‘Toy Story 5’ and the ‘Toy Story’ Movie Rankings. Plus: ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ and the Top Five Robin Hoods.

19:04Sean Fennessey:Like, this doesn't sound like a Paramount movie to me. Yeah. This doesn't sound like anyone's paying attention. No, no, no. A lot of movie news. A lot going on. Yeah. Why do you think that is? The business is booming. I guess everybody wants a piece of it. Everyone wants to put out their press releases. There's a lot of movie news in that people had meetings and issued press releases. So we'll see how much of this actually happens. Should we start doing press releases based on conversations we have about future episodes? That is what this podcast is called. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean and Amanda are strongly considering a Robin Williams Hall of Fame in July.

19:40Sean Fennessey:Can we get that out? Can we alert our PR team? um okay let's let's talk about the death of robin hood first we'll do toy story five second so the death of robin hood is the new movie an original written by michael sarnoski it is inspired by robin hood's death which is an anonymous poem did you revisit this poem no have you ever read it no i think i'm learning right now that robin hood the whole legend oh robin hood's death is a poem not the legend of robin hood no because i have a book about the yeah didn't you give knocks for Christmas yeah which is very nice so we have some original texts of the of Robin Hood the mythology I'm not a scholar nor am I it's quite a quite a an odd folk tale the history of it its origins I tried to study up on it a little bit for this conversation to try to understand it a little bit better this new film which stars Hugh Jackman Jodie Comer Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe is set in 1247.

20:40Sean Fennessey:And the story is as follows. Grappling with his violent past, Robin Hood finds himself gravely injured after a battle that he thought would be his last. He soon gets a chance at salvation when he meets a mysterious woman and a young girl. Now, Sarnoski, who was the director of Pig and A Quiet Place Day One, two movies I liked quite a bit. Same. What did you think of The Death of Robin Hood? So I at the potluck last night, I was talking to a friend who called a quiet place. Day one, quiet time zero zero, which is the funniest name I've ever heard. That's what I say to my daughter when she's not behaving.

21:13Sean Fennessey:Quiet time zero zero. And then I immediately thought of the last shot of a quiet place part one and the needle drop, which is really quite cringey, in my opinion. What was it? I don't remember now. It's Lupita like plugging her iPhone back in. I remember that. And it's Nina Simone's Feeling Good. and then it cuts to black. Also remember how they didn't have the fentanyl locked up like at all. Yeah. That I... That's kind of what stayed with me. It was thrilling. It was not moving. I saw this film last night with a large glass of Kim Crawford. I opted for the nine ounce. Thank you to everyone at Regal Paseo.

21:51And it was okay. I like everybody involved. I think that this is a fine movie about having regrets at the end of your life and not really a Robin Hood movie at all.

22:03Sean Fennessey:Right. I agree with that. So that is sort of my, if you want to watch Hugh Jackman be violent and grapple with his choices in a medieval setting, two thumbs up. Yeah, I think if you want to see that, you should just watch Logan. Yeah. That's my review of this film. So maybe you're really into, maybe you want Game of Thrones minus the magic and dragons. Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, Game of Thrones is not set in a real timeline on Earth. Well, Bill Simmons and I disagree. Okay, you guys can hold that. I was not a big fan of this film. I was a little disappointed by this one. I think I don't fully understand why it exists.

22:48I mean, I agree with you completely.

22:51Sean Fennessey:I'm not an expert on the Robin Hood tale, but I've seen almost all the iconic films. I've seen all the iconic films. I watched the 1922 version yesterday and you know Robin Hood is of course robbed from the rich and steal from the poor and is considered a sort of you know underdog bandit fighting on behalf of the Saxons against the evil Prince John and faithful to King Richard and you know battling the Sheriff of Nottingham and this movie obviously dispenses with all that none of that is really a part of this story this is very much about an older man who has done a lot of terrible things as you said, feeling regret and feeling a kind of pain.

23:32Sean Fennessey:You know, it seems like the overarching conceit of the story is maybe distrust the myth. You know, that there is something about stories that we tell each other and why we tell them and why we kind of change details and redefine how people are remembered over time, which I understand as a conceit. One thousand percent, but the film does not engage with the myth in any way, shape, or form. It starts at the very, very end. And I mean, it has some gnarly battle scenes, but it doesn't engage in the myth or the ideology of Robin Hood in any way. It doesn't give you any sense of his life and backstory beyond him just saying, actually, my name is Robin Hood a few times.

24:19you don't to dispel the myth you have to if not portray it then at least communicate it and the film does not at all.

24:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah, if it was if the name of the movie was The Death of Steve McGillicuddy and Hugh Jackman said hello young squire my name is Steve McGillicuddy we'd just be like this is a weird movie about a really angry old man who keeps killing people and has some regrets at the end of his life. And you could have maybe swapped in any number of different, you could have said, this is about King Arthur or Merlin or any number of kind of sacred folkloric figures and had a similar point. But I'm not sure if that point is super well told. The movie is very well made and it gives a kind of like in the mud, in the dirt vision of this time in history, which I think is probably more period accurate than say the Michael Curtiz film from 1938, which is technicolor and beautiful and so colorful and swashbuckling.

25:17Sean Fennessey:That isn't really probably what that period of time looked like. But I'm not sure if that necessarily makes it any more valuable. And I found the film to have a very odd shape where it is extremely intense and violent and savage in the first 30 minutes. And then it really downshifts for the next hour and 15 minutes. And it's very slow and methodical and very contemplative. And so it just kind of feels a little lumpen to me. I don't know. I was surprised. I was hoping to love this because I think Sarnoski is super talented, but this one was not really for me. Yeah. To me, it's all the flaw is in the concept or, and then it just wasn't really pinned down what was happening here.

25:57Because I agree with you, the opening 30 minutes, the filmmaking is very gnarly. And I was kind of pissed at you when I was watching it because I was like, oh, I don't really enjoy this. Is this what it's going to be the whole time? Which is an achievement in its way that you're grossed out and freaked out by it. And then, you know, I like Jodie Comer very much. Hugh Jackman is fine. Listen, I thought all the scenery was very beautiful, you know? Yeah, it's well shot. It looks nice. So it's not that it's bad. Yeah, who did Sing Sing, Lurker, really good cinematographer. It's just a real why issue.

26:32Sean Fennessey:I feel very similarly. And it's kind of interesting that Jackman, who, as you know, I love, he's really got two gears. One gear is I'm putting on a show. Yeah. And the consummate you know talks with Tails handsome man of the stage which he like kind of moves around that persona in different ways from hosting the Oscars to The Greatest Showman to even movies like Australia where he's kind of like an adventuring smiling figure to Wolverine and this and Prisoners and the sort of like the anguished, angry, violent kind of id of the male. And I just feel like a lot of what he's doing here, he's just done before and done in better movies.

27:26Sean Fennessey:I mean, Prisoners and Logan are just better movies. They're just more interesting movies. So I don't know. I was kind of like, why, man? Why'd you want this, Hugh? I don't know. Maybe he wanted it to be Robin Hood. I guess it is appealing to Robin Hood. Well, sure. but he thought he was, you know, he thought he was being, you know, the corrective Robin Hood. Yeah. Well, what do you think makes a good Robin Hood? Charisma. Just being the myth. I mean, this is the other thing about this project, which is to dismantle the idea of Robin Hood, which is nobody wants the real Robin Hood. Or I don't anyway.

28:02You want just what's on the label, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. You want the hot fox from Disney, which is how so many of us were introduced to it. But it's like it's a concept. There's a reason that Robin Hood has become a shorthand for just like an against, you know, authority view of the world and or like a trading platform that I do not endorse.

