{"id":518070,"date":"2026-04-07T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518070\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T18:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:26:10","slug":"toy-story-5s-lilypad-might-spell-the-end-for-woody-and-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/518070\/","title":{"rendered":"Toy Story 5’s Lilypad Might Spell The End For Woody And Buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Toy Story<\/a> first arrived in 1995, it came at a time when the majority of kids\u2019 playtime involved\u2026 well, toys. But fast-forward over three decades later, and things have changed. A lot. So it is that Toy Story 5<\/a> tackles something genuinely existential for Woody, Buzz, and Jessie: the arrival of tech, embodied by Lilypad. The film\u2019s incoming villain, voiced by Past Lives<\/a>\u2019 Greta Lee, will give youngster Bonnie a whole new way to play \u2013 one that\u2019s much more enticing than her dolls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As director \u2013 and Pixar legend \u2013 Andrew Stanton sees it, our beloved heroes are truly no match for Lily. \u201cWhen tech comes in, it wins,” he says. \u201cIt happens to adults and kids. It just wins. So that was the more interesting slant to take: there\u2019s no competition. Have a kid playing with toys, drop in a screen device and see what happens. And so we leaned into the truth of that, and had fun with that.\u201d It was, he says, the reason to make a fifth Toy Story \u2013 to speak to the fundamental change in the way kids play today. \u201cThe biggest thing that was lingering all this time is the way that technology has usurped playtime in real life. Lily is representative of what we\u2019re up against,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Still, it won\u2019t all be doom and gloom \u2013 don\u2019t expect another trip to the furnace for Woody and co., necessarily. Stanton reckons the kids are alright. \u201cMy co-director, McKenna Harris, is 30, which is my kids\u2019 age,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not writing them off as some lost generation. They\u2019re just as hungry and passionate and clever as you ever thought your generation was. It\u2019s made me a lot more hopeful about how the youth are going to navigate through this than I was before.\u201d Let the war for Bonnie\u2019s attention begin.<\/p>\n

\"Empire<\/p>\n

Read Empire\u2019s full Toy Story 5 story in the Steven Spielberg issue<\/a> \u2013 on sale Thursday April 9. Pre-order a copy online here<\/a>. Toy Story 5 comes to cinemas on June 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Toy Story first arrived in 1995, it came at a time when the majority of kids\u2019 playtime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}