The Late Don Rickles Hadn't Recorded Any 'Toy Story 4' Dialogue

The untimely passing of renowned insult comedian Don Rickles this past Thursday has undoubtedly raised concerns about Toy Story 4...

Rickles, as many of you know, was the voice of Mr. Potato Head. The character, based on the classic toy of the same name, is no minor face. He plays a good-sized role in each of the three films in the Toy Story series, and was a big part of the TV special Toy Story of Terror!

Toy Story 4 has been in development for a while, and unlike its predecessors, it's taking quite a while for the Pixarians to get this one in fine shape. Announced in the fall of 2014 and slated for release this coming summer, it is now set to open in June of 2019. A new writer was recently added to the project, and the Hollywood Reporter states that the picture did indeed see some rewrites. Rickles' representative told THR that he had not recorded any dialogue for the film...

This isn't the first time Pixar has gone through this with franchises.

Jim Varney, the voice of Slinky Dog in the first two Toy Story films, died a year after the release of Toy Story 2. When Toy Story 3 entered active development in 2006, Pixar found a replacement in Blake Clark, who sounded pretty close.

With Cars 2, they went the other direction for one character. Two voice actors in the first film died two years after Cars came out: George Carlin and Paul Newman. Carlin played Volkswagon hippie bus Fillmore, Pixar got Lloyd Sherr - who voiced the character in a video game spin-off - to replace him. As for Newman... John Lasseter and crew felt he was irreplaceable, and it's quickly implied in the sequel that Doc - a 1951 Hudson Hornet - died. Weirdly enough, in the latest Cars 3 trailer, there's a voice in it that sounds eerily similar to Newman's. Is it an archive recording? Something from another car-centric (since he was a race car driver) movie of his? Or a really good soundalike?

There is no solid plan for Toy Story 4 concerning Mr. Potato Head. I have no idea whether the story is the same or not, or if the recent rewrites have really changed things. To my understanding, Toy Story 4 was going to be about Woody and Buzz - no one else - setting off on a road trip to find Bo Peep. It's said to be its own beast, something not really connected to the trilogy's whole storyline. Like a feature-length equivalent of the TV specials.

Another big Disney-owned franchise is facing a similar problem. Recently, it was reported that leftover footage of Carrie Fisher might be used to create Leia's storyline in Episode IX. Director Colin Trevorrow recently confirmed that the first draft script for that film is done. It could be a Furious 7 situation. Something similar might be done for Toy Story 4, as it has been reported that pre-existing Rickles tracks will be used for the character.

I have no idea how Pixar will go about all of this... I have no theories, but I will say this. I don't think you can write a character like Mr. Potato Head out of Toy Story. Unless Toy Story 4 is set in the far future where a much older Bonnie has - for whatever reason - sold off all of her toys, I don't think it can be done. Recasting? Don't think it can really be done, either. Maybe it's time to introduce a new toy gang and have the ensuing franchise entries - because you know Disney is going to want those - be about them. Woody and co will still be around in the form of the trilogy, the TV specials, the merchandise, and theme park attractions...

I really don't know...

What do you think will happen?

New Batteries?: 'Toy Story 4' Adds a Writer

It turns out that someone else might be playing with the toys...

When reporting on an upcoming Pharrell Williams-driven musical movie called Atlantis, Variety and various publications mentioned that the screenwriter of the project - Martin Hynes - is a writer on Toy Story 4.

Up until now, we knew that Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever) were handling the screenplay for this Pixar fourquel. Fresh outside voices that hadn't tackled one of the Emeryville studio's films before. Now it looks like Hynes (who wrote and directed The Big Split and The Go-Getter, and also played George Lucas in the short film George Lucas in Love) is in the sandbox. Funny how it usually somehow goes back to Mr. Lucas...

We know little beyond this, though. We don't know if he is rewriting the script, or if he's aiding Jones and McCormack. I have a feeling the former might be the case, because... Toy Story 4 was delayed twice after it was first announced. Pixar originally unveiled the project in November of 2014, and a summer 2017 release date was inked. Nearly a year later, the movie got pushed to summer 2018, Cars 3 took its original spot from it... But then last autumn, it lost the summer 2018 slot to The Incredibles II. It is now set to open in the summer of 2019, and no Pixar films have been slotted beyond that.

Now perhaps this happened because Cars 3 and The Incredibles II just so happened to surge ahead in development, and reached that "in good shape" state before Toy Story 4 could. The movie is still a good two years away, so at the same time I assume that these delays happened for another reason. It's no surprise, for Pixar is following up what is pretty much a perfect ending. Toy Story 3 ended everything on such a high note, making the series that rare trilogy where every installment in it is great.

We may have been told over time that Toy Story 4 wouldn't be a continuation of the "master story", as I like to call it, but that it would be its own standalone movie. Basically a feature-length Toy Story of Terror! or Toy Story That Time Forgot. I was fine with that, until they revealed that it was going to be about Woody and Buzz setting off on a road trip to find Bo Peep, Woody's long-lost love interest who was given away between the events of Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Ever since that announcement, I've been unusually skeptical of this film... How could they bring her back into Woody's life without softening the bittersweetness of Toy Story 3?

