Thank you. I decided to go see it and agree with your points and would just add that Buzz himself esp in the latest version of the toy is a sort of mid-way "electronic" toy (and wasn't that techno aspect of him what seemed to threaten Woody when he first appeared, if I remember aright?) who turns out to be able to help by means of those same capabilities... so yes the film is far more intelligent than to position itself as just a trasher of technology. It does a much better job than that, showing how that tool can be used in the service of human creativity and kindness- or , v powerfully, against. (Cyberbullying is effectively incorporated in the plot and for some of us brought back painful memories of what our kids have experienced at times.) But once lilypad learns humility, she is able to help conventional toys who turn out to be aligned with her in their goals for Bonnie as she hadn't understood . Not a preachy film but I have to hope the message gets through.
Yes, tech is troubling. What troubled me more was how Bonnie’s parents were so involved with their own screens and did so little to engage in play with her, and perhaps including the neighbor children Bonnie longed to play with. I was able to be a free range kid in 1950s/‘60s cuz the whole neighborhood was that way. Not sure children can fall into that these days, may take more parental effort to facilitate children linking up with compatible playmates. Neither Lilypad nor talking toys are up to that.
PS to Sonny - there were some goofy primitive electronics in 1970s; we didn’t have a potty trainer gadget but it looked vaguely familiar 🤔 See & Say or Speak & Spell, targeted to the more limited task? Wouldn’t have had USB to connect to the other gadgets tho. Kids cameras? For sure. No GPS, that’s cinematic license
I don’t know why you reviewed a movie that doesn’t exist, Sonny.
It just isn’t possible that Disney went ahead and made a sequel the best movie ever made about death and moving on (and 3rd best film of the 21st century), let alone two sequels. That would be madness.
I have such an oddly defensive relationship with social media and the internet, by which I mean I loved the internet I grew up with in my teenage years and how it expanded my horizons. I was socially awkward and didn't really fit in with the people I knew offline, but the internet was an entry-point to niche interests and meeting people (or at least their constructed online personas) from far away. I had what felt like internet friendships that lasted decades. Of course this was long before algorithms became a concern (we're talking Usenet and Angelfire webrings, not Instagram), and even then I didn't really get into it until I was a teenager myself.
So I worry about what loner, neurodivergent, oddball teens are missing out on, even as I'm not blind to how it needs guidance and guardrails, and the technology is so much more manipulative and forceful now. If I had a kid I don't know how I'd navigate it. What I've read about the movie (here and elsewhere) makes me think it might be genuinely thoughtful on that issue. And it's nice to think someone gets that play and learning how to relate and socialize can take place in this space too - or nearly; and perhaps that nearly makes all the difference.
Plus it's Toy Story. It's hard to go wrong with that world, though with Pixar's recent records, it's really nice to hear they didn't muck it up too badly.
My kids (who are around Bonnie's age) have watched all the Toy Story movies so far, but have never been gigantic fans and when I first saw there was a Toy Story 5 coming out, my eldest asked "why? There are already 4 of them - did they need a 5th?", so I'm not sure if we will be going to see this one. This review was great and will help us decide whether or not it would be worth it for us. In terms of the technology thing, I have found that the biggest influence on how much my kids want screens and more tech, is how much my husband and I are using them ourselves. In the past few months, I have made a concerted effort to be a lot more intentional about when I am using any screens and have been focusing my time and energy on real life interactions and hobbies more and my children have automatically done the same and have asked for a lot less screen time. From your review, it sounds like this point is at least part of the points being made in this movie, which I think is really important and something that is often missed when discussing limiting screens and social media etc for our kids.
I just saw the movie with my kids (4.5 and 2.5) this morning, and I actually loved it. I didn’t love the fourth one, and I thought this one was better. I love your points on screen use, and I actually thought the way they approached tech and screens was very thoughtful and nuanced and not what I expected. I’ve actually been annoyed because I’ve seen some very cute Toy Story 5 pajamas the past few months, but they all have Lilypad (the tablet) on them and I’ve been baffled why they would put the villain on the merchandise, and without giving too much away her character is much more nuanced than that in the movie. It’s very good!
