Last night Pixar released the trailer for Toy Story 4 and it’s depressing as hell. There’s an existential spork, a feminist Bo Beep and a cowboy in crisis. All up, this sequel promises to continue Pixar’s nineteen year-long interest in an emotional depth that stretches the limits of a “children’s movie”.
There’s a specific set of expectations we bring with us when we walk into a Pixar film. We expect to laugh at relatable characters, to smile at heart-warming moments, to coo at a stunning visual sequence and to cry until we drown. In the opening of Pixar’s 2009 creation, Up, we got all four of these in a stunning eight-minute opening. In 2000, a protective clown-fish held our hearts and it’s only surviving child within two minutes of Finding Nemo. In 2015, we clung to the edge of our seats when our favourite toys faced the inevitability of death, on a trash heap moving toward a furnace.
And that was just one of many – shall we say harrowing – scenes in Toy Story 3.
Over nineteen years, Pixar has created a slew of animated features that are as deeply existential as they are a joy to watch. At their best, Pixar uses film to explore the complexities of human experience in an accessible way. Only a Pixar film could make a fluffy blue monster a metaphor for parental sacrifice, an ensemble of glittering characters a representation of emotional intelligence, or a Car a metaphor for….big business, maybe?
Although we only have the trailer to go off so far, Toy Story 4 seems equally interested in an emotional depth that doesn’t immediately scream “children’s movie”. In the trailer (and the teaser before it), we were introduced to a new character, “Forky”. Described as “Bonnie’s new favourite toy”, Forky has the googly eyes and jagged limbs of a DIY Pinterest project come to life. He wasn’t meant to be a toy, he was “made for soup, salad, maybe chili, and then the trash!”
He’s a spork caught in a toy’s world.
In the first teaser for this new instalment we met Forky mid-existential crisis. And in the trailer, we see this crisis cross over into Frankenstinian levels of metaphysical dilemma. Forky can’t accept his own existence. He can’t accept the power of his omniscient creator, Bonnie, and his obligation to be her “toy” – he was made for soup, dammit!
But for those of us who poured over the teaser when it first came out, these ontological dilemmas will come as no surprise. What is most surprising from the trailer is the key part Woody appears to play in the film, and in relation to Forky’s many dilemmas. Forky raises questions of purpose, of responsibility, and of belief, in a world where toys are owned and invisible. And in the most depressing turn in the trailer, we see Woody struggle with these same questions.
“I was made to help a child,” Woody says about halfway through the trailer, but “I don’t remember it being this hard”. Add a nostalgic Beach Boys soundtrack and you’ve got yourself a film that promises to fuck you up.
It’s clear that Pixar went into Toy Story 4 knowing exactly what our expectations were for the film. They know that we expect to see the philosophical heft that many of its movies have used to entertain and affect us previously. But this existential dread is something else. Is this still a children’s movie?
The Toy Story franchise already carries a lot of baggage with it. Each film has taken aim at issues of belonging, self-worth and abandonment. But in 1995, these deeper issues were expertly weaved into a world of likeable characters, innovative animation and “AH LOOK AT REX’S TINY LITTLE HANDS!”. In the original, Toy Story offered kernels of philosophical depth to make sure that both adult and child would be affected by its narrative (and its Sarah McLachlan-backed montages). These instances of emotional maturity were teachable moments for kids and surprising treats for a secondary adult audience. As Woody says in the most recent trailer, Toy Story “was made to help a child”, and maybe surprise their parents in the process.
Since then, Toy Story’s many iterations have – I think successfully – straddled a line between child-friendly simplicity and “Parent Guidance Recommended”. Its initial audience has grown up, but it has still found a way to distil its complex issues and emotional heft into narratives that are not alienating for child or adult.
Jump to Toy Story 4 opening with an existential spork asking, “Why am I alive?”.
Toy Story 4 is seen as a film that nobody wanted, a sequel that isn’t really needed. Its production was also marred by controversy when its CCO John Lasseter was accused of sexual misconduct. Maybe Pixar is feeling a tad reflective these days?
As a studio, it must reckon with a legacy of films that cast quite a shadow. Moreover, it has to contend with an audience that is not only maturing, but also growing privy to the methods it uses to manipulate. Just like Woody, Pixar can’t remember “it being this hard”. But by putting that self-reflexivity front and centre, Pixar might just get you to buy your ticket and reach for the tissues when Toy Story 4 hits cinemas on the June 20th.
Take a look at the trailer above and let us know what you think of the fourth instalment of Toy Story.
