Do we need a Toy Story 4? No. The Toy Story franchise was the best trilogy since the Lord of the Rings. We were totally and completely good. However, if we are getting a Toy Story 4 anyway, we might as well embrace it with open arms as our trilogy now becomes a quartet.
The teaser opens with a Joni Mitchell song, a shout out to the original audience of the franchise which is old enough to be pretentious about having gone through a Joni Mitchell phase. We see our old friends holding hands in a circle: Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Hamm, my sweet baby angel the Alien, Slinky and … Forky.
Forky is a fork that has been transformed into a toy and is going through an identity problem. He panics and says he “doesn’t belong here” and breaks the circle causing CHAOS. He declares he is not a toy before running off.
While this is only a teaser, we got a synopsis along with it, which reads, “Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking care of his kid, whether that’s Andy or Bonnie. But when Bonnie adds a reluctant new toy called ‘Forky’ to her room, a road trip adventure alongside old and new friends will show Woody how big the world can be for a toy. Along the way Woody is reunited with an unexpected old friend. ”
First of all, Woody has never been confident about his place in the world. That’s the premise of the first two movies! Woody is a classic hater at his most petty of moments.
On one hand, it’s another case of Woody being deeply immature and feeling slighted by the presence of another toy in Bonnie’s life. You’d think after three movies and three different identity crises that Woody would have realized that he is the beloved toy, but instead, being stuck in a state of perpetual immaturity, he continues to Pinocchio it up.
Either way, when your series is 3 for 3, there is no doubt that adults and children alike are going to be looking forward to this movie. I already have to plan my summer around seeing this at least twice. Tim Allen, the returning voice of Buzz Lightyear, and Tom Hanks, America’s cool dad and voice of Woody, have both said in interviews that the upcoming film was very emotional and, according to HuffPo, they couldn’t even get through the last scenes without getting emotional themselves.
After the rivers I cried during Toy Story 3, that’s a pretty high bar, but somehow, I have no doubt that if any movie can clear it, it’s Toy Story 4.
We’ll find out how the latest installment will make us cry in the summer of 2019. Hopefully, we don’t have to go through the trauma of realizing how we’ve led our favorite childhood toys to a painful fiery death again.
(image: Screengrab)
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