MattI always get a little too narrative with my reviews. Your boy can't help but put the "journal" in journalism. And so here we are, sittin' down at my computer a good 20 minutes after seeing the brand new Teaser Trailer for the 5th installment in the 'Toy Story' franchise I grew up with, about to open up Disney+ and look around. I really want a good, stocky 'Toy Story' review for at least one of these movies since they mean so, so much to me. I'm not the only guy in their 20's who grew up with them, but I am one of them.
There was this funny thing about the movies and shows my parents chose for us that neither of them seem to have an answer for, despite it being a breakthrough technology when I was that young: the animated shows we watched in the earliest times of our lives (nearly) always had 3D graphics. For some reason, we veered lightly from the 2D animations. There were exceptions of course, but the big ones all had this in common. I've been regaled about failed exorcisms as I thrashed around my living room in rhythm with the introductory music in 'Monsters Inc,' a child possessed. Terms and phrases eked their way off the screen and into the vocabulary me and my sister were immersed in from this age. Usually despite world renown they remained uniquely ours, like the abominable snowman offering the main characters a: "Snowcone?" A favourite, but second only to another of John Hamm's cameo characters with a minute of screentime. I can distinctly remember meaningful discourse about the likelihood that the "Underminer" character in 'The Incredibles,' oft parroted under our roof ("BEHOLD! THE UNDERMINERR!") could exist, tunneling below the cities beneath our home (our homes.) The 'Shrek's brought with them unrivaled quotability so incredibly compelling that it would leap into our adulthoods, too. This, in typical Mike Myers fashion, just as well as his characters in 'So I Married An Axe Murderer' and 'Cat in the Hat' did. ("HEED! MOVE!" "I'll get you. And I'll make it look like an accident.") And then there were, of course, the 'Toy Story's. Just seeing the character designs now pulls at something in me. My whole heart is with them, and the fact that I'm not alone is great news for Disney but the extent of what it means to me is a big part of what I'm here to dissect in this piece.
I have tangible, core childhood memories seeing each of the 'Toy Story' movies with both of my parents, but those first two were less about seeing them for the first time and more about seeing them again, and again, and again, and again. My mother sang Jesse's song from the 2nd movie to me and my sister before bed, and my father, as was his wont, pulled phrase after phrase from them: ("ya hockey puck," "Not today, Zurg!") Their influence never stopped at just quotes though, or trying to catch toys from my own collection moving - as many my age did. I can remember my first time seeing 'Toy Story 3' off a bootlegged disc on a little TV in my parents' bedroom. Me, my sister and my mother in a pile, playing out a renaissance painting on the bed across from it, holding each other desperately in the final moments, utterly sobbing into each other. This stands as one of my most core, film related memories to date. It is illustrative in many ways; aptly painting a shot of my upbringing, the seeds of a hard lesson in loss sown early and only taking root much, much later when they would be called upon by real grief. A story about letting go, moving on, growing up and why those things which illicit such emotional responses are actually remarkably healthy. Trust me, you can "know" that without knowing it.
So! For as personal as this series is to me, since it is a part of who I am/was I'm in the unique position to say when one critique is or isn't as valid as another. Today, I will wield that power in vanity for the pure sake of unraveling journalistic integrity, claiming vengeance on people who have used their platforms to square a movie away as any less than it is (to me,) and hopefully start some arguments.
In approaching this franken-review, I had to decide which 'Toy Story' I was going to watch and I had narrowed it down to either '4' or 'Lightyear.' Both probably seem like strange examples as representative of the series, and 'Lightyear' might have seemed like the stranger one to consider, but I still haven't seen it. Not to mention before I started cobbling this piece together it seemed to me to probably be more interesting to compare the "rest" of the "series" from a vantage point as far outside of it as possible. Instead, I went with 4 for the above reasons, because I've seen it the least amount of times (only once, now that I think about it,) and because I considered that if I put on 1, 2 or 3 I was nearly guaranteed to cry under these circumstances. 4 has also always existed in hindsight somewhat sacreligiously, and I think you could ask anyone who spends their time overanalyzing Pixar movies (in a lame way, not like me, obviously, I do it in a really cool way,) what they thought of 'Toy Story 4,' and they'd tell you the original trilogy stood on its own or that it ruins the ending of 3 or that this one's ending makes no sense or there's all this mischaracterization. That made it the prime candidate for this viewing; I could reasses how those criticisms sat with me now, nearly 7 years later, and maybe even finally enjoy it for what it was.
