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There's a new sheriff in town. Back in 2019, Woody the cowboy handed over his gold star badge to Jessie the cowgirl, a literal and symbolic passing of the torch.
Seven years later, Jessie is taking center stage in the fifth installment of the beloved Pixar film series. As leader of Bonnie's room, Jessie goes head to head with the sinister Lilypad, a new technology that hypnotizes the kid from day one.
During her struggles against this new threat, Jessie also comes face to face with her past – and the lingering trauma of being given away by her first kid, Emily, as seen in Toy Story 2's most upsetting scene.
"I just felt she had so much unaddressed, that she had a deep well to draw from," Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton tells us of Jessie taking her place at the heart of the new movie. "Woody used to have a deep well but we drew so much from him, I just thought he needed a break.
"And we made a conscious point of passing the badge on from Woody to Jessie at the end of [Toy Story] 4," Stanton adds. "I loved, even if we didn't go to another film, we'd have that, knowing she was a leader now in running Bonnie's room. So, it just made sense when I was asked to work on this one to start there, because it would be a very different room run by her. Even though it's a similar problem of a new thing coming into the room and disrupting things, it's a different era, it's a different kind of character. And she had so much, like I said, under the hood, I knew her insecurities of abandonment would come out right away."
Toys outside Bonnie's room warn Jessie that "the age of toys is over," and indeed that grim prognosis appears to be coming true for the cowgirl and the gang. Bonnie gets hooked on Lilypad's wonders, though maxed out screen time isn't the only problem. Lilypad gives Bonnie the ability to chat to her friends virtually, except these mean girls are no true friends – a sad situation her parents are totally oblivious to, despite taking a more sizeable role in the narrative than the parent figures in previous installments.
"It's just trying to give you an opportunity to understand what can happen," says Stanton. "And they're new to it. We're talking within 48 hours, or maybe 72 hours, that happened. I mean, it's all very new. There's not a lifestyle or a way of running the room with tech that the parents have figured out. It's just suddenly they got a kid a bike, and now this is what comes with having a bike. So, we were just, in a short amount of time, trying to give you all the highs and lows that can come with it."
You'll be able to see how the struggle between toys vs. tech plays out when Toy Story 5 arrives to theaters this June 19.
In the meantime, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies or all the new Disney movies in the works.
