Tom Hanks Says Toy Story 5 Exposes the Terror of Childrens Screen Addiction
Tom Hanks has described the latest instalment in the Toy Story franchise as a mirror reflecting a genuine societal anxiety: children’s deepening addiction to screens. Speaking ahead of the film’s release later this month, the actor said the storyline “strikes terror into the heart” of anyone who has watched a child become transfixed by a glowing device.
Toy Story 5, the fifth entry in Pixar’s flagship animated series, introduces a new antagonist that is neither villainous toy nor scheming collector. Instead, the heroes – Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Jessie – find themselves threatened by Lilypad, a frog-shaped tablet that captivates the children who once played with them. Greta Lee, star of Past Lives, provides the voice for the new character.
“This is a generational thing,” Hanks told the BBC, “where one generation has this thing that defines them technologically in society, and they pour everything into it.” He pointed to a scene in the film where the toys gaze out across a cityscape illuminated by the blue glow of phones in bedroom windows, describing it as a moment that “does strike terror into the heart”.
The film arrives at a moment when the debate over children’s screen time has intensified globally. Parents, educators, and policymakers have grown increasingly concerned about the effects of prolonged exposure to tablets, smartphones, and social media on young minds – a conversation that Toy Story 5 tackles head-on for the first time in the franchise’s three-decade history.
Tim Allen, who returns to voice Buzz Lightyear, offered a personal anecdote that underscored the film’s central theme. He recounted taking his teenage daughter to the cinema recently, only to find she struggled to sit through the entire film. “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 recalled. His daughter, he explained, was “so used to seven-second movies on Instagram” that a two-hour narrative felt tedious.
“We had a little argument,” Allen said. “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.”
Joan Cusack, reprising her role as Jessie, said she believed the theme would “resonate” with parents who are grappling with setting boundaries around screen time. Allen, however, offered a more measured perspective, noting that every generation has confronted similar anxieties about new technology.
“As soon as I said ‘put that phone down’, I remember my parents going ‘turn the music off,'” he laughed. “Once FM radio came to the United States, and we started getting rock’n’roll, we listened to music all the time. My parents were saying, ‘Turn that off.’ So there’s some memory of this.”
The original Toy Story, released in 1995, was the first entirely computer-animated feature film. Critics initially dismissed it as a gimmick, but it became a cultural phenomenon, spawning sequels, merchandise, and a 2022 spin-off, Lightyear. The franchise has remained a cornerstone of Pixar’s output for 30 years.
Previous villains in the series – the troubled neighbour Sid, the ruthless collector Al, the embittered Lotso, and the unsettling Gabby Gabby – were all figures rooted in the toy world. Lilypad represents a departure, an antagonist drawn from the real-world forces reshaping childhood itself.
A new Taylor Swift song, “I Knew It, I Knew You”, will feature on the soundtrack. The singer said she had “always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5-year-old kid watching the first Toy Story movie.”
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