At the climax of Toy Story 3, the unthinkable seemed to be happening. Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the rest of Andy’s toys found themselves in a trash heap, riding a conveyor belt toward an incinerator. Although the toys try for a while to find some means of escape, they finally realize it’s useless. And so they decide to face death the only way they can: by holding hands and sharing it together.Of course, the toys don’t die, plucked from oblivion from at the last minute by the claw aliens. But for those watching Toy Story 3 in theaters back in 2010, it really seemed like Pixar would do it, that they would really let Buzz and Woody meet their end. After all, more than a decade had passed between Toy Story 2 and the third entry. Moreover, their beloved owner Andy had grown up, and passed them all. Surely, there was nothing more to say about our favorite cowboy and spaceman. Surely, they had met their proper end.That thought is even more front of mind in the first trailer for Toy Story 5. Much of the trailer just features reaction shots of familiar faces: Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, even newcomer Forky. In the final kicker, we see Andy’s successor Bonnie open her new present, an iPad-like device called a Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee of Past Lives. Have the toys finally become obsolete?Even if you’re not a parent who has seen your children lose all interest in anything that doesn’t have a screen, the answer has to be “Yes.” The first ever fully-CGI feature length film, the original Toy Story from 1995 both inaugurated Pixar as a major studio but also made computer animation a viable, and now dominant, medium for cartoon movies. But now, it looks far clunkier than any of the traditional hand-drawn animated movies it supplanted. cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Moreover, the characters reached the natural end of their arc. Buzz had accepted that he was a toy. Woody had put aside all of his insecurities and learned to live amongst his regular toys. Jessie had learned to trust and love again. There was nothing more to say.It’s something of a miracle that both Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 managed to find new things to do with the toys… well, most of them anyway. Buzz feels like he’s a lead just because he was a main character in the first two films, but he has no more to do than Slink or Rex in those movies. That said, both of those films find compelling base narratives, a prison break and a road trip, to distract from the lack of motivation. Moreover, they do find increasingly rich thematic ground, with the toys dealing with Andy growing up in 3 and Bo Peep discovering life outside the toy box in 4.Theoretically, Toy Story 5 could continue in that vein, pulling out another good movie against all odds. Reliable Pixar hand Andrew Stanton writes and directs, and early reports have the suggested that the film puts Jessie in the spotlight, finally returning to an underserved character.But the introduction of Lilypad seems a little too direct, a little too ominous. Certainly, the central conflict will involve the toys trying to get Bonnie to turn away from the shiny new gadget and play with them again. And while it will certainly have something to say about imagination and avoiding passive watching, it’s hard to believe the tech company that abolished hand-drawn animation won’t suggest that the toys and Lilypad have to learn to live in harmony. Heck, there might even be something about AI thrown in because it somehow always is.Will that be enough to continue to meet the high standards set by the previous Toy Story films? Or will Lilypad finally force us to accept that the time of Buzz and Woody has passed. They’ve staved off death before; let’s see if they can do the same to stave off obsolesce.Toy Story 5 releases on June 19, 2026.The post Toy Story 5 Trailer Makes Buzz and Woody Obsolete appeared first on Den of Geek.