Everything Andy Gave Away

The premise of the first Toy Story is essentially a workplace thriller about a middle manager watching his job go to a flashier hire. Woody runs Andy’s bedroom with the calm authority of someone who has earned his position—then Buzz Lightyear arrives with wings and a laser and an absolute conviction that he is a real space ranger, not a toy, never a toy—and suddenly Woody is scrambling. The jealousy that drives him to push Buzz out the window is petty and instantly recognizable, and it’s the first truly honest thing Pixar ever committed to screen.

I grew up with all three films. The first one as a kid, barely understanding it beyond the fact that I loved it; the third as an adult, and I came apart completely. The handoff at the end of Toy Story 3—Andy giving each toy to Bonnie, saying each name, Woody last—is one of the best-constructed sequences in American animation. I’ve seen it maybe six times and cried every single one. No shame in that.

So when Pixar announced a fourth installment, I felt the familiar anxiety that comes with sequels nobody asked for: what’s left to say? The trilogy had done something genuinely rare, aging alongside its audience. Toy Story 4 picks up with Bonnie now carrying the gang forward and introduces Forky—a spork she makes in kindergarten and immediately loves with her whole heart, despite his desperate wish not to exist. It’s a sharper premise than it first sounds.

The film came out in the summer of 2019. Gentler and stranger than I expected—less devastating than the third, but more quietly melancholy in ways that sneaked up on me. The Bo Peep storyline gave it a different emotional register than anything in the trilogy, and the ending took the whole thing somewhere I didn’t see coming. I’m still not entirely convinced it needed to exist. But I watched it, I felt something, and that’s the Pixar trap you keep falling into.