Great, just not "9 years of waiting" great

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2019)

Good movie, I loved it, but it could have been a LOT better.
The plot is a bit unfocused, but given the message and moral, it's rightfully a bit more complicated than we've seen before and in that, allowable to be less focused. Forky stole the show, it would be a 4/10 without him, and Gabby Gabby's story was the best in the movie. While it's a great movie, they missed the mark on 3 things they could have done a lot better.
First, I hated how we didn't see much of Dolly and a lot of the crew at home while Woody and Bonnie left. We didn't see them again until the pre-credits wrap-up scenes. We needed more than 2 minutes screentime with them, Dolly had a lot of potential. Second, I hated how they dropped multiple story arcs, especially Buzz and Jessie's relationship. We waited 9 years, we deserve Spanish Buzz! To cap it all off, all the other Toy Story movies have an iconic "playtime" or gripping, exciting scene to kick it off. Toy Story had the original Woody vs. Potato Head bank robber scene, Toy Story 3 had a train sequence that paid homage to that, and there was the Buzz vs. Zerg video game sequence for Toy Story 2. There was nothing in Toy Story 4 like this outside of Woody's goodbye "for now" to Bo Peep and a mentioned "Hat Store" from an abandoned toy from Bonnie's closet while she was playing off screen.
They could have done SO much more with any of these and it wouldn't have added too much to the 1 hour 40 minute runtime, it would have built upon the previous movies instead of ditching it for a more complex story, and it would have given us loyal, patient Toy Story fans what we deserved after 9 years of waiting to see the sequel to one of the most heartbreaking, bittersweet, and emotional endings in cinema. I loved it, but we deserve better.