My Two Cents on: Toy Story 4

The Toy Story franchise is one of the biggest film series of all time, up there with Star Wars and James Bond in terms of durability. The first made a huge impact for the animation medium as the first fully-computer generated feature film, changing the world of animation to the point of Disney halting production on 2D animated movies (ending on a high note with 2011's Winnie the Pooh). The 1999 sequel, whilst originally forced upon them by Disney and struggling in its rushed production process, was a big success and arguably surpassed the original. After an 11 year break, Pixar brought the characters back for a billion-dollar earning escapade, earning 2 Oscar wins and a nomination for Best Picture. With this logic, the studio should be fine to go ahead with a fourth installment, confirmed for July 2017.

Except it isn't as simple as that.

I reviewed all three segments of the then-trilogy back in April and found them all excellent and worthy of the high praise they receive, While the first is the best of the series, the later entries are both worthy additions to the series, and Toy Story 3 is a great ending to the series. The short films that have followed, whether they be the 5 minute Toy Story Toons in front of various feature films or the television specials like Toy Story of Terror, have successfully filled audience appetites for additional adventures with the characters with them all having some level of success. They're suitable mini-follow up storylines which don't push the boat out too far by the level of the original films, but a fourth one may try and push it a little too far. From the little detail given about the next film's story, it revolves around romance - not a new area for the characters to follow following Toy Story 3 with Barbie/Ken and Buzz/Jessie, but as a main focus could fall where many other animated films have with their love-based films. The only notable good examples are Pixar's own WALL-E and Up. But the main point is that the third film ended on the perfect note. It was an absolute tearjerker for audiences globally, so going past that moment with a full 90-120 minute film is somewhat of a stretch even for the genius team behind the originals.

There's also the situation that it only adds more fire to the comments that Pixar has lost its way, as it's the fourth sequel currently in development (Finding Dory is scheduled for 2016, whilst The Incredibles 2 and Cars 3 have unconfirmed release dates) and the seventh of the decade (including Toy Story 3, Cars 2 and prequel Monsters University). While next year will consist of two original films for the studio, the last original film (Brave) didn't receive much praise despite its Oscar win, and comments on the teaser for Inside Out did give off some doubts. Sure, returning to a franchise may help financially and try and win some of those viewers back, but it could also tarnish the respect for both the series and the studio.

But it's not all bad news. On scripting duties are Rashida Jones of Parks and Recreation fame and Will McCormack who worked with her on Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), apparently adding "a strong female voice in the writing of this" - going up against the recent complaints that Pixar films rarely pass the Bechdel Test - and John Lasseter is returning to the director's chair after skipping out on the third instalment (although Lee Unkrich did a stellar job) for Cars 2 with the plot idea being so good that he "just could not stop thinking about it". He thought the same with the Cars series, but that's beside the point. The original team are all back, there are skilled newbies joining and the animation will likely be brilliant. But the case of Pixar being back or just doing it for money is still debatable.