'Toy Story 5' Is a Metaphorical Rallying Cry Against AI

In 1995, I was eight years old when I went to the movies and saw Toy Story. It changed the way I play, and the way I imagined play could happen. At the time, toys were my life. I had lots of action figures, and I would sculpt huge scenarios for them to race into obstacles and elaborate love stories, as well as other heroic endeavors.

But I also remember getting our first video game system, a Super Nintendo, and how the toys just fell by the wayside for a while, as we got more interested in Donkey Kong.

Now, by that time, I feel like I had a pretty good imagination, and, truth be told, video games wound up not being for me as a kid, so I went back to my toys until I found the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

But it seems like those fears have been realized in the new Toy Story 5 trailer, where the franchise is moving toward its most existential battle yet: Traditional Toys vs. Modern Technology.

And I couldn't help but view it as a filmmaker's rallying cry against AI.

Let's dive in.

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The New Antagonist: Lilypad

Forget Sid the psycho neighbor or the bitter Lotso Huggin' Bear. The villain of Toy Story 5 isn't a person or a disgruntled toy; it’s a device.

Meet Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee), a high-tech, frog-shaped smart tablet that keeps Bonnie from making friends and turns her into a little antisocial weirdo.

While watching this trailer, I couldn't help but see a little AI in Lilypad.

It was this computer that promised to make your dreams come true, except that it stopped you from actually using your imagination and just relied on instant gratification to lull you into a stupor.

Now, I have no idea if the writers and director of the new Toy Story 5 were thinking along the same lines as me, but I saw the trailer as a rallying cry for everyone in the industry.

Fight For Your Right to Imagine

When the first Toy Story came out, it was lauded for being cutting-edge technology. I am sure there were those in animation who saw the computers and worried, but as time would show, these computers wound up just being a tool that people with great storytelling skills and vivid imaginations could use to make their dreams come alive.

But it still took a lot of hard work.

Now, there are some that would have you believe AI is the same thing...that the people against AI are actually just Luddites who can't see the forest through the trees.

But I would posit that what sets this time apart is that when Toy Story came out, it was delivering an original story built from the imagination of real dreamers.

And when I see AI slop on the internet, it's regurgitated, stolen characters (or celebrity identities) that are either fighting different IP or just flying around cities, without any story.

The only AI short with any sort of story I saw was of a woman racing to save her child from some sort of world event, and it looked more like a car commercial than anything else, and didn't really have much of a narrative hook. It was all special effects.

This brings me to my main point...aI is not going to save you if your imagination is sh*t. It kind of just exposes how vapid and uninteresting you are as a person.

The Democratization of Nothing

AI stans keep telling me that AI is going to democratize film and that all these wondrous idea sare going to come from it.

But again, the only viral clips I see are regurgitated lunches. I get that Hollywood is nostalgia reliant, but if you're going to be a revolutionary new thing, you need to be different...and all I am seeing is people doing the same things over and over.

Here's the other kicker: Hollywood already employs the best storytellers in the world, and despite my gripes, pays them really, really well.

If AI actually gets to a place where anything can happen, the studios are just going to hire the best people to use it. So, you will always be competing against a machine with a ton of money, not just in making but advertising, and all the platforms they need to push stuff out there.

But I don't think it's going to get to that level.

I really loved this breakdown from Hollywood Script Reader on AI.

Originality is the Only Way Forward

Sure. AI will get faster, it’ll get cheaper, and yeah, it’s probably going to cost a lot of hardworking people their livelihoods.

But will it actually change anything?

The thing is, we need humans behind every decision in movies and TV because that's what gives stories their soul.

See, if we bring it all back to Toy Story , the reason the stories we tell matter is that we had a childhood. We played with Toys and we cared about different aspects of our lives. We scraped our knees, kissed on mulch piles, and had our hearts broken.

That's why art is so moving to people, and why AI feels like such a stale and soulless thing. It's not taking artisans who have thought and felt and emoted, it's just zeroes and ones trying to get you to feel something it has no idea about.

So while it might be fun to sit on the Lilypad and seem easy, the real entertainment and the real positive experiences of life are out in the real world, using your imagination to take you anywhere you need to go.

Let me know what you think in the comments.