I must say. I was in elementary school in the 60s. In the 5th grade, we moved mid-year to a very affluent suburb in another state. I was still actively playing with dolls, but was mericilessly made fun of by the snobby girls who were apparently making out in the park. So...I don't think ALL things have changed.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and insightful review Sonny! I know I am going to sound like the old fart that I am, but I am beyond grateful that there was no internet, social media, smart phones, video games, VCRs or DVD players when I was a child. I had armies of toy soldiers that brought me great joy and read comic books and novels that fed my imagination. The seven channels that I had on my TV seemed more than enough. And nothing beat playing stick ball on an oblong baseball diamond at the intersection of two neighborhood streets.
I am beyond grateful that so little of this was around when my kids were growing up (I think the first flip phones came out when my oldest was 14-15). I can't imagine raising kids today, when it's common for first-graders to have smartphones, not to mention all the other tech.
"What is the point of play? What is the goal? To develop a fully realized inner life, one driven by imagination? To learn the proper way to socialize with strangers, to make friends? To cultivate empathy for those around us? All of the above? The big question for the tablet generation, then, is this: Does absorption within screens wind up short-circuiting some—perhaps all?—of these efforts?"
The answer here is, "Yes."
I don't want to seem like more of a luddite than I am, but I've come to appreciate the advantage of having kids develop on a human centric scale (both in terms of time and space). As an Xer (so, please stop calling me a Boomer, that's my parents!), I had the good fortune of bridging between the old and new. I'm far more resistant to the pull of the algorithm(s) than my kid, who--despite my best efforts--is rapidly being co-opted by it.
This tech is great and has great potential, but if we're not asking "What is the point? What is the goal?" constantly, then we will surely be turning ourselves over willingly to the matrix.
Yeah, we're not a no-tech house—the kids watch TV; we have a Nintendo Switch; my daugher has a smartish-watch, albeit one with limited ability to contact the outside—but we are a "no-tablets-except-on-airplanes" house, which I think is a fair compromise.
This is the way, Sonny. I'm now up against a teen and I needed to get back some freedom before I die; thus, begrudgingly, have opened the door to a mobile device. A Faustian bargain for all involved.
I never saw the fourth movie because my thoughts were just "why?". The third movie felt so perfectly complete to me, a fourth just seemed designed as a cash grab. Apparently we share this stance with Quentin Tarantino, who publicly went on a rant about refusing to watch the fourth movie since the third one was a "masterpiece".
I was really intrigued by the preview for this one though. They may have roped me back in.
"Yes, yes: They also worry about their own obsolescence...with the arrival of the tablet known as...[Greta Lee]."
I mean, don't we all contemplate our obsolescence when confronted with Ms. Lee? I sure do! There's an inexorable pull towards an end that you cannot help but follow.
I finally read "The Anxious Generation" last week. I wonder if this would be a great movie to watch or a terrible movie to watch with all those stats rattling around in my head.
I will have to check that one out. But I do hope more and more of the "touch grass" trends continue. I had a convo with my wife about how odd it is to watch kids now.
Granted I was the third of 3 boys and my brothers and I had friends who also were from houses of mostly boys only. But I would ignore just about every rule as a kid. There was one thought process I had: "Will I break this, get hurt, and/ or get in trouble? And if so, do I have a way to fix it or shift the blame? If not will getting yelled at be worth it?" If at the end of it, the answer is still yes........I was doing it.
Seems crazy but I'd argue I learned a lot about how to interact and manage things in my life without my parents doing it for me. I just happened to learn how not to get in trouble but there are valuable life skills as part of that.
