One might wonder at my choice of time tunnels. The avatar: a white haired senior, clearly an old guy, riding alone on the bus in a tie and Python-branded sweater, because today it’s chilly enough for such garb, even in summer, when Europeans are experiencing record heat. I’d been to Quakers earlier (Bridge City Friends) and didn’t bother to change before heading out again. I often wear a tie when riding the bus.
The choice of time tube (as in program): bus and walk to and from Pioneer Place Regal Cinemas and take in Toy Story 5, 1:20 Sunday matinee. The senior price: somewhere between $12 and $13.
I had the auditorium all to myself but for what I assumed were a parent and young child in the row ahead of me. The child seemed about the age of the two star kids in this movie.
Toy Story 5 is for sure made for children, and for parents of children, who have that shared concern about sociality, meaning not only finding friends, but the right friends. With whom is it OK, in the sense of beneficial, to hang out?
Families tend to feel their way forward in America, more than they’re handed a list of pre-approved playmates, although it’s also the case that some communities are very ingrown and isolated, even in the 21st Century. That may be by choice. Diversity is the name of the game, which doesn’t mean “without boundaries”. Not every community has a sense of a shared public space. This movie recreates single family wooden homes in both a suburban and rural (as in horse owning) setting.
Toy Story movies always harp on the same theme: the kids who own and actively play with these toys are growing up fast and the dolls therefore have a sense of their own mortality, a death of relevance. They’ll end up on a box in the garage, or they’ll be donated, passed along. At best. The dolls in Toy Story 5 have been through several owners. They’re jaded and, as toys, losing ground to screen devices.
I have nothing negative I want to say about this movie. On the contrary, I felt witness to serious yet humorous investigation into childhood issues around belonging. Inside Out 2 was another one in this genre. These movies (I’m talking about the “for kids” genre) serve a real purpose, both reflecting and refracting.
It’s not like I’m not moody. I’ve got the AirPods and Verizon and have my various antennae, for times when I’m walking or on the bus. Today I waited until I got home to walk the dog, before tuning in about the dirty wars (a redundant characterization in a lotta ways). Kids just wanna have a childhood and watch some cartoons, but the so-called adult world (kids with guns in a lotta cases) comes at them fast. Many get born into some nightmare scenario, whereas the stars in Toy Story are just coasting through the usual ups and downs.
My favorite aspect of this movie was the whole shipwrecked shipment of Buzz Lightyears, all groupthinking together, a mini hive mind on the move. There’s a satirical flavor to the Buzz legion that transfers over to Rambo movies and the wider genre. Males in packs. Team players. A fun ethnicity.
Cowgirl Sheriff (the star) is pointed and direct in her manner, goal driven, a born leader (if toys are born). Woody shows up, also somehow high ranking and already with a partner, allowing for an uncomplicated romantic subplot involving Buzz (he has a crush on Cowgirl).
The movie opens with some kitchen utensils getting married, within a girl’s imagination, with the other toys playing along. We’re clearly in a space where “getting married” is imagined often. That’s not unique to Disney movies, obviously.
This story keeps the married couples heterogenous in that parent couples are conventionally nuclear. No isotopes. Nothing molecular.
It’s not meant to be a soap so much as a coming of age action thriller involving favorite toys getting lost and found. Again, Inside Out is somewhat similar. Science fiction? OK, it’s a soap, but deliberately easy to follow. Keeping track of who’s who is a learned skill.
I agree with this message also: letting the screens do all the work and not exercising one’s own powers of imagination through creative improv dollhouse style play, including with others (thereby making friends), is likely to come at a cost. Many parents would approve of that message.
So don’t let them shame you for diving into fairytales, anime and manga, where useful info lies encoded. Have a real inner life, in the first person, vs trying to outsource your emotions.
A rich fantasy life is something to protect, vs bargain away for high pay. When they pay you to deliberately impoverish yourself, maybe its time to change the job description, or even switch careers.
Parenthetically speaking, I’ll add that I don’t find STEM subjects to be inherently unimaginative, especially when we make it STEAM, by adding Anthropology.
Screen-based Sims and SimCity showed how the dollhouse simply re-emerges in the digital realm. We get a play within a play almost no matter what we do.
Some of these screen based simulations might be more focused on the engineering. The Buzz Lightyears might even be into that, if sober.
I was intrigued by some of the previews. One in particular, the claymation one by Laika, features Portland (before the portal is entered). Lost Island I think it’s called.
