Lightyear (2022) (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

There is a Buzz Lightyear cartoon so I guess the character got popular again and was more introduced to 1995 kids by way of that cartoon. I'd compare it to Batman where there are peaks and valleys to his popularity so some kids grow up with Batman and some don't. Personally, I don't recall hearing too much about Batman as a kid in the 1980's until 1989.

I was a teen comic fan in the 80s and a Batman movie was in the works virtually the whole decade. Just took them forever to finally pull the trigger. Frank Miller's 1986 "Dark Knight Returns" did a lot to kickstart interest, as did a couple other prominent graphic novels.

I guess we're supposed to think that "Lightyear" was a hit in the mid-80s, Andy watched it over and over on VHS... and then there was a 1995 cartoon that made the character a hot property again?

Yeah, okay. Could happen, though one can't help but wonder what happened to the "Lightyear" film series. Clearly there would've been a sequel, right? Probably 2 sequels or more before 1995!

Honestly, they should've just not bothered to attempt to place "Lightyear" in the "TS" universe. They could've simply made the movie as a standalone - which it kinda is anyway - without the bizarre attempts to retrofit it.

They created way more confusion than it was worth...

 

[Jake Lipson]

Honestly, they should've just not bothered to attempt to place "Lightyear" in the "TS" universe. They could've simply made the movie as a standalone - which it kinda is anyway - without the bizarre attempts to retrofit it.

Functionally, it is a standalone. Anytime you have Buzz Lightyear, you're automatically linked to the Toy Story movies. But @Josh Steinberg asked me a couple weeks ago if he could see the movie without being a fan of the Toy Story movies, and the answer was yes. This film does not require a functional knowledge of Toy Story. I think what Disney's marketing needed to explain here is why Buzz isn't voiced by Tim Allen and why none of Andy/Bonnie's other toys are in this movie. The rest of the details (like whether Andy saw this in a theater or on cable) are neither here nor there.

Pixar used Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies is a jumping off point to make a space movie. "Andy saw this movie and got a toy" is ultimately just justification to do that. I'm really not sure why this is difficult if communicated properly. In the real world, people see movies and get toys from them all the time. Disney is particularly skilled at selling merchandise.

Oddly enough, people didn't seem to have this problem with the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV show from circa 2000 even though it was basically the same idea. Of course, the series probably had a significantly smaller audience than they were aiming for with this film. But still.

 

[Wayne_j]

Pixar definitely did mess up communicating with audiences that this is just a stand alone movie with very little connection to the Toy Story franchise.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Pixar definitely did mess up communicating with audiences

I honestly wonder how much input Pixar had on the marketing versus how much that was just handled by Disney's marketing department. On the Soul audio commentary, Pete Docter says that he is recording it in October 2020 and he doesn't know if the film will make its Thanksgiving release date or not. In addition to being the director of Soul, he is also the chief creative officer for all of Pixar, and he hadn't yet been told about the plan to move that to Disney+ on Christmas. This suggests that there is a certain degree of Pixar making their movie and then Disney deciding what to do with it. I assume that creating marketing elements is not fully under the control of the filmmakers either and the Disney higher ups have something to do with overseeing the marketing team. I'm not arguing at all that the marketing failed. I'm just not sure whose responsibility that is exactly.

It's really too bad because I think that if you go in knowing what to expect, the movie delivers a good time based on what it wants to be. But if you go in expecting a Toy Story film, then obviously there is a big disconnect between what you want and what you get.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Functionally, it is a standalone. Anytime you have Buzz Lightyear, you're automatically linked to the Toy Story movies. But @Josh Steinberg asked me a couple weeks ago if he could see the movie without being a fan of the Toy Story movies, and the answer was yes. This film does not require a functional knowledge of Toy Story. I think what Disney's marketing needed to explain here is why Buzz isn't voiced by Tim Allen and why none of Andy/Bonnie's other toys are in this movie. The rest of the details (like whether Andy saw this in a theater or on cable) are neither here nor there.

