Deep Dive Pixar: Wes Looks at Toy Story 4

Welcome everyone to Deep Dive Pixar, Deep Dive Pixar’s completely unnecessary sequel. While this is in no way the worst movie we’ve covered for Deep Dive Disney, it is by far the least necessary. Toy Story 3 had its flaws, but it ended the franchise on such a perfect note that one was left wondering where our favorite toys can even go from there. Well, let’s find out. We pick up where the last movie left off, with the toys now living with their new owner, Bonnie, who received them after Andy left for college. By the way, this movie does not take place nine years after the first movie so that real time thing that was a consistent motif throughout all the other movies is gone, earning this movie a negative right out of the gate. Anywho, the ever faithful Woody is just as dedicated to Bonnie as he was to Andy despite the fact that he’s been getting played with less and less. On her first day of Kindergarten, Bonnie makes herself a new toy named Forky, a spork with googly eyes, pipe cleaner arms and popsicle stick feet. As a previously inanimate object who has now had sentience forced upon him all at once, little Forky has a difficult time adjusting to his new situation and keeps trying to throw himself in the trash. When Bonnie and her family are on a road trip, Forky jumps out the window and to make a long story short, Forky ends up trapped in an antiques store by a twisted dolly who wants to rip out Woody’s voice box and Woody needs to save him with the unexpected help of Bo Peep, who was given away by the Davis Family before the events of Toy Story 3 and has spent the past several years surviving on her own as a lost toy. I don’t think that this is a bad movie, but I do feel that this was an unnecessary follow up to a franchise that already had the perfect ending. Let’s see how this plays out as we look at Toy Story 4.

Main Character:

Well, here we are with Woody again. At the beginning of the film, Woody is every the faithful toy who goes out of his way to care for his kid, even though he’s clearly not Bonnie’s favorite as he was Andy’s. He’s certainly come a long way from the jealous ass he was in the first movie. However, Woody’s endless devotion to the duty of a toy seems to have blinded him to the other possibilities life has to offer. Being a lost toy seems at first like a horrifying prospect to the sheriff, but once he sees that he can help other toys that way, he starts to come around to the idea. The thing is, Woody has had his time in the sun, he’s been lucky enough to have experienced playtime longer than most toys as old as he is, but as Woody learns, some toys never get that chance at all. When Woody leaves Bonnie and his friends, he’s confident that he’s doing the right thing. Woody has always been all about going where he’s needed most. Well, Bonnie has been getting along just fine without him, but those other Toys out there, they need Woody and his new friends more. A nice end for this great character.

Villain:

Gabby Gabby is a creepy dolly who lives at the antiques store. She was built with a faulty voice box so she never experienced playtime. When Gabby realizes that Woody was likely manufactured around the same time as her, she decides that she’s going to rip Woody’s voice box out of his chest. That’s fucked up! Not to mention that she has a loyal army of creepy ventriloquist dummies at her beck and call. She also just has this deeply unsettling way of talking to where even something seemingly normal sounding sounds disturbing coming out of her mouth, especially her borderline stalkerish obsession with Harmony, the granddaughter of the antique shop owner. What we eventually learn is that she’s not evil, just desperate and lonely, and so, to give her the chance she never had, Woody willingly gives up his voice box. While she doesn’t end up with her dream girl, she does end up getting a happy ending as she is found by a lost girl at the carnival. Not exactly a villain who’s on par with Sid, The Prospector or Lotso Huggin’ Bear before her, but Gabby Gabby has her moments.

Side Characters:

I don’t even know if I should bother mentioning the original Andy’s room gang. Honestly they, as well as the new characters in Bonnie’s room introduced in the last movie, are mostly inconsequential this time around. Sure, Jessie gets to take over for Woody at the end and pops one of the tires of Bonnie’s family’s RV in order to buy Woody and the others some more time, but that’s really about it.

Bo Peep, who was mentioned as having been given away prior to the events of Toy Story 3, is back and it seems she’s adapted well to life as a lost toy, now surviving in the park and helping other toys get played with in the park. She’s even rigged up a remote-control car to look like a skunk to help her get around. It’s admittedly pretty neat seeing this once demure and sweet figure become this Laura Croft level badass.

Ducky and Bunny are a pair of carnival prizes voiced by Key and Peele. While Key and Peele are both funny and talented, and Ducky and Bunny’s weird obsession with mauling humans was funny, I otherwise found these two to be pretty annoying.

Duke Caboom, the Evel Knievel type action figure voiced by the wonderful human being that is Keanu Reeves, is essentially an excuse to make a bunch of Canadian jokes and for Keanu Reeves to say “Whoa” as I assume is in his contract for every one of his films.

I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of Forky. His weird obsession with throwing himself in the trash was kind of funny, but ultimately, Forky is less of a character and more of a prop to get the plot moving.

Finally, there’s our old friend Buzz Lightyear. I said it last time, and I’m saying it again here, the writers had no idea what to do with Buzz in the later movies. Last time, Spanish Buzz was kind of amusing, but still didn’t amount to much. This time, they give Buzz this weird subplot where he thinks his talk buttons actually his conscience or something and it’s really stupid. It’s honestly kind of sad to see this once great character reduced to a really lame running gag. Hopefully the upcoming Lightyear movie will restore some of this character’s dignity.

Memorable Scenes:

Honestly, not too many scenes really stuck out to me here, so I guess we’ll talk about Woody and Bo Peep reuniting. It’s not much, but it is nice to see these two characters reunite after nine years and the moment they share is pretty sweet.

Story:

The story itself is pretty straight forward, that a toy can have a purpose beyond caring for a kid and sometimes we have to trust that those we love. It’s a nice message, even if it’s a bit obvious. However, what I really want to talk about here is just how beautiful this movie is. I actually re-watched the first Toy Story Movie right after this one and it’s truly remarkable to see how far Pixar has come in twenty-five years. This movie is absolutely beautiful, one of the most stunningly animated I’ve seen since I started Deep Dive Disney. Great stuff.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Well, the world of Toy Story is still a goddamned nightmare and that doesn’t change in this movie. Let’s see, there’s a bit where Bo Peep’s arm casually just pops off and she shrugs it off. That’s pretty unsettling. Oh, how about the creepy ventriloquist dummies who come straight out of a Goosebumps episode? Those things are walking nightmares! And they’re not even the worst thing in the antique shop, that honor goes to Dragon, the toy destroying cat. We see the mutilated lower half of a stuffed zebra out on the floor, and if that’s not nightmarish enough, we later see that his top half is still alive and presumably in constant pain. Oh, and there’s the small matter of Gabby wanting to forcibly remove Woody’s voice box, which is effectively an internal organ! Seriously, what is with these crazy writers and making Toy Story World so goddamn horrifying!? And I haven't even touched on the most unsettling thing in the movie, and that's the implications of Forky. So, let me see if I got this straight, all that one needs to do is imagine something is alive in this universe and it just... becomes so... well that's disturbing. I've always said that the Toy Story world works best when you don't think about it. Well, this movie more than any other demands that you do. Seriously, if they ever make a Toy Story 5 it should be about the toys rebelling against the humans that have mistreated them for so long. I both want to, and do not want to see that.

Final Thoughts: I guess I can't hate on this movie too much. It's not like it actively ruined what came before, it just wasn't as memorable. It's not bad, but I don't know if I can do better. Anyway, next time, I'm going to take a movie and try to do it better as we finally bring our reimagined Descendants Trilogy to a close with Descendants 3.