Since it was announced, many Toy Story fans like myself have been scratching our heads about the upcoming plot for Toy Story 4.
After all, John Lasseter promises that it’s good enough to warrant yet another sequel to an otherwise perfect trilogy. So what could this great idea be?
It’s too early to tell, but that didn’t stop Aaron Helman from writing out what he considers to be a pretty exciting script. Enjoy:
TOY STORY 4
by Aaron Helman
The film is set 6-7 years after Toy Story 3.
The toys are hanging out by themselves, doing Toy Story things when a woman barges in the room in a tizzy and starts throwing them into boxes. The toys are confused, but they hear a conversation in the next room, trying to figure out what’s going on. Through the perspective of the toys, we hear bits and pieces:
“Once I heard, I just knew you had to have these.”
“That’s so sweet, but what about…”
“Oh she’s 13 now. She doesn’t really play with them anymore.”
“I’m sure Andy will be thrilled.”
“When’s the baby due?”
Cue music and excitement from the toys.
Andy’s mom drops the toys off for Andy, but he’s in a rush. He sets the box in a partially completed nursery but doesn’t open it. And he doesn’t play with the toys.
We see, from the perspective of the toys, time-lapse work on the nursery. Andy’s wife’s bump grows and we hear a crying baby after they come back from the hospital to place him in his crib. Andy still hasn’t gotten to the toys.
The baby gets bigger and learns to crawl. Andy seems preoccupied with other things, but he finally opens the box and haphazardly hands one of the toys to baby.
One day, the baby “catches” the toys when they’ve come to life. The toys soon realize that the baby can’t communicate and won’t remember any of this, so they begin to come alive around the baby to play. The baby loves this.
There’s a scene where baby drops his pacifier, starts crying, but the toys work together to fix it.
Throughout all of this, Andy is being revealed to be a workaholic. Mom wants help with the baby, Andy’s coming home later and later; he’s stressed out, too.
Next we have a scene where the baby picks up Woody, crawls over to Andy and raises his arms to be lifted up. Andy brushes the baby (and Woody) aside because he’s in the middle of working on something. We overhear that Andy is working for a firm that’s trying to buy the now-for-sale Al’s Toy Barn to put up an office complex.
Woody gathers the other toys because he’s worried about Andy. He’s not the same person he used to be, doesn’t have time for the toys and doesn’t appear to have time for his baby. He thinks that it’s because of “work,” which is a concept the toys don’t really understand.
Buzz suggests that maybe Andy’s been brainwashed, and they go on an adventure to Andy’s work to find out what’s going on.
At the office — a sterile place altogether — they sneak around to watch what goes down, confused by everything. They refer to a meeting as a play-date, etc… (Maybe Rainn Wilson and Steve Carrell can voice Andy’s co-workers).
Finally, they see Andy copying a page from a book, with the copy machine lid lifted. They see the green glow from the machine’s “wand” and deduce that this is the brainwashing machine.
After everyone’s gone, the toys set out to destroy the copy machine, but some weird bobbleheads come to life from a desk to explain that it’s not a brainwashing machine, but a copy machine. Etch and the Copy Machine have a duel. Etch wins.
The toys come up with the idea to go back to Andy’s room to find something to remind him of who he really is because Jesse saw that in a movie once.
As they leave, Hamm is photocopying his butt.
They go to Andy’s Room, but it’s not the same. It’s been repainted. There’s a treadmill and a desk in there. They start looking anyway. When they can’t find anything, Buzz calls it off and says they need to head back.
Woody says, “No. I know what we need.” He walks solemnly over to a vent, removes the cover, and with the help of the toys, retrieves a small journal.
One of the toys asks, “What is it?”
Woody: “I’m not sure. When Andy was little, he used to look at it all the time. But every time he looked at it, he would cry. So one day, when he was at school, I hid it, because I didn’t want to see Andy cry like that anymore.”
The toys turn the pages of the journal. A photo of a man holding a baby. A photo of the same man holding a toddler at Christmas. A photo of the same man hugging a young Andy and his Woody doll. A photo of the same man on a hospital bed, Andy snuggled up against him.
Then pages of words and pictures as the toys leaf through the journal, finally settling on this page with a child’s handwriting.
I love playing with Woody, but I just really miss my dad.
The toys head back home with the journal in tow, and leave it out on the table. The next day Andy returns home, late again, and drops his briefcase on the table. He’s on the phone, discussing the Toy Barn deal, and the toys overhear him say that he’s got a meeting tomorrow and has to have a decision by then.
Andy ends the call, is clearly exasperated, then buries his head in his hands before noticing his old journal.
He leafs through it, holding back tears as he looks through the pictures, then settles on the same page as the toys noticed. He reads the words, “I love playing with Woody. But I just really miss my dad.”
He looks up, and sees the baby in the other room playing all by himself with Woody.
Etch spends the rest of the night working on his piece de resistance: a picture of the baby, Buzz and Woody. The toys sneak Etch into Andy’s briefcase before the big meeting where the decision will be made.
At the meeting, Andy opens the briefcase, sees Etch, has a moment, excuses himself and apologizes for getting choked up. He composes himself and says, “I would hate for this not to be a toy store anymore. What if I run it?”
The other workers in the firm are livid, but Andy ignores them as he reaches across to shake a hand.
The final scene is back at Andy’s home. Buzz and Woody watch from a window as Andy plays with his son in the leaves. They congratulate each other on a job well done. Woody protests that “Ah, I’m just a toy.
Buzz disagrees, “No, Cowboy. Today, you are a bona-fide hero.”
