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Matt and Val break down Toy Story 5: what it gets right about kids and screens, what it skips, and why "learn to human first" might be the best parenting advice Pixar has ever snuck into a kids' movie.
Two Factor Parenting is a conversation between two parents navigating technology's role in raising kids. He's the early adopter and tech optimist. She's the skeptic who asks "but should we?" Together they tackle screen time, AI, social media, and all the parenting decisions that don't come with a manual.
Two parents. Two perspectives. Raising kids in the age of screens, AI, and chaos.
Jun 22
00:00:13 Matt: All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode seven. Return of the Jedi. No, no, wait a second. No! Hello, everybody. Two factor parenting. Coming, coming back here. Um, so in this episode, we want to do something a little timely with what, has recently come out, in the movie theaters. If you get there, the price is high. but, Toy story five came out and the, the villain, if you, if you want to say that or is it, you'll find out more, I guess, uh, are we going to drop in some spoilers in this one?
00:00:55 Val: Yeah, I think there should be.
00:00:56 Matt: A.
00:00:56 Val: Major warning. Um, the movie came out.
00:01:00 Matt: Warning, warning.
00:01:01 Val: On Friday, June nineteenth, so it's been out for a few days now, so we are just going to proceed as if everyone has seen this movie. we want to talk about this movie. We want to get into it. And so we are going to spoil it because as Matt said, it's very timely. You can watch a trailer and just see that it's very timely. So even just looking at the trailer, it brings back the same characters. There's Woody the Cowboy and Buzz the Space Ranger and Jessie the cowgirl, and all of their little friends.
00:01:37 Matt: My personal favorite bullseye, of course, the horse.
00:01:41 Val: So all of their friends are with their new little girl, Bonnie. And Bonnie gets a tablet called Lilypad. And from the trailer, the trailer really sets it up as if it's this like.
00:01:53 Matt: Direct shot at leapfrog there. Yeah.
00:01:57 Val: Um, so the trailer came out a few months ago, and as soon as I saw it, I was like, yes, we have to talk about this. Yeah. But the trailer sets it up, like you said, as if, you know, the tablet is the villain and it's like tech versus toys. And, if you have not been keeping up, this is toy story five. So toy Story one came out in like nineteen ninety four
00:02:24 Matt: And there was two and three. And I think a lot of people thought that was like the perfect trilogy, right? Like it ended.
00:02:34 Val: It did kind of end like one, two and three. You were like, all right, this is clearly over.
00:02:40 Matt: Yeah. Because it ended.
00:02:42 Val: With the Death Star exploded again. The emperor died. Like it was clear. Yeah, I know I'm being a little jokey here, but that was it, right. And, you know, the toys went with.
00:02:51 Matt: The passing on to.
00:02:52 Val: To Bonnie and that. Right. And the little girl. And that was it.
00:02:55 Matt: Yeah. So oh gosh. I guess in twenty nineteen they did Toy Story four. And I had not seen that. But I remember at the time thinking, I guess when I saw the trailer for Toy Story five, I was like, why wasn't this the movie of Toy Story four? Like, I guess because you and I had been having these conversations about tablets and, screen time. We had been having conversations since pre Covid. Yeah. And so that had been a big part of our world for a long time already. But I was thinking maybe it just had not been part of like the general public's knowledge or conversation until post Covid. Yeah. But I hadn't seen Toy Story four. And so I saw it before we went and saw the movie.
00:03:55 Val: And I did not see it, by the way. I have not seen Toy Story four. And I think I'm okay.
00:04:02 Matt: You could tell they were trying to like, make buzz the new leader of the group. But then at the very end, they kind of threw Jesse in there too. Toy Story five is clearly Jesse's story.
00:04:14 Val: Totally.
00:04:14 Matt: And maybe we should kind of weave this plot into it too. But like I said, the trailer sets it up as she gets a tablet and then it's the toys versus the tablet. I would say the beginning of the movie definitely starts that way.
00:04:27 Val: As the I mean, that's the backbone of the story. I mean, the backbone of the story is the child's tablet, right? And yeah, you get sprinkled along, you know, the magical buzz battalion, right? That eventually comes in, the cavalry, if you will, um, but then you get the whole Jesse thing. I mean, it's fine, I get that. And that creates some general like Jesse's dynamics as a.
00:04:57 Matt: Leader and like her getting.
00:04:58 Val: Over.
00:04:59 Matt: Her own.
