Entertainment
Toy Story 5 Is A Full-Blown Existential Crisis For Original Fans
By Robert Scucci
| Published
My wife and I finally gave in and took the kids to see Toy Story 5 at the drive-in, and now I’m depressed. It’s fine, and my kids had fun revisiting the characters, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t feel completely empty and devoid of hope for humanity after watching it. Namely because I work as hard as I can throughout the week to enjoy a day that’s not wall-to-wall screen time, only for the film to remind me that there’s really no escape, thanks to the source of the film’s conflict, a frog-shaped tablet known as Lily (Greta Lee).
On one hand, I understand. The central crew of toys in the Toy Story franchise were already dated in the ’90s. They were all hand-me-downs from decades past, but they still had their charm. It’s only natural for the franchise to keep up with the times by introducing new technology in the form of tablets, but really it just made me ask, “Why make this movie at all?”
I’m not sure what the lesson learned in Toy Story 5 is, but my main takeaway as a 38-year-old millennial with kids is, “My knees and back hurt, this full-sugar soda is going to give me a headache tomorrow, and now I’m afraid to give my kids screen time when I’ll probably need it the most.
Conform Or Be Cast Out
Toy Story 5 centers on Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), who is gifted a Lilypad tablet by her parents, who hope she’ll fit in with other technologically inclined girls her age. Naturally, this incenses Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the rest of the gang because Bonnie is no longer spending time with them or using her imagination. Of course, Woody (Tom Hanks) is called into action, and the toys butt heads with the new device before realizing they’re all part of Bonnie’s life and need to work together to help make her a whole person, developmentally speaking.
Kids need to express themselves through imaginative play. And given how AI-driven the world has become in just a few short years, mastering technology and integrating it across multiple touchpoints is essentially a necessary life skill at this point.
Right away, I questioned my own parenting because my kids sometimes favor their tech over their actual toys. But I’m a working-class dad who needs to fold laundry and cook dinner, and sometimes you just need to get the little rascals out of your hair so a five-minute task like emptying the dishwasher remains a five-minute task.
We’re told a story about a little girl desperately trying to fit in with kids her age, who gets ripped to shreds and cyberbullied as the toys and Lily try to set aside their differences, course-correct, and make things right.
Your Parents Are Supposed To Be On Your Side
What’s unnerving about Toy Story 5 isn’t Bonnie, her relationship with her toys, or even her feelings of rejection when she learns that simply having a tablet won’t be a viable way to form any meaningful friendships. It’s how much her parents absolutely suck here. They buy her a tablet, give her an entire day to get familiar with it, and then tell her they’ll be limiting her screen time throughout the week moving forward. They don’t.
Immediately, Bonnie locks in and glazes over. It’s a look that’s all too familiar when you forget that you tossed your kid the Nintendo Switch an hour ago, and now they’re basically nonverbal. It happens to the best of us, and I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of. It’s my generation’s version of getting plunked down in front of the TV while your parents lose track of time schmoozing with the neighbors.
In Toy Story 5, however, this behavior continues pretty much unchecked. Bonnie very quickly forms an unhealthy relationship with Lily, and it almost immediately leads to cyberbullying. While Bonnie walks around the house on the verge of tears, her parents barely intervene to find out what’s going on with her. I fully understand that young adult fiction tends to rely heavily on incompetent adults, but their lack of attention toward their own child in Toy Story 5 was so hard to get through.
As a parent, I get that it’s easy to tune your kids out sometimes, especially when you’re trying to get work done or finish a project around the house. Your kids will scream, cry, plead, and 99 percent of the time you know they’re making a mountain out of a molehill. You get on their level, break up whatever scuffle they’re having, and they’re usually pretty good at self-regulating if you do those things consistently.
Bonnie, though, isn’t bickering, crying, or screaming. She’s walking around with the kind of heaviness that would make any reasonable parent sit down with her, ask what’s wrong, and refuse to budge until they got some sort of reasonable answer, or at least enough information to work with. Their behavior here is borderline neglectful, and it made me really sad because a studio spending $250 million to get this point across tells me they knew people would resonate with it because they’ll probably identify with the parents.
The adventure the toys and Lily have in Toy Story 5 is fine, and I know Bonnie’s story is supposed to pull at your heartstrings because everybody has trouble fitting in at some point in their life, and it does have a happy ending. And it makes sense that the parents would have a sparse presence in an adventure movie about toys, but the whole thing just makes me want to hug my kids and lock the TV up in the closet.
Entertainment
Amazon has my favorite Bissell carpet cleaner marked down by 25% right now
SAVE 25%: As of July 21, you can get the Bissell Little Green Max Pet SmartMix carpet cleaner (38572) for $119.99, down from $159.99, at Amazon.
$119.99
at Amazon
$159.99
Save $40.00
I used to have a Bissell Little Green machine, and it worked right up until I poured liquid into the wrong compartment. But before my little mishap, this little thing was a lifesaver (I seldom use that word, but in this case, it’s true). With two beagles running around my apartment, having a carpet cleaner is a necessity.
And right now, you can get your own Bissell Little Green Max Pet SmartMix carpet cleaner for $119.99, down from $159.99. That’s a 25% discount or $40 in savings.
