Warning: This list contains spoilers for Lightyear.
After four hugely successful movies in the Toy Story franchise, Pixar returns to the series once again with Lightyear, only Chris Evans has replaced Tim Allen as the iconic space ranger. The sci-fi adventure is a completely different film from the movies about sentient toys, as it's technically the in-universe movie that the Buzz Lightyear toy is based on, and Pixar has approached it in a unique way too.
While the newly released film isn't as instantly beloved as other Pixar movies, it's hardly as if this was phoned in. Between Evans struggling to replace Allen, conducting heavy research on NASA, and finding inspiration in unsuspecting movies, Pixar's production is typically thorough.
In Toy Story 2, Zurg is introduced as Buzz's arch-nemesis. But after the final battle, Zurg reveals that he's Buzz's father and as that is in everyone's head when they're watching Lightyear, viewers are waiting for that reveal.
However, the new movie instead reveals that Zurg is actually Buzz from the future, and he had time traveled back to fix the catastrophe that happened at the beginning of the movie, only his plan has an evil and self-centered underlining. MacLane explains that the Zurg twist was to subvert expectations, but also that they wanted to depict that "Buzz's greatest enemy is himself, literally and figuratively."
As soon as Lightyear starts, there's a huge difference to Buzz that audiences will immediately pick up, and it isn't his hair. Buzz is voiced by Chris Evans, replacing Tim Allen, who voiced the character for every Toy Story movie. MacLane explains the reasoning behind recasting Allen, "Tim is hilarious, but this character wouldn’t work as well with him doing the Space Ranger voice. It would not be as emotional. It just changes the tone of the movie."
If Allen did voice the character, it would have been much harder to take the more grounded and non-comedic events of the movie seriously. However, the actor also had audiences in tears with his sincere delivery at the end of both Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4, so it could have worked but it would have also confused audiences about Lightyear's world's setting.
While Dreamworks, Illumination, and many other well-known animation studios have several entertaining movies under their belts, Pixar is on a whole other level. The Disney-owned studio tells stories in a way that no other studio can, and it can also make viewers of all ages cry like babies, and that includes Chris Evans.
The actor revealed that a lot of Pixar films made him cry, but the biggest culprits were Inside Out, Up, and Coco. Up specifically has audiences in tears within the first 10 minutes, and that movie must have been a major influence on Lightyear. The sci-fi adventure is at its most emotionally impactful in its first act, and when critics were screened the first 30 minutes of the movie, they were drowning in tears.
Most audiences take voice acting for granted because they can't see how much energy is being put into the performance on screen. But it's a profession of its own, and many have explained at length how exhausting it can be.
That's no different for Evans, who described how tough it was, explaining, "it's daunting because you really only have one string to play on. And it takes a minute to realize how colorful you can be." However, while many voice actors have voiced Buzz Lightyear in the past, Evans made the role his own, paying homage to Tim Allen but still putting his own spin on it.
After four movies, several short films, video games, and a spin-off cartoon series, the amount of great Buzz Lightyear quotes could fill a book. But there's one that's absolutely iconic. "To infinity and beyond" has become a mantra for many fans and is echoed throughout school halls, and Lightyear doesn't hold back on its use either.
However, Evans admitted that he was intimidated by the "Infinity" line. The actor mentioned that when he was in the early stages of production, he'd do a shameless Tim Allen impression. But he then explained that eventually, "you feel comfortable enough to try and make your own tracks in the snow and find your own interpretation, while still using Tim Allen as the blueprint."
The movie's cinematographer, Jeremy Lasky, pointed to several influences including Steven Spielberg. Spielberg's movies were the gold standard of science fiction in the '70s and '80s, and he even continues to direct seminal films in the genre with Ready Player One. So it's hardly surprising that he had an influence on Lightyear's production.
But it wasn't strictly the director's sci-fi flicks that the cinematography was inspired by, noting, "I'm influenced by Spielberg's use of staging and how he will often stretch out cuts." Lasky also noted a more leftfield influence on the film, Akira Kurosawa, the director behind classics such as Seven Samurai and Rashomon.
Even though a couple of them were 10 years apart, Pixar has capitalized on the original Toy Story with three sequels and now the newly released spin-off. And even though Lightyear has only been in theatres for a few days, many are already speculating the possibility of a sequel. MacLane thinks Lightyear 2 is possible, and he explained that there's a reason why the film was left open-ended.
However, even though it was one of the most anticipated movies of 2022, it massively underperformed at the worldwide box office in its opening weekend. Given its performance, it's unlikely that Pixar would be quick to green light a Lightyear 2, even if there are endless possibilities of where a sequel could go.
Pixar has always invested an enormous amount of research into its movies, and it's what makes its movies feel way more immersive than competing studios' releases. That's no different when it comes to the 2022 sci-fi movie, as Lightyear's producer, Galyn Susman, notes just how influenced they were by NASA. But it was way more comprehensive than simply looking at images of Google.
The producer explained that they were given a comprehensive multi-day tour of the Johnson Space Center, noting, "We saw the original control center for the Apollo missions, as well as the one being used today to track the ISS, we learned about spacesuit construction, we saw buttons, and switches, and knobs, and dials, and badges." And that research can be seen in the movie, and it resulted in one of the best space movies for kids.
Lightyear has unfortunately become just as well known for the controversy surrounding it as it has for its diversity. The movie features a same-sex kiss between Hawthorne and her partner early on in the film, but it was cut after worries that it wouldn't be as much of a hit and that certain territories would refuse to screen the film.
However, after a protest amongst Disney+ employees, which led to a walkout of some LGBTQ+ employees, the kiss was reinstated. Because of that, according to NME, the film is banned in 14 countries, which adds to the reason why it had such a poor opening weekend at the box office.
Lightyear wasn't influenced by Star Wars in the way that viewers would expect, with its sci-fi space ships and mysterious villains, but in the way that it left an impression on Andy. MacLane remembers his own childhood and how Star Wars changed his entire life, then adds, "I've always wondered what movie was Buzz from, why couldn't we just make that movie? So that's what we did presenting Lightyear, the movie that Andy saw that changed his life, Andy's Star Wars."
But Buzz Lightyear has always been tied to the sci-fi franchise, as his relationship with Zurg in Toy Story 2 is clearly influenced by Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. And in the first Toy Story, Buzz even loses his arm, just like Luke Skywalker does, foreshadowing that the toy's story arc would follow the same pattern.
source https://screenrant.com/lightyear-behind-scenes-facts-new-pixar-film/
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