Toy Storyis one of the most beloved film franchises of all time, spanning generations and ever-improving visual effects to tell a story of toys and friendship and sentience and love and the nightmarish confines of utilitarian purpose and the magic of childhood. I love these movies—DON’T LIE, YOU TEARED UP AT THE END OFTOY STORY 3, TOO—but they are screaming nightmares if you stop and think about them for a second. Our toys are alive? They feel, and want, and love? And we callously abandon them? We’re the monsters of this universe! No wonder the Grand Unified Theory of Pixar movies depends on a human-less world. We don’t deserve to breathe the same air as these darling dolls and toys that love us uncondition…WHAT THE F-CK IS THAT FORK THING?
Toy Story 4will, apparently, introduce a straight-up Frankenstein’s monster in the form of “Forky” (voiced by Tony Hale), a spork-cum-craft project that rejects the label “toy”. Undoubtedly Forky will learn Important Lessons about Friendship And Love and come to accept himself—although if he doesn’t want to be a toy, don’t make him be a toy—and all will be well. But as with all thingsToy Story,Forky also brings with him dark implications. For instance: Does this mean all handmade things are alive, too? Have I been torturing my school-project Christmas ornaments for the last 30 years by leaving them in a small box eleven months out of the year? Is that horrible button-eyed yarn doll my granny gave me alive? (I mean, OF COURSE IT IS, it’s an emissary from Satan.) Are ALL plastic flatware alive, or only the ones children turn into dolls in kindergarten class? Is…is EVERYTHING alive? Is every single thing that surrounds us sentient and just waiting for us to leave the room before talking sh-t about us?Toy Story:Teaching Important Lessons about Friendship And Love and imparting neuroses since 1995.
