Toy Story 5 Almost Featured a Drastically Different Ending, With Huge Emotional Stakes for Jessie

Toy Story 5 could have featured a drastically different ending for Jessie, as seen in scrapped concept art.

The latest installment in Pixar's beloved series has launched in theaters and is off to a great start at the box office, and is enjoying a generally positive from audiences and critics alike.

But its ending was once planned to resolve very differently, an art book for the movie has revealed — with comments from director Kenna Harris explaining more about the film's alternate finale plans.

Warning! Spoilers for Toy Story 5 follow...

Toy Story 5 centers on Jessie, who struggles with the fact her current owner Bonnie has become addicted to an iPad-like tablet. Through a rather convoluted series of events, Jessie finds herself back at the house of her original owner Emily — as seen briefly in Toy Story 2 — who left her heartbroken after ultimately giving her up and donating her to charity.

Pixar's latest adventure ultimately resolves this plotline by reframing Jessie's abandonment as simply part of Emily growing up, and beautifully reveals that Emily never forgot about Jessie, who she named her daughter after. Rather than being forgotten, Jessie realizes that her purpose had been fulfilled as she was a key part of Emily's childhood, leading her to accept that toys are designed to simply be there at the right time for children, even if they will always grow up and move on.

However, the art book reveals that Emily herself was once planned to reappear. Now a grandmother, artwork shows an elderly Emily reunited with Jessie, holding her former toy in scrapped concept art drawn by Harris.