"Toy Story 5" tugged at audience's hearts digging into the origins of inimitable cowgirl Jessie. What was left on the cutting room floor, though, was an emotional peek at the backstory of her BFF horse Bullseye.
In the latest Pixar animated hit (available to rent and buy on digital platforms Aug. 18), the old-school toys face an existential threat when their kid Bonnie gets a tablet that monopolizes her attention. Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack) and Bullseye end up getting separated from Bonnie – triggering Jessie's own abandonment issues – and they wind up on the farm that Jessie once called home with her original owner, Emily.
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debuts a deleted scene that takes them on a different path, and Bullseye revisits where he came from, growing up with a little boy named Charlie. Jessie and Bullseye find the place and instead of being sad, Bullseye is excited, showing Jessie in his equine way what he loved about being there. But the situation gets tear-jerking when Bullseye finds his old room and a kid's drawing of a boy and his horse that reads "Charlie and Bullseye" and he sweetly puts a hoof print on the wall next to it.
"You weren’t running away from Bonnie. You just wanted to say goodbye to Charlie," Jessie tells Bullseye before being overcome with sadness and hugging him. "I wish I could say goodbye but I just can’t. If I say it, then they’ll really be gone and I’ll be all alone."
Director Andrew Stanton explains that the cut scene goes back to the original version of the script where Jessie meets a grown-up Emily at the end of the movie; along the way, they stopped at Bullseye's old address. Stanton wanted the "poignant" moment of seeing the horse "finally reach his old home and it being not what Jessie expected. And then the bigger surprise is how Bullseye reacted to it."
However, Stanton adds, "ultimately the movie had to change and had to be much more about Jessie. Somehow, we had to take that feeling we got from 'Goodbye Charlie' and make it all come out of Jessie’s story."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The heartbreaking 'Toy Story 5' scene we never got to see | Exclusive
