Toy Story 4: Just Say No

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For fifteen years, Pixar animation had the longest, high quality streak of success any American production company has ever enjoyed. The list of films they released between 1995 and 2010 is a ridiculous who’s who of some of the best animated features ever made. Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Monsters Incorporated, Up, Wall-E. Hilarious, moving, beautiful masterpieces every one. The number of consistently high quality films they produced without a single fail in such a relatively short period of time is really remarkable.

Then, after this period of unprecedented success, Pixar made Cars 2 and even though it made more money at the box office than the Gross National Product of Ireland, it was considered kind of a flop. It still looked great, but the story was weak, the new characters failed to make an impression, and worst of all – it felt like a sequel. Derivative, pandering, and just there to make the bucks. The fact that it was a pet project headed by Pixar’s founder and grand poobah John Lassater gave it the unwelcome sheen of a vanity project.  Their next film, Brave, was lovely and really hit home for me as the father of three brilliant, strong-willed daughters, but the movie underperformed critically and commercially. Monsters University suffered from some of the same problems Cars 2 did – a faint whiff of desperate sequel-itis. When Pixar announced its upcoming slate of films, it was a surprising and disappointing list – half of them were sequels to earlier films. It seemed the age of originality at Pixar was over.

However, with films like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, one could see how there were still stories left to tell. In the hands of talented people, it’s still possible that good films could be made with these characters. I felt wary but not totally hopeless. Maybe Pixar hadn’t completely sold its soul in the name of the all-powerful sequel dollar.  

Doesn't Woody look sad?

 My cautious optimism was not rewarded. Two weeks ago, Disney/Pixar made the announcement that they are in the process of producing Toy Story 4 and that it will be directed by Emperor Lassater. This is one of the worst Hollywood decisions I’ve ever heard.

Is this the face of a man making wise decisions?

 The Toy Story trilogy is perfect. I know that’s a big claim to make, but I’m putting it out there. Each film stands on its own, complete with fully-realized characters with genuine relationships, and a story with a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. More importantly though, the three films operate beautifully as components of one larger story. Like the technology used to make them, the films progress and develop with each installment. If you follow Woody, Buzz, and company from when they first meet in Andy’s bedroom back in 1995 to the moment the entire crew stands on that sunlit porch and waves goodbye as Andy leaves for college, you have watched an entire narrative arc as whole and complete and perfect as any story in American film.

And now Pixar wants to add lipstick to the Mona Lisa, paint the Eiffel tower orange, and add Herbert Hoover’s face to Mount Rushmore. They want to make a totally unnecessary and unwelcome addition to something that is not just fine as it is but perfect as it is. It’s a bad idea. It’s letting-Willie-Nelson-do-your-taxes bad. It’s letting-your-daughter-date-a-drummer bad. Fourth films are notorious for being weak, misguided flops, even when or perhaps especially when it comes to really good film series. Fourth films are responsible for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and the franchise demolishing Batman and Robin. 

Years ago, just as the tv show Seinfeld was finishing its enormously popular 9-season run, a reporter asked Jerry Seinfeld if he’d ever come back to the show to do a short run of the series or maybe a movie version. The comedian wisely just said, “Why? What for? To wreck everything?” He, unlike John Lasseter and Pixar, understood that some great things just need to be left alone.


P.S. Props to my friend Chris Mattesen for the Willie Nelson joke.