28:30Sean Fennessey:But I forgot about that. Yeah, but like it is. Nobody really cares what's going on. In the... What is your trading platform of choice? In my trading platform? It's called The RealReal. Okay. So... I'm still on eBay. Are you... How much time do you spend on eBay? Thanks for asking. About once every other day. Checking out what's on there. Blu-rays. But is it... Yeah, it's only Blu-rays because that is... Blu-rays. That's your marketplace. Yeah, Blu-rays and ancient artifacts like the Tesseract. Okay. Looking for that. Just checking in to see if they have the Tesseract. I do do some vintage shopping on eBay and that's where the true heads go.

29:12But, you know, it's a it's a person to person, like a vendor to consumer thing. So you can't do returns. You know, you can't you have to be really sure as opposed to something like the real real where.

29:28Sean Fennessey:This is also true of Robin Hood, the trading app, by the way. Just so you know, you can't really do returns. You can be like, whoops, shouldn't have bought that. But you don't need to do a return on a Blu-ray usually. How do you know? How often have you returned to Blu-ray? How often have you returned to Blu-ray? This happened. Tell me about it. How often? I buy a lot of Blu-rays. Well, sure. One out of every 100? One out of every 1 ,000? I don't know. You get one and it's not functioning. And so you say, send me another? I start crying immediately. I start stamping my feet like a child. And then I can't drive because I'm so upset.

30:01Sean Fennessey:And I make my wife drive me to the post office. and I say, fix this! And then they fix it. Okay. You don't want to have an honest conversation with me about the real real right now. I don't. I don't. But I want you to have as many conversations about it with yourself as you possibly can. That's fine. I do. Don't worry. So, no, but Robin Hood, you want the figurehead. I agree. You want just the person who embodies the idea. You don't want a real man. Well, I don't. I don't care about his grandparents. I'm sorry. Forgive me for making this so movie nerdy, but I think Batman is an interesting thing to compare him to because filmmakers are famous for reinterpreting Batman but there are certain things about Batman that you can't change right you can't change the iconography of the costume you can tweak it but you can't change you can't have a Batman who doesn't have the bat ears if you do that the audience and the movie studio is gonna be like this is not Batman right you know and so Robin Hood doesn't wear the Robin Hood hat yeah and with the feather and you know The bow and arrow is not used in quite the same way.

31:04Sean Fennessey:So once you strip the character of some of those core things that give us that emotional association with the character, I don't know, it does lose something. Well, it's non-licensed IP. Well, it's in the public domain. Well, exactly. But so there is no one controlling the use of the name, the image, whether or not it has the bat ears, how many things you're allowed to sell. Is Batman going in the public domain soon? I think he is. Okay. Mickey Mouse is in the public domain. And so what will you do? Make my own Batman film. Okay. Beautiful. Yeah. It will be called Batman. Will it be done before or after Batman 2?

31:39The Batman 2.

31:40Sean Fennessey:It's a really good. What if I just made the Batman 2? But I played Batman. Okay. I'm playing Batman and the Joker. Sure. And Bane. Great. Well, no, no. Chris is playing Bane. Right. Chris is playing Bane. I'm playing Ra's al Ghul. And also Talia al Ghul. Yeah. And I'm playing Poison Ivy. Great. And Harley Quinn. Beautiful. I'm playing Clayface. Okay. Wow, you got the rights to that. So is Clayface in the public domain, though? No, I don't believe so. Yeah, are any of the rest of these characters in that? So that's tricky. It's going to be a while for some of those villains. Yeah, so you just have Batman, too.

32:14I'm also playing Commissioner Gordon.

32:15Sean Fennessey:Okay. I'm playing Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl. Okay. I didn't know that. His daughter? I'm playing Mr. Freeze. His daughter? Alicia Silverstone was his daughter? I don't know if that's canon in the Schumacher film. Okay. I can't remember. I can't even remember who plays Commissioner Gordon in the Schumacher film. I'm also playing the Penguin. Again, what's the legal status of these characters? You only have Batman. You know I'm playing the Riddler. I got a riddle. Who else am I playing? I'm trying to think of some other Batman characters and I can't remember any. So, a one-man show coming to the end.

32:50That sounds good. That sounds great. I'd see it.

32:52Sean Fennessey:Thank you. Thanks for your support. Batman, I would like to see the death of Batman. because you know they killed Batman or they broke Batman's back and Batman went away in the 90s when I was collecting comic books Bane broke his back that inspired the film The Dark Knight Rises they killed James Bond yeah spoiler alert well what's that film called No Time to Die yes which came out in 2022 and they're also going to bring him back to life so it's fine it's too bad Robin Hood I don't know I haven't read all the texts which texts have you read well none of them i think uh have you read the text i mean i gave your son the book we did start it i thank you for thinking that he's at a middle school reading level which he's not quite no you are though i am okay so you can read to him i would i did we we did actually start reading it and i wouldn't say that his attention held got it for that one yet and there was also a lot of like spoketh you know which yes some old english he's not there yet well i don't know if it's old english Did you have to do Beowulf in Old English?

33:56Sean Fennessey:I did. So did we. I did. Did you guys have to do that at school? I never did Beowulf. Lucas? I did not. Okay. Not at all. Not even in modern English. Negative. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about education and how it's declined in the following segment. Wow, we certainly will. It sounds like the 1370s is when Robin Hood first kicked up. Okay. In the alliterative poem, Piers Plowman. This is what I read. Okay. And there was a quotation that later became a common proverb that many men speak of Robin Hood and never shot his bow. And then the earliest surviving text is 15th century, Robin Hood and the Monk, which I assume is a reference to Friar Tuck or that's sort of where the Friar Tuck figure came from.

34:41Sean Fennessey:Typically seen as a contemporary supporter of the late 12th century king, King Richard the Lionheart. You're a Lionheart gal, right? Yeah. I mean, who's going to be King John? What a herb. He sucks. Yeah, fuck him. um so Tales been told many times you know there's a lot of films the films hmm there's not a lot of great ones no you know I'd never seen the 1922 film until I looked at it yesterday it's on Tubi okay um directed by Alan Dwan one of the um early pioneers of filmmaking uh it stars Douglas Fairbanks one of the great silent screen stars it was pretty interesting it was over two hours silent film that features I think a lot of the like it establishes these cinematic tropes of Robin Hood so when you go back and if you look at the 1938 version starring Errol Flynn directed by Michael Curtiz I think it's one of the last movies he makes before Casablanca you can see that movie riffing on the 22 Robin Hood you can see in the 73 animated Robin Hood that you were referencing the Disney classic that movie is pulling from the Curtiz version if you look at Robin and Marion which is a Richard Lester movie with Sean Connery that came out in 76, Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn.

35:53Sean Fennessey:That movie is kind of riffing on the Curtiz version as well. If you look at Robin Hood starring Patrick Bergen in 91 or Prince of Thieves, which also came out in 91 starring Kevin Costner, those movies are trying to kind of keep the framework, right? Yeah. Green Jumpsuit, Rob from the Rich, Sure. Steal from the Rich, Give to the Poor, Bow and Arrow, Maid Marian, Battling the Sheriff, things are unsettled in the middle ages yes there's a lot of the saxons are feeling rebellious but they don't have a leader to inspire this is the second time you said saxons it's a huge thing in the adventures of robin yeah i know but i just like errol flint says the word saxon like 300 times and you know they deserve to be free okay in the face of prince john prince john played magnificently by claude rains in that film i must say what a what a shit heel he was uh And we just talked about Robin Hood Men in Tights.

