Toy Story 5 Is A Direct Sequel To Toy Story 2 (And Makes That Movie Even Better)

Whoa there, partner! This article contains spoilers for “Toy Story 5.”

Since 1995, the “Toy Story” series has been about how kids outgrow their toys, from the toys’ perspective. The latest, “Toy Story 5,” explores this across a whole generation. Kids nowadays turn to screens and the games and/or social media on them to stay entertained. To paraphrase a certain ring-loving Dark Lord — the time of the dolls is over. The age of the tablet has come.

“Toy Story 5” explores how toys might be going obsolete when pitted against technology, and the central POV belongs to the toy with experience being replaced: Jessie (Joan Cusack). One of the most famous sequences in her debut film, “Toy Story 2,” is her musical montage backstory. Jessie was once the favorite toy of a little girl named Emily, but as Emily grew up, as all girls do, she became less interested in cowgirls, more in makeup, boys, etc. One day, a teenage Emily left Jessie in a donation box, and that was the last the once-best friends saw of each other. The sequence has no dialogue because the aching words of “When She Loved Me,” sung by Sarah McLachlan, are all it needs.

Jessie, who is also the leader of Bonnie’s toys after Woody (Tom Hanks) named her sheriff at the end of “Toy Story 4,” takes the greatest umbrage with Bonnie’s new Lilypad (Greta Lee) and the threat she poses. Jessie spent years sitting ignored as Emily grew up, and she resents how screens make kids grow up and instantly shun their imaginations, not gradually over years of childhood.

In “Toy Story 5,” Jessie’s quest is to prove that toys are still Bonnie’s best way to make friends, and it takes her back to the beginning of her own toy story.

Jessie still has Emily’s name and address written inside the inner lining of her pants, so, long story short, when she and Bullseye are found on the sidewalk, an elderly couple take them back to Emily’s old house, rather than Bonnie’s. Emily is long gone, and a new family has settled in. Jessie tries to orchestrate the meeting of the family’s young daughter, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), and Bonnie. When that goes poorly, she despairs, concluding her fears about her own uselessness were right.

She sets out to a familiar spot, the tire swing on a hill where she and Emily played many years ago. Now, the tree has a new feature: the words “Jessie was here” carved into it. After some (literal) digging, Jessie finds a box buried under the carving. Inside are 1980s-era effects, including a card revealing who the alluded-to “Jessie” is: Emily’s daughter. That revelation restores Jessie’s faith, for she realizes that Emily never forgot her or the happiness of their times playing together.

The “When She Loved Me” sequence in “Toy Story 2” has been making everyone from kids to parents tear up for 27 years now. “Toy Story 5” brings it full-circle, but without undercutting Jessie’s abandonment the way a dropped plan for Jessie to literally reunite with a much older Emily might have.

“Toy Story 4” kept Jessie in a supporting role, and her taking over as the protagonist of the fifth entry feels like recompense. The movie completing her arc as shown all the way back in “Toy Story 2” is the greatest proof the admittedly uneven “Toy Story 5” still has a handle on the series’ heart.

“Toy Story 5” is now playing in theaters.