Toy Sto­ry 4

There’s a won­der­ful moment in the final episode of Mad Men’s first sea­son, in which Jon Hamm, resplen­dent as adver­tis­ing exec­u­tive Don Drap­er, is pitch­ing Kodak a new adver­tis­ing cam­paign for their lat­est slide pro­jec­tor. ​“Nos­tal­gia,” he says. ​“It’s del­i­cate… but potent.” This state­ment comes to mind when­ev­er Hol­ly­wood spits out anoth­er prop­er­ty derived from an exist­ing fran­chise, be it pre­quel, sequel, reboot or ​‘she­boot’; a reliance on col­lec­tive audi­ence famil­iar­i­ty to sell films is noth­ing new, but per­haps due to sheer vol­ume in the present age of cin­e­ma, feels more sig­nif­i­cant. So far this year, out of 11 films released in the UK tar­get­ed sole­ly at the under-12 mar­ket, all but three have been exten­sions of exist­ing titles.

Dis­ney (and by exten­sion Pixar) have always been at the fore­front of cash cow film­mak­ing, but with Toy Sto­ry 2 in 1999 Pixar achieved that rarest of things: a sequel wide­ly con­sid­ered to be as good as, if not bet­ter than, the orig­i­nal. They achieved anoth­er crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial win a decade lat­er with Toy Sto­ry 3, which felt like a fit­ting send-off to Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the gang, but in spite of this appar­ent final chap­ter, a sequel to the three­quel was announced in 2014. Since then, Pixar have pro­duced six more fea­tures (three of which were sequels), includ­ing their high­est gross­ing film to date, Incred­i­bles 2.

John Las­seter, who had over­seen Toy Sto­ry and its first sequel, was sup­posed to co-direct Toy Sto­ry 4 along­side Josh Coo­ley, pro­mot­ed after work­ing as a sto­ry­board artist and screen­writer on var­i­ous Pixar prop­er­ties since he began at the com­pa­ny as an intern in 2004. Lasseter’s uncer­e­mo­ni­ous exit last year fol­low­ing sex­u­al mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions by numer­ous mem­bers of Pixar staff left Coo­ley alone at the helm, with fran­chise main­stays Tom Han­ks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts all return­ing and a star-stud­ded cast of new faces join­ing the fun, includ­ing Tony Hale as an anthro­po­mor­phic spork named ​‘Forky’, Christi­na Hen­dricks as a sin­is­ter chi­na doll called Gab­by Gab­by and Keanu Reeves as diminu­tive Cana­di­an stunt­man Duke Kaboom.

After part­ing ways with orig­i­nal own­er Andy at the end of Toy Sto­ry 3, the gang are now liv­ing with four-year-old Bon­nie, who is ner­vous about start­ing kinder­garten. With gen­tle encour­age­ment from Woody, she cre­ates a new friend at school, using a plas­tic spork and some lol­lipop sticks. Forky, as he is chris­tened, suf­fers an imme­di­ate exis­ten­tial cri­sis at the prospect of turn­ing from trash to toy. His repeat­ed attempts to return from whence he came frus­trate Woody, until the shenani­gans lead him to an old friend, long thought gone for­ev­er: Bo Peep. Now a toy with­out a child, Bo is hap­pi­ly mak­ing her own des­tiny, which is an alien con­cept to Woody.

In one way or anoth­er, all Toy Sto­ry films are about mov­ing on. From Buzz’s strug­gle to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy in the orig­i­nal to the gang’s heartache over Andy going to col­lege in Toy Sto­ry 3, the films are some of the most pro­found in Pixar’s canon, demon­strat­ing the company’s unique tal­ent for com­bin­ing beau­ti­ful ani­ma­tion with gen­uine­ly mov­ing sto­ry­telling. To think of Toy Sto­ry is to think of Buzz Lightyear sprawled on the floor, arm bro­ken, after real­is­ing he isn’t a real space ranger, or Jessie rem­i­nisc­ing about her heart­break over being aban­doned by the lit­tle girl she belonged to. There’s a cer­tain irony, then, in the fact that Dis­ney Pixar would choose to make the fourth film in the Toy Sto­ry fran­chise about the inabil­i­ty to make peace with the future.

Def­i­nite­ly the weird­est Toy Sto­ry film to date – and quite pos­si­bly the weird­est Pixar film – there are unset­tling ven­tril­o­quists’ dum­mies, a schem­ing stuffed uni­corn and the motor-mouthed duo of Key and Peele to con­tend with in the new instal­ment. Cut­away gags, an inven­tive chase scene involv­ing a cat and Tony Hale on top form as the neu­rot­ic fork-crea­ture at the heart of the sto­ry all con­tribute to the film’s charm and infec­tious warmth. It’s also a beau­ti­ful film to look at; the mat­te-ness of ​’50s man­u­fac­tured Woody con­trasts from Bo Peep’s porce­lain design, which clinks pleas­ing­ly when she moves. Forky’s own design, so pleas­ing­ly naïve, sug­gests to view­ers that all a child real­ly needs is imag­i­na­tion, and that the most unlike­ly sources can pro­vide cre­ative inspiration.

Per­haps that’s what makes Toy Sto­ry 4 feel so strange to behold: for all its pleas­ing upbeat­ness about imag­i­na­tion through play, Woody, Buzz and co exist as part of a cor­po­rate mono­lith. Seem­ing­ly with­out any sense of irony, Dis­ney are hawk­ing a ​‘Make Your Own Forky’ kit. It bears repeat­ing: Forky is made of trash. The Toy Sto­ry tril­o­gy was per­fect with­out an epi­logue, and as sweet as it may be, the relent­less need to cling on to the del­i­cate, potent col­lec­tive nos­tal­gia we have hin­ders us from find­ing new sto­ries to tell. Pixar is still at the fore­front of inno­vat­ing in this man­ner, as Inside Out and Coco demon­strat­ed, but Toy Sto­ry 4, for all its charm, feels like retread­ing old ground.