Pixar used Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies is a jumping off point to make a space movie. "Andy saw this movie and got a toy" is ultimately just justification to do that. I'm really not sure why this is difficult if communicated properly. In the real world, people see movies and get toys from them all the time. Disney is particularly skilled at selling merchandise.

Oddly enough, people didn't seem to have this problem with the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV show from circa 2000 even though it was basically the same idea. Of course, the series probably had a significantly smaller audience than they were aiming for with this film. But still.

My "standalone" comment meant that they might've been better served without attempting to formally tie it into the "TS" universe at all.

Just say "hey, it's a movie based on Buzz!" and leave it at that. Don't deal with continuity.

As I recall, the 2000 DTV film didn't try to justify the "Andy watched this" thing - and even if it had, it felt like a more natural fit since it actually provided an animated program of the sort the kid would've watched.

It's the awkward attempts to cram "Lightyear" into the continuity that seem problematic.

But in the end, none of this matters if the movie is better. It's just okay so the continuity questions become more prominent since we're more likely to criticize bad choices when the final product leaves us semi-cold...

 

[Malcolm R]

Tim Allen weighs in:

https://ew.com/movies/tim-allen-pixar-buzz-lightyear-reaction/

During an interview with Extra for the new History Channel show More Power, Allen offered his two cents on Chris Evans taking over the voice role of Buzz Lightyear in the new animated movie. There's a reason he hasn't spoken about this publicly before.
"The short answer is I've stayed out of this 'cause it has nothing to do [with my character]," Allen said.

"This is a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies," Allen said. (Angus MacLane, an animator on Toy Story 2 and 3, directed Lightyear.)

The actor remembered talking years earlier with Pixar about what the movie that inspired Buzz might look like. He also said he thought the studio was making a live-action Lightyear movie instead of an animated one.
"It's a wonderful story," Allen said of Lightyear. "It just doesn't seem to have any connection to the toy, and it's a little… I don't know. It just has no relationship to Buzz. It's just no connection. I wish there was a better connection to this."

 

[Jake Lipson]

I don't understand Tim Allen's "whole new team" comment. That is categorically not true. Lightyear director/co-writer Angus McLane actually directed Tim Allen as Buzz in the Toy Story of Terror Halloween special for ABC and the short Small Fry. So Allen knows him, or knew him enough to work on two projects that he directed. McLane was also an animator for Toy Story 2 and 3 and worked on a lot of sequences featuring Buzz for those movies. Of course, Allen might not have reason to know who animated what. But he appeared in two projects directed by Angus McLane. Three if you count the introductory short to the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command movie.

Pete Docter, who became the chief creative officer of Pixar following John Lasseter's departure, had story credit on Toy Story and Toy Story 2. He was an executive producer of both Toy Story 4 and Lightyear.

Andrew Stanton, who is also an executive producer of Lightyear, has a screenwriting credit on three of the four Toy Story movies. He got a story credit on the only one he didn't write (Toy Story 3.) Stanton was also the original voice of Zurg in Toy Story 2.

Of course, Allen can feel however he wants to about the new movie. He doesn't have to like it. But he should know they absolutely do have members of the same creative team involved here.

 

[Jake Lipson]

As I recall, the 2000 DTV film didn't try to justify the "Andy watched this" thing - and even if it had, it felt like a more natural fit since it actually provided an animated program of the sort the kid would've watched.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command absolutely did present itself as an in-universe show for Toy Story that Andy would have seen. Disney even asked Pixar to make this little opening sequence for the direct-to-video pilot movie in which the toys watch the tape.




Two small connections to Lightyear here, even though Lightyear throws this movie out:

1) The TV show and its pilot movie were both overseen by Walt Disney Television Animation. However, this CGII opening sequence was made by Pixar at Disney's request. This portion was directed by Angus McLane, who later directed Lightyear itself.

and 2) That's Jim Hanks voicing Woody in this scene, rather than Tom Hanks. Jim Hanks is Tom Hanks' brother, and he voices a lot of Woody merchandise. I'm guessing that this is because Jim Hanks gets a lower fee than Tom Hanks does, but this also supports the idea that the Buzz toy (Tim Allen) would have a different voice than in the Lightyear movie.