36:50Sean Fennessey:We did. The Mel Brooks film, which is clearly riffing on Prince of Thieves, among other things, including this ancient myth. And so I feel like this more or less 55-year history between the Curtiz film and Robin Hood Men in Tights, this kind of forms for two or three movie-going generations our idea of what Robin Hood is. Not just what Robin Hood is on the page, but just generally what Robin Hood is. Right. The basic, yeah. Our understanding. And I think you're right to point out that the Disney film kind of codifies it at a very young age. And, you know, it's been 33 years since Men in Tights.

37:28Sean Fennessey:It's been 35 years since the Kevin Costner film, which famously features the worst accent in the history of movies. But it was like, wasn't it a huge hit and is an entertaining enough blockbuster, though very flawed. And since then, we've had two major U.S. releases. One, Ridley Scott did his version of it in 2010. Where he tries to like, it's almost like Avengers-ifying Robin Hood. You know, where like all the Avengers characters in the Avengers movies are not as bright and shiny. They're all wearing like black leather. Right. And it's like a more stripped down, more serious. We're getting down to business here.

38:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And like a bare knuckle. It's not all fun and games and playing. What's the shuttlecock in the. Badminton. Badminton. Yeah. That's what they play in Robin Hood. Yes. little kids and then made Marian back. Yeah. It's Robin Hood colon Gladiator. That's the idea of that movie. And then in 2018, Taron Egerton played Robin Hood in another adaptation, which I thought was very unsuccessful. And there have been a lot of other, you know, many countries around the world have done their adaptations of these movies. But I would argue this is actually not a very impressive history. No. Relative to Shakespearean adaptation, for example.

38:41Sean Fennessey:or what's another story like this that you think of that feels in the same vein of like a long time folk tale that we've seen a lot of different iterations of? Well, until you said a lot of different iterations of, which we have in its own way, but I've been thinking a lot about the Odyssey because I'm trying my best. I don't know if I'm going to get through the whole text of the Odyssey. I'm reading the Emily Wilson translation before the Christopher Nolan adaptation. and also it has a great introduction which is just kind of like putting me through the paces of college again and there's a lot about how this is a this was a common like an oral tradition as we know that was eventually written down in one way by you know there are lots of authorship questions homer quote unquote but was it many people was it um pulled together different excerpts.

39:35Was it one person who speaks and another person who writes? Anyway.

39:39Sean Fennessey:Was it Time Magazine's Joe Klein? Yeah, it was. It's good. That was a good one. I liked it. So, but anyway, like a story, a framework of a story that has been handed down for years and years and years and years and then reinterpreted, put in different situations. In the case of the Odyssey, you know, just like a man trying to get home becomes the backbone of many, many different types of stories. And in that case, you know, until we see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which is seems to be like incredibly faithful and is set in the time and is using the same names as the characters, it's not an inspiration.

40:22It is they're just making The Odyssey. Yes.

40:23Sean Fennessey:Feels like a proper adaptation. Yeah. Which is kind of what has the Robin Hood strategy has been. And I think that's a challenge. And I think if you're not someone at Christopher Nolan or, you know, Michael Curtiz's level, then you run into trouble. And using mythology as inspiration rather than literal text tends to work better with stories of this kind. I mean, Shakespeare is the same way where there have been a lot of very bad literal adaptations of Shakespeare. And then, you know, many great, oh, it's, you know, the taming of the shrew, but actually, you know, in a in a 90s workplace or whatever.

41:01Right. Right. Yeah.

41:02Sean Fennessey:Like, oh. Right. That was bad. Yeah, that was not good. But I remember that. Yeah. There are there are a lot of versions of this. I'm forgetting the ones that were at the tip of my tongue. But, you know, a lot of the Hans Christian Andersen stories are like this, where you see these reimaginings. Disney has done this for years and years of taking these kind of like sacred and ancient stories and filing them down. I mean, horror does this all the time. This is Dracula. This is Frankenstein. Right. These like, they become these foundational ideas that you can iterate upon. But if you stray too far from what makes us feel safe about the concept.

41:41Right.

41:41Sean Fennessey:You feel like a little, like you violated something. Right. Well, I mean, it's how much are you using it as story guidance or inspiration and how much we're using it as IP, right? Because as soon as you, and all of these are, they're trying to use free IP and Robin Hood is in the title. And so when you hear Robin Hood or you hear Batman or you hear Dracula, you know, you expect to see certain things. but then that sets in a whole lot of level of expectations that you have to execute against and it gets trickier. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help.

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45:14Sean Fennessey:This one is tough. Robin Hood, I feel like it's maybe just dead IP. You know, I think sometimes maybe it can come back in some way. Well, I think he is dead, according to the latest text, the death of Robin Hood. You think everyone will now acknowledge his death? Yeah. He'll stay dead? Mm-hmm. You don't think they'll revive him like Tony Stark? Is Tony Stark going to get revived, do you think? I don't know. People were screaming too loud for me to really catch on to the granular details of what we saw at CinemaCon. They still haven't released that trailer. Okay. What do you think's going on there for Avengers Doomsday?

45:50Your guess is as good as mine. I don't understand why it's going up against Dune 3. I don't understand the Infinity Vision. I don't know what's going on. I'm confused, and I was not impressed by the presentation. Okay.

46:00Sean Fennessey:Thanks for weighing in. Speaking of Disney, Toy Story 5. Yeah. This should be an interesting conversation. Directed by Andrew Stanton. It is co-written by Stanton and Kenna Harris. This is... Stanton has been involved, as I understand it, in every single Toy Story film to one extent or another. He also famously worked on Finding Nemo and WALL-E and is one of the icons of Pixar history. Whole Gang is back for this movie, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Joan Cusack's back as Jessie. It's sort of Jessie's movie, this film. Some new additions to the cast, including Greta Lee, who plays Lily or Lilypad, a device.

46:45Sean Fennessey:Conan O 'Brien as Smarty Pants, which was a real toy. The sort of like toilet paper roll toy, as I recall. I think it's inspired by a real toy. Craig Robinson is Atlas, and Shelby Rabara is Snappy. These are three new toys that are introduced in another home that we visit. Here's the story. After Woody left Bonnie to stay with Bo Peep and help abandon toys find owners, this is at the end of Toy Story 4, Jessie becomes the leader of Bonnie's room, with Buzz Lightyear as her second-in-command. A now eight-year-old Bonnie has become enamored with her new favorite plaything, a frog-like tablet named Lilypad, causing a crisis among traditional toys and prompting Buzz to call on Woody to return.

47:29Sean Fennessey:What did you think of Toy Story 5? You want me to go first? You always go first. Would you like to go first? I'll go first. This is your time. Go ahead. I thought this movie was beautiful. I loved it so much. I had the best time at this movie. That's nice. Do I think it has flaws? Sure. Yeah. I don't give a fuck about the flaws. I was so happy to be back with my friends, and I was so happy to watch my daughter watch this movie. And I thought this was a fascinating movie about female friendship. And I'm not afraid to say it. I agree with that. Okay. Here's what I say. For children, I think that this is a great and important movie with lessons about friendship and creativity and technology.

48:09and I also think, you know, the voice performances, the characterization, there are several kind of dream or imagination sequences in this movie. They're wonderful. Like it is funny and creative and the Toy Story universe is A+. As a parent who saw this by herself at 2 p.m. and as a thinking adult, there is some nonsensical and also some deeply craven stuff in the construction of the morals of this movie that I think will go over kids' heads and doesn't matter, but that I alone watching was a little irked by.