00:05:00 Val: Yeah. And that's fine. I feel like that's you. But for this we're going to talk about the tablet discussion. Let's talk about that plot. Okay. Instead of the oh, I think you're blending into a whole other, a whole other Substack that you should start. Okay, so for the tablet piece, um, I think it was kind of interesting about that for me. You know, when I was watching, it was the thing that I thought was kind of funny was just the grounds for how people and I guess they were kind of like speeding up some things. but it just felt way too fluid in like, oh, your child could just talk to any other child with the lily pad And it's like, how are they?
00:05:56 Matt: I just thought it was kind of weird that I feel like they just took a lot of the assumptions that, you purchase this thing and then now your kid suddenly can connect to all of these other kids in your area. for me, it just kind of threw me off as just slightly unrealistic with the whole chat thing. And then I thought it was even funnier, to be honest, that the tablet, is doing all this like programming. Yeah. and is like hacking into these systems I just was like, what is going on? I know. I just thought it was kind of funny. It just felt like a Roblox from, h e double hockey stick, you know. So.
00:06:41 Val: So the plot essentially is that. Bonnie The girl is very, very shy. Yes. And she is so shy. She's very imaginative and creative. And she plays and pretends with all the toys, but she has trouble connecting with real kids. And so the toys have been trying to facilitate that with some kids across the street. And then when the tablet comes, I thought that was such an interesting part because the tablet gets into an argument with the toys and the tablet says, I am making her friends. Yeah. I found these three girls in her dance class, and they have a group chat already. And I'm gonna invite Bonnie to the group chat, so that way she can be friends with them. And look, I did this. I made her friends in, like, fifteen seconds. And Jesse's like, that's not a real friend though. And the tablet argues, yes, it is for Bonnie, it is real friends. And I thought that was such an interesting argument in this greater context of connection for children and who they feel connected to and how they connect. Because you see Bonnie, you know, chatting and typing and playing games with these girls, and then all of a sudden they invite her to a sleepover at the house and she goes, mom, I have friends. and I thought that was such an interesting kind of question to ask is how do you kind of justify the online friends as not being real friends? And is that fair to say they're not? Um, you find out later in the film that those friends were not good friends, that they ended up making fun of Bonnie because she had toys. Yeah. And through a series of circumstances, you find this other girl. Jessie finds another girl who would be a much better fit as a friend for Bonnie.
00:08:53 Matt: Great name too. Blaze blaze.
00:08:56 Val: Blaze blaze. And she coincidentally lives on the farm that Jessie's original child lived at. And so that's how Jessie kind of works out a lot of her issues. so. It's an interesting question to say, who are real friends, what makes a real friend in terms of tech versus, a physical play thing?
00:09:24 Matt: Yeah.
00:09:25 Val: But I actually really liked the message that. The friends matter, and you and I have said this before here, that the tech is just a tool and it's always, ever just going to be a tool. What matters is how you use it and who's using it.
00:09:47 Matt: I think the thing that stood out to me was, you know, Christina talked about this last time and it's this whole speed element of this as well. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like that these things take, time. and and kind of a little bit to your tool comment, And some of the stuff that we've said in the past, um, at the end of the day, our hardware, you know, aka our body, our, our biological biology is what it is. Yep. You can enhance it. You can get a little bit out of it. But we still got the hardware. And you can't just keep getting around it or trying to accelerate stuff when it's really at the end of the day, we're human beings. We just got to accept the reality that we are human beings, and that is our uniqueness and our value and our ability to create and be creative. so when you saw that idea of like the tablets there, I can get our friends now, right? but not thinking about, wait, wait, is this the right fit? Does this kind of make sense? And you got the you got the old, the old school veteran toys that are like, I know what a real friend is, all right? You know, I know what's going on, but.
00:11:11 Val: But they might not have been good a good fit either, you know, like it was it was interesting that the original kids that they were trying to get her to play with didn't end up being her friend. You know, blaze was like across town until the very end of the movie.
00:11:30 Matt: Where you saw that. Did you see that part? Right. Okay. Yeah. With that, Blaze and Bonnie were playing, and then the kids across the street saw them playing and they came over and started playing. Right. So I thought that was.
00:11:41 Val: When they were like, oh, those kids are having fun. I want to go play. Yes. and they show at the beginning of the movie, there's two kids. They're twins. Right? So they, you know, that's why there's two of them in the yard. They just. And Bonnie stares at them. They're not being mean. They're just.
00:11:58 Matt: Yeah, they're kind of like, okay.
