Toy Story 4

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⭐ 7/10

Like 3, I hadn't seen this one since the theatres, and I remember very little of it, so I knew it wouldn't be great. And it's not. This movie brings basically nothing to the table, and almost actively negates what I would consider to be core tenants of these movies. There are a couple good jokes and new characters, but aside from that this movie does nothing for me.

It tries to introduce the idea of lost toys, toys that find meaning outside of their owners, but is that what we want? Isn't the whole purpose of these movies that toys are meant to be played with by kids? It feels very 2019, find your own happiness, but toys existing on their own is sad to me, not empowering. Ya, Bo is cool and tough but we also catch a glimpse of the bad guy finding a child, and that's the most meaningful part of the movie! Because that's what all the other movies have been about. So while this isn't a retread its more of just a nothing movie.

The one new concept is Forky, and that ties in with the existentialism of the first three, but its not really explored outside of the first act of the movie. The idea of a something's purpose changing into a toy is cool, if only the writer's thought so too, instead they just keep telling the same "trash" joke for an entire montage.

Buzz acts kind of stupid throughout, which he isn't really like in the other movies. The toys also meddle a lot more in the lives of the people, which I was almost shocked by! I remembered that they do torment Sid in the first movie like this, talking to him and scaring him, but the amount of times these toys mess with the humans surprised me. Buzz even says something out loud to trigger a memory of Bonnie, and I felt myself get angry! Pretty lame, but this is sacred canon for me! I'm actually just upset that they told a perfect trilogy and then went back to milk the money cow. A lot of people from the originals worked on this too, so I don't know.

This does have me very pessimistic for 5, even though the premise for that seems great. I'm skeptical of any sequel, and Toy Story has earned my trust, but man what a disappointment this was.

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