Toy Story 5: Woody's Aging Revisited In Upcoming Pixar Movie

The excitement around Toy Story 5 has understandably gone up a notch since its trailer dropped in February, confirming that we should expect another tour de force from Pixar’s first movie franchise. Helmed by Finding Nemo and WALL-E director Andrew Stanton, this upcoming release reunites Andy’s old gang of toys in the face of a new smart tablet antagonist.

However, one key detail we now know about Toy Story 5’s story that’s been missed amid all the talk of AI and screentime harks back to Woody’s character arc in Toy Story 2. In the franchise’s original sequel, the miniature cowboy literally came apart at the seams, sparking a series of events that led him to face his own mortality.

Ranking among Pixar’s greatest movies, Toy Story 2 addresses the theme of aging with the kind of existential angst synonymous with an Ingmar Bergman film, while still managing to tell an accessible tale of adventure for children. Toy Story 5 promises to do much the same, as well as placing Woody’s advanced years at the center of its plot.

Toy Story 5 Is Bringing Back Woody's Struggles With Wear & Tear

It’s common knowledge that Toy Story 5 will repeat many of the same plot threads that hold together previous movies in the franchise, to the extent that its trailer even features an acknowledgement of this repetition. Far from diminishing the effectiveness of the Toy Story movies, their reiteration of the same themes in different ways serves as an artistic signature.

More than just returning to overarching themes, though, Toy Story 5 is going to repeat a specific storyline from its 1999 forerunner. In Toy Story 2, Woody falls victim to wear and tear, when a seam binding his arm to his torso opens up, revealing the polyester stuffing underneath.

Likewise, in Toy Story 5, a bald patch on the crown of Woody’s head is a sign of wear. Another toy that he “needs a brown marker” to fix him up, and his bald patch becomes a cause for ridicule when he meets Bonnie’s new smart toy, Lilypad. As Forky tells him, “She thinks you’re old because you’re bald.”

Woody's Torn Arm Is A Key Plot Point In Toy Story 2

Woody’s torn arm in Toy Story 2 isn’t just a sign of aging in itself. It serves as the catalyst for the entire movie’s plot, as Woody finds himself lumped in with Andy’s discarded toys in a yard sale, where collector Al McWhiggin comes across him and steals him away.

The scene in which Woody is later fixed up ahead of being shipped to Japan is one of the greatest pieces of animation in the franchise. In the meantime, he’s forced to reckon with the opportunity of living forever in a toy museum, as opposed to spending a limited time as one of Andy’s childhood toys.

The specialist who repairs Woody famously paints over Andy’s name on the bottom of his boot, in the same way he might apply a dab of brown to the bald patch on the top of his head, were he to return in Toy Story 5. Woody later rubs the paint with his hand, revealing his owner’s name underneath.

This ingenious approach to grappling with the theme of aging and mortality has rightly earned Toy Story 2 the best Rotten Tomatoes score in the franchise. Toy Story 5 would have to do something truly extraordinary to beat it.

Every Toy Story Movie Returns To The Theme Of Aging

It’s worth noting that the second and fifth Toy Story movies aren’t the only ones which deal with the theme of aging. This theme comes up time and again throughout the franchise, from the initial rivalry between Woody and Buzz in the first Toy Story, to Woody’s retirement and Gabby Gabby’s pathological fear of growing old in Toy Story 4.

The fact that Pixar’s writers chose a vintage cowboy doll as the franchise’s central protagonist to begin with tells us how significant the question of old age and the brevity of life is to the franchise. Woody is already 45 years old in Toy Story itself, and will effectively be in his sixties during the events of Toy Story 5.

Pixar’s original claim to fame is far from your typical animated family-film franchise. From its inception, the Toy Story series has challenged virtually every aspect of animated filmmaking. One that gets overlooked too often, however, is the high-concept nature of its allegorical storytelling – something that Toy Story 5 looks set to continue.