00:12:00 Val: Oh, hi. And she's very shy. So anyway, it was really interesting to see the different dynamics between the way that they showed how the kids made friends. And I think you're right, the speed at which they made friends because Bonnie and Blaze met and they were not friends instantly they had to meet like twice, at least I think before they were playing together. Yeah. what I really appreciated about it was that it showed the parents using tech as well.
00:12:33 Matt: Yeah.
00:12:34 Val: And I thought that was a pretty realistic thing to just show that it's something that we have to use too like they showed mom on the computer while Bonnie is on her tablet. They showed dad on the phone. And then Blaze's family, they showed dad working from home. Yeah, like on a Zoom call. And he's just like, hey, man, you're on mute. I'm like, nope, nope. You're still on mute, man. Like, it's so true. And I just, I loved that because it kind of just was acknowledging the reality that we're all kind of living in now.
00:13:15 Matt: Yeah.
00:13:16 Val: And. not necessarily without judgment. But just saying, hey, this is kind of how it is.
00:13:26 Matt: Yeah. I mean, I know they're trying to accelerate the story and, you know, kind of move things along but it did take me out of it, you know, and.
00:13:35 Val: Like lily pad.
00:13:37 Matt: To.
00:13:37 Val: Lily pad. Oh, I'm gonna.
00:13:38 Matt: Take this and send it.
00:13:39 Val: To all the devices in the area. And then mom is like, hey, I got this message from your lily pad. And you're like, what is.
00:13:46 Matt: This bunny.
00:13:46 Val: On your phone?
00:13:48 Matt: Yeah. I mean, he's sitting there going, like, also, how did you do that? How did you pull that off? How did you get what I into the messaging system.
00:13:59 Val: She like sends it to the printer to like. Yeah that's right. She prints out a picture and like, yeah.
00:14:05 Matt: And I'm sitting there going.
00:14:06 Val: Like the Roomba. And then she tells the Roomba to like go and shred it.
00:14:10 Matt: Like, yeah, now, now, now if you sat there and go, hey, hey, hey, Lily pad is powered by Anthropic's mythos. I'd be like, okay, now it's realistic, apparently. Like that's, that's actually true. It hacked into the systems. Yes. Yeah. Apparently with all the vulnerabilities that thing is finding. Totally. But anyway.
00:14:34 Val: So there was a I mean, with a Toy Story movie, there's this suspension of disbelief for sure.
00:14:40 Matt: Yeah, it just was. I just felt like they kept taking liberties that I was like, come on, man.
00:14:45 Val: Well, it is a toy, right? Like it's, it's a sentient toy. That's what I mean.
00:14:49 Matt: I know. Yeah.
00:14:50 Val: well, that's what was so funny about it because eventually.
00:14:54 Matt: That laptop, the.
00:14:54 Val: Laptop, eventually.
00:14:55 Matt: To the world.
00:14:56 Val: Eventually. Buzz. Well, eventually Buzz and Woody, there were a lot of really, I thought good jokes in it too. I thought it was funny.
00:15:05 Matt: Oh yeah, I enjoyed it.
00:15:06 Val: Yeah, Um, but one of them was great. So they had the lily pad again. It looks like leapfrog. So it's got eyes and little hands.
00:15:14 Matt: Yeah.
00:15:15 Val: But Buzz and Woody eventually figure out that if you say, Lily.
00:15:20 Matt: Hey. No. Hey, Lily.
00:15:21 Val: Hey, Lily. Yeah. It was. Hey, Lily. It would go. Yes. How can I help you or. Sure. Hi. Whatever. But she couldn't control that part of herself, so it was like the sentient toy part. But then it would spring into, the helpful part, which was just a great gag, you know, because then they'd be like, hey, Lily, do this. And she's like, no, fighting herself.
00:15:48 Matt: Yeah. Which is funny.
00:15:49 Val: Yeah.
00:15:50 Matt: Can we, I got to talk about this I just felt like the parents though, I, I mean, I kind of get it, but it just felt for me again, it was another layer of like suspending disbelief. You know, it's like they give her the iPad and they're like, bye. You know what I mean?
00:16:07 Val: Well, they say, hey, this is a special thing. So for the first day, you can have it for the whole day. And then after that you'll have like screen time. And that was the only other thing that I didn't like is that I felt like they didn't show any of the negative behaviors that are associated with screen time, which we've talked about in a lot of different contexts in previous episodes. now it had been a few years. So Bonnie is like eight or nine at this point. So I wouldn't imagine some of like the Tantruming Tantruming. And they actually did show some of it. Like she has it for a whole day. And then the next day her dad comes in and he's like, okay, your screen time is over. And she's just staring at, she's like, aha, okay. You know, like she's kind of zombied out, there's one scene where she has it in her bed in the morning.