That being said, I think it's kind of weird that people are focusing so much on supposed "continuity errors" with Andy watching Lightyear. I watched all four Toy Story films this month before going to Lightyear and there is nothing in any of them that contradicts the idea that Andy could have seen this movie.

There is something of a plot hole between Lightyear and Toy Story 2, which this movie attempts to smooth over with a couple lines of dialogue. But it has nothing to do with Andy. So it seems odd that most people are focusing on the smaller issue of Andy rather than the bigger issue of the other thing they decided to change. I won't say what the other issue is, but I have discussed it under spoiler tags in previous posts. I'm all right with it personally because they did throw in an acknowledgment of what they were changing. But there is no question that it is a bigger shift from Toy Story canon than anything regarding Andy seeing this movie. And yet Andy is what people are hung up on. I really don't get that.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Poking around YouTube, I found this ad for the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command video from 2000. This also clearly says that it is "the story of the real Buzz Lightyear and the space rangers of Star Command." So this marketing approach was used previously. I don't have sales figures for that tape, which obviously would have had vastly smaller expectations placed on it than a $200 million theatrical feature. But it is essentially the same marketing strategy as seemed to be challenging for some audiences this year.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Poking around YouTube, I found this ad for the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command video from 2000. This also clearly says that it is "the story of the real Buzz Lightyear and the space rangers of Star Command." So this marketing approach was used previously. I don't have sales figures for that tape, which obviously would have had vastly smaller expectations placed on it than a $200 million theatrical feature. But it is essentially the same marketing strategy as seemed to be challenging for some audiences this year.

I'd be curious to know how it did. "Pretty well" is my assumption, partly because the home video market was so strong back then, partly because it's pretty entertaining!

 

[Malcolm R]

Poking around YouTube, I found this ad for the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command video from 2000. This also clearly says that it is "the story of the real Buzz Lightyear and the space rangers of Star Command." So this marketing approach was used previously. I don't have sales figures for that tape, which obviously would have had vastly smaller expectations placed on it than a $200 million theatrical feature. But it is essentially the same marketing strategy as seemed to be challenging for some audiences this year.

Well, that was back in 2000. The Internet was in its infancy and major social media hadn't yet emerged and ruined everything.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'd be curious to know how it did.

I would like to know that too but have no idea where that information could be found at this point. I assume if it had been a complete disaster, somebody might have pointed that out when Disney was deciding to greenlight Lightyear. Obviously, a pitch for a big theatrical release from Pixar is a whole different arena than a cheap direct-to-video movie and TV series. But if the video and show had done really poorly, they would have had precedent for disinterest in Buzz Lightyear when he's not with Woody and the other toys. So I'm guessing it did well enough for what it was.

Anecdotally, I have always been a huge Toy Story fan but I never owned Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Wikipedia says it was released on August 8, 2000. I find it interesting that Star Command actually came to home video before Toy Story 2 did on October 17, 2000. I really wanted TS2 and got it, but I have no memory of ever asking my parents for Star Command at all. But that's just me. Obviously, I'm not representative of a film's success or failure on my own, or Lightyear would be doing much better.

My local theater still has Lightyear playing twice a day for matinee prices. That auditorium switches to becoming an extra screen of Thor during the evening hours. I think Lightyear will probably be gone altogether next weekend when Nope arrives. But I decided to go again yesterday while it was still there. Due to the pandemic, I have drastically reduced my repeat viewings. Prior to Lightyear, the last movie I saw in a theater three times was Frozen II back in 2019. But I wanted to go out and there was nothing new of interest playing, so I decided to go with something I knew I would enjoy.

When I got there and bought my ticket, I was the fifth person on the seating chart. Ironically, the larger number of kids at my first screening when the movie was brand new were quieter and more attentive than the kids who went yesterday. Of course, they jumped up at the end and missed the tag scenes.

My previous two screenings were both in premium auditoriums. This one, of course, was tucked away in a lesser one, and it was one of the smallest screens I have been to in quite some time; it might have been the smallest in the building. I knew this would be the case for this movie at this point in its run, so I can't complain. But it did reinforce why I seek out the premium auditoriums when I can as they do add value to my experience.

