Following Toy Story 3, the fourth-highest-grossing animated film of all time from nearly a decade ago, Toy Story 4 looks to continue Woody and Buzz’s story as toys who come alive when people are not around.
The premise of this new movie begins at the end of Toy Story 3 in an emotional scene that left audiences wondering how animated toys could make them cry. Due to Woody’s previous owner Andy growing up and leaving for college, Woody and his friends are donated to a new kid to play with named Bonnie. Toy Story 4 is the first entry into how the characters that have been developing throughout the last three movies fare with a new kid to entertain.
The first trailer for Toy Story 4 introduces new characters into the mix, mainly focusing on Forky, a homemade creation of Bonnie’s described best as a spork with legs and a face, voiced by Tony Hale. Despite Forky meeting the rest of Bonnie’s friendly toys, Forky escapes the motorhome of Bonnie’s family, claiming that as a spork, he was not meant to be a toy. This mirrors Buzz Lightyear’s claim to not be a toy in the original Toy Story movie, and just as Woody went after Buzz, Woody again leaves the other toys to help get Forky home.
Other new characters include Bunny voiced by Jordan Peele, Ducky voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and Duke Kaboom voiced by Keanu Reeves. The main antagonists in the movie are a gang of evil ventriloquist dolls featuring characters voiced by Christina Hendricks and Bud Luckey. While the trailer focuses on these dolls as major obstacles that stand in the way of Woody and Forky in their adventure back to Bonnie’s home, Pixar may have left the true villains of the movie out of the trailer, just as the writers did in Toy Story 3 where “Lots-O’-Huggin” bear became an unlikely villain as a massive plot twist.
Despite being the fourth addition to the Toy Story franchise during the age of sequels and reboots, Toy Story 4 will likely be a well-received movie, as all three previous movies have Rotten Tomatoes scores of at least 98 percent.
While the quality of Toy Story 4’s full story will never be known until it comes out, getting tickets to see a new Pixar movie is never a bad idea. Every movie Pixar has made since its inception has a CinemaScore rating of A. Just as all recent Pixar movies, Toy Story 4 will likely be a box office success.
With many of the same lovable characters that made Toy Story so memorable, plus new big-name casting additions, Toy Story 4 will continue the brilliant Pixar series from Andy’s room to Bonnie’s.