What makes the Toy Story trilogy so great is that it deals with abandonment, among other great themes. Woody and Buzz and the gang know that, one day, Andy will grow up and will stop playing with them. This comes into play in Toy Story 2, and it's the main focus of the third movie... And Pixar, being the studio that they are, didn't sugarcoat things. They didn't make things all rosy-rosy, instead they made a rather melancholic movie! I remember some complained at the time that it was too dramatic, and that it wasn't funny enough. Andy ends up giving his toys to someone else, friends have disappeared over time, the villain has a bleak outlook on toy life, the Prospector was ultimately right in some ways...

But what mattered was that most of the gang was still together, and that someone Andy knows will take good care of them. That's life. It can't always be perfect. It was very similar to Up in that regard, Carl doesn't live his dreams with his wife, his childhood hero is a monster, and he ultimately ends up losing his house. To me, bringing back Bo negates a chunk of the series' emotional core. Now, I have said before that I'm willing to be wrong on this. I don't doubt for a second that Pixar's story team could make that story work, despite how I feel about all of it.

Maybe the delays and the addition of another writer suggest that they may have rewritten the story completely, or have worked very hard to make the return of Bo Peep an emotionally satisfying follow-up to a great trilogy. I don't know, I'm not a fly on the wall at Pixar, but it seems like development on this one has been pretty rocky. Of course I'm not too phased that we're not getting this movie in less than three months, because I'm used to animated movies getting release dates and then getting delayed. I'm also used to many cool-sounding animated movies getting cancelled. If they need a lot of time to make Toy Story 4 excellent, so be it!

What say you?

Dashing to the Front: 'The Incredibles 2' Moves Up!

Talk about a big switcheroo, Pixar has played musical chairs with two of their upcoming sequels.

The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4 have swapped spots. The Incredibles 2 is now set to open on June 15, 2018, while Toy Story 4 - being pushed back for the second time - will open on June 21, 2019...

Honestly, I'm not surprised that The Incredibles 2 has surged ahead in development. Director/writer Brad Bird is a lightning-fast problem solver, a skill that he probably got from his days on The Simpsons. Exhibit A is the first Incredibles, which he worked on for four years, most Pixar films take longer journeys to the big screen. Exhibit B is Ratatouille. In early 2005, the Pixar brass removed Jan Pinkava from the 5-year-old project, and that was around 2 1/2 years before the picture's summer 2007 debut. Bird turned it around so fast, and the resulting movie... You wouldn't even think for a second that it had all those troubles!

The Hollywood Reporter implied that Bird's Walt-like method was indeed the reason why these two sequels were swapped. An "accelerated production schedule", the insiders say.

Toy Story 4, with its new summer 2019 date, will nearly coincide with the 20th anniversary of Toy Story 2. Some are reading the delay as a bad sign, thinking that Toy Story 4 is having multiple story troubles and might be beyond saving. I get that a lot of us don't want Toy Story 4 (I wouldn't flinch if it were cancelled tomorrow), but I think it's simple: Incredibles 2 surged ahead, Bird knows what he's doing, and there's a huge demand for a sequel. Toy Story already got two sequels and spin-offs, this is the first Pixar-made Incredibles anything in years. They probably figure that we can wait for another Toy Story, and that a lot of folk have been waiting a long, long, long time for an Incredibles follow-up.

The old D23 poster, I know.

Toy Story 4, should it keep its current release date, will have taken 7 years to make. That's not unusual for a Pixar film. Let's keep in mind that WALL-E, counting all its early iterations, took fourteen years to get to the big screen. Some projects come together faster than others, and if Pixar needs more time to really make what is actually one of their riskiest film, that's fine. Toy Story 4 has a tall order to fill, and that's living up to one of the rare perfect trilogies, and being the follow-up to what was such a perfect ending. Maybe a whole story change is in order right now (I'll be brutally honest, I don't really dig the whole idea of Bo Peep being pushed back into the story), or they're trying their damnedest to make something impossible work.

Or maybe, as a friend of mine suggested, it's because of director John Lasseter. Lasseter, ever since the acquisition ten years ago, has been a super-busy man. Not only is he running Pixar, but also Walt Disney Animation Studios, DisneyToon Studios, and he's also a key person in the theme parks and elsewhere. I was shocked when he said he was directing the film, because he really doesn't have all the time for that... Or does he? I know he directed Cars 2 from his iPad in less than a year, and that movie was a mess. To be hands-on, he'd either have to put some duties aside, or really multi-task like a pro.

Before anyone brings it up, I'm aware that Josh Cooley is a co-director on the picture. At Pixar, however, a co-director is not necessarily a second director. It's more like the director who handles things on the lower deck of the ship. Lasseter's Walt Disney Animation Studios uses this model, but often times, more than one person is a main director. Take Zootopia for example: Main directors were Byron Howard and Rich Moore, and there was one co-director: Jared Bush. Perhaps Toy Story 4 needs a second "main" director, so why not move Cooley to the position?

Who knows.

What say you?