Tom Hanks: Toy Story 5 Has a Modern Nemesis

Tom Hanks says Sheriff Woody's latest foe isn't a neighbor kid or a deranged toy collector—it's your kid's tablet. The 68-year-old actor tells the BBC that Toy Story 5 aims straight at children's dependence on screens, with a frog-like device called Lilypad luring kids away from their toys and casting what he calls "terror in the heart" with its late-night blue glow. He and co-star Tim Allen say the storyline felt familiar, describing real-life moments when young people tune out adults—and sometimes entire movies—in favor of their phones.

The film, which opens June 19, reunites Hanks, Allen, and Joan Cusack as Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, and introduces Past Lives star Greta Lee as the voice of Lilypad. It's the franchise's first entry to wrestle directly with technology's pull on kids, though director Andrew Stanton doesn't see "Lily" as a traditional nemesis. "Lily means well, like all good villains," he says, per Syfy. "'Antagonist,' I guess, is a better word. It's not like a mustache-twirling villain, which may make it boring. It's somebody that has a very different, modern opinion on how a kid should be raised." Critics haven't weighed in yet on Pixar's latest. Taylor Swift, meanwhile, wrote a song for the movie.