Is Tech the Real Villain in 'Toy Story 5'? — Say More

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: There is something about Toy Story 5 specifically that feels like it's giving you a deposit of joy and of hope. The Toy Story films have always done that for audiences, and I think the goal and the hope of this one is to kind of provide a little bit of a weary world with some hope. [00:00:16] Speaker 2: Our mission on this planet is to make a child happy. People might think, oh, a fifth Toy Story is pushing it. They might have thought a fourth Toy Story is pushing it, but clearly there are still stories to tell. So what is it about Toy Story that you think there's so much to tap into there specifically? A huge part of it is that [00:00:31] Speaker 3: the premise of Toy Story allows it to grow with us, which is such a rarity when it comes to other franchises. We are not limited by time. We are, in fact, empowered by time and change, and it is so interesting to dive into these characters time and time again when they are experiencing all the different changes that we are. Part of me goes, like, we got lucky, man, because I could spend every day with Les and Moody. And Jessie. Like, oh, like, Jessie's my bestie. For life. [00:01:00] Speaker 1: No, I know. And there is a certain element of that perfect casting that makes them feel like they feel so familiar and so, so much kind of a part of you that you're like, I'll go see them. And the minute they pop on screen, I think you go into any of our animation dailies and the animators are grinning. They're happy to be with them again. There's something about this. I think that probably movie directors feel that sometimes when they feel like they've cast a perfect film, and that their characters are something that people just want to be with. There's something about these characters that I feel like is that. [00:01:34] Speaker 2: I agree with that. I definitely feel that, too. How do you balance showcasing the advancements in Pixar's technology while also staying true to the appearance that we know them from 30-plus years ago? Yeah, that's a good... Restraint. Restraint is a thing. [00:01:46] Speaker 3: That's the thing, because I think that from the outset, when we started the film and, you know, we're talking about a fifth film in a franchise, which, again, not a lot of franchises have gotten even to this point, Toy Story 4 took our photography to this level of, like, it's clear. We can make it look photo real. If we want to, we can do that. And it was clear at the beginning of the development of the film, it was like, well, that's not what we want to do for the sake of doing it. So what's going to set this movie's visuals apart? Part of that then started becoming mainly, like, conversations about the distinctness of the lighting in this film. There's something that's a little bit more meta about the nostalgia in this film as well, because we're diving into the past. And so starting from a lot of those ideas then dictated where we were going to go with refining the look. [00:02:34] Speaker 1: And you were like, Jessie needs to be on a farm. And I think really leaning into the fact we've never really, I mean, we've spent some time outdoors with the toys, but this film really kind of sits in that world for a while. And it feels different in that. And we couldn't have done that before. Before, yes. I think this has felt like, I mean, we probably could have done it in four. But the fact that this is Jessie's story, that felt like the right time to do it. And we actually have the technology [00:02:59] Speaker 3: to do it now. Yes, I wanted animals. I kept kind of telling sometimes I was just kind of like a prophet to Andrew. And I'd be like, I don't know why, but like, she needs to be outside and she needs to get dirty. Like she needs to be wild and free. And so I'm so grateful because now when you see like the first part of this movie, we really do get to celebrate, I think, how far we've come in how kind of just visceral the farm setting feels and allowing Jessie to really consistently interact with it and interact with the characters in it. So that was kind of the fun things of like, here's where we're taking the steps forward. And then in a lot of areas, here's where we need to pull back. [00:03:38] Speaker 1: Because you never want to feel like you're in a totally different film. I mean, part of what feels amazing about these films had to have spanned 35 years and technology having changed massively. I went back and watched "Toy Story 2" two weeks ago. I was like, Ooh, those humans. Ooh, yikes. But yeah, it's me, it's my favorite movie, by the way. So my, but like weirdly, we've been able to kind of eek these films along techno technologically in a way that doesn't feel jarring and feels comfortable for our audiences and for ourselves such that they, that they would have to go back and watch "Toy Story 2" and go like, Ooh, those humans. Wow. Wow. Because you're, hopefully you're so absorbed in the story. You're not really paying attention to all that. But we, we do show restraint on that. Like we don't want to all of a sudden feel like we've jumped so far ahead technologically that these don't even feel like the same characters anymore, the same world. So I think there's a lot of restraint in it as well. [00:04:37] Speaker 3: My favorite part about watching "Toy Story 2" is seeing that no one lives in that city. They're like going around the city all the time and driving every, well, I'm just saying there's no one there. It's the apocalypse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a side story. That's a fan theory. That's a fan theory. They're like, it's the apocalypse. Have you ever noticed that Andy's family lives apparently in an empty city? [00:04:56] Speaker 2: I think that sounds like grounds for "Toy Story 6". Just keep that in mind for the next one. I cover tech for a living and this movie is so pertinent because of the way that technology is kind of, I think taking over our lives is a strong phrase, but you know, it's prominent. Embedded. Yes, it's embedded. Exactly. How did you decide to approach the nuances of that? [00:05:16] Speaker 3: It was just a journey from the beginning because I think it was really clear up front. You know, we screen these movies internally regularly to test the quality of them and everyone is coming into this process with their own bias about tech in their lives. And there's a lot of, I think especially right now, there's a lot of angst and there's a lot of frustrations. And what that resulted in was these initial kind of just instincts of like, she's bad. Hi! Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Sleep mode, you know? She's bad and the toys are good. And right away, it's like, that's not, we all knew, but that's not right. That was like a trap. Yeah. And so it was like, how do we lean into the nuance? And a lot of that was genuinely leaning on the experience of the parents in our crew who had bodies in their lives, who they themselves, you know, there was no single right answer or right technique to like create these boundaries. And we're like, that's where the story lies. The story lies in the fact that it's a mess, it's a mess. And you just want to reflect that. Yeah. And not lecture anyone about that, like just kind of like, lay it out there. [00:06:24] Speaker 1: We want it to be real. I think, look, we're a technology company. I mean, so we're not sitting here going like, oh no, how dare you? I mean, it's tech. Yeah. So I think we were really, really, as we do with every of these, all of our films is like character first. Yes. And so if we can, if Lily is true to character, like where's the fun in it? Where's the reality of it? Like, who is she? Because she's brought in with, with the same intent that any parrot brings in any kind of tech device, which is, it's either going to be fun, entertaining or helpful. Like, and that's what she's, she's like, I'm here to be helpful. Like it's a genuine character drive. So then you guys took it from there. And it became this really fun dynamic with Jesse. [00:07:11] Speaker 3: Lilypad was always in Andrew's mind from the first draft onward of like, okay, this is like our main antagonist. The way he wanted to really justify the personification was giving her this case that has a character, a face. And then going forward, we knew that Jesse was going to go on a journey and meet other gadgets and devices that would humble her and open her heart up towards Lilypad. And it was fun to lean in when it came to smarty Atlas and snappy with, I think these like single use devices, single use devices from the 2000s that are like designed. So I find them very appealing, but when you're looking at them, it's like, wow, that they, yeah, that's a lot of classic. It's a lot of, and very little budget. But it's like already, it was so clear, like, especially in Snappy, oh my gosh, we could find all these cameras that were practically her design anyways. And it's like for become these figures that Jesse can learn, like, oh, they're just like me. And they, they, [00:08:10] Speaker 2: they love their kid just as much as I love my kid. AI changing the filmmaking process for everybody. Could you tell me about if, and how that's used in Pixar's general filmmaking process? [00:08:22] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, well, as we've talked about, I mean, obviously our DNA has always been kind of as a tech company first that then kind of was driving creative in that relationship. And when it works well, which I think normally it does here, there's this really symbiotic kind of dynamic between tech and creative. And that's very much the same philosophy we're approaching AI with, which is the purpose of tech is to help us on the creative side. It's not to replace it. It's not to take artists away. It's to allow the artists jobs to be easier, kind of get more creativity on the screen. And as long as it's doing that, we're all in, but we haven't, to be fair, we haven't seen anything yet that's made us go like, that's amazing. We love it. Yeah. But that's the philosophy. And that's the philosophy as we talk about it. It's like, it's for the artists because nobody has any interest in talking to computers. We work here. We're the last studio that has everybody in this building working together to make these films. It's the thing that we are the most proud of. Yeah. And it's the thing that under no circumstances would we ever, ever change. It's why we are all here. Yeah. This film is the [00:09:34] Speaker 3: wonderful product of a crew that was all directly prompted, you know, like it was our humans who kind of made this wonderful thing. And again, like you said, I think it's Toy Story 5 is interesting, interestingly talks about this handshake that we can have of like, we need, which we've done, [00:09:54] Speaker 1: we need both through all of our, you know, 40 years now, it's been a handshake. And I think there's, that's the philosophy we're trying to be open and approach everything with. But yeah, it's very much [00:10:05] Speaker 2: rooted in the creative. There was a time in Pixar's technology where there are things that you couldn't necessarily do. And so there were compromises that were made for sure. Are those days over? [00:10:14] Speaker 3: Compromise, I think is alive and well in the studio. But at the same time, I think everyone's gotten a lot better about having these conversations sooner and earlier of like what the priorities are. And so long as you can kind of time those things, right. In theory, I think there is a lot that can be done. And you know, the impossible becomes possible, like with Blaze's hair, with our playtime sequences, that was something that Andrew had the foresight very early on of like, y'all, we need to put a squad together who will handle this and hold it throughout the, you know, entirety of the production, because it is going to be all brand new. And we're not going to know what to do in those initial weeks of development. And then, yeah, on the other side, you're like, whoa, how do we, how do we do that? [00:11:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that thing. I mean, I think like the conversations are more around a really honest conversation around, okay, this is how much this is going to cost, what it's going to look like, is this where you want to spend the money? Right. And usually there's a really good back and forth there, which is like, oh, it's that, that's hard. No, I don't actually want to do that. Or, yeah, actually, I know it's going to be hard. I know it's really expensive. I know like 50 Buzz Light years on 50 horses is not a cheap scene, but it's important to the film. We're excited about it, and it's worth every penny. So let's do it. So I think it's, those are more the kind of conversations that I think increasingly are happening. Yeah.