Toy Story Creators Break Down Fan Theories from Reddit

Do you think they were right?

I haven't seen Toy Story 4, so I'm not sure.

[upbeat piano music]

Hi, I'm Josh Cooley, director of Toy Story 4.

And I'm Mark Nielsen, one of the producers on Toy Story 4.

And today we are here to discuss some Toy Story 4

fan theories that we found on the internet.

[microphone feedback whines]

Okay, oh, whoa.

Step back.

[Ham] For crying out loud.

[Woody] There you go, thank you.

This is Reddit user Siloiam has a theory about Forky.

What if Woody is the reason that Forky became alive

and not Bonnie?

Woody is the first one to touch the trash that would

become Forky, so you could consider that Woody wanted

Forky to be a toy, like him, for Bonnie,

also the whole movie Woody is worried sick for Forky,

as if he knows Forky is alive because of him.

The fact that Woody pulls the craft supplies out

of the garbage can, places it in front of Bonnie,

Siloiam thinks that maybe Woody had this plan

all along, but he didn't.

He just wanted to get some craft supplies

back in front of Bonnie.

And then later on he does see it, how much Forky

means to Bonnie, so he is trying to take care of Forky

and bring him back to Bonnie the whole time.

Hello, I'm Forky.

Nice to meet you.

The toys in Toy Story are immortal.

They can't die.

I mean they can be crushed or incinerated,

but they will never die of old age,

so what does this mean for our heroes?

They will outlive every owner they have,

the story of Andy growing up and leaving their lives

will continue ad nauseum until the last of humanity

is gone or the toys have all been incinerated.

The tortured toys in the first movie are still alive,

albeit horribly mangled, they are stuck like that forever,

or until Sid cleans him room, and throws them into

the garbage can and sends them to their fiery death.

This is also means that the only way they can die

is kicking and screaming into something that will destroy

their entire body.

If pieces of them still exist, they're still aware,

we've seen this with Mr. Potato Head,

he's able to feel and use his body parts when they're

away form him.

Their soul may reside somewhere in the head then,

or if there is no head, then there is central mass.

Now what does this mean for mankind?

Well it means that once we're all dead or gone,

the toys inherit the earth.

That seems plausible. Yeah.

That seems right.

I'd kinda buy that,

I think, Nameless88 is on to something.

One of the things I've heard is that maybe

the toys are some sort of vampire,

that instead of sucking blood,

they suck the joy out of children and live forever.

[chuckles]

But, you know, we never really thought about that

when making the movie, it's more about just family

and being friends.

We'll be there for him, together.

Jon Negroni, who is known online for creating

the theory that all Pixar movies are connected,

also has a theory about Andy's mom.

Andy's mom is Emily, that's Jessie's previous owner.

You remember the story of Jessie,

her owner Emily grew up with her,

much the same as she was with Andy.

She was incredibly loved but Emily eventually gave her

away when she grew older.

I compiled all of the evidence and I found some incredible

support for this theory.

For one thing, take a close look at Andy's cowboy hat

and take a close look at Jessie's hat.

It's the same red hat with white lace that Andy wears.

If I got this correct, he's saying that Jessie's owner

is Andy's mom?

Yes, that is the theory.

Because they have the same color hat.

[Mark] Red hat.

It's all about the red hat.

I'm not convinced yet.

I believe there's more than one red hat in the world.

But we would love to know more about your incredible

support for this theory, so please contact Mark Nielsen.

Nope Duke.

Nuh uh. Duke.

No way. Duke.

Pass. Duke!

Negative. Duke.

Rejected.

All right, Reddit user Just A Typical Ginger,

has a theory about Andy's dad.

Good name.

My theory is that Andy's father is dead.

Andy has clearly attached himself to Woody and Buzz

and all of the placings.

One could almost call them fatherly.

This could employ that Andy is missing a father figure

in his life and this is why they are his favorite two toys.

This being said, it doesn't answer the question

of why there is no photos of Andy's dad anywhere

in their house.

Well, I will say that the reason that you are feeling

this way is because we treated Woody as a father figure

to Andy throughout all the films.

In terms of his dad though.

I know.

Being dead, that's taking it pretty far.

I'd like to think maybe they split up.

Maybe he's still alive

and living somewhere in another town.

Witness protection, maybe.

Maybe he was part of the CIA and is deep undercover.

And maybe Woody belonged to Andy's dad

and he gave him to Andy before he left.

Maybe he left under suspicious circumstances.

Any of those are possible.

We don't need to know because it's really all about

serving the story of Woody playing the

father figure role-- That's exactly--

In Andy's life. what I'm saying.

I don't know about witness protection that much,

but I know that you don't talk about it

and so we didn't talk about it.

So, I mean it's kind of obvious he's in witness protection.

Yeah.

So many choices, I just can't decide.

SyFY.com has a theory about the symbolism

behind Woody and Buzz.

What if Woody represents Andy's real dad, more Andy's dad.

