I hated Toy Story 5, but maybe I'm just overthinking it

Toy Story 5 jumps right into the main point of the entire thing: tech is taking over childhood. And Pixar makes sure to lay it on THICK. Every parent is scrolling a phone anytime you see them. Every child is glued to a screen. Bonnie is somehow the only eight-year-old without a tablet, and she’s treated like the odd one out.

Then, for reasons I still can’t fully understand, Bonnie’s parents decide to buy her an tablet called a “LillyPad.” And exactly what you’d expect happens, she becomes consumed by it. She stops playing and is shown mindless scrolling like all the other kids.

I actually admired that Pixar was willing to go there. But then…it seemed like the movie lost its nerve.

(Warning that the following contains some information on how the movie ends)

After spending nearly the entire film showing the consequences of unrestricted technology, making it clear that full access to tech is robbing kids of a play-based childhood and worse yet exposing them to all sorts of negative things like bullying and peer pressure, it suddenly pivots in the final inning of the story. All the sudden the LillyPad is good and the toys are friends with it. Bonnie, for a completely unknown reason, is just able to develop a healthy relationship with her tech with no guidance or support. By the end she’s happily taking selfies with her new tablet while also playing with her toys.

Now, I think I get the sentiment Pixar is going for here. Balance. Are they trying to show that there can be a healthy balance between childhood and tech? I think we all know tech is inventible. Trying to pretend it won’t play a role in all our futures is a losing battle. We DO need to learn how to balance tech into our lives in a healthy way. Maybe that’s the message? The movie decides to leave us with the feel-good thought that technology and traditional play can peacefully coexist. And in theory, I want to agree. If tech is inventible, we need to find a way to do that.

The problem is the movie doesn’t really earn that conclusion.

The film seems to spend a good chunk showing the dangers of tech for kids. It could have been a Pixar collaboration with Jonathan Haidt. But then the toys befriend a few tech toys, Lillypad decides she’s nice, and sudden Bonnie is able to have a healthy, regulated relationship with her tablet without any parental guidance or intervention. Don’t even get me started on how much her parents bothered me in this movie. In every scene they were scrolling their phones, let her have completely uncontrolled access to her new tablet, and then even gave the tablet back to her after she was bullied through it.

I left the movie theatre annoyed. I just spent 102 minutes watching them build up a villain and then giving us “oops, jk it’s fine” as the ending.

“How’d you like the movie,” I asked my daughter as we left the theatre. “It was good,” she smiled.

Then I realized, maybe I was missing the point.

Pixar is notorious for making kids’ movies that really are actually for adults. I mean, let’s not pretend Inside Out didn’t kinda sorta speak to every adult everywhere. But it still is a KIDS’ movie. My daughter didn’t care that they left out an obvious loophole that is one she can’t yet understand: creating a healthy balance with tech requires a little work. She just thought the horse dolls were funny and that there “was a WHOLE bunch of Buzzes!" (the film critique she gave her older brother when we got home.)

As a parent, I struggle with the balance of tech in my own life, as well as my kids’ lives. In our own home, we tend to skew less tech. My husband and I don’t own smartphones, our kids down own tablets. The only screentime my kids really get are movies on our DVD player which are reserved for weekends only. I’m not saying this is the right way, just what we’ve chosen as our own way to navigate tech with our kids.

And I know pretty much every parent out there, whatever their tech choices are, worry about the balance of tech with their kids. And what disappointed me wasn’t that the movie didn’t condemn tech for kids, but just that it seemed like they raised some big questions that all of us have as parents…and then seemed afraid (or just unequipped) to answer them.

They had the courage to portray a reality many families recognize like how devices can take time from the important work of imaginative play, create social pressure, and become incredibly difficult for children to put down. Something pretty much every parent has struggled with. But then wrapped up the movie by just saying “oh it’s fine, don’t worry, the kids can work it out!”

Ultimately, maybe I’m just getting too deep about a kids movie. I mean we can try to unearth the deep, hidden messages in the Toy Story series. How it’s about childhood and growing up, and changing times. But, at the end of the day it’s still just a movie for kids, right?. And maybe I’m asking too much of it to give me an answer to essentially the biggest struggle for the modern parent today.

Please ignore typos, this was written without AI, probably with a baby on my hip.

This was week 6 of my 52 week writing challenge to write one article a week. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber: