Tom Hanks Is Teasing the Emotional Devastation of Toy Story 4

Better start stocking up on tissues now—when Toy Story 4 hits theaters, you may not be able to find any on the shelves. That’s because the folks at Pixar seem to have it in their heads that ever since Toy Story 3, this is now a series about devastating emotional loss and growth, and according to Tom Hanks, the upcoming sequel is that much more crushing.

Speaking on Chris Evans’ Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Hanks discussed his final day of voicing Woody, in the film’s final scenes. Suffice to say, it’s pretty rough.

“The way you record Toy Story, you’re in a room with the team that has created it,” he said. “When I went in for my last day of recording, I wanted to have my back to them, because usually, you’re facing him so he can look right up and you can talk about it. But I didn’t want to see them and pretend they couldn’t see me. When I realized what they were going for, I realized, ‘Oh, this is a moment in history’.”

Tim Allen, the voice of Buzz Lightyear, has previously said much the same about the Toy Story 4 ending. In fact, he said the film’s final scene was so difficult he could barely get through his lines, and said that the way the franchise ends is “so big” that it shocked him.

“They’ve got great characters but a couple of scenes toward the end were really hard to get through,” Allen said at the time.

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It all begs the question: What is going to happen to these beloved toys, and could it possibly be worse than the fact that we almost watched them all incinerated at the end of Toy Story 3? Early talk about the film’s plot has indicated that it involves Woody and Buzz trying to deduce what happened to Woody’s lost love interest Bo Peep after she was apparently sold in a yard sale during the events between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Is it possible that their quest ends poorly? You can’t put anything past Pixar these days—the company seems determined to elicit tears no matter what. It’s been nine years since Toy Story 3, and we can only imagine what kind of tear-jerking horrors have been devised since.

Regardless, Toy Story 4, directed by Josh Cooley, is currently set for a June 21, 2019 release.