Toy Story 4

WOODY’S EMOTIONAL FAREWELL

“That idea was the thing that made the movie. Originally we did not start with that idea. Bo Peep had returned, and we neededidea that it felt like, ‘Okay, this is the movie. This is the reason to make this movie.’ This idea is big enough to be called . That idea came out of just plotting out all the possible endings of the film. And any time we had Woody returning back to Bonnie’s house, it felt like he didn’t learn anything. It just felt like a reset, and it made me angry to think of it that way. I thought it would make the audience angry, too. It got to the point where I was talking to the team going, ‘This is the only way we can end this movie.’ I’m so thankful to Pixar because they never said, ‘Well, that’s a stupid idea, we can’t do that, that would ruin everything.’ They were like, ‘That is an emotional ending — how can we get there? How can we line up everything so it feels like a natural progression?’ Every single person, from the story team to animation to Randy Newman doing the score, got that. To me, that’s the reason to make the movie. It is life, you know — you meet people, and then you separate from them.