Mashable Trend Report
It comes with a specialized Pet Hair Removal Tool designed to grab embedded fur and debris from your upholstery, and once you’re done scrubbing, the Self-Cleaning Tough Stain Tool rinses out the leftover dirt and residue from the hose with the touch of a button (my machine didn’t have that feature).
Another major upgrade on this specific model is the SmartMix Technology, which automatically mixes the water and cleaning formula together for you so you don’t have to measure anything. Just be sure you pour it into the correct tank!
Entertainment
Time for a new smartwatch? Snag the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for 51% off ahead of Samsung Unpacked.
SAVE $280: As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s a discount of 51%.
$269.99
at Amazon
$549.99
Save $280
If you’re looking to kit your wrist out with a new smartwatch, now’s a great time to do so. Samsung is on the verge of debuting several new models, and that means the old ones are going down in price. Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which you can get for an excellent discount right now if you don’t want to wait for the new crop of devices.
As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s $280 off and a discount of 51%.
This classy smartwatch opts to keep things traditional while offering a variety of modern features that you’ll appreciate. That includes a bright, easy-to-read display, a rotating bezel you use to select apps and navigate menus, and several health-tracking abilities so you can stay on top of what’s happening with your body and fitness at all times.
From a heart rate and sleep score monitor to a daily Energy Score calculated from your heart rate, sleep, activity, and rest this watch can make sure you’re ready for the day in all the ways that count. It can also be used to help track blood pressure.
Mashable Deals
Beyond all its health-centric features, this is a great smartwatch for day-to-day functionality and staying on top of your schedule. It has a built-in AI assistant as well as the option to use voice commands to navigate, which means you never have to use your hand to get things done if you don’t want to.
If you’re ready to debut a new smartwatch without breaking the bank, now’s a good time to buy in.
Entertainment
The Latest Poster For Avengers: Doomsday Secretly Spoils The Plot
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
With less than five months left until the film’s release, Marvel has taken their marketing for Avengers: Doomsday to the next level. Right now, fans are mostly focused on the trailer that dropped today, which is no surprise; after all, it’s not every day that you see the reunion of Thor and Steve Rogers or, for that matter, a battle between Shang-Chi and Gambit. Amid all the breathless hype over the trailer, however, a more powerful advertisement is lurking in plain sight. At the same time Marvel launched the trailer, they also released a new Avengers: Doomsday poster.
Compared to that crowded character poster, the new poster is downright subdued. It features Doctor Doom staring at a huge tapestry with a broken world and two characters: a woman and a boy. Some comics fans think this image is Doom and his mother, a character who is eventually damned to Hell. However, other fans are convinced that this is actually an image of Doom’s wife and child; if true, this would effectively ruin the biggest plot twist. How does it do that? If you don’t mind some potential spoilers for this year’s biggest film, just keep reading!
You Can’t Spell “Painting” Without “Pain”
So, let’s start this story in reverse (just don’t let the TVA get me!): why do some fans think the woman in this poster is Doctor Doom’s mother? In the comics, she’s a big deal. To defeat an evil dictator who was ruling her country with an iron fist (an actual fist, not the kung-fu guy), she made a deal with the devil. As usual, the deal went wrong, and she lost control of the powers that she gained from Mephisto. She renounced those powers, got killed, and was then dragged into Hell. To see her again, Doom later mastered magic, visited Mephisto, and conducted an experiment that ruined his own face.
However, all of the lore behind this origin story is too dense to fit into Avengers: Doomsday, a movie which is already crowded with endless character cameos. It seems the movie is taking a different direction, as multiple reports have claimed that the two figures are actually Doom’s wife and child. An unconfirmed leak of the movie’s plot (don’t say I didn’t warn you about spoilers, kids!) claims that Doom actually lost his family to one of the incursions, which is when one reality collides with another. This motivates Doom to learn more about the incursions and to plot his revenge.
A Hero Will Be Broken
Revenge against whom, you ask? According to the leaked plot, Steve Rogers! Reportedly, Loki visits the former Captain America in the past and warns him that the TVA will prune his entire timeline because he’s not supposed to be there. In an act of seeming kindness, Loki brings Cap, Peggy, and their young son to the Fantastic Four’s universe. However, the leak claims that Steve’s presence in this universe somehow triggers an incursion and that Doom disfigured himself and killed his own wife and son trying to stop it. In a shocking twist, Doom reportedly kills Steve’s son in front of the hero in an act of vengeance.
Now, again, all of this comes from a leaked plot summary that hasn’t been confirmed, so all of this could be an Ego-sized bottle of hogwash. But it’s worth noting that the Avengers: Doomsday teasers last year prominently focused on both Captain America and Thor becoming fathers. This potentially adds credence to the idea that this is a film about family and how far someone will go to protect the ones they love. If the leaks are true, this innocuous poster featuring Doctor Doom is spoiling the motivation the villain will have to cross time and space and cross countless moral event horizons along the way.
A movie where costumed vigilantes (like Batman, Spider-Man, and so many more) are driven by the ghosts of family members they lost when they were children? Well, nobody ever accused Marvel of being all that original!
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