Toy Story 3 (2025) is the third installment of a note reboot of the Toy Story quadrilogy directed by Joss Whedon. While the film was originally meant to be released in 2025, it was mysteriously released on Disney+ in 2022 on the same day as the Snyder Cut of Shark Tale.
The film involves two monsters played by Billy Goodman and John Crystal who are introduced out of nowhere, who belong to a daycare mafia run by Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear. The monsters believe that kids are unbelievably stupid, which makes it all the more difficult when a little girl imprisons the toys so they can't escape. However, the toys start to like the little girl and soon find out that she's involved in a giant conspiracy surrounding the true owner of the daycare. A chef gets fired, a critic wants to destroy the daycare with a bad review, Woody has a big emotional breakup with his friends where he channels the Black Friday reel
but comes back by the end, Bo Peep is pregnant with Woody's child, colorful characters appear left and right, and there's a moral about sex somewhere in the mix.
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Toy Story 3 (2025) contains examples of:
- Adaptational Jerkass: Woody is a much less likable character in this reboot than he is in the entire original quadrilogy. Instead of taking the lessons he learned in each movie into account from one film to the next, he continually makes stupid, dickish decisions that come at the detriment of the other characters. In many ways, 2025's Woody has been unfavorably compared to the 2004 Shark Tale's Oscar. There's even a scene in 3 where he acts like he does in the Black Friday reel, which is even considered out of character for this version of Woody.
- Adaptational Villainy: The little girl, named Bonnie in the original, is reimagined as a Creepy Child that works at Lotso's daycare mafia, imprisons the toys, gives them Stockholm Syndrome, and is part of a conspiracy relating to the true owner of the daycare. Compared to that, the worst that Bonnie did originally was get bored with Woody, which is very minor in comparison. By the end of the film, she seems to have redeemed herself.
- Adapted Out: Inverted. By the time the original Toy Story 3 starts, Bo Peep had long since been given away and become a lost toy, as seen in Toy Story 4. Here, not only is she still among the cast, but she also has her own pregnancy subplot with Woody.
- Adored by the Network: While the Snyder Cut of Shark Tale got Premier Access charging customers for $30 extra, the Whedon Cut of Toy Story 3 was released for free that same weekend and absolutely destroyed Shark Tale in terms of viewership, much to the Snyder Cut fanbase's dismay.
- An Aesop: The film provides a moral about sex that most likely ties into the Bo Peep pregnancy subplot.
- Artistic License – Biology: They're toys, meaning that they shouldn't be able to reproduce or have any reproductive organs, yet Woody somehow knocked up Bo Peep.
- Bad Review Threat: One of the film's subplots involves a critic who wants to shut down the daycare with a bad review.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In addition to contributing nothing to the plot and having nothing to do with the first film, the pink elephant sequence is grotesquely animated and drags on for 90 minutes.
- The Cameo: Tamatoa from Moana appears in the film as a minor character.
- Continuity Reboot: This Toy Story 3 is the latest installment in a trilogy of its own, with the problems with Woody carrying over from the last two installments and taken up to eleven. There's even a Whedon cut of Toy Story 4 coming out after this.
- Critic-Proof: Despite all the critical panning of the film, many people saw it as a cheaper alternative to watching the Snyder Cut of Shark Tale and it got more views as a result.
- Darker and Edgier: Appears to be the intent with this reboot, what with its constant use of profanity, family-unfriendly subject matter, and Woody's less sympathetic characterization. It backfired as those that saw it decided it was too needlessly dark and mean-spirited to show to kids.
- Designated Hero: Woody is even more of an ass than he ever was in the previous two films, and is still supposed to be the hero of the story. When Woody has his Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure with the other toys, the writers want the viewers to still feel sympathetic towards Woody and want him to get back together with everyone, but when he's acting like Black Friday Woody, it's hard to feel any form of sympathy towards him.
- Dueling Works: With Zack Snyder's Shark Tale. Due to Shark Tale receiving Premier Access, more viewers flocked to Toy Story 3 because it was free to watch.
- Early-Bird Release: It was actually supposed to air in 2025, but aired alongside the Zack Snyder cut of Shark Tale in 2022, three years before its scheduled release. The reason for this is unknown; some speculate that it was rushed to compete with Shark Tale, but the product itself is at least finished enough to speculate that it somehow went back in time to premiere in two eras at once. Regardless of the means, it contributed to Shark Tale getting Screwed by the Network.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Woody is very easily forgiven for his blowout scene with the other toys, considering the things he said.
