When Toy Story first came out in 1995, it had a very particular emotional logic: toys come to life when kids aren’t looking at them, and abandonment is the worst thing that can happen to them. It was successful because it recognized what childhood looked like: a youngster telling a complex story about a sheriff and a spaceman, a bedroom floor covered in plastic toys, and the unique intensity of a child who is truly engrossed in play. In 1995, that picture was already a little idealized. It will be basically historical by 2025.
Toy Story 5 is aware of this. The main nemesis of the movie is Lilypad, a fictional smart tablet. The choice of villain is purposeful and, depending on your children’s age, painfully true. Lilypad doesn’t pursue Woody or pose a physical threat to Buzz. It simply draws in and maintains attention. It makes the unplanned, laborious, and sometimes frustrating activity of imaginative play seem like more work than most kids want to perform voluntarily by providing something effortless and limitless. That’s the real conflict in the movie, and it’s more difficult to resolve than any sequence involving an incinerator.
Pixar did not create the “iPad kid,” a term that has become cultural shorthand for a generation of kids who were given tablets frequently and at a young age. For years, pediatricians and child development researchers have questioned passive screen time, pointing out the distinction between content that merely provides stimulation algorithmically without requesting anything in return and content that demands a child to build, create, negotiate, or respond in real time. Technology itself is not the issue. When the tablet takes over as the go-to solution for every instance of boredom or annoyance, it gets replaced.
The film avoids taking the simple path of demonizing Lilypad or portraying technology as the clear antagonist. The more intriguing thing Pixar does is depict what kids miss out on when screens take over: the low-stakes social situations where you learn how to bargain with a friend who wants to play a different game, the coping mechanisms when a scenario you created doesn’t work out, and the attention and patience that come from engaging in imaginative play for longer than thirty seconds. While scrolling, none of that learning takes place. It takes place in the voids, in the conflict, and in the unresolved situations that a tablet is unable to provide.
The movie addresses the parental aspect of this with greater candor than one might anticipate. In today’s homes, screens are necessary for parents, not just because kids want them. The cost of childcare is high. The work never stops. Giving a child a tablet for fifteen minutes is not a moral failing; the necessity to prepare supper, write an email, and answer an urgent call are all real. It’s a practical reaction to a particular situation. The movie subtly implies that the overall pattern is more important than any one choice, and that the household’s rhythm might progressively change until gadgets, not humans, are determining the pace.
