Respond to these rapid questions in our Toy Story 4 quiz and we will tell you which Toy Story 4 character you are. Play it now.
“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” Randy Newman, Pixar’s bard, sings in a montage from “Toy Story 4”, which is set in the future. In “Toy Story 3,” the song’s title is directed at Woody (Tom Hanks), a friend to Andy (voiced by Tim Allen), and later to Bonnie, a five-year-old who inherits Andy’s toys at the conclusion of the film and is shown refining her own playtime rituals that do not always include Woody (voiced by Tim Allen). As a second point of reference, the song is officially directed at a new character, Forky (Tony Hale), a plastic spork with popsicle-stick feet and pipe cleaner arms that Bonnie created with materials provided by Woody during orientation day at kindergarten. The character of Forky is typical of the “Toy Story” franchise, in which inanimate objects not only have personalities but also face existential crises. Forky is constantly breaking away from Bonnie and Woody and attempting to throw himself into the nearest trash can. This is not meant to be a criticism of his own sense of worthiness. This is simply a manifestation of the fact that Forky is, after all, a piece of kitchenware, and that he is most at ease in the trash, secure in the knowledge that he has served his purpose.
But “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” also expresses the feelings of the audience for this beloved series, which has been running for nearly a quarter century and has produced four installments that range from excellent to perfect. We don’t want the “Toy Story” story to come to an end, but we also don’t want it to be reduced to a toy that is pulled off the shelf out of obligation rather than out of excitement. If the creators of “Toy Story 4” were concerned about the same things, they have incorporated them into the plot of the film. There are a variety of themes in the story, including a devoted playmate’s fear of becoming obsolete, boring, not special anymore, and otherwise incapable of holding a child’s attention.
The good news is, as old toy commercials used to promise, that isn’t all. Even though “Toy Story 4” begins with a focus on the relationship between Woody and Forky (who engage in a lengthy, uncut walk-and-talk that strangely evokes both “Of Mice and Men” and “Midnight Cowboy”), the remainder of the film evenly distributes its attention among toys we’ve seen before, such as Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear and Joan Cusack’s Cowgirl Jesse, and new toys that we meet during the family’s week- Among the latter are Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele as Ducky and Bunny, two wisecracking plush collectibles that Buzz meets at a fairground ball-toss; Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, an Evel Knievel-styled motorcycle rider who claims to be the greatest stuntman in Canada; and Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby, a 1950s-era talking doll whose voice box is broken and who spends her days ruling (It wouldn’t be a “Toy Story” film without a hint of the ominous, and Gabby provides it with the assistance of her minions, a group of identical ventriloquist’s dummies with large heads that tilt when they run.)
Throughout the film, we are treated to all of the elements that we have come to expect, including a mission to rescue a missing or kidnapped toy, a climactic action sequence that brings separated characters back together, and a hilarious scene in which a toy breaks the rule against letting humans know they are alive. The film, written by Stephanie Folsom and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”) and directed by Josh Cooley (“Inside Out”), deviates from tradition in that it is less of a straightforward, linear comedy-adventure and more of a patchwork of scenes, moments, and groups of characters that are unified more by shared themes and ideas than by any particular event that occurs in the film. There are times when this feels like a Robert Altman film, but damned if it doesn’t come close to being that at others.
Additionally, and perhaps more so than ever before, this entry is flexible in its metaphors in the same way that dreams are flexible: i.e., a character or storyline can mean more than one thing at the same time in the same way that dreams are flexible. This allows the viewers to imprint their fears and dreams onto the material, and subtly alter their interpretation of a moment without contradicting themselves or the material itself (or worrying that movie is contradicting itself).
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Much of this will be beyond the comprehension of children, but they will not be required to comprehend it because the film’s surface level is designed to be legible to any child who is old enough to comprehend a story told through images. (Pay attention to the sound of a small child laughing during the opening Pixar logo, which has been occurring since 1986 when the desk lamp turns to face the audience.) Whatever these toys desire is ultimately driven primarily by the fact that they are toys, and the series has always been clear about what motivates them to pursue their goals. They live in a world with rules and a code that are as clearly defined as those found in the John Wick, Body Snatchers, and Batman franchises, among others. There is no difference between the toys in terms of their relationship to children, whether that relationship is still active, was once active, or hasn’t occurred yet (yet).
Once you’ve gotten past that, things start to get more and more bizarre. The toys in the “Toy Story” films serve as both substitutes for children and substitutes for adults (with the latter being more prevalent than the former, as the song “When She Loved Me” from “Toy Story 2,” which is one of the saddest songs in film history, attests). Woody’s specific mix of anxiety and depression, on the other hand, appears to be more akin to that of a grandparent than a parent here. Woody’s polite but frantic takeovers of Bonnie’s playtime evoke the experience of a newly-employed senior citizen starting at a new workplace where the majority of the employees are younger and have their own ways of doing things; and also the experience of a grandparent whose own children have grown up and left the house, and who is now manufacturing a new sense of purpose by turning into a busybody who micromanages his granddaughter’s life and second-guesses her parents. Woody was under no obligation to attend kindergarten with Bonnie, and it’s possible that his artistic midwifery of Forky caused new complications for him and his friends. It’s the equivalent of an older parent having (or adopting) a new baby years after the first round of children has left the nest.
