'Toy Story 4' debuts first 17 minutes at CinemaCon
If you've ever wished that sweet family films would have more existential despair in them, Toy Story 4 may be for you. And not just because of Forky.
At Disney's CinemaCon presentation Wednesday, producer Jonas Rivera revealed that the Pixar sequel would see Tom Hanks' Woody "questioning everything -- maybe even his own purpose."
The first 17 minutes of the film, screened at CinemaCon, certainly seem to bear that out.
The film opens "nine years ago," when Woody was still Andy's toy. He successfully spearheads a rescue mission for a toy lost outside in the rain, but the adventure comes to a bittersweet end when he discovers that Bo Peep (Annie Potts) is being given away.
Woody tries to save Bo, but she declines. "It's time for the next kid," she tells him, and Woody lets her go.
A montage catches us back up to the present, where Woody (as established at the end of Toy Story 3) is now Bonnie's toy. Except Bonnie doesn't actually seem all that interested in playing with him -- she keeps leaving him in the closet while she brings out other toys like Dolly (Bonnie Hunt), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and Buzz (Tim Allen).
Woody's clearly bothered by this, but nevertheless does what he can to make Bonnie happy. When she seems upset by the prospect of going to kindergarten orientation, he stows away in her bag to keep her company.
It's in that classroom that Bonnie creates Forky (Tony Hale), and it's on the way home that Woody realizes, thanks to an ear-splitting scream, that Forky has become sentient.
Once they're back home, Woody tries to introduce Forky to the rest of the group, as Forky, trembling and terrified, makes a run for it and jumps into the trash, where he thinks he belongs. (Forky was made of discarded scraps, you see.)
"Oh, chutes and ladders," says Woody.
While the opening scenes of Toy Story 4 aren't terribly depressing -- this isn't Up, folks -- they establish some intriguing emotional throughlines for the rest of the story to follow.
Woody, throughout the Toy Story movies, has generally taken for granted that his life's purpose is to make his human happy. But between Bo Peep's departure, Forky's birth, and his own not-terribly-close bond with Bonnie, he seems primed to rethink some things.
Then there's the simple fact of Forky's existence. Exactly what turns something from an inanimate object to a sentient toy? I need Toy Story 4 to tell me before I fill up my entire house with trash on the off chance that I've played with it one time and thus willed it into existence.
Answers to all those and more -- hopefully -- when Toy Story 4 opens June 21.
