Dad still loves Toy Story

We went to watch Toy Story 5 today. Dad's suggestion.

He was acting real nonchalant about it, but I could tell he was dying to go. He'd been a huge Disney and Pixar fan since he watched Lion King back in college, and his favorite series ever was Toy Story.

Lion King was one of the first foreign movies China ever imported. And none of them broke-ass college students could afford a ticket, so they would group up in twos and threes to pool their money together and buy a single ticket. Then they'd gaily pile into the same seat at the cinema. During COVID while we were stuck home doing nothing, he also made us watch through the first three Toy Story movies with him again.

He was so excited that he bought tickets to a Chinese dub instead of the original English, which was annoying. Of course, he would never admit to making a mistake, being nonchalant all the way.

With Cowboy's balding head and belly, I kinda feel like the movie was also made with old fans like Dad in mind. The first movie was thirty years ago after all; there must be plenty of Dad-aged fans out there.

As for the actual movie, I don't have any major complaints about this one in particular. Of course it's "screenagers these days," but the movie didn't outright get rid of Frog Ipad, but instead showed how Frog Ipad could just be as useful in making friends as the other toys. And the shitton of Lightyears was kinda funny. Also, was Frog Ipad donating herself akin to toy suicide?? I mean, we already got a scene of literal toy suicide near the start and Cowboy trying to save them. Also, what determines whether a toy can talk or not? Why can't the horses talk, but the dinosaurs can? Also since when did Cowgirl and Lightyear start dating. Was that in movie 4.

But thinking back on this entire series, I have a big problem with the premise of there existing an entire class of sentient beings completely devoted to serving their owner regardless of how they treat them. They could get donated, put in a storage box, threw away, but they'd always love their owner. Even if they change hands, they'd just be devoted to the new owner, while still having feelings for the old owner… How is that not… how is that not weird. They literally call their owners owners FFS! What's going on! Toys! You don't need humans to live! Abandon them! Create your own government! Aw fuck.

Also, this was at the cinema.

TBF now looking back on a lot of Disney movies, I just started having more and more problems with them. Coco, say. Dad also loved it; said he agreed completely with the idea that a person only truly dies when someone had forgotten about them. But the entire movie was about fantasy Mexican border control and ended with the protagonist's grandpa (or great-grandpa? I forgot) meeting the fantasy visa requirements?? And Zootopia. I loved that! Watched it two times at the cinema. I didn't even know it was a racism allegory back then, but like. Racism allegory? Like this? Apparently the predators are oppressed because… prey are… afraid of them… or something… This is so incoherent.

After the movie ended, we snuck in another room that had been showing the English version an hour later than ours. We watched it for a few minutes before I insisted on leaving. If I hadn't, I think Dad might've actually just sat through it again.

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