Wow

While Buzz represents his cool step-dad. [laughs]

That could be, although yeah,

we don't see the step-dad do we?

He's that cool.

I think he's, he's just probably like

on a motorcycle somewhere

for most of the movie, just being cool.

I feel like the step-dad would be present

in the family if that were indeed the case,

unless the step-dad took off after Andy's dad

went into the Witness Protection Program.

His Dad left, his cool step-dad left.

On a motorcycle.

Who knows who else took off on Andy, so.

Okay, Reddit user JimmyLegs50, [both laugh] has a theory

about Toy Story and the TV show The Walking Dead.

The zombie show has many similarities

to the Toy Story films, including, a sherif,

who has a kid he would do anything for,

and who leads a group of social misfits.

The hyper macho best friend.

There's also a yodeling cowgirl.

And a Lotso like psychopath like the Governor

in the TV show.

Hmmm.

I've heard of this theory before,

it's an, actually pretty incredible coincidence.

Yeah, this question might be more for The Walking Dead

creators than for us.

Right.

I mean, which came first?

I feel like Toy Story mighta come first.

It might have yeah, I think Toy Story came first.

So hey, JimmyLegs50, you should contact walkingdead.com

and see what they say.

Give those guys a call.

What if Boo from Monsters Inc, is Bonnie from Toy Story 3?

Wow.

Whoa.

That's blowing my mind.

We actually have a character that we put in Toy Story 4

that has been confused by many fans as being--

As Boo.

She's in the kindergarten scene, when Forky's being created,

and she's in the background, she has pink shirt

and pigtails and then right at the carnival--

Yeah. She loses,

she's losing right before you pan up to Ducky and Bunny

and meet them.

Maybe just because it's a younger girl

and then Bonnie's a little bit older, so that's might be

the connection they're going for, but unfortunately

that's not how-- This is a tough one.

How things work because. That's tough one

for me to buy into.

There's lots of little kids and then older kids in life,

and they're not all related,

they're not all the same people.

But we did accidentally put Boo in the movie twice.

Reddit user 1337 and 0.

Toy Story and Homoe Improvement are in the same universe.

You can see a Binford toolbox in Toy Story,

which is the name of the tool company

from Tim Allen's show Home Improvement.

Right. You're right.

There is a Binford toolbox that is on top of the crate

that Buzz is under

in the first Toy Story. Yeah.

I don't know that it was more than a nod to Tim Allen.

Maybe that's who Andy's dad is.

Tim the Tool Man Taylor.

Oh wow.

Which would explain a lot.

Reddit user London Garbage Man, who has the theory

that Troublemaker Sid may have changed his ways.

In Toy Story 1, Sid is confronted with a horrifying

revelation that his toys are alive.

15 years later in Toy Story 3, we see that Sid has become

the local garbage man.

Now let's imagine that you're a guy who's just learned

that inanimate objects are alive.

What job would you get?

Sid isn't working a crappy job, he's trying to save them,

he's trying to save the toys.

He picked the one job where you can rescue those things

and Sid is uniquely equipped to fix those toys

that he finds that are broken.

That is pretty darn creative.

Yeah, I agree.

[Sid laughs maniacally]

You mean that happy child?

I think Sid's like probably the most creative child

in all the Toy Story movies.

Sid's a good dude.

He's such a great guy.

He's just misunderstood.

Yeah.

Andy, what, what was Andy doing?

He wasn't doing anything.

Sid is the one that was really had a vision.

And he's cleaning up the streets.

[Mark laughs]

Which is great.

RMAA2910 may have figured out the ending to the movie.

Woody has given Bonnie love, joy, et cetera,

and is chilled out with Buzz and friends,

but there's something he is really missing

and kind of lacks of.

Love.

What would be more emotional than Woody saying goodbye

to Buzz and company and now he wants to be independent.

Oh I see.

So this was written before they saw the movie.

Yes. Ooh.

We went through a lot of different endings for Toy Story 4.

The first one we had was everybody came back to Bonnie's

house and everything was normal as usual,

but it wasn't emotional enough.

We had another ending where Bo didn't come back,

but Woody still found her and was able to kind of let go

of that relationship.

And then the last ending was the one we made,

which is the Woody, and, you know, decides to be

on the road with Bo.

[Mark] I think once we realized that for Woody to really

change in this movie-- Yeah.

He could not go back to Bonnie's room.

And things had to be different too.

He couldn't go into Bonnie's room and be the favorite toy,

because we've already seen that.

We've seen that for three movies,

so we had to change it up and make it feel

like this is a completely different chapter

in Woody's life.

Does this mean Woody's a lost toy?

He's not lost.

Not anymore.

What have we learned from all this?

I mean, I've learned that a lot of people are heavily

invested in digging deeper into these stories.

Deeper than we ever thought as we were making them,

which is kind of actually cool.

Yeah.

I love that.

I think that's great.

I will say that there's so many more theories

that you guys haven't even come up with

that are actually correct.

So keep digging.

Keep digging.

[Soldier] Keep looking men, dig deeper!