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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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In the fifth installment of the Toy Story franchise, playtime is so over and screen time is in. Jesse, Buzz, and the rest of the crew face yet another existential crisis, but this time the threat is not the arrival of a shiny space ranger or a kid going off to college. Nope, it's dun-dun-dun tech.
And with that comes the introduction of new and colorful characters voiced by the likes of Greta Lee and Conan O'Brien. Can analog and digital coexist? We'll see. I'm Stephen Thompson.
And I'm Ayesha Harris. Joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Regina Barber. She's a host and reporter for NPR's science podcast, Shortwave. Hey, Regina.
Oh, my gosh. I'm the only non-Pop Culture Happy Hour person here. I am so honored. And I'm so glad that I am your animation person, basically.
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Chapter 2: What is the main conflict in Toy Story 5?
Oh, you're more than just our animation person, Regina.
Oh, yes.
You've got a friend in us.
Yes, you've got a friend in us. Well, in Joy Story 5, we are revisiting all of our friends. And at the start of the movie, much of the gang are still together, including cowgirl Jessie and space ranger Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Joan Cusack and Tim Allen. Now, they're happily fulfilling their playtime duties with their eight-year-old kid, Bonnie, who's voiced by Scarlett Spears.
Chapter 3: How do Jessie and Buzz respond to the new threat?
That is until Bonnie is given a tablet called LilyPad and remains glued, zombified, to its screen. LilyPad is voiced by Greta Lee. Jessie instantly becomes a very vocal opponent to everything tech and won't accept this sudden abandonment without a fight. But a series of events separates her from Bonnie and the rest of the Forgotten Toys.
It's going to take a lot to get Jessie back where she belongs with course, some help from Buzz and Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks. But she's also going to need to begrudgingly work with some new smart toys she meets along the way, including a quirky potty training gadget. Didn't even know that those existed, but that's cool. And a bubbly digital camera. Toy Story 5 is in theaters now.
And Stephen, I'm going to start with you, bud. We did, and our listeners helped us rank the Pixar movies last year. And I'm not going to ask you to put this Toy Story 5, like, I'll give you a little more time to think about where you might rank this overall in the Pixar oeuvre. But I am curious, did you at least have a good time at Toy Story 5?
Chapter 4: What new characters are introduced in Toy Story 5?
Does it still feel... If not fresh, at least still delightful to engage with.
I think so. I enjoyed myself enormously. I fully laughed, fully cried. Had a great time.
Chapter 5: Can analog toys and digital gadgets coexist?
I think it's really interesting when we talk about the fifth installment in a franchise. You start to get into this mindset of where does it rank?
Mm-hmm.
not only like among other Pixar movies, but among other Toy Story movies. And I think if you were to rank particularly four and five, the ones that kind of come after that initial trilogy, it's really easy to sort of view them as less than instead of just viewing them as pleasurable viewing experiences. Because is it the best Toy Story movie? Of course it's not. It's the fifth one.
But it still is working with a very, very, very sturdy metaphor. And still working off of just sort of like the many challenges and existential crises of childhood. And one thing that really occurred to me watching this film, kind of even in comparison to the other Toy Story movies, all of these movies are built around metaphor.
But it had never really been quite so clear to me how much the Toy Story movies are metaphors not for childhood, but for parenthood. Mm-hmm. And how often these films are fixated on obsolescence. Going all the way back to Toy Story 2, obsolescence is a really, really key ache that runs through these films.
It's interesting, you know, part of it is like as you get older, you're going to kind of have different relationships with these films and kind of view them from different perspectives. This film in particular, I found it a little cluttered. We've now added so many characters together. that trying to juggle them all is a fool's errand.
And so many of the characters introduced in Toy Story 4 are almost completely sidelined here, in part to make room. And so I have a bunch of quibbles with some of the B plots and some of the clutter in this film, but I found its central story very moving, and I was entertained throughout.
Yeah. Not to mention, like, a hundred more Buzz Lightyears. So many more Buzz Lightyears.
I was, like, clapping in the theater. I was actually sitting next to Steven, and I was like, yes!
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Chapter 6: What themes of parenthood and childhood are explored?
I want to echo what you said, Aisha. I was made fun of in middle school for watching Batman the Animated Series. So this was in the 90s as well. But they were like, you still watch cartoons? And I was like, 12. One, this is a very good cartoon. Like, okay. But yeah, no, I mean, it's the same thing of this bullying for like kids.
And it's so funny because they're like, these kids are a little different. What they actually mean is that these kids are actually creative and not boring. And I was just like, I love how this makes like kids who don't have imaginations feel like maybe they should.
Yes. Yes. Especially the playtime scenes.
Chapter 7: How does Toy Story 5 compare to previous installments?
where we're inside Bonnie's head, the animators deliberately... Oh, they're so good. The way it's animated is so beautiful.
They do such a gorgeous job.
I love it. This sort of pastel chalk looking. And so those moments are just really vividly rendered.
And there's such energy to the animation in those scenes that does a great job making kind of imaginative playtime seem way more fun than it actually is.
Do you know it was kind of reminiscent of Princess and the Frog when she has that scene where she's thinking about her restaurant. Absolutely. And it's kind of like art deco and it's like brighter. Almost there. Yes, the song. Yes. It was kind of like that. And I really liked that.
Yeah. Yeah. I do want to ask, though, I both love this, but then I also kept wondering, was this movie too late?
I was also thinking that. Is it too late to say the children's?
I'm really glad that you asked this question because I did. Even watching the commercials, I had this feeling of like, are we railing against the LeapPad learning system?
It was like my kid. She's 17. She had a little keyboard.
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Chapter 8: What critiques are made about the film's pacing and character clutter?
Or a keychain or something. A keychain or something that's referencing a Disney movie or another Pixar movie. It did feel as though this is, like, where we're coming up on, like, okay, we're a franchise now, so, like, we have to be a little bit more self-referential.
I will say, the one thing that kind of, like, became clear to me, just to, like, go back really briefly to this idea of, like, the children and parents, there's also a moment where Jesse is just really kind of despondent and, like, almost about to give up because that always, that's what's going to happen before they save the day again.
But she says something along the lines of like, I can't keep doing this. Like, I can't love another kid just to find out I never really matter. And then I was like,
this is not just a metaphor for childhood and parenthood is also a metaphor for like anyone who's had, who like is having a really sucky time at trying to find a romantic partner or trying to find like friends and like, Oh God, do I have to start over? Yeah. Yeah. The whole like starting over part.
And again, I don't know how many more times I need to see them keep learning how to start over at the same time. If we're going to keep doing it, I think the same creative impulses, they are finding interesting ways into it. And, I do think that like the choice to focus so much on Jesse and kind of let Buzz and Woody kind of take a back seat was kind of exciting.
Like Joan Cusack is so, she's just really good in this role.
There's also a very funny visual gag about Woody.
Yes, yes.
I think is so funny.
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