What do Toy Story, the popular Pixar franchise that’s been going strong for over 30 years, and Game of Thrones, the prestige HBO fantasy series that’s spawned multiple spinoffs, have in common? On the surface, basically nothing considering… well, that should be obvious. However, Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton shared a fascinating reason for why he thinks the family-friendly franchise is similar to the ultra-violent and sexual Game of Thrones are similar, though only in one specific way.
Stanton goes back to the beginning with Toy Story, having co-written all of the movies except for Toy Story 3, for which he solely crafted the story. However, Toy Story 5, which arrives to the 2026 movies schedule this summer, marks his first time directing an entry in this franchise as well. When DiscussingFilm asked Stanton what excites him most about returning to the world of Toy Story, he answered:
People think of it like we’re doing sequels with another number, and I know what they are on the title. But to me, it’s no different than Game of Thrones or something. It’s always been a series [where] the world keeps on going, and time has always been the most advantage about that storyline. So we let time happen. We let kids grow up, we let Andy go to college, we let Bonnie grow up, we let these things happen as they do in our real life. And some of these toys age out and some of these toys go somewhere else. So we can just keep continuing with what would happen. That’s very exciting for me.
I’ll never be fully comfortable thinking of Toy Story and Game of Thrones together, but I get what Andrew Stanton is saying. This isn’t something like The Simpsons where time stays stagnant and the characters essentially never evolve. For Toy Story, it’s important to show the progression of time, affecting both the animate toys themselves, their multiple owners and the world around them. It’s just like how we saw the political landscape of Westeros change over Game of Thrones’ eight seasons… ok, not just like that, but in the loosest terms, Stanton’s comparison makes sense.
I will say that Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang have held up remarkably well for being around well over three decades. In real life, toys that have been around that long are usually in much rougher shape. But to go back to the Game of Thrones comparison, one way Toy Story could have even more in common with that series is if it got the prequel treatment too. Just like how House of the Dragon is following the goings-on in the Seven Kingdoms nearly 200 years before Game of Thrones, what would a period piece Toy Story movie or TV show look like? I’d welcome seeing one specifically set in either the 1940s or ‘50s.
As far as Toy Story 5 goes, its story is very much in keeping with the times, as our main characters grappling with Bonnie, now eight years old, spending as much time as she can playing with a frog-like tablet called Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee. Other newcomers include Craig Robinson as Atlas and Conan O’Brien as Smarty Pants, while the events of this movie will somehow reunite Buzz, Jessie and the others with Woody, who left at the end of Toy Story 4. The new movie hits theaters on June 19.
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