If other people can refuse to acknowledge the M. Night Shyamalan Avatar the Last Airbender movie because it was truly the most terrible thing ever. And if other people can refuse to acknowledge the 3rd Spiderman movie because it was just bad. And if other people can pretend these movies don’t exist because they hate them that much. Then I can refuse to acknowledge the existence of Toy Story 4.
They didn’t need to make a 4th movie. The 3rd movie closed up the story and sealed everything up perfectly, another movie wasn’t necessary. But they made one. I was honestly hopeful. My generation had loved and adored Woody and Buzz and the other toys so much, like Andy handing them to Bonnie, we could hand the next Toy Story’s to our children. And I was happy the stores were filled with Toy Story merchandise I gladly bought up for my kids. But when we went to see the film, I was also woefully disappointed.
I feel like I’m parroting fans upset about the final season of Game of Thrones, but they completely destroyed the entire story arc of characters to fit this movies storyline. Sitting at the theater with my kid and my husband said to me, “I don’t remember Buzz being that dumb.” That’s because he wasn’t. The other supporting characters were basically none existant as well.
But let’s get right to the crux of it, Woody. From the beginning, we know Woody had trouble sharing the spotlight, but the first movie detailed how he changed his behaviour and found a best friend. He also said multiple times that it never was about how much the toys got played with, what mattered was that they were there for Andy when he needed them. Over and over and over he repeated that. So to think his character would suddenly decide it was ok to abandoned his kid because she didn’t play with him as much is preposterous. Woody wouldn’t do that. Or he truly is the biggest hypocrite.
But on to the actual storyline. In this movie we have a bratty doll who has a nonfunctioning voice box that lives in an antique shop. She is convinced she has never been bought because her voice box is broken. So she tries to bully Woody into giving her his perfectly kept box. At first he says no, but in the end he has pity on her and voluntarily gives her his voice box. While it’s a compassionate gesture on Woody’s part to treat the antagonist with kindness, it’s not the outcome that shows the greatest growth and development. I didn’t like that the awful bully of a character got her way in the end, and only after that did she get a girl to take her home. She, like many others, didn’t need to change themselves, fix the parts they saw as broken flaws to find someone who loved them. They were lovable the way they were. She needed to realize she was perfectly fine without her voice box and had a little girl love her like that. Perhaps the little girl who picked her up could repair her, kind of like the way the girl in Courderoy sewed on a new button for him after she took him home. We are all flawed. All of us with a broken part. Our flaws don’t make us unlovable and unwanted. We are worthy of love, just the way we are. That doll was worthy of finding a child who loved her, just the way she was.
What is the main lesson of Toy Story? That friends stick together. Friends never give up on each other. We spent three movies and a few animated shorts proving that and really driving it home. The toys were ready to face death together. And yet movie 4 is trying to convince me that Woody and Buzz would split up for any reason? I get that it was established Woody and Bo were an item, and that she was gone in the third film. But making her be the reason the gang broke up? Its outrageous. Its uncharacteristic. For both of them. She wouldn’t expect that of him, and he wouldn’t abandon his friends for her. Nobody, nobody will be able to convince me it was the right ending for the movie. Because it was not.
I’m not going to rampage at the writers, or the producers, or the studio about how much I was disappointed in this film. Sometimes you go for an idea and it doesn’t come out right. It doesn’t mean it’s a horrible studio, it just means they made a flub. And apparently the critics liked it as it’s up for awards and had already won some. It didn’t do shabby at the box office either (but then again, what Pixar movie does? Even their worst are still pretty good).
But as much as I don’t hate the creators for making this film, neither do I have to recognize that it exists in the Toy Story universe. In our house, there are only 3 Toy Story films.
Dose of Sunshine 