Toy Story 5 Is Already Proving Doubters Wrong

The impending release of Toy Story 5 had the generations of fans raised by Woody, Buzz, and friends worried. After the financial success of Toy Story 4, another sequel — needed or not — was bound to happen, despite a myriad of complaints about the direction of the series. A new addition to the canon of stories about our favorite talking toys, even if trailers hinted at taking on timely themes, was not exactly wanted.

However, film journalists got their first look at the newest Toy Story, and the reactions have been rapturously positive. So good to the point that some major critics and publications are even predicting it will be in talks for this year’s Oscars, even beyond the Animated Feature category. Taylor Swift’s end credits song “I Knew It, I Knew You” has also gotten a number of shoutouts. 

Almost anything released after Toy Story 3 is, without a doubt, completely unnecessary. The Toy Story shorts, holiday specials, and various spinoffs have been cute, but not anything groundbreaking. Toy Story 4, for all its visual grandeur, offered nothing but convoluted characterization and undermined the perfection that was the final minutes of Toy Story 3. 

Doing something completely new without forgetting the ethos of the Toy Story franchise is a tight requirement for the fifth installment to have a modicum of success. The first Toy Story came out in 1995 and immediately asserted itself as a classic. The next two, which each brought in new characters, storylines, and themes without forgetting that most of the characters are toys, are also highly regarded. Toy Story 4 lost the idea that its characters are, in fact, toys; a pseudo-Frankenstein narrative between elementary schooler Bonnie and the plastic utensil craft Forkie underlie a plot about self exploration more akin to a Chloe Zhao film than a Pixar outing.

The trailers, which set up the parallel storylines of Woody aging and the obsolescence of toys as a whole, hinted at this desperately needed novelty. Although full reviews of the film are embargoed until June 16, it is not a stretch to say the creators behind the newest Toy Story likely hit gold. 

It’s important to note that Toy Story 4 also had positive reviews from critics before its release. Vanity Fair called it a “forking good time,” while The Guardian claimed the franchise was still “very much alive.” Both the critics and audience scores for the film on Rotten Tomatoes are in the 90s. Although the film itself is far from being truly bad, it struggles in comparison to the original three movies, and few reviews have been able to capture the fact that it is by far the worst in show for Pixar’s flagship series. 

Fan discourse about Toy Story 4 has been what has ultimately defined its legacy within the series. Popular film social media platform Letterboxd, which bases scores off the cumulative reviews given by its users, gives the film a 3.3 out of 5 (a below-average score for the franchise). 

Right now, it’s too early to tell if Toy Story 5 will fall into the same trap. To avoid it, the film will have to give its doubters a clear reason as to why it should exist after the litmus test created by Toy Story 3’s ending. It will also likely have to shed the ham-handed existentialism and complex, often contradictory morality of Toy Story 4. 

Instead of focusing on a talking fork and erasing Woody’s character arc and main motivation of making kids happy, Toy Story 5 needs to remind fans why they started thinking of their toys’ feelings after seeing the first movie.