little too obvious? Why is the ending scene so bright?

Animation: 9/10 | A couple wacky edits but otherwise it’s the same quality we’re used to by now. It’s not 1995 anymore.

Story: 4/10 | It’s so obvious this is a Modern Pixar Cash Grab Sequel™️. They rehash plotlines from other Toy Story movies (Woody losing his spot as a kid’s favorite, Woody having to convince another toy that they’re a toy, etc.). They introduce (and reintroduce) a bunch of easily merchandisable characters. It’s a playbook. They tried harder here than they did on, say, Finding Dory, but it’s still pretty clear to me that relatively little passion was put into this film. Threads introduced at various points in the story are either not tied up by the time the credits roll or they’re resolved in a way that seems inconsistent with established character motivations. This includes the ending, which…man, I hate it. At least this movie is funny and well paced.

Characters: 3/10 | Speaking of merchandising, Bo Peep was little more than a joke in the first and second movies and was completely absent from the third, and now suddenly she’s one of the stars of the show. That she changes her mind about Woody’s behavior at the most convenient time is so poorly written that it makes her seem more like a plot device than a dynamic character. Forky’s shtick gets old fast and then he just becomes a background character who spends most of his time offscreen as the main cast tries to save him. Ducky and Bunny start the movie incensed at Buzz for costing them a chance at living with a kid, but by the end of the movie, they’ve decided to live the carnival life for…no stated reason. Gabby Gabby is a danger to several toys throughout the movie, but then she experiences one sad moment, so we’re supposed to feel sympathetic for her and relieved that she then receives a copout happy ending.

Acting: 10/10 | “Uhhhh, your backpack’s in the antique store. Let’s go!”

Music: 5/10 | So, in Cars 3, the music team (led by Randy Newman) pulled off a lot of the same tricks they did in Cars, using popular songs to help enhance the narrative and adding a few callbacks to the first movie’s orchestral score, but not enough that it just felt like the same music. Of course, Randy Newman has also scored all four Toy Story movies, so you’d expect him to use that same wit to make Toy Story 4 seem like a product all its own and not just, y’know, a Toy Story cash grab, but he really doesn’t! “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” plays in its entirety over the opening sequence for no reason except “hey, it’s that song we all know and love”. Some of the orchestral cues seem copy-pasted from the first three movies. It sounds fine but it’s lazy.

Final score: 6/10 | I remember liking this one a lot more when I saw it in theatres, but when I remove the rose-colored glasses, this movie secretly kinda stinks. It’s not horrendous or anything but I think it’s fair to say this franchise has run its course. Do not want Toy Story 5.

Leah

Aesthetic: 5/10 | This was another case of an older aesthetic not translating well into the present day. The toys looked so realistic it almost fell into the uncanny valley for me. They were like plastic humans. It just ended up looking weird.

Animation: 9/10 | Pixar has yet to miss on animation quality.

Story: 4/10 | This was kind of a mess, contradicting the previous movies while also rehashing a lot from them. My willing suspension of disbelief couldn’t stand up to this movie; the toys just acted with impunity around humans and somehow no one ever notices? The other movies got away with it because the toys interacted mostly when the humans weren’t around, but it didn’t seem to matter in this movie.

Characters: 4/10 | Gabby Gabby’s arc was supremely messed up and I don’t feel like her “redemption” was earned. Ducky and Bunny were funny but I feel like they were just there so Key and Peele could be in the movie; their characters added almost nothing beyond that. I hated Woody leaving his whole family behind at the end of the movie, as it went against the themes of the original Toy Story movies. I get what they were going for, but it just didn’t fit with the rest of the franchise.

Acting: 9/10 | This franchise still has a solid cast.

Music: 6/10 | It reused a lot from previous movies. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very memorable or original either.

Final score: 6/10 | How did this movie beat Klaus for the Academy Award?!? In my opinion, this is one of the worst Pixar cash-grab sequels. Toy Story 3 did a great job wrapping up the franchise. This wasn’t needed at all and it actively made the story of the franchise worse.

Maddy

Aesthetic: 9/10 | Animation: 10/10 | Story: 8/10 | Characters: 7/10 | Acting: 10/10 | Music: 8/10

Sequels are hard. Sequels sometimes feel unwarranted. The entire existence of Toy Story 4 is still somewhat debated (though the news of Toy Story 5 is the new talking point). Yet, this is the Pixar golden goose. This is the franchise that put Pixar on the map. They wouldn’t dare tarnish their child…would they?

No, lol.

I like Toy Story 4. Like, a good amount. I have it higher than Toy Story 3!

Does it need to exist? No. Was Toy Story 3 a better sendoff? Maybe. Did this movie give me the warm fuzzies more so than 3? Absolutely.

At its core, it’s flawed. Buzz is absolutely pointless, the new characters don’t have as much depth as seen in previous films, and the story is, like, fine. But Pixar knows what to do with these toys in the end. They know these films are stories about life and moving on and being accepting of your worth and your meaning. Finding happiness in the new. The new can be scary, but the new can also be exciting and bring with it new life experiences. It’s Woody’s entire arc throughout these films.

The story might suffer in the long run but, just like most other Toy Story (and Pixar) films, it tugs at the strings and makes you think about life. When the movie dials it up to 10, it’s a strong 10.

Toy Story 4 didn’t need to exist, but I’m happy it does. The world is better with a Toy Story 4.

A Toy Story 5 is debatable.

Final score: 52/60 or 8/10

David

Aesthetic: Part of what always made this series so cool to me was that they did differentiate between the toys and humanity in the ways they moved, reacted, what have you. It distinctly felt like two different societies coexisting, marginally aware of each other. Instead, in this one, they’re brazen with their movement, and they’ve gotten to a point where they feel human—and in becoming as such, have lost some of what set them apart at the very beginning.

Animation: Time has been kind to animation; that much is certain.

Story: I’m very disappointed. Classic sequel moment here. I recall, upon hearing this was coming out, thinking, “man, we don’t need this”, and what do you know? I was right. It feels inconsistent and like previous threads that were closed were reopened just to have some sort of plot-based motivation to carry this movie forward.

Characters: Why center the story around Bo Peep? She barely even featured in the first three movies! Forky is haha funny in one or two moments but goddamn does the bit run its course real fast. Additionally, not a fan of basically anyone else they introduce, and—as mentioned earlier—so many of the other characters that have been features of this series since 1995 feel like they were just cheaply altered to make a story point run its course correctly.

Acting: Outstanding as usual. This is one area where the series has not faltered.

Music: Again, I feel really disappointed. In other series, it felt as though the sequel(s) at least built on the music of the previous films to add new cues and dimensions, but this one just feels like it’s trying to say: “Hey, look! Don’t you remember this song? Don’t you want to give us more money?”

Final score: 3/10 | It’s really lackluster. I’m deeply disappointed.

Final notes

Well, we didn’t like this movie either. Except Maddy. I’m still not sure what she saw in it even after copyediting her review but I suppose people are entitled to their opinions.

Numbers next to each film are each reviewer’s overall rating out of 10.

Next up: Onward