Or at least, people like me: kids raised on the sheer optimism of Disney renaissance and peak Pixar slowly learning together what it means to grow up. Andy\u2019s story was my story, my friends\u2019 story, my little brother\u2019s story, and I felt it in the deepest parts of my gut.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And then I saw Toy Story 4.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Toy Story 4<\/i> is not about me or the people I grew up with. Tracing complicated arcs about transition, self-actualization, and purpose, it tells the story of our parents, or any parent who has to reframe their identity after their children leave home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And as the final beats of the movie played out, it wasn\u2019t wholly unfamiliar. Woody suddenly reminded me of my mom, a widow, who has had to face that hard, world-altering transition alone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the nine-year gap between sequels, Toy Story 4<\/i> takes place not long after Toy Story 3<\/i>, following Bonnie as she becomes attached to Forky, a craft-turned-toy who is learning for the first time what it means to belong to a child.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On a road trip with Bonnie and her parents, Woody reunites with Bo Peep, now taking on the world without a kid, and other characters, like Gabby Gabby, an antique doll trying to fix her forever-broken voice box so she can finally be played with. At the end, Woody does what he wouldn\u2019t do a decade ago: He stays with Bo, closing his chapter as someone\u2019s toy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The franchise\u2019s fourth installment was kicked off supposedly in secret a decade ago by Toy Story <\/i>and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton. Stanton\u2019s kids had left home for college at the time, producer Jonas Rivera told Empire<\/span><\/a>, and that loss was peppered throughout the story. You could feel Stanton\u2019s experience on the page, producer Mark Nielsen said<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As Rivera noted, Toy Story 3 <\/i>ended Andy\u2019s story, but \u201cthe story of Toy Story<\/i> is Woody.<\/span>\u201d What happens to Woody after Andy\u2019s gone?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat would happen if Woody did everything right, he survived it all, he landed on his feet with Bonnie?… Like, what do you do when you\u2019ve done everything right and your life\u2019s not over?\u201d Rivera said<\/span>. \u201cYou have to reinvent yourself. And that was kind of the crack in the nerve, like OK, how would Woody do that? That was interesting to us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As a devoted caregiver, Woody echoes the fears of parents throughout the series, especially in its sequels. He grapples with being replaced in the first one, his limited time with Andy in the second, and the end of that time in the third.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the end of Toy Story 3<\/i>, Woody\u2019s final decision to help Andy let go of him, and to help him let go of Andy, even sparks from an exchange between Andy and his mom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just, I wish I could always be with you,\u201d Andy\u2019s mom says after being struck by her son\u2019s suddenly empty bedroom right before he leaves for college.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou will be, Mom,\u201d Andy replies.<\/span><\/p>\n So will Woody.<\/span><\/p>\n Toy Story 4<\/i> carries that theme a step further to highlight what its key characters now have in common: transition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the beginning of Toy Story 4<\/i>, Woody walks down a road carrying Forky back to Bonnie, trying to explain what it feels like to care for a kid and then lose them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou watch them grow up and become a full person, and then they leave,\u201d Woody says. \u201cThey\u2019ll go off and do things you never see. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2014 you still feel good about it. But then somehow you find yourself after all those years sitting in a closet just feeling\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Forky: \u201cUseless?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Woody: \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Forky: \u201cYour purpose fulfilled?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Woody: \u201cExactly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve never met someone who talks about purpose more than my mom. She\u2019s not a passive or weak person \u2014 she thrives on adventuring and being around people. And for years, she did that as a part of a couple, and as a mom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Five years ago, she lost her husband to cancer. For over a year, she\u2019s lived alone in a house too big for her, her kids living hours away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When she gets sad, she repeats herself \u2014 I miss when we lived together as a young family. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m needed. Who am I if I\u2019m not my best friend\u2019s wife or someone\u2019s mom, the way I used to be?<\/span><\/p>\n Woody seems impacted by the loss of Andy more than the other toys in Toy Story 4.<\/i> As the others get played with, he\u2019s left behind. He used to bring comfort to Andy directly, and now he can only help Bonnie from the sidelines. He\u2019s not in charge of the bedroom like he used to be. He\u2019s not a caretaker like he used to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s built his identity on a relationship he\u2019s lost, and now he doesn\u2019t know what to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The idea that my mom thinks my brother and I don\u2019t need her is patently ridiculous to me. Even hundreds of miles away, we wouldn\u2019t last a day without her. But I know I don\u2019t understand the full weight of what she and people like her go through every day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Losing a spouse redefines your life, your financial security, your future, and your personal identity. It\u2019s awkward to exist around coupled friends as a single person. It\u2019s disheartening when others excuse your pain as temporary instead of persisting and earthshaking. It\u2019s easy to descend into isolation. Widow blogs and listicles and support groups detail different tactics, but the goal is the same: find connection and move forward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s terrifying.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In Toy Story 4<\/i>, Pixar personifies that fear in Bo. As a \u201clost toy,\u201d she\u2019s a living result of the anxieties of the first three Toy Story<\/i>s. As director Josh Cooley told Screenrant<\/span><\/a>, she\u2019s \u201cthe thing that Woody has always been the most afraid of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In a movie full of characters experiencing transitions, Bo has largely already had hers, and, according<\/span><\/a> to her voice actress, Annie Potts<\/span>, she\u2019s happy. She can go wherever she wants and she has positive relationships with other toys. She\u2019s not alone, she\u2019s free, and she knows who she is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As Woody moves through the story, he helps Forky \u2014 a symbol himself of Bonnie\u2019s transition to kindergarten \u2014 learn to live and love as Woody has. He helps Gabby Gabby move away from hinging her worth on one relationship, ultimately inspiring her to adapt, take risks, and lean into hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So by the end, when Woody feels like he\u2019s walking away from a life that\u2019s right for him, he\u2019s capable of doing something he hasn\u2019t done in years: He chooses to live for himself. I hope more than anything that my mom and people struggling with similar feelings will be able to do the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Before Woody decides to stay, Buzz gives him reassurance \u2014 permission to leave. Afterwards, his friends surround him, hugging, laughing, and happy for him. I\u2019m not sure everyone is lucky enough to have that level of support, or a person like Bo who can pull you into a new life and remind you who you are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I hope Toy Story 4<\/i> inspires people who feel trapped or without purpose. In the meantime, I think we can all do what Woody\u2019s friends did for him: listen. As someone who was born a handful of months before the first Toy Story came out, the hit franchise has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":551,"featured_media":12098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-on-the-marquee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}So long, partner<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
I don\u2019t remember it being this hard<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
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