00:17:04 Matt: I know because.
00:17:05 Val: It's like next to her.
00:17:06 Matt: Bed. Yeah. I was like wrong. Well, I know, but that's too cool. I know, but it shouldn't. Yeah, it's too close. Well, in my view, I know.
00:17:15 Val: So. But she has it in her bed and then he's like, okay, put it down. And she puts it on the bed. But she's still tapping it, playing the game as she's walking away, which I'm like, our kids have done that. I'm like, put it, pause it, pause it. And then they're still tapping it as they're leaving the couch. I'm like, oh my God. So there were some, I guess, behavior issues that you could start seeing. The more she had it, she wouldn't let it go. it became her little comfort thing. You could see her walking around holding it up. So again, we just, we know there's so much data surrounding attention span and, these huge tantrums and how these games and apps really are made to trigger your children and their behaviors in really specific ways, which we'll get a lot into in a different episode that it's like I was, I was missing that part. I was like, you aren't going to show all these kids plugged into these devices and not show any of the negative behaviors.
00:18:25 Matt: Yeah, I.
00:18:25 Val: Know.
00:18:26 Matt: Again, it's like.
00:18:28 Val: Yeah, you made, you made the comment earlier today that it's like the cigarette company.
00:18:34 Matt: Not cigarette company making the like, they're like, guys, it's gonna be fine. And there's, you know, smoking telling you this, right? Yeah. But again, it's just so.
00:18:45 Val: Considering that I feel like they did a pretty decent job of showing some type of negative behaviors surrounding the tablets.
00:18:55 Matt: Right.
00:18:55 Val: Um, eventually Bonnie gets bullied by the girls. The three girls from her group chat.
00:19:02 Matt: Yeah.
00:19:03 Val: which I thought was a really interesting thing to include because again, they set it up as the tablet versus the toys and then it turned into, actually it's still the people behind the tablets. It's still the human element of it.
00:19:20 Matt: Right?
00:19:21 Val: And it's really sweet because then that's where Lily, the tablet sees what has happened and she realizes her mistake and then.
00:19:30 Matt: She.
00:19:31 Val: Tries to fix it. Um, I asked the kids about halfway through, they're at really different levels of development and comprehension in terms of what they're able to understand from a movie. Yeah. I asked one of them, who's pretty young if the tablet was good or bad, and he said good. And I was like, I asked another one if the tablet was good or bad, and she said bad. And at this point it was still the villain. I was like, all right. so it was really interesting to get their take on the movie.
00:20:07 Matt: so the tablet realizes its mistake and, throws herself onto a donation truck, which for me, one of my favorite jokes in there was actually Fauci's wife. She is like donut. And he's like, no, no, no, honey, honey. Donate, donate. He's like, I can't, you know, I can't remember. He says some other comment, but again, you know, funny little, little scene there. But then they go and rescue her and you get the little buzz battalion. They're flying Calvary save the day. That was my.
00:20:38 Val: Absolute favorite moment of this whole movie. My favorite moment of this whole movie was the Buzz Battalion. At the very opening of the movie is very confusing because you see like a shipping container of Buzz Lightyear who have crashed on a beach and you follow this buzz battalion of twenty Buzz Lightyear toys, and you kind of don't realize that they're new and improved Buzz Lightyear, like you kind of do, but not really. They look exactly the same. Yeah. And then again, this this is a Wi-Fi repeater. This is my absolute favorite moment because and I'll, I will go off on a tangent here, but it's important because so many times in reboots and remakes and adaptations. What they will do is they will bring back a joke or a reference, or a piece of nostalgia from the original only as a wink or a nod to the audience. Right? Mhm. With no context within the movie. and Star Trek Into Darkness is like a really good example of that, Which was the second one. And it was like Benedict Cumberbatch saying, I am Khan. And then everyone in the room is like, okay, who does that? Is that supposed to mean anything to us? You know, and that is not great. I loved the Buzz Battalion rescuing everybody because you finally see the Buzz Lightyear's fly.
00:22:14 Matt: Mhm.
00:22:15 Val: And not only does it, it's a joke for the audience because that was the whole point of Toy Story one. It's a joke for the toys. Yeah, because that was the joke in the whole movie, the plot of the whole movie. It makes sense for the plot. it's the climax. They need someone to rescue them. Here they are to rescue them. deaus ex Machina. It's the deaus ex machina. you get.
