Toy Story is the franchise that just keeps coming back. After two apparently definitive endings in the third and fourth films, Toy Story 5 reunites us with the toys we know and love.
Woody left the gang behind in Toy Story 4, emotionally parting ways from Buzz and Jessie to stay with the lost toys in the fun fair.
“When Woody left [Toy Story] 4, he went off with Bo Peep,” Tom Hanks, the voice of Woody, tells us. “And they keep finding these abandoned toys. He will do this for the rest of existence.”
Hanks hopes to share that in common with his character, too. “Dare I say it, I hope the same is true for my job playing Woody,” he adds with a laugh. “How much longer can we keep doing this, to be welcomed back into the fold?”
Each Toy Story movie explores a new dilemma for the toys, and the fifth film sees them take on tech, which threatens playtime. Director Andrew Stanton is clear that, for another movie to happen, this central idea has to be right. “Every new movie, we don’t know there’s going to be something else to say,” he explains. “This took time to come into the world, for us to embrace it.”
“What we looked at is the world,” adds producer Lindsey Collins. “And we’re like, okay, right, technology is here, obviously, and it’s here with kids pretty young, and so that would be deeply affecting the toys, and so it felt like it would be naïve to have a film that didn’t have that as the center. And so again, as we watch the world and time go by, that’s what we wait to see. We’re like, ‘What’s happening out there, what’s happening with kids, what’s happening with playtime?'”
The first film was released way back in 1995, but, as Hanks explains it, returning for more doesn’t lose its familiarity. “I can’t say it feels different, because we felt the gravitas of what [we were doing]. It began a thing, like, ‘Can we do it at all?'” he says. “The new animation technology that went along with it, as well as the challenges of finding what the relationship here was going to be. And you think that, ‘Oh, come on, don’t you just go in there and say it?’ Alas, no, you go in there and you, like, get to a place. And I have to say, I feel a burden of responsibility every time we begin a new one. And specifically, it’s almost too bad that they have a number on it, because all I say is, ‘I’m doing another Toy Story movie.’ You don’t say what the number is. But the very first day of walking in, it was like, ‘Okay, am I up to the emotional challenge of making this happen again?’ I’m glad they have some faith in me.”
Tim Allen, who voices Buzz, agrees that the films all feel part of one long-running story. “It’s almost like episode five,” he tells us. “It’s not a new movie, it’s just an episode. In the same way, I don’t know if we [need] the number, because it gets formidable when you see the word five there. And it is just another episode, it’s just later. It’s later. Andrew Stanton, the director, said it compresses time. And it just hit me what that meant. That’s what this is. This is compressed time. The weird thing about it is these toys don’t actually age, other than [Woody].”
Toy Story 5 arrives in theaters this June 19. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming movies or new Disney movies to fill out your watchlist.
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