One question that a lot of people, and even a few fans, asked about this movie is one that has never been given a solid answer that’s been widely broadcast, and that’s: Why in the world was this movie even made? Seriously, Andy had given his toys away to a good home and another kid after explaining away the importance of the lot of them, and they’d gone through the entire process of watching him grow up and move on without them. Was there really a need to keep the story going at that point? The best way to explain why, without getting too mushy and not delving too deeply into the philosophy of it all, is that the studio didn’t want to let their cash cow rest just yet since they knew, and still know, that Toy Story has been a huge earner since its inception, and it’s likely that if another script was thought up and it passed muster then it would be developed and the actors would be brought back. The biggest hope here is that it won’t happen since to be quite honest the fourth movie, despite the fact that it was a success, elicited a huge groan from a lot of people since the general thought is that the toys had reached a point when they’d experienced so much that anything else felt extraneous.
There are plenty of hardcore Toy Story fans that would be appalled at such talk since they believe that there could possibly another series of stories that would be great if they had the same cast, explored the life of the kid that the toys have now, and would continue to explore the relationships between them. But seriously, it’s time to stop. People have already had their hearts crushed, broken, and repaired, only to have them crushed and broken all over again when we hear every toy’s sob story since the life of a toy is understandably hard given that humans have no idea that they’re alive in these movies. But imagine what might happen if the humans did realize that the toys knew so much about them and were this active when they weren’t looking? There are so many questions pertaining to Toy Story and why some toys go quiet when they don’t realize that they’re a toy. How many people have thought about that? Buzz thought he was an honest to goodness space ranger in the first movie, and yet he would still go quiet whenever a human was around, which could mean that the toys don’t fully control their ability to ‘live’ and then go quiet. Of course, that’s debunked since Woody wouldn’t have been able to talk to Sid in the first movie.
A lot of discrepancies about the movie can be forgiven since it is a kids’ movie, but at the same time, there have been so many gaffes at this point that one really can’t ignore all of them. Toy Story 4 was enough to make a lot of people just roll their eyes as they could probably hear the ding of a cash register in the back of their minds since this has to be one of the only real reasons that Pixar is still pumping these movies out. If anyone wants to say different there’s a good chance that they’re being somewhat honest, but at the end of the day it comes down to the money and the fact that people will pay the price of a ticket and will continue to buy the merchandise so long as their kids are into it. Part 3 should have been the end of it since it had a pleasing conclusion and saw all the toys together again, minus a few faces since things had changed over the years and it was obvious that Andy hadn’t held on to every single toy he’d had as a child. In fact, Bo Peep felt more like a hand-me-down at the time since not a lot of boys would have a Bo Peep lamp in their room. Call it sexist, but there aren’t a lot of little boys that would look at this and claim that they wanted it in their room. But considering that Andy had such a big imagination it’s easy to think that he rolled with it and came up with a few good ways to use Bo.
When all is said and done though this movie was kind of confusing to see come out since when a franchise reaches a fitting end it feels as though things should be left as they are without trying to push the story forward for another small fortune. This feels like Pixar’s way of saying that they weren’t interested in coming up with anything new so long as they could bank off of the same idea as long as possible.
