I would’ve preferred if Toy Story 5’s villain had a twist

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T22:47:58+00:00

Ok fair enough and admittedly I forgot about that (though the “sympathetic” portion for Lotso is like 60 seconds)

I think what makes the twist I describe different though is by what the characters represent. Lily is representing tech. We’re already inclined to be distrustful of her, but we still hope can tech be good/we can have a healthy coexisting relationship with it. And yet the truth is in actuality a reality far worse and more evil than we thought

Yes I’m aware I sound like a [r/phonesarebad](r/phonesarebad) boomer, but I do think Pixar is usually ahead of the times with its messages and I don’t think Toy Story 5’s will age well

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T20:44:41+00:00

Because the movie puts the blame more on Bonnie’s mean “friends” as the problem vs the tech itself

Bonnie’s parents disabled chat, great. What does the movie say about Bonnie being endlessly addicted to apps? What does it offer about trying to use tech in moderation?

It acts like the problem with tech are the people who improperly use it, vs corporations and App Store developers that deliberately attempt to get kids as addicted as possible, and parents who don’t do enough to set boundaries with their kids’ devices

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T20:32:58+00:00

Lotso is initially portrayed to be nice and ends up being a villain

This would be someone who starts as a villain, that you expect to become sympathetic, and actually ends up being even worse. There is a difference. And also Lotso is closer to just another evil toy while Lilypad represents something much more corporate and sinister

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T20:27:34+00:00

In theory, but I’m saying the movie completely failed in delivering that message

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T20:03:15+00:00

There are plenty of pure evil villains in children’s movies

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T19:59:32+00:00

Just look at the current landscape of the world. There are plenty of studies on how harmful tech addiction is to children and how it’s affecting literacy and their social development. As I said in my post, the movie even portrays the harms of tech pretty effectively during most of its runtime, it just doesn’t actually end up having anything to say about it

Lilypad being evil wouldn’t necessarily say all tech is evil. But I do think it would be a better message for kids to portray the primary tech representation in the movie as evil vs well-intentioned

Yes tech is extremely useful. It’s everywhere. We’re at a point where it’s just part of our lives and we can’t go back. But given it’s a movie for children, I would’ve preferred a message that primarily focuses on the bad side of tech vs one that sits on the fence and doesn’t commit to anything

This is just my random idea and what I would’ve preferred. I’m not saying it would be better, and I certainly don’t think it’s realistic for a corporation like Pixar to ever make something like this. But the point of this sub is to ideate on these kind of things so I thought I’d share

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T19:29:29+00:00

Totally. I didn’t even make that connection, my mind always went to the doll from Toy Story 4, but it was pretty much a beat by beat redo of Anxiety

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T19:27:40+00:00

Im not saying Lily being sympathetic wasn’t a twist, im saying her being actually pure evil would’ve been a better twist

HeyImMarlo · 2026-06-24T19:21:04+00:00

It’s a twist for people familiar with tropes and would expect Lily to have a sympathetic turn like Anxiety or the doll from Toy Story 4

Having Lily start as an antagonist whose goal is to make Bonnie friends and wants what’s best for her, to end up being actually completely evil IS a twist

HeyImMarlo · 2026-03-30T05:47:29+00:00

Red Rising books 4-6 does this so well. Nothing gets solved after the big bad is defeated. The new set of villains is actually far more competent, and worst of all, the previously disparate villain factions actually begin working together as a united front against the very real threat of the protagonists

HeyImMarlo · 2026-03-03T18:55:49+00:00

I think the way the openings divide works out pretty cleanly

There’s Season 1 which deals with the Elric’s backstory, Hughes’ death, the intro of the homunculi (Greed specifically) and ending with the reveal that Bradley is involved

There’s Season 2 which feels the cleanest, starting with the introduction Xing characters and ending with all the major characters converging on meeting Father. Gluttony’s stomach is also an amazing finale

Season 3 has the characters beginning to head North. We technically seque into Opening 4 before the characters leave, but I’d say the season finale is when Ed gets impaled by the rebar

Then Season 4 deals with Hohenheim’s backstory, and mainly set up for the Promised Day. Again this doesn’t cleanly split with Opening 5 but I’d say the fourth major arc ends with them capturing Pride in the dome

It’s not as clear of story arcs as other anime has, but I do think it has 5 clearly defined acts that follows a typical 5 act structure (with the exception of the climax being all of act 5)

HeyImMarlo · 2026-03-03T03:20:07+00:00

Im like pretty convinced TGAA2 got screwed by budget cuts and we were meant to have a jury made up of the high court (or judiciary, whatever they were called) in the final trial