I still love this movie. I guess I don't have much else to say on it that I didn't say either of the last two times, but I really enjoyed seeing it again. Hopefully more people will take a chance on it once it arrives on Disney+. Assuming Disney is observing a 45-day window on this, the earliest they could go would be August 1. I would be surprised if they waited much longer than they have to given that tis theatrical grosses have dried up anyway.

On another note, at the risk of sending us back down the rabbit hole, I just found this YouTube video where Angus McLane actually answers why Andy wouldn't have a Sox toy which we discussed earlier. As answers go, this is actually workable.

 

[Jake Lipson]

August 3 on Disney+:

Pixar’s ‘Lightyear’ Gets Disney+ Release Date

You can officially go to infinity and beyond straight from your home, beginning next month. Disney has announced that “Lightyear” will release on its streaming platform Disney+ on Aug. …

variety.com

 

[Edwin-S]

This film looks like it was a theatrical flop. It didn't last long at the local theatre. I think Disney's pandemic policy of releasing Pixar films as Disney+ only product has damaged the brand for theatrical releases.

 

[Malcolm R]

Definitely not a good result with a worldwide gross of only $213 million vs. budget of $200 million.

I think Disney/Pixar animation has been hurt by the D+ strategy over the past couple of years. None of the animated films they've released theatrically over the past year or so have done much in the way of box office. Families now know that they don't need to pay theater prices to see these, as they'll shortly appear on D+.

Disney's only sure thing at the moment in theaters seems to be Marvel films. Audiences will apparently pay for action/adventure films on the big screen, but for cartoons they're OK waiting to see them on TV.

 

[TravisR]

I think Disney/Pixar animation has been hurt by the D+ strategy over the past couple of years. None of the animated films they've released theatrically over the past year or so have done much in the way of box office. Families now know that they don't need to pay theater prices to see these, as they'll shortly appear on D+.

I agree. In the case of Lightyear, I think there's also the ridiculously overblown "political" issue that kept some people away as well.

Disney's only sure thing at the moment in theaters seems to be Marvel films.

Based on all of the announcements made over the weekend, I think Disney is going to water down their powerhouse by overloading the mainstream audience with too much of a good thing. Outside of the latest Spider-Man movie, there hasn't been a Marvel movie that seems to have been particularly memorable to people since Avengers and I think that coupled with a ton of more product is going to make the brand lose its specialness.

 

[benbess]

I wanted to like this movie more than I did, but it felt like it missed too many elements of the original Toy Story movies. Seems like one of Disney's rare animated disappointments, both critically and commercially.

 

[Tino]

I enjoyed it a lot but find it hard to believe that this was Andy’s favorite film in Toy Story.

 

[sleroi]

I went into this with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.

I thought it looked and sounded fantastic and was really funny as well. And Buzz' emotional journey was surprisingly satisfying.

But I also agree that in the context of the known Toy Story universe this doesn't feel like a film that would have been as beloved by children and spawned a massive toy campaign a la our Star Wars. Zurg was a mystery for most of the film,

Spoiler

and his big reveal was that he was abandoned alien tech taken over by Buzz, we never even learn if the real Zurg was ultimately good or evil.

And as with most time travel films,

Spoiler

there is a bit of a logic gap. Since Buzz only looped back from the future to when the robots first appeared we couldn't have been following a Buzz 2 from the beginning of the film. And we clearly skipped the loop. So when did the film skip from present Buzz' POV to past (or concurrent) Buzz' POV.

 

[Jason_V]

About 3/4 is a really good movie and that would be the front half. Right until Zurg enters the picture and all the time travel, time-y wime-y stuff happens. And then it just collapses under the story it wants to tell vs. the story the movie dictates.

I'm down with Zurg having to show up. That much is a given in a Buzz movie. But everything around him wasn't needed, IMO. We both still enjoyed the movie at home on Disney+...looks and sounds great, enjoyable and kept our attention.