TOY STORY 4

Director Josh Cooley reflects on the Pixar fourquel (or fork-quel).

FILM EXTRAS OUT NOW DIGITAL HD 21 OCTOBER DVD, BD, 4K EXTRAS COMMENTARY, FEATURETTES (BD), DELETED SCENES (BD)

Intro-ing a raft of deleted scenes, director Josh Cooley describes having enough spare ideas “to make 10 Toy Story 4 movies”. The one we got does the job just fine, an elegant epilogue to the Andy Trilogy that sidelines some old favourites (notably Buzz Lightyear) while debuting new ones (Forky, Gabby Gabby, Duke Caboom…). Still, it fascinates to get a taste of the Story-verse via the six chopped scenes, all in sketchy storyboard form but pithily contextualised by Cooley.

There’s an alt-ending (different big decision, similar bittersweetness), a bustling underground toy city (compare/ contrast with the eerie antique store) and a rib-bothering riff on counterfeit toys that might’ve bumped up Buzz’s arc (and cries out for spin-off treatment).

Oddly for a big family release, there are no shorts, games or Forky tutorials; the closest thing to moppet-friendly fun is a three-minute musical promo (Woody dances a mean jig). However, there’s a bout of stealth learning with ‘Let’s Ride With Ally Maki’, a perky primer on scratch dialogue, voc sheets and other audio terms, featuring Maki’s character Giggles McDimples – a

peripheral figure whose detailed design (her ‘office’ is stocked with Easter eggs) flags the difference between Pixar and lesser animation outfits. Elsewhere, Tony Hale nails Forky as “a beautiful disaster” and Keanu Reeves bikes off into the sunset with a playful “Caboom!”

Perhaps the most essential extra is Cooley and producer Mark Nielsen’s commentary. “That’s a little too ‘midichlorian’ for me,” says Cooley, wary of over-explaining the rules regarding sentient playthings. As with its predecessors, TS4 makes it easy to just go with the idea that its happy/ sad/existentially anxious heroes are genuine living dolls. Matthew Leyland