My garden of musings

I agree. I'm working on a post about Disney's version as disability representation, which hopefully I'll finish in the near future.

That is a very rare touch! It's one aspect of the Faerie Tale Theatre version that I especially like.

There are just a few other versions that do something similar.

In the 1914 silent movie with Mary Pickford, Cinderella and the Prince are strolling in the palace garden after their reunion, when the clock strikes midnight again, and Cinderella starts to run away because she thinks her gown will change back into rags again. But then the Fairy Godmother appears in front of both the young lovers and gives them her blessing.

In the 1947 Russian movie, after Cinderella's father brings her back to the palace and reveals her identity to the court, at first they don't know where to find the Prince, because he ran off into the forest in despair thinking he would never see Cinderella again. But then the Fairy Godmother's little boy apprentice magically appears, bringing the Prince with him, and then the Fairy Godmother herself appears and changes Cinderella's rags back into a gown.

In neither of those versions does Cinderella introduce the Prince to her Fairy Godmother, though.

In this case, it's the Toy Story series.

The Toy Story films are about parenthood, with the toys as parental figures to the children who own them. In the first film, Woody is like a father dealing with the fact that his son, who used to idolize him, now has another, "cooler" male role model (e.g. a teacher, a coach, a celebrity hero, or even a stepfather), but ultimately realizing that this doesn't diminish his son's love or need for him. Then the second film is about accepting that someday your child will grow up and leave the nest, so you should treasure every moment with them while you still can. The third film is about realizing your child is all grown up and letting them go, while the fourth film is about coping with "empty nest syndrome" and finding a new purpose outside of being a parent, and the fifth film is about feeling irrelevant in your old age, but ultimately realizing that you still matter and that your impact on your children will last for the rest of their lives.

The Toy Story films are about growing up, with the toys as symbolic children and the children as their parental figures. In the first film, Woody's jealousy of Buzz is like a child's jealousy of a new baby sibling, with whom he ultimately bonds and learns to share his parent's love. The second film reflects the childhood realization that someday you'll grow up and have to leave your parents' care, then the third film is about finally reaching adulthood and leaving the nest, and the fourth film is about finding your purpose as an adult, with the message that you shouldn't be tied down by "obligations" to your family or by a sense of what your life "should" be like. I'm not sure if the fifth film still reflects this theme, though.

The Toy Story films are about friendship. The series' theme song is "You've Got a Friend in Me," after all. In the first film, Woody's jealousy of Buzz mirrors the jealousy that a child often feels when their best friend finds a new friend, followed by realizing that it doesn't need to be a competition, but that all three of them can be friends. Then the second film's theme is that friendship is worthwhile even though it means risking hurt and loss, while the third film is about saying goodbye to a friend and opening your heart to new friends. Some fans argue that the fourth film loses this theme by having Woody leave his friends for romantic love in the end. But others argue that it does maintain the theme, showing that some attempted friendships just don't work out (Woody and Bonnie) and that sometimes the best thing to do for a friend is to wish them well and let them go (as Buzz and the others do for Woody). Last but not least, the fifth film is a reminder of the importance of real, human connections in a world increasingly connected by technology.

The Toy Story films are about relationships. All types of relationships: friendship, romance, parent-child, etc., all embodied in the toys' relationship with their child owners and with each other. Everything covered in the "toys as parents," "toys as children," and "toys and their owners as friends" analyses can be covered in one interpretation this way: it's about all forms of love.

The Toy Story films are about accepting change. The world of toys is even more subject to constant change than the human world: children adding new toys to their collections, losing interest in some toys in favor of others, and eventually outgrowing their toys, which go on to new owners, or else become ownerless. So a film series about toys is the perfect vehicle to explore this subject. Each film has the toys facing changes they don't want, but which they ultimately make peace with. And each film ends with a permanent change to the status quo: in the first film, Woody and Buzz living happily side by side, in the second, the addition of Jessie and Bullseye to Andy's toys (and the quiet understanding that someday Andy will outgrow them all, but not just yet), in the third, the toys being passed down from Andy to Bonnie, in the fourth, Woody leaving to start a new life with Bo Peep, and in the fifth, the inclusion of Lilypad in the toys' family and Bonnie's new friendship with Blaze.

The Toy Story films are about fulfilling your life’s purpose. The toys have a clear sense of what their purpose is: to make a child happy. But each film raises different questions about that purpose. Can you still fulfill it when your owner loses interest in you? Do new toys or other things that make them happy make you obsolete? What about when they grow up and don't need you anymore? Is your purpose to make one specific child happy, or can you move on to another child? Can you have a purpose other than making children happy? Can you gain a new purpose other than the one you were built for? Or can you find ways to make children happy without being played with? Meanwhile, Buzz's journey in the first film of accepting that he's a toy also deals with this theme: he thought he was a space ranger whose purpose was to fight evil, and he feels lost and broken when he loses that identity, but in the end he finds new purpose in making Andy happy along with the other toys.

When they talk about Esmeralda and her three "suitors" (Quasi, Frollo, and Phoebus), they talk as if Esmeralda were the movie's protagonist and the point were for her make the “good choice,” Phoebus, instead of either of the two “bad choices,” Quasi and Frollo. When really Quasi is the protagonist, and the main point is his contrast with Frollo in how they respond to their unrequited longing for Esmeralda. The fact that Phoebus is the one she connects with romantically doesn’t need to be justified so hard by pointing out Quasi’s “flaws” – Phoebus is just the one for her, simple as that. What matters is that she doesn’t choose Quasi or Frollo, and that in their different responses to not being chosen, we see “what makes a monster and what makes a man.”