Blue - your personally developed thought process (I assume through trials & errors that you survived) likely serves you well both as an engineer and as a coach 😊
Thoughtful review Sonny! I was 18 when the first one came out, and at the time it struck all the feels as I realized I was leaving childhood behind, along with some beloved toys and all the imaginary adventures I’d had, for a grown up world with real responsibility. I think the whole series (maybe 2 to a lesser extent) is also about dealing with the unstoppable forces of change and how not completely losing the joys and magic of childhood is critical for a healthy adult life.
I’ve got a 5th grader who is days away from finishing up elementary school. He asked for a gaming headset for “graduation” gift. But I’ve been catching him playing with his beat up broken toy lightsaber so he’s getting a new one. It’s probably the last time I can get away with a toy as a gift and have him be happy about it. Whether he or I or his mom like it, he’s entering a tweenage digital world.
But I know if he can hang onto a few of those moments of play from his childhood, there will be something deeply human in his memories of growing up. Until he’s maybe got his own kids. Playing with him and his toys was one of the joys of him being little and me being a parent.
I’m glad Disney & Pixar return to that old well every so often to tackle the place of toys and play in life. But the digital world is already changing even that. His mom and I are going to a theater to see 5, he’s going to a birthday party instead and thinks that Toy Story is for little kids and he’ll just stream it on Disney+. For now though, we still have theaters and he still gets a beloved toy as a gift one last time.
Sounds like Bonnie’s parents are dealing with the same collective action problem that we are all dealing with when it comes to social media/technology and kids.
Thank you. I decided to go see it and agree with your points and would just add that Buzz himself esp in the latest version of the toy is a sort of mid-way "electronic" toy (and wasn't that techno aspect of him what seemed to threaten Woody when he first appeared, if I remember aright?) who turns out to be able to help by means of those same capabilities... so yes the film is far more intelligent than to position itself as just a trasher of technology. It does a much better job than that, showing how that tool can be used in the service of human creativity and kindness- or , v powerfully, against. (Cyberbullying is effectively incorporated in the plot and for some of us brought back painful memories of what our kids have experienced at times.) But once lilypad learns humility, she is able to help conventional toys who turn out to be aligned with her in their goals for Bonnie as she hadn't understood . Not a preachy film but I have to hope the message gets through.
Yes, tech is troubling. What troubled me more was how Bonnie’s parents were so involved with their own screens and did so little to engage in play with her, and perhaps including the neighbor children Bonnie longed to play with. I was able to be a free range kid in 1950s/‘60s cuz the whole neighborhood was that way. Not sure children can fall into that these days, may take more parental effort to facilitate children linking up with compatible playmates. Neither Lilypad nor talking toys are up to that.
PS to Sonny - there were some goofy primitive electronics in 1970s; we didn’t have a potty trainer gadget but it looked vaguely familiar 🤔 See & Say or Speak & Spell, targeted to the more limited task? Wouldn’t have had USB to connect to the other gadgets tho. Kids cameras? For sure. No GPS, that’s cinematic license
I don’t know why you reviewed a movie that doesn’t exist, Sonny.
It just isn’t possible that Disney went ahead and made a sequel the best movie ever made about death and moving on (and 3rd best film of the 21st century), let alone two sequels. That would be madness.
I have such an oddly defensive relationship with social media and the internet, by which I mean I loved the internet I grew up with in my teenage years and how it expanded my horizons. I was socially awkward and didn't really fit in with the people I knew offline, but the internet was an entry-point to niche interests and meeting people (or at least their constructed online personas) from far away. I had what felt like internet friendships that lasted decades. Of course this was long before algorithms became a concern (we're talking Usenet and Angelfire webrings, not Instagram), and even then I didn't really get into it until I was a teenager myself.
So I worry about what loner, neurodivergent, oddball teens are missing out on, even as I'm not blind to how it needs guidance and guardrails, and the technology is so much more manipulative and forceful now. If I had a kid I don't know how I'd navigate it. What I've read about the movie (here and elsewhere) makes me think it might be genuinely thoughtful on that issue. And it's nice to think someone gets that play and learning how to relate and socialize can take place in this space too - or nearly; and perhaps that nearly makes all the difference.
Plus it's Toy Story. It's hard to go wrong with that world, though with Pixar's recent records, it's really nice to hear they didn't muck it up too badly.
I don't think I saw 3 and 4, as my kids grew out of those movies, but I might go see this one based on your review. Thanks
The third one is wonderful. The fourth is OK, and can be skipped without missing anything.
My kids (who are around Bonnie's age) have watched all the Toy Story movies so far, but have never been gigantic fans and when I first saw there was a Toy Story 5 coming out, my eldest asked "why? There are already 4 of them - did they need a 5th?", so I'm not sure if we will be going to see this one. This review was great and will help us decide whether or not it would be worth it for us. In terms of the technology thing, I have found that the biggest influence on how much my kids want screens and more tech, is how much my husband and I are using them ourselves. In the past few months, I have made a concerted effort to be a lot more intentional about when I am using any screens and have been focusing my time and energy on real life interactions and hobbies more and my children have automatically done the same and have asked for a lot less screen time. From your review, it sounds like this point is at least part of the points being made in this movie, which I think is really important and something that is often missed when discussing limiting screens and social media etc for our kids.
I just saw the movie with my kids (4.5 and 2.5) this morning, and I actually loved it. I didn’t love the fourth one, and I thought this one was better. I love your points on screen use, and I actually thought the way they approached tech and screens was very thoughtful and nuanced and not what I expected. I’ve actually been annoyed because I’ve seen some very cute Toy Story 5 pajamas the past few months, but they all have Lilypad (the tablet) on them and I’ve been baffled why they would put the villain on the merchandise, and without giving too much away her character is much more nuanced than that in the movie. It’s very good!
I must say. I was in elementary school in the 60s. In the 5th grade, we moved mid-year to a very affluent suburb in another state. I was still actively playing with dolls, but was mericilessly made fun of by the snobby girls who were apparently making out in the park. So...I don't think ALL things have changed.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and insightful review Sonny! I know I am going to sound like the old fart that I am, but I am beyond grateful that there was no internet, social media, smart phones, video games, VCRs or DVD players when I was a child. I had armies of toy soldiers that brought me great joy and read comic books and novels that fed my imagination. The seven channels that I had on my TV seemed more than enough. And nothing beat playing stick ball on an oblong baseball diamond at the intersection of two neighborhood streets.
I am beyond grateful that so little of this was around when my kids were growing up (I think the first flip phones came out when my oldest was 14-15). I can't imagine raising kids today, when it's common for first-graders to have smartphones, not to mention all the other tech.
"What is the point of play? What is the goal? To develop a fully realized inner life, one driven by imagination? To learn the proper way to socialize with strangers, to make friends? To cultivate empathy for those around us? All of the above? The big question for the tablet generation, then, is this: Does absorption within screens wind up short-circuiting some—perhaps all?—of these efforts?"
The answer here is, "Yes."
I don't want to seem like more of a luddite than I am, but I've come to appreciate the advantage of having kids develop on a human centric scale (both in terms of time and space). As an Xer (so, please stop calling me a Boomer, that's my parents!), I had the good fortune of bridging between the old and new. I'm far more resistant to the pull of the algorithm(s) than my kid, who--despite my best efforts--is rapidly being co-opted by it.
This tech is great and has great potential, but if we're not asking "What is the point? What is the goal?" constantly, then we will surely be turning ourselves over willingly to the matrix.
Yeah, we're not a no-tech house—the kids watch TV; we have a Nintendo Switch; my daugher has a smartish-watch, albeit one with limited ability to contact the outside—but we are a "no-tablets-except-on-airplanes" house, which I think is a fair compromise.
