WMG / Lightyear

As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Pre-release theories

The movie will introduce Expys of the characters from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.

• There will be a wealthy Action Girl who has a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad who will be a stand-in for Princess Mira Nova.
  • Alicia might be that Action Girl at least.
• Buzz will have a Comic Relief robot sidekick that will act like XR.
  • The Teaser Trailer did show Buzz having a robotic cat and is latter shown paired with a robot in what appears to be a swamp planet.
• A large but shy alien will run into Buzz who will join in the adventure and becomes Booster Sinclair Munchapper.
  • Though it's said that one of the voices heard in the trailer is named Booster. But as of now it's unclear if it's meant to be a Mythology Gag.
• The leader of Star Command will be very hesitant in trusting Buzz's abilities and he will be like Commander Nebula.
• A former ally of Buzz who was actually working for Emperor Zurg, just like Warp Darkmatter.
  • Hopefully it isn't Alicia.
• As for the Little Green Men, they'll act like how they do in the Cartoon.
• Zurg will have his own versions of the Little Green Men, just like the Grubs.
• Zurg will have versions of the brain pods and hornets.
• If there is a sequel, the next film will introduce versions of other Buzz Lightyear of Star Command villains such as XL, NOS-4-A2, and the Evil Buzz Lightyear.

The film will open with the toys getting ready to watch the movie.

Much like Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, the toys will get excited to watch the latest entry in the Buzz Lightyear franchise and have a scene together before the movie starts.

• And maybe at the end too, right after the in-universe Stinger.
  • Jossed. On both counts.

This version of Buzz will have a dead father.

In reference to the Star Wars Shout-Out in Toy Story 2. Especially if he was killed by Zurg, directly or indirectly.

• Buzz briefly mistakes his older self for his father (a clear shoutout to the Toy Story 2 gag), but it's never brought up again.

Buzz will speak Spanish at one point

It could give credence as to why Buzz has a "Spanish mode" in Toy Story 3.

• Either he's multilingual or has Latino heritage.
• Or the Spanish mode is because of the Spanish dub of the cartoon.
  • Jossed.

A reference will be made to Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

Deleted scenes for the first Toy Story shows that Buzz is based on a character from a TV show, and then Star Command became that show. Maybe the cartoon will appear on a TV set as part of a Freeze-Frame Bonus, or some or one of the characters will make a background cameo.

Zurg will be the Big Bad.

• Or at the very least be teased in a potential cliffhanger or stinger as the villain of a possible sequel.
• I mean you can't have a movie about Buzz Lightyear without the greatest threat to the galactic alliance.
• He will say his catchphrase from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, "Curse you Buzz Lightyear!".
  • confirmed in the Official Trailer [1]

The movie will result in a reboot of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.

Self explanatory

The film will be revealed in The Stinger to be an in-universe franchise reboot of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

... written and directed by none other than a now-adult Andy, having graduated college and entered the film industry. For bonus points, we'll also get a teaser for his next project: a reboot of Woody's Roundup.

• Chris Hemsworth will voice Woody from Woody's Roundup.
  • Jossed. The movie opens with explicit onscreen confirmation that this is the movie that got Andy hooked on Buzz Lightyear.

Tim Allen will get a minor voice cameo at one point.

• Probably voice Buzz's father, as a sort of passing-the-torch thing.
  • Jossed.

The movie will be about Earth making first contact, and be involved in a galactic war.

Earth makes contact with the Galactic Alliance, leading to Buzz joining Star Command and comes into conflict with Emperor Zurg or whoever's the main villain.

• Jossed.

If Emperor Zurg does appear in the film or potential sequel, he will be voiced by different actor than Andrew Stanton or Wayne Knight

Since Chris Evans will be voicing the original Buzz Lightyear, it's likely they will get a different actor to voice the original Emperor Zurg than Andrew Stanton who voices the toy and Wayne Knight who voices the cartoon character.

• Maybe by another MCU actor.
  • What about Hugo Weaving?
• Confirmed to be a new actor, but not one from the MCU. James Brolin, father of Josh Brolin (Thanos and Cable, respectively), is playing Zurg

The entire movie will just be a delusion from a Buzz Lightyear action figure.

Well someone had to say it.

The movie is actually a prequel to the first Toy Story movie

According to Angus MacLane, the idea of a Buzz Lightyear movie came about when he's wondering about what kind of movie that Andy watched that made him want a Buzz Lightyear action figure. So my theory is at the end of Lightyear movie or a post-credit scene, we sees a young Andy Davis watching the Lightyear movie along with his mom and after the movie ends, he begs her of getting him a Buzz Lightyear action figure, thus setting up the event of the first Toy Story movie.

