'Toy Story 4' Alternate Ending Would Have Been A Tribute To Woody's Romance With Bo Peep

After a nine year break between sequels, Pixar's Toy Story 4 managed to establish itself as an essential entry in the Toy Story franchise by turning the focus back to Woody and giving Andy's oldest pal a satisfying narrative conclusion. The resulting film won over skeptical fans across the world, and made it onto several /Film staff members' lists of the top 10 movies of the year so far.

Whether this is really the true end for Woody is still technically uncertain, but word is going around about a Toy Story 4 alternate ending which would have been a touching tribute to his romantic relationship with his old flame Bo Peep. Get the details below.

Pixar films run through a gauntlet of development, with their stories hammered at from every conceivable angle. After several years, they're ultimately shaped into their final form via a method similar to a sculptor chipping away at a chunk of granite, and tons of permutations are left on the cutting room floor. On a recent episode of the Fine Tooning podcast, writer Drew Taylor revealed one of those permutations – and this should go without saying, but spoilers for Toy Story 4 ahead:

"Toy Story 4 introduces us to this idea that on the bottom of Woody's boots is Bonnie's name, and half of it is on one shoe, and half of it is on the other shoe. So one shoe says BO, and the other says NNIE. When Woody decides to make his final decision to stay with Bo and leave the other toys behind, he actually takes his boot and scrapes off the bottom of his left boot, so underneath his boots just says BO...there were a couple of different versions of this. At one point, he stepped in a pizza – yeah, that is actually true – and that left him with the BO."

That's a pretty cute moment – by actively scraping off the NNIE, it feels almost as if Woody is giving himself a tattoo to show his devotion to Bo Peep. It's a nice representation of his changing priorities, but I can see how the team at Pixar might think that action could turn the audiences' minds back to Bonnie in a moment when we're supposed to be fully with Woody and accepting his decision. But Taylor mentions that we may see that alternate ending pop up on the home video release, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for that later this year.

Toy Story 4 is in theaters now.