Toy Story 5 - We're Doing This Again Huh?

So, here we are again. Disney once again goes to the well of popular movies past Instead of creating new content. Toy Story has always done well for Disney. Ever since hit the silver screen 30 years ago...and I just aged like the evil Nazi in Last Crusade. The first one is historic. It was new and one of the first purly computer generated animated movies. It had a great story and Buzz and Woody had our hearts from the start.

Two sequels came out after that, centering around Andy's toys. The second gave us some new characters and told an interesting story. Woody is apart from the group and the group is trying to bring him home. The third, was very well suited for the aging audience that grew up with this series. Andy's headed to college, but where do his toys fit in there? He's growing up and an 18-year-old can't exactly be playing make believe with his toys while sharing a dorm room.

He wants to keep Woody and put the rest in storage, but the group ends up getting donated. He tries to get them back, but a lost toy wasn't having it. After surviving a very painful near death, the toys are passed on to a young girl named Bonnie and Andy plays with them with her one last time before moving forward.

The fourth in the series was....unneeded. I'm hardly the demographic for it, but I found it just okay. Woody isn't the favorite anymore and there's a new sheriff in town, Jessie. Woody is still determined to do what he's meant to do...help his child. Bonnie's starting school soon and he wants to help her make friends. This, in a way, closed Woody's story. The shift moves from Andy to Bonnie in this new trilogy of films. Our cowboy is moving to greener pastures with Bo Peep helping lost toys, leaving the crew in the hands of Jessie and Buzz.

I see what they were going for in this new movie. Technology has truly changed how kids play. Screens are everywhere, hard to escape. The act of play is quickly becoming a thing of the past, but Bonnie, the sweet young soul of a girl she is still loves playing with her toys. It's her love of playing with toys that makes it harder for her to make friends.

That's the center of the story. Jessie is trying to find a way to help her make friends, but a new toy enters the arena...her Lilypad. She gets hooked on the tech and gets cyberbullied by her new 'friends'. Which is heartbreaking. I'm not a parent, but I just wanted to give Bonnie a big hug and get Roy Kent's help going after those girls who would dare be so cruel to Bonnie.

Unfortunately, that's the way of the world these days. All she wants is friends and she changes who she is to befriend that group, with Lilypad's help. Jessie goes on a journey herself when she ends up in the exact place she grew up with her child. The place she was abandoned at as her kid grew up. Her discovery there gives a shift in her perspective.

Jessie was always full of trauma after her owner, Emily, left her behind. You felt it in part two when it was first introduced. Again, in part three when they were going to be put in the attic. Andy played with her for years, but then she felt she was being left behind again. Now, as Bonnie's favorite toy, she's being left behind again with an unconfident Bonnie. A young girl who is becoming addicted to technology and not paying attention to her toys anymore. Becoming someone she's not to fit in with a small group.

Jessie and Bonnie are in a lot of way kindred spirits. I can see where they seem to be going with it, so I am curious what's to come in the next (and hopefully last) in the series. I love these characters and I was fairly old and long past playing with toys when the first one came out (I was in HS at that time, yeah I'm old). I didn't even watch the newer movies (2 and 3) until it hit Starz. They are good stories and the characters are fun. Woody can be a bit much at times, but he's the leader and only focuses on taking care of Andy. Each movie grew up with the kids that watched them.

Now, the same thing is happening, starting with the fourth movie. Most of those kids now have kids of their own and unsure how to navigate in a techno-heavy world. The world is changing and that's good, but with the way the world is sometimes these days...maybe we could use a little old fashioned: Saturday morning cartoons, physical toys that inspire the imagination, going outside and being part of the world rather than hooked on a black mirror.

The story is important. Every parent should watch with their kids and talk about it. Though, as important as the story was, the pacing felt a bit off. Again, not the target demographic. It's made for a kids attention span of today. Which is much less than it was when I was a kid of the 80s.

I do love how some movies these days treat kids with a little more respect. Movies like this and Inside Out don't talk down to kids. Just like when we watched Don Bluth movies. We were enamored with beautiful animation and the story was teaching us something too. Big important themes, and that's needed more now. Not dumbed down shows and animated movies made to just feed the business model.

It becomes something more. But in the end, pacing and story issues keep me from giving this movie all the flowers. If I were in a different point in my life, might be different, but here we are.

3/5