The “Toy Story 4” trailer dropped a few weeks back and, as with every “Toy Story” movie before it, a new character to kick start the emotional conflict of the story has been introduced. In this case, it seems we get Forky to fill this role.
Forky is a spork that Bonnie, the main cast of toys’ new owner after Andy went to college at the end of “Toy Story 3”, glued googly eyes and pipe cleaners to as a craft at daycare. Somehow Forky gained sentience through the power of her imagination. So other than being a new character in the Toy Story franchise, what is Forky’s deal?
Forky is having an identity crisis. As he says in the trailer, “I was made for soup, salad, chili, and then the trash.” Since a disposable spork is not the most traditional of toys, it appears Forky is dealing with some form of imposter syndrome now that he has been brought to life as a toy, something outside of his intended purpose.
This crisis of being and search for belonging that the trailers have shown Forky going through so far, has websites like Buzzfeed already calling Forky “the most relatable character in all of pop culture.”
So, it looks like this movie will be about an individual dealing with identity issues and coming to terms with who they are and where they fit in the world.
As some people online have pointed out, this plot line seems like a retread or at least a very similar retelling of the main conflict from the first “Toy Story” movie, trying to convince a toy that they are in fact a toy.
Does this mean that “Toy Story 4” will be a bad movie? Not at all. Disney and Pixar have shown with the previous sequels that they put a great amount of time and care into the “Toy Story” universe, whether they are creating a feature length movie for theaters or an animated short story of what adventures the characters are on. There has not been a poor entry in the Toy Story canon yet, and it doesn’t look like “Toy Story 4” will be the movie to break that chain.
Story By: Carlee Blumenthal
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Photo Courtesy of DigitalSpy
