Toy Story 5 tackles screen obsession as Tom Hanks says phone glow 'strikes terror into the heart'

The Toy Story 5 cast are opening up about the film’s modern twist, which involves screens, smartphones that colours the lives of children.

Tom Hanks, who has voiced Woody since the original Toy Story in 1995, said the movie reflects how deeply technology has reshaped childhood and how unsettling that shift can feel.

“There’s a moment in the movie where we look out on the cityscape and we see that blue glow of a phone in bedrooms and whatnot, and it does strike terror into the heart,” Hanks told the BBC, describing the visual as a powerful symbol of modern life. He added that the story speaks to a broader generational pattern: “One generation has this thing that defines them technologically in society, and they pour everything into it.”

In Pixar’s latest instalment, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Jessie are fighting the good fight. Their new rival is a frog-shaped smart tablet named Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee. The film reportedly tracks Bonnie’s growing fascination with the device, with Pixar summarising the concept as “Toy meets Tech”.

Tim Allen returns as Buzz Lightyear, while Joan Cusack is back as Jessie. Allen told the BBC the film even sparked a real-life clash with his teenage daughter during a cinema trip, after she quickly decoded the plot thanks to what he called a generation raised on ultra-short-form content.

“She actually looked at a motion picture and went, ‘I get it! He’s going to be the villain and they’re going to do this,’” Allen said. “We had a little argument. I said, ‘from now on, if we go to movie theatres, we watch the movie, and you can [complain] about it afterwards’. But she wasn’t wrong.”

He added that younger audiences are now “so used to a beginning, middle and end arc in seven seconds” thanks to social media, making it harder for them to stay locked into longer storytelling “other than Avatar, which he described as ‘an experience’.”

Joan Cusack said the film’s themes would resonate with parents navigating screen-time battles at home. Allen, meanwhile, pointed out that concerns about “new technology” have always existed: “As soon as I said ‘put that phone down’, I remember my parents going ‘turn the music off’,” he said.