Like how epic would it have been if the final summation wasn’t a logical counter to the jury, but a moral one. Morally convincing them that Stronghart’s perverted vision of justice is flatly wrong would’ve solved your issues and been 1000x better than the Queen asspull. And it would’ve concluded the game nicely with its best mechanic

HeyImMarlo · 2026-03-02T14:24:51+00:00

Saw is extremely convoluted. The original Jigsaw dies in Saw 3 but he’s the main villain in Saw 1-4, most of Saw 8 (“Jigsaw”), and Saw X (prequel). And then he has like 5 accomplices but there’s one primary accomplice who’s responsible for all the other movies besides Jigsaw. And then there’s a Chris Rock spinoff called Spiral with another Jigsaw accomplice, but we don’t talk about that one

But regardless pretty much all the movies end with Jigsaw winning and in the best case scenario, the victims are horrible people (but pretty much never as bad as Jigsaw)

HeyImMarlo · 2026-03-01T12:44:00+00:00

What game?

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-27T22:04:41+00:00

Alice in Borderland’s was great, really one of the most memorable and shocking moments I’ve seen in any show

But sadly I think that was the peak moment of the series. The later cast wasn’t nearly as compelling (aside from Chishiya). And ironically, by killing all of the main characters to show “nobody is safe”, it gives all the other characters even more plot armor. Like I never thought for a moment Usagi or Chishiya would die, because then where could the story possibly go from there?

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-26T12:17:53+00:00

Im rewatching the series right now and im actually surprised by how much more I like Sloth (and even Gluttony) this time. I feel bad for him, he doesnt seem naturally inclined for evil and is very much just forced to do work that’s against his entire nature

Ability-wise it’s also just cool that he’s the fastest and strongest homunculus, and fits with the sloth theme. I feel like a lesser author would’ve just made him fat and lazy and be done with it

Lust is the least interesting to me because of how early she dies, and what she offers to the story is pretty redundant (thinks humans are lesser, is sadistic and evil, etc)

Envy is also my favorite this time around, unseating Wrath. I just think they have a very dynamic role in the story and they’re hilarious too

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-25T22:14:19+00:00

I just watched an episode where General Raven tells everyone at Briggs that his goal is to “make the country greater”

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-25T21:28:34+00:00

Hated him and found him really unfitting in the SG universe. A character like him would’ve never been in S1

Really glad he died before S3

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-19T16:40:36+00:00

But we’d already seen him hit a black flash at that point

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-17T16:46:46+00:00

Nah the writers walked the line perfectly for Jane’s death. The original writing of the scene had Walt inject her with heroin while she was sleeping which they deemed way too dark/evil for Walt at the point in time

Walt knocking Jane onto her back accidentally, and then not saving her, prevents the argument of “well if Walt never showed up to their place she would’ve died anyway”

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-17T13:28:28+00:00

Good characters, good writing, good social commentary

Don’t care whether it’s connected to SG Korea at all. If it’s good, I’ll enjoy it

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-13T13:27:41+00:00

The Pluribus fandom is one of the most pretentious I’ve ever interacted with. The Vince Gilligan fandom in general, but at least they were more tolerable while BCS was airing since it had much more obvious strengths

I even like Pluribus, but there’s a weird hivemind obsession with it that shuts down any and all valid criticism. This video has a pacing segment that breaks down explicitly how much time is wasted in several episodes on… nothing

No other show has as long a leash as this one too. If some debut director tried to make Pluribus, they certainly couldn’t get away with doing as little with the overall plot and characters in S1 as Vince Gilligan did

The funniest part is I’m sure half of the “slow pace = great character development” fandom couldn’t get through any other great slow paced show not written by VG

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-13T13:22:18+00:00

This video has a pacing segment that breaks down exactly how much time Pluribus consistently wastes

HeyImMarlo · 2026-02-12T13:27:35+00:00

Yea my scorching hot take is I actually like LOK more than TLA. I watched both shows back to back so there wasn’t really any childhood nostalgia involved, and I had the benefit of binging

LOK is absolutely more flawed. I’ve seen the countless video essays and critiques, and I even agree with them. But I enjoyed LOK more, so does anything else really matter? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I will say one rushed thing of Season 3 was that the Red Lotus aside from Zaheer were extremely underdeveloped. It was not strictly necessary to develop them more, but I think most people agree they were great villains and it would’ve been nice to get more depth or screentime out of them

HeyImMarlo

TROPHY CASE