- The little girl (Bonnie) is also easily accepted despite being one of the key enforcers in Lotso's daycare. Possibly justified as being part of the toys' Stockholm Syndrome.
- Expy: The monsters played by Billy Goodman and John Crystal appear to be references to Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc.. Their actors are even name swaps of their original actors, Billy Crystal and John Goodman.
- It's the Same, So It Sucks: This version of Toy Story 3 recycles every joke from the first two films, even if some jokes weren't that funny to begin with.
- Mythology Gag: Woody's big blowout at the toys borrows heavily from the infamous Black Friday reel of the original Toy Story.
- Narm: While many people think the ending where Andy acts like a squid kid is the most emotional scene in the film, Doug Walker only considers it the only good part of the film for how hilarious he thought it was and can only imagine his own characters acting the same way Andy does.
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The Whedon cut of Toy Story 3 was absolutely blasted by critics, but because it went for free on Disney+, it got more media attention and viewership than the Snyder cut of Shark Tale.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Doug Walker personally thinks that the scene where Woody explodes is this and just another case of him being an unlikeable jerk, which doesn't work at all for a character like him.
- Padding: In addition to being grotesquely animated and coming completely out of nowhere, the pink elephant sequence goes on for a whopping 90 minutes of the movie's runtime, possibly to drag it out to Shark Tale's 4-hour runtime.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Woody has a big blowout scene with the toys (a plot that was done in the previous films, and even in the original quadrology) where he channels Black Friday Woody and threatens to throw his friends off the bed. Predictably, he gets back together with everyone.
- Remember the New Guy?: The main characters of the film are two monsters voiced by Billy Goodman and John Crystal, who are created specifically for this film and don't receive proper introductions.
- Sequelitis: While the Whedon-directed Toy Story films are nothing special by any means, Toy Story 3 makes every problem with the previous movies worse by adding characters left and right, adding way too many subplots to keep track of, having an incredibly long Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, making Woody one of the biggest Designated Heroes in an animated film to date, and attempting to be Darker and Edgier like the original while still marketing itself for kids. According to Doug, the general reaction to Toy Story 3 from those that saw it was simple silence, not even a chuckle or two. Because of how poorly this movie was received upon release, audiences are dreading the Whedon cut of Toy Story 4.
- Signature Scene: For the first Whedon-directed film, at least. While it wasn't anything special, it at least had a unique take on the "you are a toy" scene:Woody: YOU ARE A fucking stupid, useless, pathetic, annoying, white, white uh...uh, guilt, white guilt, milquetoast piece of human garbage.
Buzz: Geez, Gazorpazorpfield, that's y'know...y-you're pretty mean to me, but that takes the cake!
Woody: I don't give a fuck! I'm Gazorpazorp-fucking-field, bitch! Now give me my fucking enchiladas! - So Okay, It's Average: The entire Whedon cut of the Toy Story franchise lacks the passion that the originals have, and are just cynically-driven films with none of the heart that the quadrilogy before them had. The overall reception to this series is that, with the exception of 3, they're generally mediocre to okay at best.
- Straw Critic: The Chatter Telephone from the original Toy Story 3 is reimagined as a critic who wants to get the daycare shut down by giving it a bad review.
- Surprise Pregnancy: There's a subplot about Bo Peep becoming pregnant with Woody's child, and Woody is nervous about being a father.
- Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Most people agree that the film could've benefited from more humor (or at least, some humor that wasn't recycled from the previous two films) and less mean-spiritedness and that Woody's horrible actions made them not care about his character arc.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The audience is supposed to want Woody to see the error of his ways, but after the horrible things he says and does, especially in his explosion scene, it can be pretty hard to root for him.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The incinerator scene is still there, but with none of the emotional weight behind the 2010 cut, making it feel completely out of place. The pink elephant scene is also considerably more grotesque than its source, not to mention so long that no child would want to willingly sit through all 90 minutes of it.
- Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: The monsters who work for the daycare mafia run by Lotso believe that children are incredibly dumb, a mindset that comes back to bite them when a little girl holds the toys prisoner.