• Jossed by Word of God in an interview.

Star Command has just invented Faster-Than-Light Travel.

The ship we see Buzz launch in at the teaser's beginning has the designation XL-01, implying that its the first of its kind, most likely Star Command's FTL prototype. But how has Star Command been traveling to other star systems you ask, the slow way of course, the Spheroid Dropship that appears throughout the teaser looks a lot like the Torchship Lewis and Clark from Robert A. Heinlein's book Time for the Stars, where the Lewis and Clark travels to multiple star systems over decades due to not moving faster than light. This leads up to another WMG.

• Pretty much confirmed by the trailer.

Zurg will be Buzz Lightyear's father like in Toy Story 2.

Buzz's Father was a member of Star Command, and left when Buzz was a young kid on the Torchship mentioned above to go on an expedition to another star-system, but do to FTL not being invented yet, the journey takes decades. When the Spheroid Dropship returns after a couple of decades, the now adult Buzz will learn that for some reason or another, his father was left behind, assumed dead by the crew. But the Father didn't die, and something happens out there that drives him to madness, becoming Zurg.

• Also, it could be argued that Buzz's Father got Drunk with Power and wanted more of it, turning into Zurg in the process.
  • Jossed. Zurg is an older Buzz from an alternate future.

Pizza Planet will make an appearance.

If it's a movie-within-a-movie, it would be a Product Placement.

• Plus, it's a Pixar tradition to have the pizza planet truck hidden somewhere within the movie.
• The toys they are selling will be Woody's Roundup toys.
• Jossed.

The Buzz Lightyear of Star Command cartoon is still canon (sort of).

Not only they made toys and merchandises of the real life Buzz Lightyear, but they also created an animated TV series. The cartoon is a Flanderization of Buzz and Emperor Zurg for a younger audience.

• Confirmed via Word of God.

Zurg will be a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

Their version of Zurg won't be the comic relief villain you see in the cartoon show. He will be a tragic character who wants to conquer the universe for the "greater good".

• Confirmed. Zurg is Buzz from an alternate future, still obsessed with completing his mission.

Buzz Lightyear will have traveled into the future in the movie

there's an actual theory that if someone were travel fast enough around our sun, they'd be able to travel through time, and plus we can tell that Buzz's mission in the trailer is to fly around the sun for some reason! We can infer that Buzz must've traveled too far into the future and now must deal with Zurg or another villain.

Sox will have a Disney Death at some point

• Does the part halfway through the movie where Mo nearly breaks him count?

The Stinger will feature feature an appearance by Andy.

By the end of the movie, it will be revealed that Andy would be watching the movie in a theater with his mom. As they leave, Andy would later notice a Buzz Lightyear action figure on display, and he would ask his mom if he can have one. His mom would think about it, and sometime later, she would purchase the toy from a store (possibly Al's Toy Barn), before wrapping it up to prepare for Andy's then-upcoming birthday party.

• Jossed.

Buzz's spaceship uses antimatter as fuel.

In the trailer, Buzz is given a jar with two materials of different colours inside. He mixes them, there's a white flash, and whatever is created by this reaction is inserted into the ship.As scientists predict, if antimatter reacts with matter, there's a flash and an insanely powerful explosion. My WMG is that in the Lightyear universe, researchers somehow managed to contain the aforementioned explosion in the form of a crystal and slowly harness its power to enable Faster-Than-Light Travel. That's some heavy Artistic License – Physics, but then again, the film does not seem to be super-hard SF.

Sox's ability to emit white noise will be in some way important to the plot

My guess is that it'll act like a Brown Note of sorts for the evil-looking robots (or maybe even Zurg himself!), messing with their circuitry. Alternatively, it'll scare off the alien plant life that pesters humans in the "Perimeter".

• Jossed.

Zurg will have a few comedic moments in Lightyear

The reason why I say this is because even the comedic relief had moments of being an absolutely terrifying villain in the cartoon movie and show so it would make sense for this Zurg to also have comedic moments as well

In the Toy Story universe, Lightyear is a live action movie

Part of the premise of this movie is that it’s a movie from the Toy Story universe, meaning a movie that the characters from Toy Story might have sat down and watched. Since everyone from that universe is a CG character, if you were to film a movie with real actors in costumes and makeup, it would look to us like a computer animated movie. So I think, in the Toy Story universe, Lightyear wasn’t animated. It was shot with real actors who live in that universe.