48:47Sean Fennessey:It's probably a good thing that you and I viewed this in different ways. I saw this with Eileen and Alice. Eileen and I, of course, love the Toy Story franchise, have grown up on the Toy Story franchise. We were 12 years old when the first film came out. You know, I had a very fond place in my heart for this. In some ways, this is not a typical Toy Story movie because Woody and Buzz are, to some extent, more sidelined than they are in other films. It's sort of evolving past them in some ways. They're still important to the third act of the movie and being a part of the big save that always happens in one of these films.

49:21Sean Fennessey:But like I said, this is really Jesse's movie. It's really, not to put too fine a point on it, but it's really a movie about girls. Yeah. And even though Bonnie was in the last film, I wouldn't say that this is a movie franchise that has focused on the story of girls as much. It started with Andy. A lot of the heroes are male. Even some of the female figures that are introduced into it, like Bo Peep or Mrs. Potato Head, like never really had a center on that. And so for me to see it and for me to also be in a period in my life where my daughter is figuring out how to make friends. Yeah. And kind of like what that means to make friends and what are going to be established in long-running friendships and what are friendships that are more transient.

50:00Sean Fennessey:And if you're a little bit eccentric, how do some people receive your eccentricity socially? Which is something I think even adults still think about. Of course. As someone who was just at a large gathering with our families yesterday. And I was like, which of these parents want to talk to me? And who do I want to talk to? I found the movie to be like really warm and really thoughtful and considerate about all those things. I think I'll probably agree with a lot of the notes that you have about some of the plot complications and confusions and like the sort of like corner cutting. I think there's some corner cutting in the movie to get the story rolling in certain places.

50:37Sean Fennessey:but and I'm also really glad that you circled that those moments of sort of imagination that the movie which they've done versions of this before but it does it really well in this movie which is when kids are playing with toys when Bonnie is playing with her toys and we see her vision of what's happening in the world of her mind with these characters and it's much more elevated and gorgeous and it has a different animation style that stuff to me is like top shelf animated movie storytelling. I loved two major sequences that did that. So yeah, I had a really, really great time with the movie. I really liked it.

51:13Sean Fennessey:But I want to hear some of your mom alone viewing. Well, let's talk about the female friendship and the way it uses the Bonnie character. And then there's a new character, Blaze. and they're positioned against kind of all the other kids in the universe who both are glued to their screens. Like, you know, the people in, I thought of WALL-E, but there's also some Ready Player One to it. Definitely. And then they're all real assholes. Yeah. I think the insinuation there is if you're locked into your screen. Right. And there's also a little bit of insinuation of that because they are the screen and the social media, the lily pad in this case, is what is organizing their communication and their relationship.

52:09That that method of or that vessel of friendship kind of sullies it and brings out the worst in people, which I think is very true. But I do think you're speaking of shortcuts, that there is sort of the bad tech equals bad people. Simplification is just a little lazy.

52:29Sean Fennessey:These girls haven't found the real, real yet, so they don't know. They don't know the wonders that can be discovered. There have been mean girls since the beginning of time. True. And they organize in packs and they prey upon the more creative or just the people who don't conform. And in this case, she's not conforming to technology. But it almost like simplifies what I think is a complex thing between young people where they're just, and girls in particular, are really mean. And they pick out the people who are quote unquote different. No, I know. So the backbone of the story is that this young girl, Bonnie, has some struggles making friends.

53:10Sean Fennessey:There's a very poignant moment early in the film where she is playing with her dolls and a group of neighbor kids see her. Yeah. And they see her playing with these analog toys. And she has a moment where she tries to engage them with one of the toys and they laugh at her. Yeah. And that sends her into kind of an emotional tailspin about, well, I don't have friends. And she learns that, you know, some of her other friends from dance class all have these screens. And so her parents get her a screen, a device. that her parents respond to this. She goes in to her parents and she says, like, why don't I have any friends?

53:46And they like good engaged parents, you know, freak out, give her hugs, you're so special, et cetera. And then immediately panic by an iPad. It's called a lily pad in this context, which who can blame them? It's 1000 % relatable.

54:01Sean Fennessey:It is. I know. I know. I want to have a screen time conversation with you eventually. Maybe let's wait until we get through the movie. So this iPad is a portal to community and then negativity, which is frankly what a lot of screens are in general for us as well, for adults as well. And she connects with these girls from her dance class and she's invited over for a sleepover. But it becomes very clear early on that one, these kids are only engaged in what's happening on their screens, even when they're together in person. and two that there is a kind of like competitiveness to the experience where one they're always playing games and two if you're not speaking on their level about living inside of this world that you're going to feel alienated and Bonnie is the least experienced in this space and quickly becomes alienated and she's trapped between this feeling of wanting to play with her toys and wanting to have friends and be on her lily pad you know because it's a toy story movie the lily pad of course has a mind of its own and is its own character.

55:05Sean Fennessey:I thought Greta Lee's performance was very good and very, very funny. And, you know, it's written very well. The clip of, you know, Jesse saying, you weren't even listening and the lily pad saying, I'm always listening and then playing it and translating it into Spanish. Very funny. You know, this movie understands all of its subjects very well. And in trying to simplify it for kids, I do think just kind of skips over some things or oversimplifies. It does. the looming specter the sort of HAL 9000 quality of Lilypad is very very funny in the movie and effective it is a very powerful device though in the film that's one thing is that it's capable of doing a lot of things that I would imagine were I to give my child an iPad which is not something that I have done yet it would certainly not be connected to the internet at least not at first so I mean there's just the concept of parental controls or parental settings does not exist it doesn't come up in this universe and the kids are just doing whatever they want.

56:03And then the toys are also doing whatever they want, because at some point, the toys, in an effort to help Bonnie make friends and to right wrongs and connect people who should be friends in real life, the toys jailbreak the lily pad and various other devices and invite parents to random addresses. And there's a level of scam and internet like not what's the internet danger that is completely unexamined and unbelievable in this movie

56:39Sean Fennessey:I can't argue with that point there's definitely some stuff where you're like I wouldn't go to that person's house if I got a message on my daughter's iPad that I should come to that house that's not enough to go on a long drive to a stranger's home on a horse ranch now I will say one of the things I really like about the movie is that the iPad the lily pad character is contrasted with another young girl, this Blaze character that you're talking about, who is a horse girl, who's living on a ranch, and who is really in the real world. She is really like, she is still a kid who plays with her toys.

57:12Sean Fennessey:She's a little older than Bonnie, maybe a year or so older than Bonnie. And she, they're kindred spirits. They're like-minded. They don't know each other. They haven't met. But we're meant to see this connection. And Blaze is like also kind of longing for connection and friendship, but also feels like maybe a little more confidence in liking the things that she likes. She has this huge collection of horse dolls. Right. And she kind of like, she identifies as a person that is comfortable in this world. And she somehow comes upon ownership of Jessie and Bullseye. Not somehow. So Blaze lives at Jessie's first kid's old home, which we see in flashback.

57:50Yes. And Jessie has Blaze's address, the address of her first kid's home, the horse ranch. written on the inside of her boot. So she is returned by some really old people along with the horse. Forgive me, I've forgotten the horse's name.

58:09Sean Fennessey:Bullseye. Bullseye. Along with Bullseye to the original ranch, which is where Blaze lives. And because Blaze is also, you know, understands the power of childhood, immediately takes these friends in, plays with them, makes these toys her own. She's not above toys like the other mean girls. Blaze also does get dumped unceremoniously via Lilypad by a friend who's just like, lol, I'm not coming over. And that's all you get. Again, some of the characterization here. That's me canceling plans. Sorry, I can't come. Lol, haha. I mean, it is true. But so then Blaze and Bonnie are connected via the toys and the internet by their love of of playing?

