The Toy Story films, revolving around a group of toys that secretly come to life when humans aren’t watching, have always held a special place in the hearts of children and adults alike, including the groundbreaking 1995 original, which was a trailblazer for CGI animation. But for its fifth film – which has already broken box office records for the franchise, earning $300m (£227m) globally in less than a week – its makers at Pixar are tackling a particularly bold subject matter: the dangers of modern technology.
My children Lola, 10, and Liberty, eight, were dying to see the movie, despite not having seen any of the earlier Toy Storys, and knowing full well that the film’s premise would hit a nerve. In it, toys Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack), Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) come under siege from frog-shaped tablets known as Lilipads (the main one in the film, called simply Lily, is voiced by Greta Lee) – toys that are both educational, in that they feature different kinds of games to complete, and social, with in-built chat functions that allow users to “connect” with their IRL friends. The trouble is that, as lonely eight-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) discovers, kids don’t want to indulge in imaginative play anymore.
