Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.
He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.
To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net.
Toy Story 5 shares a common link with every other Toy Story movie, and it proves that the story might never have been just about Andy and the toys' relationship with him at all. As the Toy Story franchise wears on, there have been some complaints that it overstayed its welcome and should have ended when Andy left for college. While the toys' relationship with Andy was always important, there has always been something more to the Toy Story franchise than just that one child.
After Andy leaves for college, the toys then go to Bonnie, a new child for them to bring joy to. However, while this seems like it is just repeating old storylines with a new kid, the movies have never been about specific kids. The first three Toy Story movies are not about Andy, and the fourth isn't about Bonnie. The movies are always about toys and the one threat that they have always faced throughout their existence.
The Toy Story movies have always had toys face the danger of outside forces trying to make them no longer important in any child's life. The toys were not trying to keep Andy or Bonnie happy. They were simply trying to remain an important part of these kids' lives. The real villain in every single Toy Story movie is the outside force that is trying to take away the importance of toys in bringing joy to a child's life. That villain is back in Toy Story 5.
The Toy Story movies seemed to be about all the toys trying to make their kid, Andy, happy, which is why there seemed to be no reason to return after Toy Story 3. However, looking at the movies, that isn't the case. The first movie is about change, but not in a bad way. When Andy gets Buzz Lightyear, it is a high-tech toy that makes the other toys feel inferior in design. It isn't until they get to know Buzz that they realize he is just another toy that can join their group.
However, that movie also introduces Sid. The next-door neighbor is a kid who takes toys and destroys them. He steals his sister's toys and tries to destroy them. He tries to destroy some of Andy's toys. He wants to turn toys into monstrous creations and, in other cases, ensure they can never be played with again. He tries to take away the joy of toys.
In Toy Story 2, a greedy toy collector steals Woody. Woody is Andy's favorite toy, but at the same time, Woody is a toy meant to bring joy to children. In this movie, the story focuses on people demanding to use toys as collectibles meant to be worth money, and not allowing toys into the hands of children to play with.
Toy Story 3 takes it to another level, where the toys end up in a daycare center and meet an old, discarded toy who has bitter feelings about kids. Lotso is a toy who feels kids don't really care about toys, and he wants all toys to suffer as he did when his child discarded him. This is a movie about the loss of the joy of playing with toys, even though it is inadvertent in Andy's mother's case.
Toy Story 4 takes the idea even further and shows what happens when toys realize they might not be worth anything to their kids anymore. Much like Toy Story 3, this sees a discarded toy, but here it shows that the toy learns their kid never abandoned them as they believed. However, the theme remains constant. All the Toy Story movies are about forces trying to take the joy of toys away from children.
Toy Story 5 isn't a movie about the toys and their relationship with Bonnie. Instead, it is, once again, about toys trying to survive in a world that wants to make them irrelevant. This echoes the setup of the first movie, with a new technological toy coming into the picture. However, the tablet isn't like Buzz Lightyear was. Buzz was a tech toy, but he was still a toy. The tablet is not a toy, and it wants to replace toys.
One thing that is prevalent in today's society is the idea that kids have tablets and phones and spend all their time staring at a screen, and not playing with toys. The idea is that this strips kids of their creativity and puts them into a digital world, numbing their senses. The toys in Toy Story 5 are a last stand in a world where technology wants to make toys irrelevant, and video games and social media threaten to take kids out of the world of their imagination.
If there is one thing Toy Story has always stood for, it is the idea that imagination leads to great adventures. These toys show that kids can go on great adventures in their minds if they play with toys, and that is something games and tablets can never replace. It is up to Woody, Buzz, and Jessie to gather the toys together to fight. They are fighting for Bonnie's imagination, but more than that, they are fighting for the survival of toys.
The Toy Story movies have always had the toys fight for survival against outside forces. In the first movie, it is controversial, as the toys terrify the neighborhood boy, Sid. There are some Toy Story franchise Easter eggs that suggest that Sid is now working as a trash collector. Whatever his fate, it is clear that Buzz and Woody deliver a plan that traumatizes the young boy who loves to destroy toys.
Toy Story 2 is about showing that toys were for kids and not collectors. The toys work together to save Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye from the greedy collector, Al. The end shows that Al loses the lucrative deal with the toy museum thanks to the fact that his stolen toys are missing. Toy Story 3 has the toys trying to win over Lotso, but it is too late for him. However, they are able to save the other toys.
Toy Story 4 was an interesting twist on the theme, as this is about Woody realizing that his time as a toy for kids is finished, and he is able to go off and find his new place in the world. That is a little off from the branding of the toys, proving they bring joy to kids' lives, but there is the part where Gabby Gabby, a toy who never had a kid at all, finds her child. Toy Story 5 sees all of the toys facing the threat of screen time, and this fits perfectly into the franchise's idea that toys remain kids' toys and nothing will ever replace that.