59:00Sean Fennessey:Yes. Their sense of wonder? One of my favorite revelations in the movie is when Woody and Buzz, Woody eventually returns home. Sure. He's called back by Buzz because they need to team up the old gang. And when they realize that the Siri-like apparatus within Lilypad in which Lilypad has to do everything that they ask it if it uses direct address is extremely funny. But using that tool that allows them to connect Bonnie and Blaze and allows for a friendship, allows for the potential of a friendship at least. I don't know. I thought the movie was really, really sensitive and thoughtful about this.

59:33Sean Fennessey:And now a couple of things about this. One, you know, my daughter's about to be five. Yours turned four this year. Yeah. Your oldest. We haven't gotten to this point that these characters are in. So our relationship even with what we let our kids do with screens or even kind of what the nature of friendship. And I'm obviously very attuned now to female friendship. And my daughter has this really like expanding world of friends. And every day I hear about a new person. And I can't tell if this person is my daughter's favorite person on earth or somebody she started talking to yesterday. Right. But I feel like a real sensitivity towards it.

1:00:10Sean Fennessey:My wife feels a real sensitivity towards it too. And you just want your kid to be happy. You just want your kid to feel accepted and connected. and I think this is I have not seen a lot of movies that do this this well that like that really allow Bonnie to be sad in the way that she's sad that like let you sit inside of Blaze's sadness when that friend breaks a plan and so this is kind of like Disclosure Day for me where I'm like I'm willing to overlook some of the jankiness of the plotting because I felt very moved by what the movie really has on its mind and in an effort to get there it kind of has to elide some natural logic.

1:00:47But I'm also,

1:00:49Sean Fennessey:I'm very open to the criticism as well. Did Alice respond to it? Did she understand like why those girls were being mean and? Not really because she doesn't have a screen. So I think she didn't really like see that that can like. But she didn't, but the basic mean girl stuff. Oh no, she knows about that. Yeah, well sure. Yeah, they all do. But like did she, did she understand that those were the mean girls and that it's more, like did that connect with her? I think she was touched by seeing Bonnie and Blaze eventually find a way to make a connection. You know, I think the film's final 30 minutes, as with all of these Toy Story movies, you know, whether it is a manipulative formula or a hard-earned slice of imaginative storytelling, you can say it's both the Pixar brand at this point.

1:01:34Sean Fennessey:But there's a moment where Jessie has a realization when she discovers something about the impact that she... I thought that was silly, but yes. Oh my God, I was bawling. You were crying? I was so moved by that. I loved that. I won't spoil it for the listeners. I thought it was pretty unearned. Just because it was another character. It's, you know. I know, but the whole point of these movies is like these toys are having existential crises about their value in the world because the kids discard them. Right. So that's like something we've seen happen to Woody. It's something we've seen happen to Buzz over the years.

1:02:05Sean Fennessey:I think giving Jessie her chance to also be a character who has this existential doubt about her value. Right. Of being like passed down and discarded over time. So I really liked that. And then I think Alice got it. I think she understood. I mean, I think it's a little bit less psychological at four and five around like, am I valued? Am I accepted? What do I like? And what are my friends like? Yeah. We've been talking with her a little bit about that recently about sort of like, what are the kinds of people that you're interested in and drawn to? And why do you like them? And that's like a very new concept for all of us.

1:02:40Sean Fennessey:but I thought the movie was pretty sophisticated about that but we also Alice doesn't have an iPad in fact I don't know if she's ever held an iPad other than on a plane um She's not allowed to watch TV during the week. We're pretty stringent. Now, we may not be stringent like in a year. It was definitely a holdover of like, don't let your kids watch TV until they're three. And like we kind of tried to follow some of those guidelines. I'm not saying we're right or wrong. Everybody's point of view on this is different. We also only have one kid. I think when you have two kids or five kids or whatever, it's like it's a lot harder to manage these things.

1:03:15Sean Fennessey:So I try to be not judgmental about this at all. But... Well, and also the movie is also conflating a lot of screen things. It's not just that, like, there is a screen. It's not an iPad. It's not, you know, there's social media. There's the internet aspect of it. There's a lot of gaming. There's a lot of... We don't actually see her watching a TV show or a movie. It's true. The irony while watching a movie. Um, so it's not just that it's like a literal technological screen. It's what's happening on it. And it, to me, was geared much more towards social media, like, and interactive behaviors and like, and like life lived on a screen.

1:03:58Totally. As opposed to entertainment.

1:03:59Sean Fennessey:Which, you know, I heard, I heard Andy Greenwald talking about this, um, with his daughters on The Watch recently because they went to go see The Last Digital Circus. Right. Because his younger daughter is really interested in that YouTube series. And his older daughter was not interested in it. But like that's a thing where you reach a certain age and you are allowed access to a device. Right. And it can kind of change your world. I mean it can change how you want to spend all your time. And I think it's persuasive. I think the plotting is a little rickety of the story. But I think the idea is on point.

1:04:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah, of course. If you let kids into this world, it can take over and it can make you a little meaner. It can make you a little bit more callous. One thousand percent. I think the overall message and moral and also just the basic idea that the more a child, the more time a child spends on these programs and these types of screen life that are as absorbing, that are meant to take you away from the actual world, that you lose the ability to connect in the real world. And whether it's playing with toys or talking to someone or having a sense of imagination, the animation style of Bonnie's eyes when she's looking at the screen is very smart and perceptive and communicates the way your brain and just sense of focus adjusts with these programs or the games or whatever.

1:05:31so I think it's 100 % right it is like again it's oversimplified and I think that it's not really it's you know it's not all or nothing for anyone and they do there are many shots where toys are beholding the entire neighborhood and every window is lit up with a child staring at its screen all the time and listen like kids are looking at screens I left the house this morning and my two sons and husband were watching the U.S. Open because our nanny is sick and he has one arm and like what's life? So if you looked inside through our window, it would also be lit up the same way.

1:06:11Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I do feel like there is people may disagree with me, but I do feel like there is a delineation between watching television and watching a screen because that even though they're watching, that's still a communal event. And the individualization of staring at a screen, I do see as different. Maybe it's a thin difference. Maybe it's not all that meaningful, but watching sports with people is social. I mean, I agree. I also think there's a major difference between watching movies and watching television, which, you know, she, the person who doesn't know how to watch television would say, but there's something about like the episodic watch, especially in the streaming era.

1:06:44And we know that everything is engineered to, okay, here's another one, watch another one, watch another one that's training to your brain in a different way as opposed to sitting down and watching a story. So the movie doesn't get into all of that. Does it need to for a seven-year-old to understand that, you know, it's probably better to go outside and play with your toys or your friends than stare at a screen all the time? No. So it doesn't matter. I had some issues with the second and third act and the resolution and the way it incorporates, the way the film tries to have it both ways. It specifically introduces three kind of mid-tier devices.

1:07:24The Conan toy is, it's a toilet paper toy. It's a battery-operated potty training toy. Did you use one of these? I did not. We did not either. But it will be familiar to any parent or aunt or uncle or anyone of the, just a very loud toy that won't shut up. We've got a vacuum that I just, I don't know how you turn it off.

