Tom Hanks and Tim Allen explain the franchise’s lasting appeal
No one forgets their favorite toy. Even megastars Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the voices behind Toy Story Famous duo Woody and Buzz have fond memories of a particular toy that they rarely go anywhere without.
“I remember being completely content and calm and happy when it was just me and my army men or me and my car,” says Hanks, a two-time Academy Award winner who voices cowboy sheriff Woody. Toy Story 5. “The world was mine, time stood still.”
These kinds of memories, whether old or new, are what sustain us. Toy Story the franchise has been alive for over 30 years. Pixar’s first film was released in 1995. moved the audience to tears A story about a boy and his two favorite dueling toys. After all, there are few things more valuable than the bond between a child and their favorite toy.
Five movies later, the series is as popular as ever: Toy Story 4 exceeded $1 billion at the global box office in 2019 and both the third and fourth films won the Oscar for best animated feature.
Toy Story 5The film, which will be released on July 18, aims to achieve this success again, but this time technology has come to play. Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the rest of the gang reunite to save their owner, Bonnie, from falling victim to the terrifying “Lilypad”. an addictive iPad type device It threatens to separate children from their beloved physical toys.
Even though it’s the fifth film in a 30-year-old franchise, Hanks says it contains one of the most heartbreaking scenes to date. According to him, the series’ ability to consistently tug at our heartstrings always comes back to that undeniable child-toy connection.
“Each of us has a deep, unspoken but deeply felt connection to our childhood and our connection to our toys,” he says.
I remember losing my favorite toy in a shopping mall when I was eight years old. His name was Sammy, a colorful polar bear, and he was my world. When I realized I had dropped it somewhere inside a huge mall full of shoppers, I thought the universe was literally going to collapse around me. After hours of searching, we finally found him standing next to the escalator. I burst into tears and vowed to never lose him again. I never did; It remains in my wardrobe to this day.
Those moments fade away as we get older, Hanks says, but we never let go of the longing for “that world, that connection, that place where we’re never confused and we’re completely in control.”
This feeling, which we all have innately, affects both young and old people, Toy Story. “I don’t know how [Pixar] does. “I’m so glad they did this with us,” says Hanks, turning to his co-star Allen, who voices space commander Buzz Lightyear.
Like I had Sammy, both Hanks and Allen had favorite toys growing up. For Hanks, this was Major Matt Mason, a ’60s action figure for whom he made mini movies, and Lincoln Logs, a log-building toy popular in the US.
While Hanks was building things, Allen was destroying them. He says the toy he remembers most fondly may not have been “politically correct,” but he still adored it.
“I had a Daisy Pump BB gun and took it with me everywhere. Safety first; I never shot anyone with it except through my neighbor’s windows,” Allen says.
“[My neighbour] He came to my mother and said, ‘Someone is shooting at the windows of my veranda.’ ‘Tim, come here’ my mother shouted. Of course men are stupid; I carry the gun with me, I still smoke. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘You’re shooting out all the windows on his porch,’ he says. And I said, ‘Not all of them.’ I couldn’t hit the north side from here. ‘I’d have to go to the garage to shoot this.’”
Our specific experiences with toys may differ, but there is no fundamental difference. because of this Toy Story filmmaker Andrew Stanton suggested the series may continue in the futureEven if there is no set plan for now.
“Pixar [is] “We are able to take that feeling and bring it to life through this now-canonized animated version that never ceases to dazzle on a visual level and touch us on an emotional level,” says Hanks.
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Nell Geraets is Culture correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
