Toy Story Essay

By: Antonella Thauby Mora

Toy Story 4, released in June of 2019, is the sequel to Toy Story 3. It is about Woody, a
sheriff ragdoll, trying to show Forky, a spork, how important he is to Bonnie, while he
suffers an existential crisis.
Everything starts when Bonnie goes to kindergarten and makes a toy out of a spork. She
then takes them home and Woody presents Forky to the toys, but he can’t think of
anything apart from him being in the trash. Bonnie’s parents decide to take her on a road
trip, and she takes all her toys with her, including the spork.
On the van, Forky does everything in his power to throw himself in the trash, but Woody
stops him from doing it. One night, Forky jumps out of the window and Woody jumps after
him. They walk down the road to meet with the van and start talking and knowing each
other. Woody gets to know why Forky liked being in the trash, and Forky got to know about
Andy, and finally understands what being a toy means.
The next day, they get to the place where the van had stopped for the night, but before
getting there, Woody saw Bo Peep’s lamp in an antique store and decided to have a look
in case she was in there. Him and Forky can’t find Bo, but meet Gabby Gabby instead, a
pull-string talking doll with a damaged voice box, who tries to convince Woody to give her
his. He manages to escape, but Forky stays behind. Outside, Woody meets with Bo Peep,
and she agrees to help him get Forky back.
On the other hand, Buzz decides to find Woody on his own, and leaves the van. He then
finds himself in a carnival where he meets Bunny and Ducky, a stupid but funny duo, who
accidentally help him find Woody. Bo and Woody ask them to help get Forky back. Inside,
they meet with Duke Caboom, a Canadian toy. Together, they plan to get Forky back, but
they fail, making everyone, except for Woody, leave. While Buzz returns to the van and
tells Bonnie to get her backpack she had left in the store, Woody goes back and meets
Gabby, offering her his voice box in exchange for Forky. Gabby Gabby, with her new voice
box, finally has an opportunity with Harmony, the antique shop owner’s granddaughter, but
she isn’t interested in Gabby, and leaves her disappointed. She offers Woody his voice
box back, but he insists she keeps it and promises to take her to Bonnie.
They come out of the shop and are about to get in the van, but Gabby sees a lost girl
crying and decides to comfort her. The gang finally gets to the van, but Woody decides to
stay with Bo Peep taking in the lost toy life. Buzz and Forky say goodbye to him and leave
with Bonnie.
In this movie, the characters feel like they devolved, that is, it feels like they took back all
the progress they had done in the last three movies. Some dialogues feel a little too
forced, and, personally, I feel the character design (physically) is bad in some of them.
I think the plot of this movie is basically the same that all the other movies: there is a toy
and a window. The toy falls from the window. The hero (Woody) goes rescue the lost toy.
The only thing that changes is that not all toys go back to the owner, like Woody, that stays
behind with Bo Peep and becomes lost.
I didn’t like the movie, not because it is bad or because the characters act like before, but
because the end of Toy Story 3 was perfect, and didn’t need a sequel because there was
no visible problem. In the 4th movie, they added a scene that was too elaborated: when Bo
Peep was sold, if you look back to the other movies, there was not even the slightest hint
of that happening. Not even a hint in Woody’s behavior, because he acted the same as in
the rest of the movies.
I personally think the movie was completely unnecessary because the end of the 3rd one
was really good.
I liked the animation because it felt smooth and realistic. The voice acting was also very
good. I didn’t like the character design because they changed too much the characters
(physically and psychologically). I like when they play “I can’t let you throw yourself away”
when Woody follows Forky everywhere and gets him out of the trash, I think it gives the
scene a familiar environment, showing how they both have their own problems and none
of them are trying to solve them: Woody in one hand, has no self-esteem and needs to
occupy himself because if he stays alone with his thoughts for too long he becomes self-
destructive, while Forky is literally trying to throw himself in the trash, but after a while,
when Woody finally convinces Forky to take care of himself and he stops trying to throw
himself away, he makes Woody start questioning his existence and he feels lost.
It is nice when a movie shows real emotions like sadness and grief, but I think like this
movie focuses too much in Forky and Woody and doesn’t let you understand enough the
other toys emotion, like Buzz or Jessie, and they even feel like background characters,
even when they were protagonists in the other movies. Also, if they changed a little more
the basic plot: toy gets lost, toys make plan to rescue lost toy, toy gets found, toys
celebrate, it would have been better.
In conclusion, I liked the movie, but I feel like it could have been better if they gave more
importance to other toys, rather than only Woody and Forky being the main characters.