Zurg will be a Complete Monster and/or Knight of Cerebus

In the series, he can be quite campy and comedic in nature, as he tends to do several antics such as videotaping Buzz's speeches for his own amusement or keeping a Troll doll collection. However in this film, Zurg will likely be more evil and serious then his Toy Story 2 and Star Command counterparts.

The stranded Space Rangers are part of an recon force sent into Zurg’s territory

Tying in with the in-universe backstory for the Buzz Lightyear toyline from Toy Story 1, they learned that Zurg was developing a planet-destroying superweapon and that it would be operational in less than a year. However on their way back they became stranded on an uncharted planet with no means of contacting Star Command. With time running out, the Rangers gathered whatever resources they could to build the XL-01 and send Buzz out to alert Star Command about Zurg’s superweapon and bring them home.

Zurg will be revealed to be someone close to Buzz

If not his father, as mentioned above, then one of his fellow rangers.

• Closer than you think: he is Buzz.

Buzz's catchphrase was of his father.

In a moment equivalent to Aunt May's death in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Buzz's father gets killed by Zurg (so that's how Buzz says in Toy Story 2 that Zurg killed his father) and passes away, but not before telling Buzz that he will always love him, so Buzz asks him "To infinity?" and his dad will respond in his dying breath "And beyond!".

Commander Burnside is a Hidden Villain.

Judging by how he says "Lightyear!" in the official trailer, Commander Burnside could very well be actually evil and/or turn out to be a traitor. Maybe he is working with/for Zurg or he is actually Zurg! That, or he is just an strict commander angry that Buzz isn't following orders.

Mira Nova will be Space Ranger Hawthorne's girlfriend

It has been confirmed that the Space Ranger Hawthorne will have a same sex kiss scene. What if her girlfriend is Mira Nova from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command?

• Jossed.

The film will reveal the origins of each one (or most) of Buzz's lines in the Toy Story films.

In the Toy Story films, each time any of the buttons the toy Buzz has is pressed, Buzz says something. This movie could reveal the origin of each line, or at least some, in some scenes, for example:

• While exploring an unknown planet or while flying through an unknown galaxy, Buzz will say "This is a secret mission in uncharted space" through his intercom.
• When trying to rescue someone, Buzz will say "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!".
• If tries to contact the Star Command, Buzz will say "Buzz Lightyear to Star Command, come in Star Command".
• While checking for intelligent life in a planet, Buzz will state "There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere".
  • Alternatively, he'll use the Memetic Mutation usage of the line in a Deadpan Snarker way in response to someone making a stupid statement or decision.
• If faced with hostility by aliens, Buzz will calmly assure them "I am Buzz Lightyear, I come in peace".

The Little Green Men will appear and the Claw will have a shady origin.

If the Little Green Men appear, it will be revealed that they are slaves to some alien (possibly Zurg) and that the Claw is a device that gets rid of slaveswho are no longer useful, or of a slave who deserves his freedom after all his hard work.

• Jossed.

Possible Ideas for who Alicia Hawthorne’s Lesbian Love Interest could be

Since the character has been confirmed to be Lesbian, some possible candidates might be Alicia’s Love Interest.

• maybe another female space ranger.

That concept art of Zurg being a little alien will be canonized.

While making the first two Toy Story films, there was concept art drawn which revealed that Zurg is in reality a little alien with a robot suit. Maybe his robotic form is just a disguise? If Zurg isn't a little alien, maybe he is a human, or at least something organic.

• Jossed, at least in regards to being an alien. He is, however, organic, being Buzz himself from the future.

Zurg is a woman.

There will be a twist. Not only is Zurg a female human, but she will be revealed as Hawthrone. The people who made the toys assume he was an evil alien warlord, not realizing she was a traitorous human inside a suit.

• Jossed.

This is in the same universe as the Toy Story movies.

There is (or was) a real-life Buzz Lightyear in Andy's world. His universe not only has sentient toys, but aliens and killer robots as well.

• Jossed. Explicitly identified as a movie within a movie.

Buzz will “fall with style”

As a nod to the line from the first Toy Story, possibly during the climax of it looks like Buzz might fall to his death, but that’s when he activates the wings on his suit and begins to fly.

Zurg will try to manipulate Buzz in some or fashion

maybe he tries to make Buzz go into Heroic B So D or try to get him to join him

Zurg"s plan that is revealed in the book, but no reason is revealed

Zurg took Lightyear alive and his plan is to change the past, this clearly made Zurg a bit of a negative reflection of Buzz Lightyear.

The last scene will have Buzz crash-land on a desert planet, with a town visible off in the distance...

