A newer, flashier toy posing a threat to the established order has been a running theme of the “Toy Story” franchise from the very beginning. But the peril has never been greater for the former residents of Andy’s room than in “Toy Story 5,” where a slick newcomer threatens the very concept of playing with toys.
The newly released trailer for the Pixar sequel finds Woody, Buzz and Jessie staring at the terrifying soft edges and glass surface of a child’s tablet. Its flashing lights and internet connectivity foretell a future in which kids won’t rummage around in the toy box at all, opting instead for more and more screen time. As a teaser trailer released late last year noted, with a bit of cribbing from Peter Jackson, “the age of toys is over.”
In the upcoming installment, due out this June, the toys’ owner Bonnie is gifted a children’s tablet and is quickly sucked in by its seemingly endless options for proscribed play. The trailer shows her laying on the floor and in bed for hours, her face lit by the glow of a screen. As Woody puts it in a bummer of a one-liner, “toys are for play, but tech is for everything.”
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The trailer goes on to tease snippets of a toy uprising, meant to take down the increasingly villainous screens. Shots of children too absorbed in their tablets to play with each other intermingle with classic bickering between Tom Hanks‘ Woody and Tim Allen‘s Buzz Lightyear. A reimagining of Randy Newman‘s “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” over martial drums sets the tone. Playtime’s over. This means war.
Check out the trailer below via YouTube:
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