Toy Story 4 Video Shows How Closely It Resembles The Original Storyboards

Ducky and Bunny in Toy Story 4
(Image credit: (Pixar))

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Every great animated movie starts with rough sketches on paper. Before Pixar’s team of animators get to work on their blockbuster projects, storyboard artists decide how each frame will be composed. They then discuss their vision in meetings before it is animated and later reaches to the big screen. Following Toy Story 4’s Best Animated Feature win at the Oscars, the studio is giving fans a closer look at the process.

Pixar has released a video of Toy Story 4 storyboards alongside the completely animated film that debuted last summer. Take a look below:

Wow! This side-by-side video is awesome. There’s clearly a ton of planning that went into the making of Toy Story 4, and how it would look was decided to a T from the beginning. It includes a highlight comedic moment from the film when Key and Peele’s Ducky and Bunny illustrate their “plush rush” plan.

Toy Story 4 revolves around Woody trying to save Bonnie’s newest favorite toy, who is a spork named Forky. He and the rest of the toys end up in the middle of a carnival and antique toy shop. In the above scene, Buzz’s newest highlighter-color plush toy friends try to devise a plan to get some keys, but their ideas compromise their vows to not interact (or attack) humans.

Each and every moment in that scene was drawn out beforehand, including the grandma driving home and laying in the bathtub with a glass of wine. Only the animated details, colors and some more decisive moments were left for animators to fill in. Now the question is how long it took for the scene to go from storyboard to its end product?

Toy Story 4 made $1.07 billion worldwide after fans waited almost a decade for Woody, Buzz and the gang to return, ultimately ranking as the sixth highest-grossing movie of 2019/ The fourth Toy Story movie recently hit Disney+ last month (which is offering a free 7-day trial).

Toy Story 4 certainly underwent some changes throughout its development. Multiple writers were involved in penning the project and large portions of the movie was rewritten and changed. The emotional ending of the movie was even altered to be more “impactful” on audiences.

Since the movie was released, Disney+ has released quite a bit of additional content to pair with Toy Story 4. A short revolving around Bo Peep’s life between the third and fourth Toy Story movies, Lamp Life, hit the platform in January. Also, a short series called Forky Asks A Question is now part of the streaming service.

Pixar’s next movie is Onward, and it comes to theaters on March 6.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.