This is the way, Sonny. I'm now up against a teen and I needed to get back some freedom before I die; thus, begrudgingly, have opened the door to a mobile device. A Faustian bargain for all involved.
I wasn't planning to see this, as I think the series should have ended with the third movie, but your review has convinced me to go!
I never saw the fourth movie because my thoughts were just "why?". The third movie felt so perfectly complete to me, a fourth just seemed designed as a cash grab. Apparently we share this stance with Quentin Tarantino, who publicly went on a rant about refusing to watch the fourth movie since the third one was a "masterpiece".
I was really intrigued by the preview for this one though. They may have roped me back in.
Me, too.
Lotta pressure you too!
"Yes, yes: They also worry about their own obsolescence...with the arrival of the tablet known as...[Greta Lee]."
I mean, don't we all contemplate our obsolescence when confronted with Ms. Lee? I sure do! There's an inexorable pull towards an end that you cannot help but follow.
There is no doubt whatsoever about the harmful effects of social media on kids ( and adults).
On ongoing suit by parents alleging harm has led to discovery of meta internal files that provide causation evidence
https://www.beasleyallen.com/article/judge-blocks-metas-bid-to-hide-key-documents/
I finally read "The Anxious Generation" last week. I wonder if this would be a great movie to watch or a terrible movie to watch with all those stats rattling around in my head.
I have also read it and it definitely hits on some o the same points!
I will have to check that one out. But I do hope more and more of the "touch grass" trends continue. I had a convo with my wife about how odd it is to watch kids now.
Granted I was the third of 3 boys and my brothers and I had friends who also were from houses of mostly boys only. But I would ignore just about every rule as a kid. There was one thought process I had: "Will I break this, get hurt, and/ or get in trouble? And if so, do I have a way to fix it or shift the blame? If not will getting yelled at be worth it?" If at the end of it, the answer is still yes........I was doing it.
Seems crazy but I'd argue I learned a lot about how to interact and manage things in my life without my parents doing it for me. I just happened to learn how not to get in trouble but there are valuable life skills as part of that.
Blue - your personally developed thought process (I assume through trials & errors that you survived) likely serves you well both as an engineer and as a coach 😊
Thoughtful review Sonny! I was 18 when the first one came out, and at the time it struck all the feels as I realized I was leaving childhood behind, along with some beloved toys and all the imaginary adventures I’d had, for a grown up world with real responsibility. I think the whole series (maybe 2 to a lesser extent) is also about dealing with the unstoppable forces of change and how not completely losing the joys and magic of childhood is critical for a healthy adult life.
I’ve got a 5th grader who is days away from finishing up elementary school. He asked for a gaming headset for “graduation” gift. But I’ve been catching him playing with his beat up broken toy lightsaber so he’s getting a new one. It’s probably the last time I can get away with a toy as a gift and have him be happy about it. Whether he or I or his mom like it, he’s entering a tweenage digital world.
But I know if he can hang onto a few of those moments of play from his childhood, there will be something deeply human in his memories of growing up. Until he’s maybe got his own kids. Playing with him and his toys was one of the joys of him being little and me being a parent.
I’m glad Disney & Pixar return to that old well every so often to tackle the place of toys and play in life. But the digital world is already changing even that. His mom and I are going to a theater to see 5, he’s going to a birthday party instead and thinks that Toy Story is for little kids and he’ll just stream it on Disney+. For now though, we still have theaters and he still gets a beloved toy as a gift one last time.
"A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys..."
I am glad you are giving him one last childish gift, before he completely loses the ability to appreciate it!
Sounds like Bonnie’s parents are dealing with the same collective action problem that we are all dealing with when it comes to social media/technology and kids.
Hmmm... without spoilers, does the "She STILL plays with dolls?!" bullying get resolved positively?
(Asking nervously as a mother of even older girls who definitely STILL play with dolls but who are dying to see this movie...)
I think you’ll be okay with the resolution, yeah.