1:07:46Sean Fennessey:We don't have very many of those in our house. I mean, we and we have so many trucks and, you know, we've got a tractor. We've got a recycling truck. We have a Barbie plane. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, my sons go to your house and immediately turn on the Barbie plane. We have and there are some toys that don't turn on and sigh who's not even to will bring it over and hand it to you and just say on on on because he wants it to make noise like all the other toys. Yeah. So, you know, but that's already, that's an example of that is a tiny child who doesn't have a full vocabulary, but understands that there are some toys that have lights and sound and they're more interesting to him than the other toys.

1:08:27Then there's a digital, a kid's digital camera.

1:08:29Sean Fennessey:This is something, by the way, that really started around our youth. Yeah. Where this kind of digitized toy was really first starting to hit. And it's obviously become now more de rigueur. Right. And so there's a kid's digital camera, which is a thing. Snappy. Yes, snappy. And then what is the third one? It's an atlas. Oh, sure. And is it a hippo's mouth? I think it's a hippo's mouth that operates as an atlas and can tell you, like, locations. Well, that's creepy from a basic GPS location situation, which, you know, it's sort of bringing in internet danger, stranger danger, like, a little bit.

1:09:04Sean Fennessey:And these devices are all also communicating with LilyPad. There is like, there's some step skipping going on in terms of how these devices would be connected. Well, you know, the fact that the toilet training paper, like toilet paper roll can communicate with Lilypad makes no sense and is also an indictment of like, you know, the smart app home systems that we have. I don't need my air conditioner to talk to the Internet. You know, I just don't. I know you have it and I disabled mine. No, thank you. It's really more of a, all of the climate stuff in our home is all connected. The house came that way.

1:09:44Sean Fennessey:I don't know. I didn't install that. But, you know, it's like the dishwasher is now also. We don't have that. Yeah. Yeah. Like our washer dryer got a new one a few years ago and you could hook it up to the internet. Why would I need to do that? But also, presumably, my children and their toys with the right tools could hook it up to Lilypad and then invite strangers over to our house to communicate with toys, which is a real thing that happens unexamined. Anyway. So these devices are lying forgotten in a hall drawer and they haven't been charged in a while, which is very apt and funny. And they get reanimated by Jesse in order to try.

1:10:24Sean Fennessey:She charges them. She charges them because she wants them to help her get home. And so then they become invested in this goal of reuniting Blaze and Bonnie and helping them become fine friendship. And so it's like, oh, actually, the smart toys can be used for good. And then Lilypad has like a real sudden out of nowhere. Existential nightmare. Right. And just shuts herself down and tries to give herself away. I don't know. I thought this was pure sci-fi. I enjoyed it. You know, it's like when the AI becomes conscious and realizes that it too is fallible and it kind of melts. That is kind of in 2001.

1:11:05Sean Fennessey:We talked about this with Spielberg. No, I know. But like we all know that that's not actually what that's. No. Well, also toys are not real, Amanda. So this is a film. But this is a movie made by an animation company that was founded by a tech company that is engineering all the plots so that the toys and the devices can team up together and act for good in support of this child. And so the devices help. And this leads to the final, spoiler alert. I knew you were not going to enjoy this part. Yeah. Okay. First of all, there are like 45 Buzz Lightyear's. There's like a, and that creeped me out.

1:11:40Just, there were a lot of them.

1:11:42Sean Fennessey:Series of Buzz Lightyear's clearly in a shipping container, crash land somewhere. They all come online. Sure. And they all need to find Star Command. Yeah. And so they team up together and they travel and they find the mainland. And they find themselves entrenched in this Bonnie Blaze union effort. But just a lot of Buzz Lightyear's all at once is pretty creepy to me. I think it's on purpose. Yeah, so good job. And then they get Lilypad back. Everybody's syncing up, charging, sharing data, locations. You know, it's a free communication universe. and the final thing they have to do in order to get Bonnie and Blaze together is that they got to scan a QR code so that Buzz can get an app update, an iOS update.

1:12:31Yeah. And that is when I almost walked out of the theater. Okay. Because I just... Hinging all of this around an iOS update, a software update being essential to our human life, is both existentially depressing and also the most ridiculous propaganda from these fucking companies that just need to make us update less. Like, I can't. I can't be updating all the time. Fucking figure it out. Get stuff right at the beginning so I don't have to update every five minutes. You sloppy idiots. The end.

1:13:15so what i'm hearing here is you don't like updates i hate updates i don't understand why is this why is this controversial why why are updates controversial why do we have to do it every five minutes sonos is asking me to update every single day spotify shuts down my laptop once a week to give engineering updates that i don't need as i what i need is an internet connection and my mind. Okay.

1:13:43Sean Fennessey:We got it. We got to get you a Knicks championship in your life. You got to let go of this. The updates, this doesn't drive you absolutely insane. How often are you updating all of your apps? As soon as they pop up. Are you opening App Store every day and being like, sure, update? I think I have everything set on auto-update. You're letting them control your phone? Yeah, sure. They're controlling everything already. Why? This is, I mean, this is cookies all over. What do you think you're in? You think you're in charge of anything? Surely you jest. Why are you letting them get into your phone and update everything?

1:14:14Sean Fennessey:You're buying clothes on the internet every day. They have everything they'll ever need. They have your face. They have your sizing. They have your credit card. They have your ID numbers. Yeah. You put your social security number in when you're flying on a plane. It's over. You lost. Do the airlines have my social security number? I'm certain that they do. I don't. I mean, I'm sure that they do, but not because of me. Yeah. You know who has all of your personal and private information? Donald Trump. I know, but still. What are we fighting on here? It's on principle. Updates from the Buzz Lightyear app?

1:14:47It's not an idea. It's not. I know they have everything. That's fine. And I know that AI is trained on us.

1:14:56Sean Fennessey:The CIA is listening to this episode. I know, and I wish them not very well. I think you guys should reconsider some things. They're using your takes to overthrow a nation right now. We are accepting their checks. No, we're not. Um, so here's my thing is that I just, it's so frequent. It's so annoying. I really just need them to handle their business. This is part of my like, I don't like, I don't like process. I don't like, why don't you figure it out and get it right? And then you can ask for my time and attention. That's what I have to say. And so because of that Buzz Lightyear developing the ability to fly.

1:15:34Yeah.

1:15:35Sean Fennessey:Due to an app update. I just want to leave the theater. It is, it's the justification of, it is centering your entire movie around the justification of fucking updates every five minutes. Also, you know what? I'm not sure if I saw it that way, but I understand what you're saying. Also, this is a movie about playing with toys. So shouldn't the children be helping him fly? Perhaps. There you go. Perhaps. I think we do eventually get there in the story. I do think we eventually see that the purpose of toys is to be a portal to imagination, is to be able to... It's true. You know, access a part of your mind and a part of your true self.

1:16:16Sean Fennessey:Listen, I was a toy kid. It will come as no surprise. I love toys. I try to give my daughter toys because I... Top five toys. Top five toys. Jesus fucking Christ. Well, it's like what speaks to you? And did you have like a special... I mean, I had a Batmobile. That was awesome. Yeah, of course. That was truly awesome. Here's what I collected. He-Man. Okay. Star Wars. Yeah. Figures from Kenner. G.I. Joe, of course. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had WWF wrestlers. Okay. Opposable wrestlers. That's probably my core. Okay. And did you have one special? I was a He-Man kid. I was a He-Man kid. I know, but did you have, I mean, not even like a lovey.

