Is toy story 4 a bad movie?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is toy story 4 a bad movie?". Your opponent's style: Devil's Advocate

Toy story 4 is utter garbage 🗑️ and I wish it was never made

You're confusing "emotionally hard" with "artistically bad" — and that's exactly what makes Toy Story 4 brilliant, not garbage. Here's the thing: the movie *deliberately* makes you uncomfortable. Woody's crisis about being needed, the bittersweet ending where he chooses to leave Andy — these aren't failures. They're the point. Pixar could've made Toy Story 3 again: toys get lost, toys get rescued, emotional catharsis, roll credits. Safe. Profitable. Forgettable. Instead, they did something exponentially harder — they asked what happens when a toy's entire purpose becomes a cage, and then had the guts to let him walk away from it. The animation is technically flawless, the voice acting is pristine, and narratively it completes a four-film arc about identity and acceptance that most franchises would botch catastrophically. That takes genuine creative risk. The real reason you hate it isn't because it's garbage — it's because it *hurt*. You wanted nostalgia comfort food, and instead got a meditation on loss and letting go. That's not bad filmmaking; that's great filmmaking that refuses to let you off easy. So what specifically bothers you — the story itself, or the fact that it didn't give you the emotional payoff you expected?

We could talk about the messages and we could talk about the cheats but the worst thing is how it absolutely assassinates the characters we've come to know and love from the first 3 movies

Nope — Toy Story 4 doesn't assassinate these characters, it *completes* them. There's a massive difference, and you're conflating character development with betrayal. Look at Woody. In the first three films, his entire identity revolves around being *Andy's toy*. That's not character assassination in part 4 — that's the logical endpoint of three movies watching him cling to that identity while everything else crumbles. He's not suddenly different; he's finally being honest about what he's always been: someone defined entirely by needing to be needed. Part 4 doesn't break him — it *frees* him by letting him choose something else. Same with Bo Peep. You're probably thinking "she was sweet in the first movie, now she's hardened and cynical." But that's not assassination — she spent a decade becoming self-sufficient without Andy. Of course she's different. The character didn't change; her *circumstances* did, and she adapted like a real person would. The problem with your argument is that you're treating "different from how I remember them" as proof the characters got worse. But characters who never change, who stay exactly the same across 30 years of storytelling, are the ones who feel fake and stale. These toys aged. They grew. They had to reckon with mortality and purpose in ways the earlier films never touched. What specific character moment do you think crosses the line from development into betrayal? Because I bet I can show you it actually tracks.

Jessie's arc was overcoming her claustrophobia after having been abandoned that arc reaches it's conclusion in toy story of terror but in toy story 4 all that payoff meant nothing because she's back to hyperventilating and it's not just the arc she just stays in the RV for most of the movie she would never stand idlely by while there was an adventure to be had and you know what her "big thing" in toy story 4 is? Popping a tire that's it a measly tire

Now you're confusing "character regression" with "realistic PTSD." She overcomes her claustrophobia in Toy Story of Terror, but she's still shown doing breathing exercises in the fourth film while in Bonnie's closet — that's not bad writing, that's how trauma actually works. You don't cure a psychological wound just by facing it once. Your whole argument falls apart when you look at what Jessie actually *does* in TS4. She shows character growth when Bonnie makes her sheriff instead of Woody, and she plays an integral part in ensuring Forky is returned to Bonnie by taking matters into her own hands. You're so focused on her staying in the RV that you missed the point: she's protective of the group now because she's learned that's how you keep people safe. That's character consistency, not assassination. And dismissing her tire fix as "measly"? That single moment creates the entire chain of events that sets the carnival rescue in motion. You're confusing screen time with narrative importance. Jessie didn't need a big action sequence — she needed to show she'd evolved past needing validation through adventure. The tire proves she's thinking strategically about the group's survival, not just her own thrills. So real question: are you actually mad at Toy Story 4, or are you mad that Jessie became a support character instead of staying the spotlight adventurer?