Even more so than in the first “Toy Story,” where Woody was concerned that his old-school charm would be overshadowed by a flashy new spaceman, or the second and third films, which focused on toys’ fears that children will mature and abandon them, the cowboy is concerned about the possibility of being forced into retirement, followed by erasure from existence. The fear of death, whether in the physical sense, the spiritual sense, or the reputational sense, hangs over the film, though not so heavily that you forget to laugh at the toys’ antics.
Toy Story 4 Quiz
This cowboy has a snake in his boot, and there’s subtext in his text, which is quite clever. When Woody keeps Forky from breaking away and leaping into a garbage can, or when he sneaks off Bonnie’s pillow at night and slides into the trash bucket near her bed, he’s symbolically postponing his own extinction, which he avoided in physical fact at the end of “Toy Story 3” (that terrifying sequence in the furnace), but which he could still experience if he were locked away in a glass case (by someone like The Collector from “Toy Story 2”) or Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Betty White portray an elderly quartet of Bonnie toys who reassure Woody that these things happen to all toys at some point in their lives.
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The relationship between toys and children, as well as between children and their parents/grandparents, is further explored in a screenplay that considers the relationship between parents and children and society, as well as how society assigns value to adults based on whether or not they’ve paired themselves up with a child or not. Toy Story 4’s hidden, underappreciated co-star, and the subject of some of the film’s most emotionally charged scenes, is Bo Peep (Annie Potts), Woody’s long-lost love interest who went missing in “Toy Story 3” but returns to complete her story in “Toy Story 4.” The next time Woody encounters Bo Peep, he finds her to be an independent single woman who drives around in a motorized toy skunk and treats her three-headed sheep as “kids” (kids are what you call baby goats, which is why they’re named Billy, Goat, and Gruff; this series has linguistic as well as visual layers).
When it comes to lost lambs of all kinds, Bo Peep is a natural shepherd, but she also employs her crooked staff to climb up trees and defend herself, as well as to tame unruly “children.” And it seems a stretch to refer to her as a “born mom,” because who is to say that she wasn’t “born” to be the person she is at this point? “Is it really necessary to have a kid’s room when you can have everything here?” she asks Woody as she sweeps her crook across the panorama of the fairgrounds. In addition, we learn her secret nickname for Woody, which is a little less heroic than he might prefer: “the rag doll.” )
“Toy Story 4” allows Woody and Bo Peep to have a running conversation about whether you’re a more or less of a toy, or a happier or sadder example of a toy, if you have a child’s name scrawled on the bottom of your foot, without getting too specific. Other characters’ preoccupations are woven into the story, including Bo Peep’s rejection of traditional “motherhood” (she’s content to be a mom to her sheep), Forky’s rejection of Woody’s assertion that he’s a toy rather than a utensil, Ducky and Bunny and Gabby’s yearning for children because they’ve been abandoned, and Ducky and Bunny and Gabby yearning for children because they’
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In the film, Gabby’s longing is associated with her inability to speak, which is about as on-the-nose as the film can get. Afraid that if she can get her hands on Woody’s voice, she will be able to acquire his ability to form happy bonds with children as well. She believes that if she can claim his voice for herself, she will be able to acquire his ability to form happy bonds with children as well. When her voice box is fixed, she tells herself, “I’ll finally get my chance.” She believes it. Although neither Bo Peep nor Gabby’s worldview is presented as the only legitimate one, it is to the film’s credit that this is never the case. Both are given the opportunity to experience their own unique forms of contentment. For the first time since the original “Toy Story,” there are no outright villains, not even coded ones, in this film. Instead, there are strong-willed antagonists whose psychology occasionally leads them to do bad things.
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The film also features several characters who are in conversation with an inner voice, whether it’s Woody speaking to himself in his own dialogue box, Buzz randomly punching every speaking button on his torso in the hopes of experiencing a self-communion as rich as Woody’s, or Bo Peep communicating with a tiny “best girlfriend” toy named Giggle McDimples (Ally Maki), who sits on her shoulder a la Tinkerbell or Timothy the Mouse, dispensing relationship Consequently, what we have here is a film that speaks at the same time to us, to itself, to all of its predecessors, as well as to the cultural milieu that shaped it, and that it has helped shape.
Few blockbuster movie series are as likable and accessible to people of all ages and cultures as The Hunger Games, while at the same time being so rich in metaphor, philosophy, and dream language as The Hunger Games series. Moreover, aside from Ripley in the first four “Alien” films, it’s difficult to imagine a protagonist of a sequential quartet of films as rich in myth and metaphor as Woody, a character who never changes in terms of size or color or shape while managing to represent a variety of different things at the same time. Over a period of time long enough for two generations to grow up in, this franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to overcome adversity and reinvent itself. Ideas are like toys, and there are new wonders to be discovered in every aisle.
For more personality quizzes check this: My Country My Parents Quiz.