Final montage as the familiar music of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” starts to play. We see Andy wrestling with the baby, feeding the baby (the baby spitting up on Andy) and snuggling with the baby. In each of these moments, Buzz and Woody are inanimate, but still looking on approvingly.
The movie ends with Andy feeding baby a bottle and rocking him gently while he sings:
You’ve got a friend in me.
You’ve got a friend in me.
When the road looks rough ahead…
That’s it! Tweet @AaronHelman if you liked his take on Toy Story 4! And be sure to share your own ideas in the comments below.
…that was epic
Am I crying? Yes, I’m crying.
Yeah, I cried. This would be amazing!
I was thinking about this in an entirely different direction. It’s several years later, and Andy has had a horrible accident. He’s depressed and not doing well. Toys to the rescue!
That’s a really interesting and well-developed idea! I was thinking in Toy Story 4, Andy would either graduate from college or get married, but if he had a child of his own, that could add a lot to the story.
This is awesome….really awesome….totally awesome! This story is even beteer than the third one!
better*
Fantastic.
Are we sure this guy isn’t secretly the screenwriter working on this?
My prediction:The starring toys will meet trashed, unloved toys, and their search of revolution. This project is brand new, so everything goes, and this prediction is a go.
I would personally like to command you to SEND THIS IMMEDIATELY TO PIXAR.
That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard….i love the plot and that ending got to me….
Awesome, but instead of a boy it should be a girl named Mary (Monsters Inc.)
watermelonlover
Mary(Boo)’s events take place in 2001, she should be approaching 20 in the present.
According to the pixar theory , the human timeline that the monsters travel too it’s not necessaryly 2001 could be 2010 for all we know.
Not necessarily.
Wow great work i love your all blog and thinking !!!
that is an awesome plot for a sequel!!! but to be honest i believe that they should finish Toy Story before they over do it and ruin it completely. the plot described would actually be an amazing finish to the series with a few extra minutes, showing the toys in an old battered state laying together on Andy’s death bed. especially buzz and woody. I propose that the toys come to life for the first time in front of Andy. However this is only when Andy is breathing his last breaths. During this time Woody is in an old, battered, and dirty state, reflecting the fact that Andy will shortly die, and he kneels on Andy’s chest and softly speaks the words: “thank you partner, You’ll always have a friend in me” after this is done, all the toys “die” along with Andy and it shows them all in Heaven, with Andy as his younger-self, all in a depiction of his room, all running around and having fun.
i think that this would be a fitting end to the series, yes i know it leaves it on a depressing note, but it has closure knowing that the toys and Andy are finally at rest where they can all play together forever in heaven
it would have to be a flash back of some sort but definitely not heven and m ygod am it going to be crying though out this fricking movie LOVE YOU IDEA BTW
Whoah, whoah, whoah! Definitely not! That would be a horrible ending! We met Andy, we grew up with him, we watched him leave for his future, likely never to see him again, and now we gotta watch him DIE!?! ARE you nuts??
I refuse to watch Woody or Andy die.
I like both ideas, but doesn’t Jon N. believe that Andy’s dad is out of the picture because of divorce. I think that makes more sense. I also like the fact that the toys reveal themselves to Andy. Why not? They did it to Sid in the first movie.
i agree with the divorce theory, but it can be mixed with this idea. during the reading of the notebook the toys learn that Andy´s father left him, and this memories, of being left, transform Andy in a more present father for her own son.
(sorry for my english, i’m from Argentina)
I feel that the idea of Andy’s father died could still answer Jon’s question on why we never see/hear anything about him. Obviously, Andy was getting to choked up about seeing his father’s pictures, so Andy’s mom had to get rid of them so that Andy could be happier. But, we can’t really go off this Toy Story 4 idea, as, at the moment, this is basically a fan fiction.
Personally, I think Andy’s journey with the toys came to a proper end. Any way that the toys would leave Bonnie (I think?) in the opening of Toy Story 4 to return to Andy undermines the ending of Toy Story 3.
While the reveal of the plot being connected to Andy’s dad makes sense, the notebook as a plot device to reveal it seems a bit emotionaly heavy handed for the, usually subtle Pixar storytelling method.
While this was very well thought I’d rather see a story that does something new with Bonnie and the toys, and have a more permanent ending to their story, given any kid will always grow out of them, always leaving the possibility of them being abandoned, lost or donated.
This is what I was thinking when I first heard of Toy Story 4, that it would be more with Bonnie. That, or it could be a 1 and a half hour long Toy Story Short.
Anybody else go “aw…” at the scene with Andy and his dad?
In other words, this is PURE GENIUS!
Omg so beacuse they leave Bonni 6-7 yars later all the toy story shorts can lead up to tis movie and if they do 2 a year they can have one with Bonni and one with the baby / kid OMG im a fucking guneus why is pixar not coming to me for ideas
This is brilliant!!! I can totally see this working. Well done!!
This is beautiful
Holy cow! That is EPIC!!
Sadly, Toy Story 4 will be a love story.
Possible Plot that could save the franchise:
Woody Going Out into the World to find Bo Peep after seeing her in a picture Bonnie has of her in a rich friend’s house. A heroic rescue film with a hint of love.
Other Possible Romances That Will Probably Be Featured:
Buzz & Jessie
Rex & Trixie
More Ken & Barbie
Bonnie & ?
First Kiss, a she’d “be 11 or 12” when the film comes out.
Note: Etch was sold before Toy Story 3, so how could he be in the script above?
lala
Person
this is amazing… I thought Toy Story 3 was bad, so this will be a great ending instead