One core memory I’ll always have from this year is watching Toy Story 5 in theaters and being moved by Jessie returning to her tire swing. Before I saw it, I thought I knew what was going to happen in the third-act scene, but Pixar caught me off guard with what happened instead. However, I just found out my initial intuition about Jessie was actually going to happen before the filmmakers decided to pivot...and man, am I happy they went in this different direction.
How Toy Story 5 Was Going To Wrap Up Jessie’s Storyline
As it turns out, in the original iteration of Toy Story 5, Jessie was going to meet an elderly Emily at the end of the movie. Co-writer Kenna Harris revealed the BTS detail while attending the VIEW Conference in Torino, Italy, on Friday (via Variety).
The change was one of numerous alterations she helped make to Toy Story 5 that ultimately made it one of the best projects on the 2026 movie schedule. At one point, Pixar decided to halt production on the film for two weeks to rework some of it. Harris recalled that “act one was not working” at first, and the stakes of losing playtime felt “too soft”. The Toy Story 5 rewrite led Harris and Andrew Stanton (who also directed the movie) to make several breakthroughs, such as the importance of Blaze to the storyline, for example.
While Jessie reuniting with Emily sounds all kinds of emotional and full circle, the filmmakers thought it resolved Jessie’s inner turmoil too conveniently. So, they ended up going with the teary-eyed resolution we can now see in the movie.
Why I Prefer What Happens Instead
I remember that before sitting down to watch Toy Story 5 over the summer, I was sure the movie was teasing a reconciliation between Jessie and Emily many years later. One thing that seemed to really point in that direction is Taylor Swift’s song “I Knew It, I Knew You”, which was released before the film.
So, I was taken aback when something else happened. While Jessie and Bullseye are at the old tire swing where she used to play with Emily, she finds a lunch box under the soil where she makes a discovery. Emily ended up naming her own daughter after Jessie.
While I expected Emily to come back into Jessie’s life, I didn't see it happening this way, and it made the instance between the cowgirl and her former kid even more emotional than I anticipated. It would have been an obvious story beat if Jessie and Emily ran into each other, but Jessie finding this time capsule and having the realization that even though she was given away, she was always important to Emily is actually even more powerful. And it makes all the difference for Jessie.
I know I’m far from the only one who was completely moved by Jessie’s arc in Toy Story 5. The cowgirl's backstory has always stuck with me, and there’s something so gratifying about seeing a part of her heal through this unexpected moment with Emily that's more grounded in reality.
You can watch Toy Story 5 and revisit this endearing sequence right now with a Disney+ subscription.
