The film features Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and friends fighting for the attention of 8-year-old Bonnie after she gets a new smart tablet.
But it also introduces another character, Blaze, a young Black girl who has naturally curly hair - something Thomas Jordan, the VFX supervisor says was important to the animators.
"We have a character named Blaze with beautiful, long, tight, curly hair, which is something we have not been able to do before," he said. "And with very recent technological breakthroughs, we finally solved that."
The filmmakers tell On The Red Carpet that since this is a sequel and they don't have to create every character and setting from scratch, it leaves a little more time to solve issues they've struggled with in the past - like animating curls.
"We want our movies to reflect the audiences who watch them, Jordan said. "And we want the whole world to see our movies, so we want to feel like they see themselves in our films, which means we want to be able to create cultural diversity that feels authentic, and different types of hairstyles are an incredibly important part of that. And technology has been an obstacle. In that regard, especially with curly hair until very recently, and so I think this just opens the doors now to future films being able to represent anyone."
At the Toy Story 5 premiere, Mykal-Michelle Harris who voices the horse-loving Blaze was very excited to bring that kind of representation to the big screen.
"Seeing yourself in what you are trying to view or watch, it makes it so much better," Harris told On The Red Carpet. "And so, I think that being able to, you know, be in a franchise that allows children - young children - to do that, it's just amazing. I can't stop saying the word amazing! It's just so amazing!"