And the envoy greeting him will be local sheriff Woodrow Pride.

• Jossed.

If another Toy Story movie or spinoff is made, a Sox toy will be added to the cast

He'll basically become to Buzz what Bullseye is to Woody.

Woody may make a cameo.

Possibly on a movie poster somewhere and someone says the movie is terrible.

• Jossed.

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Post-release theories

Future Buzz defeated the real Zurg and turned him into a mech suit.

• Future Buzz is every bit as human as his present self, and as such could not survive in space with a deactivated robot suit, yet it comes back online in the post credits scene. Thus, it's possible that the original Zurg, who Buzz met in deep space, attacked Buzz(who was still heroic at that point), was beaten by him, and Buzz decided to use his resources to start looking more into time travel. And now, thanks to Future Buzz, Zurg exists in this timeline much earlier than he was supposed to.

Within the Toy Story Universe, Lightyear was not a G or even PG-rated cartoon film released by Disney...

• It was released by Miramax, Touchstone Pictures or Hollywood Pictures as a hard R-rated live action movie.
  • It wouldn't be the first R-rated movie franchise to have toy tie-in merchandise. We also have the likes of Robocop 1987, Police Academy, Alien, and even Rambo as examples. This would explain Commander Hawthorn's same-sex marriage in a film allegedly released in The '90s.
  • If the movie was R-rated how did Andy watch it?
    • Same way most boys watched R-rated movies back in the day: Buy a ticket to something child-friendly, then sneak into the movie you really came to see.
    • With his parent(s) present, ready(or not) to shield his eyes during the "bad stuff." It was rated R, not X or NC-17.
    • Andy might have seen a cut of the flim ( thanks to Executive Meddling ) with the LGBTQ stuff removed and reshot. the film we are watching is the original cut that was re-released.
    • Andy's dad could've rented the tape from Blockbusters and then carelessly and irresponsibly left it lying around the VCR. And Andy stumbled onto it while looking for a cartoon to watch.
    • This movie, in the unlikely event that it had been made in the 1990s, would not be R-rated and would definitely not be hard R. There were gay characters in comedies and Oscar bait in the 90s that had PG-13 ratings (My Best Friend's Wedding, Clueless, Mrs. Doubtfire, Philadelphia, and As Good as it Gets, although that one was originally rated R and got a PG-13 on appeal) and none of the violence in Lightyear is the kind that gets an R (for goodness' sake, this is a movie where no human dies onscreen and the mooks are robots). I strongly doubt that the MPAA of the 1990s would let a movie with gay characters get a G or PG, but R is an exaggeration. It would have been PG-13.

Future Buzz/Zurg will become the leader of an anti-Star Command empire.

Zurg is working by himself in the film and has nothing more than a Cool Starship, but is referred to as Emperor Zurg in the Toy Story films, meaning he will presumably gain allies and territory in a sequel.

The people behind the Buzz Lightyear toys only saw the trailers.

• In-universe, the toys were out in stores before the film's release. This would explain why there are no figures of Sox or any of the Hawthorns in Toy Story. The reason the toy Zurg behaves like a Saturday morning cartoon villain in Toy Story 2 because they based him off of the trailers alone.

The real Emperor Zurg will appear in a possible spin off or sequel

Since Zurg in the movie was an alternate future version of Buzz, it's possible that the real Emperor Zurg will appear in a sequel.

Andy's mom is very accepting of the LGBTQ, even back in 1995

The same-sex kiss scene unintentionally adds more character to Andy's mom. Even after taking her son to see the movie, she buys him a Buzz Lightyear toy. Realistically, most 90s parents would freak out if they saw that scene with Hawthorne and her wife.

The world of Toy Story is an Alternate History

Specifically, one where LGBTQ+ people would have more acceptance earlier on, enough for a romance and kiss to occur and not raise eyebrows.

• The Filmmakers made a scene with a bigger, more prominent kiss as a Censor Decoy. After getting told to change that, the smaller kiss just sailed right past the radar.
• Or the MPAA is more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community in this universe, provided they at least give a warning first.

The reason the robots kept saying Zurg

Future Buzz assumes the robots are saying Zurg because they can't pronounce Buzz. It's possible they're saying Zurg because they were programmed to by the real Emperor Zurg.

Toy Buzz will "meet" Lightyear's Buzz in Toy Story 5

Toy Buzz will end up in Hollywood (somehow) and eventually see the actor who portrayed him on the big screen. The Buzz actor will be in his 50s or 60s, possibly sporting a pot belly, resembling an aged Mr. Incredible.

