The latest Pixar flick provides a much-needed explanation in its opening seconds for who its main character is. Lightyear is the movie that inspired young Andy from the Toy Story series to be gifted a Buzz Lightyear action figure. The animated flick chronicles the space adventure of the human Buzz Lightyear, a character who isn’t exactly the same as the figurine Buzz we know from the Toy Story franchise.
Not only does this Buzz’s laser actually blast alien robots, but he’s voiced by a different actor. Chris Evans plays the role of Buzz in Lightyear. Tim Allen voiced the toy version of Buzz in the four Toy Story movies, the latest being Toy Story 4 in 2019.
Why didn’t Allen reprise his role for Lightyear? The actor explained in an interview with Extra, published on YouTube Thursday.
“Literally, the short answer is, I’ve stayed out of this because it has nothing to do — as I’ve said a long time ago, we talked about this many years ago, it came up in one of the sessions. I said what a fun movie that would be and that was, we spoke about it all. But the brass that did the first four movies is not … This is a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies and they’re, as I said, I thought it was live-action. When they said they were doing a live-action, that it would mean real humans, not an animated thing.”
Allen continued, “Really, [Woody voice Tom] Hanks and I, well, there’s really no Toy Story Buzz without Woody … I’m a plot guy. This was done in 1997, it seemed to be a big adventure story and, as I see, it’s not a big adventure story. It’s a wonderful story, it just doesn’t seem to have any connection to the toy.”
“It has no relationship to Buzz … It’s just no connection, I wish there was a better connection to it.”
Lightyear exclusively hit cinemas on June 17. Lightyear underperformed at the box office, making $51 million domestically in its opening weekend, instead of an expected $70 million to $85 million. While its reviews have been lukewarm, it still earned a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
