Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that Toy Story 5 is going to have an original song from Taylor Swift in it. The song will be released this Friday, with the movie set to hit theaters two weeks after that. On one hand, perhaps the biggest children’s franchise ever collaborating with the biggest artist ever is a big deal.
I like Taylor Swift. According to snd.wave, roughly 11% of my entire Apple Music listening history (dating back to about 2015-2016) is comprised of Swift songs, which ranks second out of all artists. folklore is my fourth-most-played album. Seven Swift songs are in my top 50 all-time in terms of plays.
Clearly, I enjoy her music overall. And I like Toy Story. I love the first three movies (more on that later) and consider them each to be nearly perfect if not actually perfect. Yet, this crossover between those two entities has me very concerned for the movie.
Taylor Swift x Toy Story 5 Feels Like a Major Cash Grab
You could not come up with a better ending to a franchise than Toy Story 3. It is quite literally the perfect conclusion to a story, and it’s a fantastic movie as well. It’s the second-best Pixar movie (the original three are part of the top six on that list). It was nearly ruined by Toy Story 4, the worst Pixar movie. That was a genuine cash grab.
They tried to bring Woody and his toys back for another go, but it felt cheap, hollow, and meaningless. The moral of the story wasn’t anything special, and it certainly wasn’t worth resurrecting a franchise that had ridden off into the sunset so perfectly. When Toy Story 5 was announced, I rolled my eyes. The concept of a fifth Toy Story is unfathomable to someone who rejects the very existence of the fourth.
Nevertheless, as a movie person, I resolved to potentially see the movie and judge it on its own merits. We’re now removed from the initial letdown of refusing to let things lie, so perhaps I might feel a little more generous towards the fifth movie. The trailers actually look pretty good.
There’s no guarantee, but there could be a valuable story told about the rise of technology with children and its negative impacts. iPad kids might want to look away, in other words, and that could end up being a really good movie. It’s possible that this one is a return to form for the franchise.
But the news that they’re partnering with Taylor Swift gives me pause. Again, I like her music a lot. I have a playlist of songs that are either by her or feature her that is over 10 hours long. I was at the Nashville Night 2 show of the Eras Tour. It’s not a matter of treating her unfairly (which music fans have) or criticizing her for something we wouldn’t care about if a male artist did (which happens all the time).
The Life of a Showgirl is her worst album. Her debut is not really my cup of tea, but it’s not necessarily actively bad. The Life of a Showgirl is. It reeks of greed and an artist who is woefully out of touch. An artist who once captured the hearts and minds of virtually everyone by being extremely relatable and wickedly clever had totally lost her touch.
She wrote about being rich and how she doesn’t care if her friends are “cancelled,” something the old Swift would’ve certainly not stood for. The album was somehow both about Swift being a victim and being better than everyone else, and the result was an ugly, disappointing, greedy mess. There are, admittedly, a few bangers on it, but far fewer than usual.
It felt, in many ways, like a cash grab. Swift is a proven commodity that sets records every time, regardless of quality. At this point, Toy Story is the same. Anything established IP is a pretty safe bet for that, too, although times are changing. Still, you have an artist who has morphed into a more soulless, greedy, cash-grabby version of herself and a franchise that morphed into a soulless, cash-grabby version of itself most recently.
Their prior histories suggest that there is a little bit of hope for both. Swift could return to form, and as I mentioned, I’m cautiously hopeful that Toy Story 5 will be a much better outing than the fourth. But most recently, both entities threw up red flags, and now they’re collaborating, which is about as greedy as it gets in this day and age (combining two things people like is a guaranteed way to sell things, just ask Fortnite).
I hope I’m wrong, but when art becomes a commodity to be bought and sold, or rather to bring in boatloads of money (Swift is now a billionaire, after all, and Toy Story is Pixar’s cash cow that they’re milking while new ideas die at the box office), it’s hard to imagine one party here reverting back to normal, let alone both of them.
The song may well be good. Even the worst Swift songs have some quality to them, admittedly. But the simple fact that the movie is resorting to bringing in the biggest artist on earth suggests that they aren’t convinced the movie can stand on its own two legs, and that’s what worries me most.
Conclusion
Taylor Swift still has a phenomenal track record, even if recently, the results haven’t been there. The same is true of Toy Story, so perhaps there’s hope that the upcoming collaboration between the two for Toy Story 5 isn’t cheap and lazy. There’s definitely a good reason to be worried that that is exactly what it’ll turn out to be.
