“Remember some things never truly end, like love, or incredibly profitable franchises.”
Toy Story 4 is coming. It’s coming in spite of the near-perfect ending of Toy Story 3, and it’s coming in spite of how awkward the word tetrogoly is (I know, a series of four is also a quartet, but I’m trying to make a point here).
In 2010 Pixar released Toy Story 3, the supposed conclusion to a beloved trilogy that introduced millions of kids to the idea that toys were sentient beings that cried real tears when they were thoughtlessly tossed aside for your new Game Boy. Just when we had all just stopped crying over the Sarah McLachlan song from Toy Story 2 (between that and the sad-dog ads that woman is a monster), Toy Story 3 reminded you that your childhood was over when a now eighteen-year-old Andy selflessly gave his beloved toys to a random neighbor kid. We laughed, we cried, we dug our stuffed animals out of storage and apologized. The story arc had reached its natural conclusion. And yet here we are, a few years away from the 2017 release of movie about the toys adjusting to their new owner while dealing with worn plastic joints and facial features gradually being peeled away.
We’re hitting a golden age of stretching the narrative, and that can sometimes be a good thing. Loyal marshmallows were willing to fund last spring’s Veronica Mars movie because the cancelled too soon show left so many loose ends. Would Veronica eventually end up with Logan? Was she really going to give up sleuthing for good? The movie was embraced by fans not because it was a great cinematic feat, but because characters that strong deserved a real ending. Harry Potter fans might mock book seven’s epilogue for its hamfisted desperation to leave all its characters in almost impossible domestic bliss, but a seven book series spanning a decade needed some heavy handed closure.
Which brings us back to Toy Story and the fourth film that never needs to be. John Lasseter, who directed the first two Toy Story films and acted as the executive producer for the third will be directing Toy Story 4. He explained why Pixar was beating this particular dead horse (sorry Bullseye) explaining, “‘Toy Story 3’ ended Woody and Buzz’s story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another ‘Toy Story’ movie. But when Andrew, Pete, Lee and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it. It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movie—and I wanted to direct it myself.”
It’s understandable that a director would still be thinking about characters he had spent so much time with years later. But that’s what fan fiction is for. Online Harry Potter’s adventures continue, Veronica and Logan have a large family who helps them fight crime, and Toy Story’s Andy is at college shuffling from class to class thinking about the toys that got away. It’s normal for fans to want the story to keep going, but that doesn’t mean it warrants an entire new film.
[Lead image via]
Toy Story 4 Should Never Happen