1:17:01Sean Fennessey:I didn't have like a stuffed animal or I didn't know. I didn't have that. I didn't have my one thing that I needed. No, did you? No, of course not. Yeah. My wife still has the, her, her teddy bear that she grew up with. And Knox has sort of like a blanket that is his thing. He's, he's Linus coated, but, but Cy has Leo, you know, and like I had, I had to import. Well, this is a real thing. I think that's part of why this franchise is so good. I get it. This is real. I get it. This is an actual thing that as now that we are child rearers, like we know that this is something, this is a rite of passage.

1:17:33Sean Fennessey:You develop a relationship with a physical object and that thing gives you a sense of peace, grace, creativity. You know, this franchise has also always been a little bit of trying to have it both ways where on the one hand you've got Woody and Buzz, these created characters who are not based on anything real. But then you also like Barbie has appeared in this franchise. You know, Mr. Potato Head is a real toy. There are real toys. Etch-a-Sketch, for example, is a real toy that was part of this franchise. So it has always been trying to walk the line between the kind of branded content component of toy purchase and then also these original characters that they now own and can sell you over and over again.

1:18:15Right, who have become branded. Yes.

1:18:18Sean Fennessey:I really liked it. Sounds like you're a little bit more mixed. I understand your notes are fair. I also, I don't know that I'm going to take my son to see it. Oh. Sheesh. Really just from a time perspective. You can't tell me that you think this is better than Minions and Monsters. This isn't better than Minions and Monsters. I guess it is, but I had way more fun at Minions and Monsters. That's like the two genders of movie taste right there. It's my type of comedy. I mean, I thought this was like charming and insightful. Toy Story 5 is not that funny. It's not very, it's very, very emotional.

1:18:55Uh, and.

1:18:56Sean Fennessey:It's not very funny, you're right. You know, do I prefer movie references to tech references? Yes, I do. That's just one woman's opinion. Okay, well, we'll come back to Minions and Monsters when it's released. Um, before we talk about, uh, the Toy Story franchise. Yeah. What, Pixar now. Mm-hmm. So we spoke about Hoppers earlier this year. Yeah. It's coming, it's coming just under$400 million, which is low on the Pixar end, but for an original animated movie is pretty good. It's the highest grossing Pixar original since Coco, which is almost 10 years ago. Inside Out 2, Toy Story 4, and Incredibles 2 are the billion-dollar movies for the last 10 years.

1:19:35Sean Fennessey:This movie is clearly going to be a billion-dollar movie. It does feel like my sense of things right now is that Pixar is kind of where Marvel was like five or six years ago. You know, where it was like the big brands are still very big. Right. And will continue to be big. And if Marvel put out a Captain America movie starring Chris Evans, it would make$800 million. Right. But if they try to tweak it or change it or launch something new, there are much bigger challenges. Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Shang-Chi, Black Widow. Those movies are not as big as what Avengers Doomsday is going to be. Does that make sense?

1:20:13Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Guardians 3 as an example. You know, they have their established IP now. And they did manage to create real IP themselves. A bunch of things. I mean, they've got a bunch of them they can go back to. But we're in the threes and fours and Toy Story fives now. And that is what makes money just as it does, you know, in superhero movies, really anywhere else at the box office. It's true. There's not a lot of great movies that are the fifth installment of a franchise. I've always intended to do an episode the best fours fives and sixes okay I was just having a conversation yesterday with somebody about the Friday the 13th franchise got it and how I think four five and six in that franchise is quite good it's very uncommon if you're if you're rebooting a franchise I don't think that counts that counts I think it's more like just the linear I think just the linear execution of a franchise like even that's five well that has been that was cited actually when we were talking that Fast Five would be one of the you know I'm not as big on the Fast Five as you but I acknowledge that it is like the best in that franchise and that's unusual for that to happen it would just be a good episode one day I think yeah but this is pretty good and then Gato which has a teaser now is coming in the spring and that's an original that's more like Hoppers and then Incredibles 3 is the film that follows that in 2028 which is not directed by Brad Bird it's directed by Peter Sohn who directed Elemental and The Good Dinosaur.

1:21:42Sean Fennessey:Brad Bird's new movie is coming from Netflix later this year which is called Ray Gun which I believe is a film he started developing at Pixar and is like his it's an animated noir film. It's like a detective movie. Okay. That is supposed to be terrific. It was like one of the consider one of the best unmade scripts in Hollywood for a really long time but he's not directing Incredibles 3 which is quite fascinating. yeah um so yeah Pixar I don't know if they can make Hoppers and Gato if they keep making those if they don't stop and also if they can reach like a middle tier of success yeah right yeah I think you'd probably want to be more like five six hundred million dollars for movies like that but this Hoppers did pretty good and it's like we do have a Hoppers uh Beaver Beaver thank you sorry I was walrus, hedgehog.

1:22:37I was doing a lot of tea things. Yeah. Beaver in our home that I think that my mom brought that I don't know if she knew that it was Hoppers related. It was just cute. So in terms of toys and franchisability, but I don't really know whether you're going to get a Hoppers 2.

1:22:52Sean Fennessey:Yeah. The thing I was thinking about related to this is we were at Disney in the spring, Disneyland, I should say. And we went on Radiator Springs for the first time, the Cars ride. Oh, okay. And Great Ride. And, you know, there's a whole Cars land there. Like they have developed an entire area of the theme park that is dedicated to Cars. And Cars is one of the most successful franchises that they have. Will there ever be a Hopper's Land? You know, will there ever be even a Cocoa Land? Like that's the thing that is related to all this is because synergizing. Right, so they're not starting new universes, new IP.

1:23:29Sean Fennessey:Yeah. They don't have it yet. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they will. We'll see. Maybe Gato will be the start of a massive Catland, but probably not. Box office for this movie? Yeah. Looks like it's going to do pretty darn good. It's$17.5 million in previews as we're recording on Friday morning. I saw it yesterday and was with a bunch of families. Big crowd. Yeah. It looks like it may make as much as$180 million this weekend, which makes it on track for being one of the biggest movies of the year. Yeah. Well, Disney needs the money, as we know. so they're gonna be okay I think they're gonna be just fine um I feel like Oscars it's in play sure you know they like the they like the Toy Story franchise I mean a lot the performances are great the animation itself is great I'm open to it best picture if you want it's I mean you and I were doing our lists the other day and it's a it's an interesting year funky year yeah but we always we always say that in June We do.

1:24:32Sean Fennessey:We do. Because it's always lopsided. And there are always a couple things that we don't see coming. And there are also always a couple things that we've already seen that we don't expect to go as far as it did. You're absolutely right. I mean, is this your F1? You want to do it right now? Nope. Okay. I don't think it is. Okay. I don't know what this year's F1 is. Yeah. Well, you didn't know what it was last year either. Yeah. Okay. The Toy Story movie rankings. Tricky one here. Yeah. Yeah. One of the complicated components of this is many people who love this franchise love Toy Story 2. Toy Story 2 has never been one of my number ones.

1:25:09Yeah.

1:25:10Sean Fennessey:So. Your number ones are one and three. One and three I think are the best. Okay. And then you were very moved by five. Can I give you my gut ranking right now? Yeah. Because that's what we'll go with. I'm just going to be a sidekick and a sounding board. Okay. That's kind of you. But I want your input. I seek your input. I would go Toy Story, Toy Story 3. So you're going from 1 to 5 right now? Yes, from 1 to 5. Toy Story from 1995, the original. Toy Story 3 at number 2, which is a masterpiece. Yeah. I think it's Toy Story 2 here, followed by Toy Story 5, followed by Toy Story 4. Now, I was very high on Toy Story 4 when I saw it.

