{"id":715785,"date":"2026-06-20T16:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715785\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T16:20:21","slug":"toy-story-5-makes-the-movies-saddest-sequence-even-more-devastating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715785\/","title":{"rendered":"Toy Story 5 makes the movies\u2019 saddest sequence even more devastating."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one years and four sequels since Buzz and Woody first slugged it out, the Toy Story series is feeling its age. If time worked in the Toy Story universe the way it works in the real world, 6-year-old Andy could have children of his own now, and might even be in the midst of the kind of existential crisis the movies have inspired, at least in adults, since the very beginning. Toy Story 5 is set only a handful of years after the previous installment; 8-year-old Bonnie, who inherited a college-bound Andy\u2019s toys at the end of the third movie, is only a little way into grade school. But for the toys, it seems as if much more time has passed. The boundlessly energetic cowboy Woody (voiced, as always, by Tom Hanks) is getting a bald spot at the crown of his pre-molded head (although, as a fellow toy helpfully suggests, it\u2019s nothing a quick stroke of a Sharpie can\u2019t fix), and brawny Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) is feeling the urge to settle down with spunky cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack). The toys have been threatened with aging out before\u2014the first movie, in fact, hinges on Woody\u2019s anxiety about being replaced by the newer, flashier Buzz\u2014but in this newest movie, they just feel old.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re certainly old enough to be panicked by the invasion of what they derisively refer to as \u201ctech,\u201d namely the tablet, called a Lilypad (Greta Lee), that Bonnie\u2019s parents give her in hopes it will help her connect with the other girls in her dance class. (They\u2019re worried about screen time\u2014one suspects they\u2019ve read at least a little Jonathan Haidt<\/a>\u2014but more concerned that their downcast kiddo can\u2019t seem to make any friends.) Notwithstanding their past brush with an incinerator, it\u2019s the closest thing to an extinction-level event the toys have ever faced\u2014not being swapped for a newer model or slowly outgrown, but rendered irrelevant practically overnight.<\/p>\n

The possibility of being phased out with ruthless algorithmic efficiency hits all the toys hard, but none harder than Jessie, because she\u2019s been through it before. When we first meet her, way back in Toy Story 2, she\u2019s already been abandoned once, by her former kid, Emily, and facing that again is almost too much to bear. That\u2019s not just true for Jessie, either. Watching Jessie get left behind the first time was one of most heartbreaking moments I\u2019ve ever experienced in a movie theater. The mere thought of it happening again was devastating.<\/p>\n

In Toy Story 2, Woody winds up in the hands of a vintage toy dealer (Wayne Knight) who is thrilled he can finally complete the set of dolls linked to a Howdy Doody\u2013style TV show called Woody\u2019s Roundup: Woody, Jessie, and the villainous (spoiler alert!) prospector Pete (Kelsey Grammer). Sitting on a shelf collecting dust is Woody\u2019s worst nightmare, but for Jessie, it\u2019s a chance to feel valued for the first time in years. Like Woody, Jessie once brought joy to a child\u2019s life, fulfilling what the Toy Story movies repeatedly underline is a toy\u2019s true purpose. But Emily, Jessie tells Buzz, set her aside a long time ago, and if an adult collector isn\u2019t likely to use her for imaginative play, at least she\u2019ll be on a shelf instead of inside a box.<\/p>\n

Woody is still desperate to get back to Andy, who he assumes cherishes him too much to ever let him go, so Jessie levels with him: Abandoning toys is just what kids do. \u201cLet me guess,\u201d she says, \u201cAndy\u2019s a real special kid, and to him, you\u2019re his buddy, his best friend. And when Andy plays with you, it\u2019s like, even though you\u2019re not moving, you feel like you\u2019re alive, because that\u2019s how he sees you.\u201d Woody is taken aback at hearing another toy describe an experience he thought was unique to him. How could she possibly know? \u201cBecause Emily was just the same,\u201d Jessie tells him. \u201cShe was my whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen Toy Story 2, you remember what comes next\u2014and if you need to pause to grab a tissue, I understand. Jessie stares out the window of the collector\u2019s apartment, and the movie slips into a hazy montage of Jessie and Emily\u2019s glory days. A pair of hands grabs Emily off the bed in a sun-dappled room, and suddenly she\u2019s flying, riding her horse through the air. We see the two of them riding together in the back seat of a car, the doll tucked inside the little girl\u2019s seat belt, her tiny cowboy hat perched on her leg. Emily takes Jessie, flying still, to the tire that swings from a tree behind her house, and as she spins with arms outstretched, Jessie seems to float through the air, the world behind her reduced to an autumnal blur. In that moment, it\u2019s just the two of them.<\/p>\n