Well, even if we haven't evolved very far beyond "what if toys were alive?" I would argue instead that Pixar has really honed in on that exact concept and refined it into "what if toys had lives," which is decidedly more interesting.
Love could very well be the meaning of life, if not one of them. It's such a tumultuous, disorderly concept that it's really hard to say where it stands in the cosmic scheme of things, but to the toys of this world it actually seriously gives them meaning. The toys all love unconditionally (and I thought LONG and HARD enough about those words before I wrote them that if you feel like you can prove me wrong we should definitely argue about it,) and everything they do is to get back into their beautiful symbiosis of toy and child. This usually includes militant levels of organization just to maintain this status quo, or ritualistic operations that insinuate crazy devoted levels of practice offscreen. This serves as a beautiful metaphor for love in the forms us humans are typically encountering it, specifically when we approach some of the topics explored in this forth installment, like the big one: when it's time to move on.
The third film does this, of course. All the while treating the main cast as a unit, giving them internal affairs to keep things interesting and drive them along the greater plot. This is one of the many things that gives '4' its own boots to stand on much to the chagrin of its viewerbase; the type to insist upon a rigid creative direction could care less about the years to pass between projects, much less the idea that a series could evolve as time goes on. '4' does plenty to build upon the world left at the end of the last film, but it's as honest as I can be to say it really stands alone (and in good ways!) Most of what rewards come for the viewers of previous movies in the franchise are in the form of quick lines to suggest the glory days, each toy referencing the children of their lives like dynasties, cementing the intrinsic importance of this relationship even further and in ways the other films really didn't do as much. Then that aside, the movie stands alone in nearly every category, which is also where a lot of its criticisms fall apart.
Visually, there is no other Pixar movie that comes close, let alone in the franchise. One thing I don't see mentioned is just how consistently funny this movie genuinely is. The performances are also very interesting, going somewhere that not even the third movie opted to and letting these old toys actually show their age. Finally, its story. I don't usually limit my writing too much but when it comes to these long-winded letterboxd reviews for middling movies that are usually torn to shreds online, I honestly try to keep away from retaliatory takes. In this case though, I'll address the notion directly: I don't think 'Toy Story 4' spits in the face of the other three movies, and as a matter of fact its story only elevates the realism of the previous "Happily Ever Afters." The way love works in real life more than likely can't be quantified in any way where it can be held under an objective lens and judged for its accuracy. Rather, a realistic human depiction of love is one which is complicated and urges the characters affected by it to make complicated decisions. 'Toy Story 4' does that, and when I watched it the first time was at a point in my life where I couldn't take the movie's plot at face value. The idea of moving on for personal gain struck me as selfish. From the outside looking in, the idea of me trying to force the characters through a lens of what I thought was best for them is the real selfish move. Overall, it took me some time and a healthy amount of growing up to really be able to digest it, but I love this story. I have respect for it in ways I would definitely have not have expected when I chose to watch it, a couple of days ago now at time of writing. A unique question rose up in the opening moments of this viewing: "If someone watched this one first, would it ruin the experience?" The answer, for the better, is resoundingly not. I posit that it serves to elevate the experience, if anything. A nearly perfect film.
At the end of all of this introspection, it was a comfort to learn that there was enough to sink my teeth into for that stocky review I set out in search of. Judging it on its own instead of judging it with the other three in view had such a strikingly positive effect that now I'm left to wonder how they compare. Are the other three able to stand on their merits alone, or is my view of them skewed favourably for the time they've spent growing up with me? Only a rewatch will tell, even if every word of these movies is invariably etched so deeply into my head that I wouldn't need to physically put any of them on to recount its events. The lesson I learned here though, is that even a numbered entry in a series like this shouldn't need that comparison to be interesting, and the process of "reviewing" it should exclusively involve it alone.
Letterboxd Post: https://boxd.it/diM6DF
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A ★★★★★ review of Toy Story 4 (2019)
"Ohh, you mean a carousel." Well, we haven't evolved very far beyond "what if toys were alive?" I would argue instead that Pixar has really honed in on that exact concept and refined it into "what if toys had lives," which is decidedly more interesting. Love could very well be the meaning of life, if not one of them. It's such a tumultuous, disorderly concept that it's really hard to say where it stands in the cosmic scheme of things, but to the toys of this world it actually seriously gives them meaning. The toys all love unconditionally (and I
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