1:25:55Sean Fennessey:I think it is among the more controversial. Okay. It's not one that people love. I don't know what the vibe is going to be on Toy Story 5. I know like I cherish what Griffin Newman thinks of the Toy Story franchise. This is his favorite franchise. And I know he liked this movie. Yeah. Which makes me think that the diehards will get and be on board with 5. And even just seeing Duke Caboom for like one minute, which is the Keanu Reeves motorcycle character in this movie, I was like, oh yeah. 4 is cool. Maybe not as memorable as I thought it was going to be. Obviously, Forky is an icon. We didn't really get enough Forky and Knifey in this movie, in my opinion, in the new one.

1:26:33Sean Fennessey:They had a couple good one-liners. They did. I thought they might be a bigger part of this. Well, I mean, this is the thing that pretty much everyone but Jesse and Lilypad are sidelined. You're right. Even Buzz and Woody. Really Woody, who's just kind of out on the road saving people. A lot of bald jokes at his expense. I mean, those are funny. Somebody needs a brown marker. And, you know, listen. It's hard for all of us. Well, it had me thinking about how many people who had voiced characters from the 1995 film have passed away. You know, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Doris Roberts. Like, is John Ratzenberger still with us?

1:27:10Sean Fennessey:I don't know. You know, Wallace Shawn is still alive, mercifully, to voice Rex. But, you know, that's 31 years ago when this movie came out, which is so crazy. But my instinct is to say Toy Story, Toy Story 3, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 5, Toy Story 4. If it was your personal ranking, would you flip five and two? I got to rewatch two. Okay. Last time we did this, I was really, I was yelled at by the masses about my misunderstanding of two. And I'm open to that. And that you didn't, but you didn't revisit it as a result of that. And you know, a huge part of it, this is all very personal. I was still young enough to watch Toy Story when it came out, even though I was 12, and really get invested in it and love it.

1:27:51Sean Fennessey:and be like blown away by the animation style, which was so different and new. In 99, I was watching The Matrix. Right. I was just in a different place in my life. Okay. You know, I was just, I was very interested in a certain kind of movie and it wasn't Toy Story 2. So I don't, I'm sure I saw it that year, but it didn't quite make the emotional connection. Right. Whereas if you were seven, you were more of a mean girl on the lily pad than a Bonnie at that point. No, I wasn't trying to take anything away. You still play with toys? No, I'm not that kind of person. I want people to be happy. Unless it's you.

1:28:20Sean Fennessey:I forgot we, There's one other thing we didn't mention. Yeah. Taylor Swift. Oh, yeah. I left the theater. You didn't stay for the song? No. I had to go. We had the potluck. Listen, I have a life. I'm a parent to kids. And also, it's tacked on. You know? The song is tacked on. Can I be honest? I thought it was good. Great. You're really soft. Well, it's not about my moral opposition to Taylor Swift. It's about art. Is that what it is? Art is good. And it's obviously, I think it's a collaboration with Randy Newman, who is, of course, an icon to me. And we're in a month. We're in a month in which both John Williams and Randy Newman have new musical scores.

1:29:04Sean Fennessey:This is still happening. Yeah. These men. Now, if it were politics, I would say get out of office. But if they're in the room conducting musicians, I say stay forever. It's the year of Sean and you accept. That's just wonderful to see. Yeah, Taylor Swift. Yeah, sure. The other day, there was a terrible playlist in our office that featured her song from Cats. Oh, sure. Do you remember this? I do, yeah. Not my favorite of her songs. No, it's atrocious. The Toy Story 5 song is called I Knew It, I Knew You. Okay. Maybe I'll listen to it on the way home. Maybe I'll zag on Taylor. Maybe it's a Taylor era for me now.

1:29:40Sean Fennessey:Yeah. The day she gets married. Yeah, you're going to be at MSG. Yeah, maybe I'll be the officiant. Did I marry Taylor? Yeah, I think that's in line with... Does that person get paid for that job? I don't know how it works when you're a tailor. I don't believe that they're actually getting married at Madison Square Garden. That's my personal take. Okay. Where do you think they're getting married? I think... I don't know. Lincoln Financial Field? Probably. Yeah, I think... Because she's been so good to the Philly community. That's right. Well, I mean, home of Jason Kelsey. He'll be the best man, presumably.

1:30:12I think so. But maybe they'll use MSG as a staging venue. That's something that Juliette Lippman heard. Or as like a...

1:30:18Sean Fennessey:As a staging venue? Or like a gathering point. And then everyone will walk to the Canyon of Heroes in the aftermath of the New York Knicks? Yeah, everyone's asked. I think maybe everyone's asked to make their way to Madison Square Garden because there's a lot of entrances, exits. There's a lot of privacy. And then they'll be taken to the location from Madison Square Garden. By a hovercraft? What are you talking about? I don't know. Listen, this is not what I do. First of all, I'm not a party planner. I'm not a wedding planner. I am a party planner and I throw great parties that would never happen at Madison Square Garden because I believe in windows.

1:30:51Number two. Okay. I.

1:30:53Sean Fennessey:That's the Mecca. I'll have you know. And it is the home of the champion New York Knicks. I think that's a wonderful place to win a championship. Yeah. I don't think. We didn't win there. We won in San Antonio. Yeah. Suck it. Yeah. Spurs. That's tough. I don't think that I would not choose to get married in a place without windows. That's just me. ironic because there was not a single window at the venue where you got married it was outside that's right not a single window to be seen uh yeah taylor swift yeah maybe it's time okay maybe it's time this is a really exciting year for you i'm just i feel great yeah everything is going great toy story 5 crying like a baby i saw it uh 12 hours after the next one that was the other thing to consider all right you know it was sunday morning I was in the best state I've ever been in in my life.

1:31:43Sean Fennessey:So maybe you should consider that when you go see the film, listeners of this show. My bad. If it's not good, I don't really know. I could have watched the worst slop of all time and been like, interesting ideas here. I really like the thematic elements that they were after in this film. Okay. I think we're done. Yeah. You feel done? Sure. Okay. USA, will they win today? I don't know. Our friend Connor was like, do you guys want to come watch in an Australian bar? And I was like, I don't really think that that's... That's the energy I can bring my two sons into. Although they kind of have Aussie Mad Men quality.

1:32:15But I just, you know, they're ready to fight at the drop of a hat. So we can't put them in a situation like that.

1:32:22Sean Fennessey:It's true. Okay, well, this was emotionally valuable. Thanks for making this time. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support. Next week, we're drafting again. It's been a minute since we've had a draft. We recorded the 1976 draft roughly three years ago. So we're doing our first. That was a long time ago. We're doing our first ever redraft. We're redrafting from the year 2010, which was the very first movie draft that we ever did on this show. But this time we're doing it with the whole gang, the big team. It's every June.

1:32:57Sean Fennessey:I know you don't know this, but I know this. Every June we do a mega movie draft. I do know that. Okay, you do know that. Yeah. And so last year, I absolutely crushed with the perfect. Was it 2000? Right. And I had Bring It On, Virgin Suicides, Coyote Ugly, Center Stage. One more. I mean, it was legendary. There are literally threes of women at home shaking their heads and saying, yes, Amanda. I heard I heard for more than three people. So Rob Mahoney. Yeah. Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, Van Lathan, CR, me and you. Yeah. 2010. Is there going to be a table? I meant to ask you this and we'll just do it live.

1:33:37So is it table? I just need to know what pants and shoes to wear.

1:33:40Sean Fennessey:There's going to be table. I believe you will be sitting directly in the middle of said table. Okay, good. Like Jesus himself at the Last Supper. I'll be off screen the whole time. Thanks for listening. Enjoy Toy Story 5. We'll see you next week.

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