We know what\u2019s coming next, and \u201cWhen She Loved Me<\/a>\u201d won\u2019t let us forget it. Like the Toy Story anthem \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend in Me,\u201d the song that accompanies the Jessie montage was written by Randy Newman, but it\u2019s sung by Sarah McLachlan, whose high, clear soprano is the polar opposite of Newman\u2019s avuncular growl. McLachlan\u2019s fragile voice is so inherently melancholy it\u2019s spent years as the go-to soundtrack for ASPCA commercials<\/a> and tearjerking TikToks (plug \u201cAngel\u201d into the app, and prepare to weep to a million videos of adorable rescue dogs), and it\u2019s put to merciless use in Toy Story 2, as Emily\u2019s love for Jessie slips into the past tense. One day, Jessie falls beneath the bed, and from her place among the dust bunnies, she can see Jessie painting her nails with a friend, a telltale sign that she\u2019s leaving childish things behind. The stuffed horses disappear from her dresser, replaced by makeup and a pink telephone, posters of psychedelic rock bands cover the space formerly filled by images of Jessie, and Emily\u2019s tomboyish outfits\u2014modeled after Jessie\u2019s frontier garb\u2014are swapped for more conventionally feminine attire. Soon Jessie has company under the bed, surrounded by other discarded toys, and eventually she\u2019s left by the side of the road, staring through a hole in a cardboard box as Emily and her family drive off for good.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Dana Stevens
\n Toy Story 5 Takes On a Dark Subject\u2014and Comes Away the Best Pixar Sequel in Years
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The New Toy Story Makes the Series\u2019 Saddest Sequence Even More Devastating
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s powerful stuff, evoking how much we may one day miss the childhoods we so eagerly moved beyond, and Toy Story 5 knows that no one who\u2019s seen the sequence needs to hear more than a few notes of \u201cWhen She Loved Me\u201d to get in their feelings, which is why Newman works the song\u2019s melody into the score for the new movie over and over again. This time, Jessie takes on the leading role, and the story returns her to the scene of the crime: the house where she was discarded all those years ago. Emily may be long gone, but her address is still written on the inside of Emily\u2019s chaps, and when a well-meaning older couple finds Jessie by the side of the road, they assume that\u2019s where she ought to be returned. Emily\u2019s not there, of course, but the house is now home to another horse girl named Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris).
Through her, Jessie finds a new sense of purpose, a means of not just making her own child happy but helping her connect with other kids, in precisely the way the Lilypad couldn\u2019t manage on its own. And she also finds a sign that, although Emily left Jessie, she never forgot her\u2014a revelation that, with the help of a familiar tune, is likely to produce an even bigger flood of tears.<\/p>\n

The toys in Toy Story are the embodiment of childhood wonder, but they\u2019re also stand-ins for parents, whose job is to fill children with so much love and acceptance that one day they have the confidence to leave us behind. One of the new movie\u2019s new characters is a discarded potty-training toy, voiced by Conan O\u2019Brien, who is panicked to discover that Blaze can use the bathroom without his help. But of course, that was the point all along; he exists in order to be outgrown. One day, Bonnie will outgrow Jessie, just as she will outgrow her parents, and forge a life, and maybe even a family, of her own. But if that plucky little cowgirl has done it right, the things she helped Bonnie learn will always be with her, and the memories will always be close enough for the right thing\u2014say an old, familiar song\u2014to bring them rushing back.<\/p>\n

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12874,151,3716,88,8284,206,148,13774],"class_list":["post-715785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-animation","tag-children","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-kids","tag-movies","tag-parenting","tag-pixar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}