As for her puppet minions, they are downright terrifying with the jerking, floppy movements of their heads and limbs, sharing similar appearances with Slappy the Dummy from the Goosebumps book series by R.L. Never acting purely evil, she’s sweet and sympathetic enough that I’m rooting for her the whole time to find a kid and grow a loving friendship with them the way Woody did with Andy. As menacing as she is, she is an example of the concept that every villain is the hero of their own story. Upon meeting Woody, she becomes determined to take his voice box and replace her own to become a fully functional doll. A vintage doll with a defective voice box, she patiently waits in Second-Chance Antiques, longing for the storeowner’s granddaughter to choose her from the shelf one day. Pixar has provided generally good villains for the toys to fight off, but the best by far is Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks, Mad Men, Good Girls), Toy Story 4‘s primary antagonist. To put it another way, Toy Story 3 is about the emotional end of Woody and the toys’ time with Andy Toy Story 4 is about the equally emotional but also profound nuances of Woody’s character evolution. Toy Story 4 is essentially the same thing and would have become routine if not for the arrival of Forky and Bo, which then forces Woody to introspect his purpose in the world, his existential opinions on what it really means to be lost, and his struggle to let go of Andy. This has constantly been his gravest fear, which is a little ironic when you consider that all these movies share the basic plot of toys getting lost and the arduous journey on which they embark to return home. You may even recall the scene in Toy Story where, after getting left behind at the Dinoco gas station, he gasps, “I’m lost! I’m a lost toy!” Then he falls to his knees and buries his head in his arms. He absolutely dreaded the idea of being a lost toy, a toy without a kid to look up to as a God-like figure. (Trivia fact: his last name is Pride!) Throughout all the movies, he felt his purpose in life was fulfilled by being Andy’s toy. It ends up turning into quite the emotional goodbye between her and Woody and kicks off his arc for the rest of the movie.Īs for Woody himself, he is the main reason why we needed this film to end the Toy Story saga. Toy Story 4 uses a flashback to show why she went away, which is when we start to get a sense for Pixar retroactively pumping up her character design to give her more leadership. Andrew Stanton, who co-wrote all the Toy Story films and directed Finding Nemo and Wall-E, has actually stated that writing for Toy Story 4 secretly began during Toy Story 3, so they must have already had an idea of how they would approach Bo at that time. I haven’t watched that movie in years, but I faintly recall the gang acknowledging her absence. Her role is even more minor in 1999’s Toy Story 2, and then she suddenly disappears in Toy Story 3. She was very much a supporting character in 1995’s Toy Story, being a love interest for Woody and giving him a few words of encouragement. Then there’s the other big hook for Toy Story 4: the reintroduction of Bo Peep (Annie Potts, Designing Women, Ghostbusters). I would have appreciated more development for him later on, but nonetheless he’s one of my favorite toys out of all the newcomers. But once he reaches the inevitable point where he realizes how important he is to Bonnie, which is surprisingly early, his arc becomes static for the rest of the movie. “I was made for soup, salad, maybe chili, and then the trash!” It doesn’t hurt that Hale voices him with just enough quivering anxiety to make him all the more sympathetic. “I am not a toy,” he declares before jumping out of the RV. He’s fantastic in the first half-hour or so, being a childlike character who persists in viewing himself as trash-not in the negative sense where he believes he’s worthless, but he simply thinks he’s a spork that was destined to be thrown out after someone uses him for a good meal. The movie, directed by Josh Cooley in his feature film directorial debut, is satisfying for the most part, but not necessarily because of Forky, whom I assumed would have a larger presence in the story.
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