The opening text is a lie, and this is not the movie Andy saw in 1995

Instead, it is a 2020s reimagining/reboot of a 1990s sci-fi franchise akin to Star Wars. The characterization of Zurg as an alternate future version of Buzz is completely different from the Darth Vader-esque parody established in the first two Toy Story movies. Even if you consider that the "real" Zurg might still be somewhere out there, Toy Story in 1995 has Buzz mention that Zurg has a planet-destroying superweapon like the Death Star, which is not featured in this movie (instead, the threat comes from the ethics of time travel and "erasing timelines").

• Jossed. According to Word of God, the toy Buzz is based off the in-universe cartoon Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
  • What does that have to do with the idea this is a modern remake of a mid-Nineties original?
• A lie, or Metaphorically True?
  • The funny thing is, Maclane's tweets about BLOSC make sense, but they contradict the content of his film, which specifically says the toy was "from" "this" movie.

Whoever built Zurg and the Zyclops had good intentions

The human (or alien) who built Zurg and the robots was planning to use them to defend his planet against evil threats. Unfortunately he or she died before they could get the chance to use them.

Future Buzz has become Emperor Zurg after his defeat.

• After Buzz defeated Zurg, otherwise known as his alternate counterpart, by blowing up the crystal and him along with it, it's possible that the resulting explosion could've fused Future Buzz to the whole Zurg mech suit itself, thus not only being the birth of the true Evil Emperor Zurg, but destroying the old Buzz in the process.

Evil Emperor Zurg — the original, you might say — was Buzz's father.

A brilliant engineer and computer scientist, he abandoned Buzz, when he was young, to go out into space. This influenced Buzz's decision to become a Space Ranger — partially, to find him. But he never did (space is big, it turns out). At least, not Hero!Buzz. See, Papa Lightyear feared death so much, he uploaded his brain to his own robot suit. As the centuries passed, he formed his own Evil Empire. Eventually, Zurg!Buzz stumbled upon him in Sector Z, almost as if by cruel fate. He deactivated the suit's AI and made it into his own. But the explosion — which killed Zurg!Buzz — reactivated the AI, reawakening the original, Evil Emperor Zurg. Buzz's own father.

the now reawakened Zurg will begin his start to becoming Emperor Zurg

• now that Zurg!Buzz is presumably dead, the suit will go become the Emperor Zurg we've come to know

We did actually see the real Zurg and that is the suit.

• Old Buzz claimed that he found the ship along with the suit and robots inside but what if it was more than a ship; it's a prison. When Old Buzz went in and took the suit, he did not realize that the suit contains an A.I. or the "soul" of the real Emperor Zurg. Ever since then Zurg became The Corrupter to Old Buzz causing him to become the villain we know in the film.

Andy’s Buzz toy wasn’t from the first Lightyear movie, but the sequel, which stars Buzz Lightyear Junior.

• Think about it, this solves the canon/continuity issues, especially as they relate to the whole “I am your father” thing. Since Zurg is really just Buzz Senior, he IS Buzz Junior’s father, from a certain point of view. It also explains why the Zurg toy boxes say “Evil Emperor Zurg” on them, even though the movie we saw had no evil empire in it. The empire, and planet killer weapon, comes later. So the Buzz and Zurg toy’s weren’t wrong about their own story, they were just referencing further developments. Too bad Zurg/Evil Buzz eventually knocks Good Buzz off.
  • Andy of course plays with his space ranger toy oblivious to which version it represents, but the toys? They know!

The movie takes place in an alternate universe

My theory here is that this movie is set in the alternate universe from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and is actually meant as the Backstory of the Evil Buzz Lightyear, whose technology was stolen from the real Zurg who is going to be defeated by Buzz in an Eviler than Thou moment resulting in Zurg being the burger fool at Cosmo’s Cosmic Diner and that’s the reason this movie is Darker and Edgier than the original Buzz Lightyear cartoon.

This is a remake of Star Command

This doesn’t necessarily contradict the former as SpiderMan No Way Home exists but my theory is that in-universe Lightyear is a live-action remake of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command:The Adventure Begins. Think about it, Pixar’s characters don’t regard themselves as cartoons or Computer Generated Images but as actual real life people meaning that we would call CGI they would call live-action. Also, there are aspects of the film that are clearly modelled after the original (Buzz’s mission reports, his reluctance to work with rookies, the fact that he’s a cat person) and thanks to Star Command the writers are Armed with Canon to have Zurg not be Buzz’s father. I know this theory ignores the opening scrawl written but aside from that it works perfectly. (Okay, so it’s a stretch but I’m saying it anyway.)

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