Tom Hanks calls screen addiction a theme that “strikes terror into the heart”
Tom Hanks said the latest Toy Story film highlights children’s addiction to screens, telling the BBC that the issue strikes “terror in the heart.” The fifth installment of Pixar’s animated franchise, releasing later in June, introduces a new antagonist unlike any the series has featured before: a frog-like tablet called Lilypad, voiced by Past Lives star Greta Lee, that captivates the film’s child characters and threatens Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Jessie.
Hanks told the BBC’s David Sillito that the cast related to the storyline because they had all “met that disinterest” of young people who “look down at their phone, look up, look down, look up.”
“This is a generational thing,” Hanks said, “where one generation has this thing that defines them technologically in society, and they pour everything into it.”
He pointed to “a moment in the movie where we look out on the cityscape and we see that blue glow of a phone in bedrooms and whatnot, and it does strike terror into the heart.”
Allen, who voices Buzz Lightyear, recounted taking his teenage daughter to the cinema, where she struggled to concentrate for the full film. Allen said young people are “so used to a beginning, middle and end arc in seven seconds” on social media that sitting through a two-hour movie presents a challenge.
His daughter dismissed the film they were watching early on because she had already anticipated the plot, Allen said. “She actually looked at a motion picture and went, ‘I get it! He’s going to be the villain and they’re going to do this,’” he recalled. “But she wasn’t wrong.”
Allen drew a parallel to his own parents’ objections when he was young. “As soon as I said ‘put that phone down,’ I remember my parents going ‘turn the music off,’” he said, laughing. “Once FM radio came to the United States, and we started getting rock’n’roll, we listened to music all the time, my parents were saying ‘turn that off.’”
The film comes amid wider debate about the potential harms of screen time for children, particularly the effects of social media on young people’s attention and development. Cusack said she thought the issue would resonate with parents who are setting screen time limits for their children.
A new song by Taylor Swift, called “I Knew It, I Knew You,” will appear on the soundtrack. Swift said she had “always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5 year old kid watching the first Toy Story movie.”
Toy Story 5, with Hanks, Allen, and Cusack reprising their roles, is set for release later in June. Critics have yet to review the film and assess how effectively it addresses children’s relationship with technology.