That difference is the toys' role in the kids' lives. In the "Andy Trilogy," toys are for playing: they exist to be played with and they love to be played with. That's what it's all about. But in the Bonnie movies, there's much more emphasis on the toys finding ways to secretly help kids outside of play: e.g. Woody helping Bonnie create Forky at school, his ultimate new life with Bo Peep of helping kids and ownerless toys find each other, and the efforts in Toy Story 5 to help Bonnie make friends.

The post complained that the series has seemingly switched from "toys as toys" to "toys as good fairies who secretly help you."

Now, personally, I don't see that change as something worth complaining about. But I do see it as interesting. I had never noticed it before, but now I see that it's true.

Now, maybe this change in focus relates to the changes behind the scenes, since unlike the Andy Trilogy, the fourth and fifth movies were made without John Lasseter. (A change I'm fully in favor of because of the #MeToo issues that led to his departure, but it could have caused some creative inconsistency.) But still, Lasseter did work on the fourth movie's story before he resigned. And more importantly, Andrew Stanten has been a head writer of all five films' screenplays, and has now directed Toy Story 5, after having been one of the main story-builders of the first film back in the '90s. You'd think he would take care to preserve a consistent tone!

Maybe it could also be the influence of Inside Out, which of course came along between Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4. Fans have always noticed the parallels between the toys of Toy Story and the emotions of Inside Out: a group of beings who love and devote their lives to a child without their knowing about it. And the plot of the first Inside Out film has obvious parallels with the original Toy Story (with Joy corresponding to Woody, Sadness to Buzz, and Riley to Andy), while Toy Story 5 parallels Inside Out 2 (Bonnie corresponding to Riley, Jessie to Joy, and Lilypad to Anxiety). Since the emotions in the Inside Out films obviously exist to help their person, maybe subconsciously those movies influenced the Pixar creative team to reimagine the Toy Story toys as helpers rather than only existing for play.

But maybe the difference is better explained by Watsonian reasons (in-universe) than Doylist reasons (behind the scenes).

In the fourth film, Woody's focus on secretly helping Bonnie, and ultimately on helping other kids find abandoned toys, is precisely because Bonnie doesn't play with him anymore. It's all about finding a new purpose as a toy who isn't played with.

As for why the theme of "toys secretly helping Bonnie" continues in the fifth film, I think it reflects the fact that Bonnie has a different personality from Andy and different needs.

Andy was an average, outgoing, popular boy. We see this in the number of friends who come to his birthday party in the original film, and the fact that in the second film he goes off to sleep-away camp without a hint of nervousness. Bonnie, on the other hand, is a shy, "weird" girl, who is scared to start school in the fourth film and then has trouble fitting in with other kids in the fifth. Between this and her wild imagination and creativity, it's easy to headcanon her as being on the autism spectrum. But whether you do or not, it makes sense that she needs a little more support than Andy did, which the toys give her.

While I won’t go so far as to claim Austen is totally unromantic, I think I do agree with the people who say that her novels aren’t romance. They’re novels of manners (or comedies or manners, though I don’t feel comfortable calling them all comedies), which take a satirical look at average upper class people navigating society and social conventions, and which always center on the personal journey and growth of a heroine (or two heroines, as in Sense and Sensibility), which includes finding love and ends with marriage, but isn’t necessarily about romance.

I think it’s clear that Austen was a very practical-minded person, and while she didn’t approve of loveless, mercenary marriages (at least not for her heroines), she seems to have approved even less of marriages based only on passion. She made it very clear in her novels that marriage needs to balance love with practical considerations: first and foremost whether your suitor is an objectively good and respect-worthy person, then whether the two of you are well-suited to each other, and after that, the issue of money.

Elizabeth Bennet definitely has her flaws, most of which she eventually realizes and makes an effort to overcome. But this is one flaw I've lately seen her accused of, which Austen doesn't overtly acknowledge. It's that Elizabeth is privileged in many ways – she's young, pretty, witty, charming, sociable, generally well-liked, her father's favorite, would have had the safety net of a devoted and wealthy uncle if she had been unmarried at her father's death, and ultimately finds an outstandingly good, loving, handsome, and rich husband – and that she fails to understand or empathize with the other female characters around her who lack the same privileges.

I've seen her accused of judging Charlotte's choice to marry Mr. Collins too harshly, because she doesn't appreciate that Charlotte is older, plainer, and more desperate for the security of marriage than herself. Then there's The Other Bennet Sister, where apparently Elizabeth has to learn to understand her sister Mary and realize how much harder Mary's life has been than her own – and even apart from The Other Bennet Sister, we see people claim that the fanon version of Mary's character (the genuinely smart, unappreciated bookworm) may be the truth of who she is, while the canon version of her (the comically pretentious fake intellectual) is just the ignorant and mean-spirited way Elizabeth percieves her. Likewise, defenders of Mrs. Bennet sometimes suggest that Elizabeth doesn't appreciate her mother's powerlessness and genuine suffering – although she does eventually admit that her father has treated her mother badly, she never gains more respect or sympathy for her as a person. And of course there's her disgust with Lydia for having nearly disgraced the family without the slightest remorse afterwards, for which some readers accuse her of failing to appreciate that Lydia is just a teenager who's had no guidance and was manipulated by a terrible older man.