00:22:42 Matt: This.
00:22:43 Val: Great example of this trope, and it makes sense within the world of Toy Story that they would have these advanced toys. Yeah. Like it just makes sense on so many story building levels. And it was funny and it hit nostalgia. I was like, this is the greatest moment in a movie I've ever seen. Anyway, um, that was my tangent.
00:23:14 Matt: So thank you for coming.
00:23:16 Val: Thank you for. I will have a whole other podcast on like maybe moments.
00:23:20 Matt: But.
00:23:21 Val: But that was my favorite Um, I liked that, it just felt very real. It felt like the movie ended on a place where. It was like, tech isn't good or bad. It's how we use it.
00:23:35 Matt: Yeah. Which I thought was a good message, To kind of tie it in to say, you can't just simply just label it one way. Although they did have a lot of caricatures in there, in my view, from a technology standpoint. But getting to the idea of, hey, it's really how it gets used and how It's not you know, I think probably one of my favorite phrases, right? It's part of our day, not our whole day, which I think is a really great way of just kind of tying this all in to say, these things are there. let's use them, you know, in the appropriate manner, But let's not let it just consume us completely. Right? Um.
00:24:18 Val: Learn to human.
00:24:19 Matt: first. Yeah. Learn to human first. so there's just so much in there that I thought really touched on those little moments, which is good. Um, I think how they got there maybe was I guess a little, a little bit of a stretch there. Um, but I think overall, you know, I, I enjoyed it. I agree with your earlier point though of the Toy Story that was the plot. Toy story five is the plot that it should be of Toy Story four, right? And that's like the commentary of it.
00:24:51 Val: And any other problems that I have with it have more to do with things that are not related to tech. So I will keep that. Thank you. You could like message me if you want to ask about my opinions on that, but, um, it was fun. I will say that it is difficult to take a family to the movie theater Now just it's just cost prohibitive. And I was shocked. Like I knew it was expensive to go to the movies. Our neighbor gave us a very generous gift card as a thank you for watering their plants.
00:25:32 Matt: Now our kids are helping do this.
00:25:33 Val: Yeah, like they gave it to our kids as a,
00:25:36 Matt: Thank you gift.
00:25:37 Val: Thank you. And I assumed that that would cover us. it was a fifty dollars gift card.
00:25:46 Matt: Yeah.
00:25:46 Val: And so I was like, that would that'll take care of all of the snacks, you know, maybe not the tickets, but that'll take care of everything.
00:25:56 Matt: Harry Potter. Take the lot.
00:25:57 Val: You.
00:25:57 Matt: Know. Right.
00:25:58 Val: Yeah. so I brought, our three kids and my dad came with us. Those tickets were eighty five dollars. And then when we went to go get snacks, I was like, gift card, no problem. No, that was half of the snacks. For five people. So I hope everyone liked our review. And I think at this point, like if you can make it to the movies, that's excellent. But. They're, they're very costly. Um, we went and saw this one specifically for the podcast. Yeah. So, yeah, we're very lucky that we could do that and that we got that gift card from our neighbors, but, otherwise. Yeah. Mhm. But yeah, so that was our take on Toy Story five. good to see some old characters again. And the kids had a really good time.
00:26:53 Matt: you know, I think about like some of the, Cal Newport stuff we've talked about a little bit previously. it's like you almost want to take a lot of those lessons there and then apply it to parenting. Right. And the fact of having this more human pace. You know, when it comes to raising kids and allowing kids to, take in things, but then allow them to separate from those things is a healthy balancing act. for our day and age, you know, and this, this magic try to speed things up is not always the magic answer, right? but overall good. I thought it was, a nice movie. So good stuff.
00:27:43 Val: Yeah. Me too. With the realistic message and portrayal and I.
00:27:49 Matt: I would push back the portrayal. I say a realistic, or at least a good message that, probably was done on an accelerated pace, which is fine. Get to the point, get to the the message of the film, which is fine. I think the, you know, point that it's, trying to get at this still be playful, still be a kid. It's okay. Not a lot too much on the parents, but, but yeah.
00:28:18 Val: Yeah.
00:28:19 Matt: Thank you everybody again. We're happy to get these going again here. if you go see it you know hope you enjoy the movie.
00:28:26 Val: All right. Thank you.
00:28:27 Matt: Take care everybody.