Trivia / Lightyear

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• Acclaimed Flop: Downplayed. The film earned some modest reviews, but it flopped in theaters and only barely made back its budget.
• Approval of God:
  • Tim Allen, the original voice of Buzz Lightyear for the Toy Story movies, gave his seal of approval to Chris Evans voicing the iconic hero after the casting announcement.
  • Patrick Warburton, who voiced Buzz on Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, was enthusiastic about Chris Evans voicing Buzz and thought he was a great choice.
  • Guilherme Briggs, the original Brazilian voice of Buzz, showed his approval of Marcos Mion's casting by appearing in the announcement video Marcos posted on his Instagram account.
• Banned in China: The film has been banned in over 14 countries across the Middle East (including Syria) and Southeast Asia (including Indonesia and Malaysia) due to the scene when Commander Hawthorne kisses her wife and the countries screening it (especially the latter two) having to comply with the "no censorship" rules imposed by Disney. Reportedly, Disney refused to release the film in Saudi Arabia, expecting the film to be censored. Despite that, the film was allowed to be screened in Singapore as the ban was overturned in that country not much later, but with an NC-16 rating, and the film was later put on Disney+ Hotstar in Malaysia with an 18 rating and in Indonesia with a 21+ rating (over typical 17+). A month later, it was also banned in Kazakhstan for the same reasons.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $200 million. Box office: $118 million domestic, $222.6 million total. It was the first Pixar movie released in theaters since Onward, and faced stiff competition from both Jurassic World Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick in its opening weekend, beating only the latter (which had been delayed due to the pandemic), had a steep drop in the second week, and by the time Minions: The Rise of Gru came out in the third all box office hopes were crushed. In spite of positive reviews, the film faced criticism for recasting Buzz with Chris Evans from the get-go, its bleaker tone in contrast to the 90s Merchandise-Driven movie that it was advertised as, and the perception of Pixar's movies being disposable streaming fodder after Disney put Soul, Luca, and Turning Red on Disney+ didn't help its performance, and Lightyear was put on the streaming platform less than a month later. Lightyear is Pixar's second-lowest grossing film ever in the U.S. (The only film that grossed less was Onward, which opened at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and was hastily pulled from theaters after only two weeks.) Deadline Hollywood estimated that the film lost about $106 million when all was said and done.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • Chris Evans, Captain America from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Buzz.
  • The Brazilian Portuguese dub features TV show host Marcos Mion as Buzz. This marks the second time he worked on the dub of a Disney movie (having done the voice of Fred in the Brazilian dub of Big Hero 6) and his third time dubbing overall (having done the voice of Calico in the Brazilian dub of Cats & Dogs).
  • The Japanese dub had many of them in the cast: Buzz is voiced by movie actor Ryohei Suzuki, better known for non-Japanese audiences for playing Kyosuke Shikijo, aka the titular Hentai Kamen in the live-action adaptation of the manga and Ryu Nakanishi in the live-action adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman; Izzy is voiced by the actress and model Mio Imada, better known for voicing Slice in My Hero Academia: Heroes: Rising and Hinata Tachibana in the live-action adaptation of Tokyo Revengers and Sox is voiced by the comedian Kenji Yamauchi.
  • The Italian dub has fairly popular TV actor (who also studied voice acting) Alberto Malanchino replacing Massimo Dapporto as the movie voice of Buzz and actor and presenter Ludovico Tersigni, most famous for the role of Giovanni Garau in the Italian version of Skam and for being the male lead of Netflix Italian-language series Summertime as Sox.
• Content Leak: The film's time dilation plotline and Zurg twist were leaked on 4chan in November 2021.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: After actress Patricia Heaton criticized Pixar for recasting Buzz with Chris Evans instead of Tim Allen, (which Tom Hanks also assumed) several outlets claimed that Allen was let go from Disney due to the actor's conservative beliefs, and that Evans would permanently voice Buzz in all future projects. Not only was Allen working on The Santa Clauses with Disney at the time of Lightyear's premiere, but director Angus MacLane had stated much earlier that Evans was chosen as Buzz because he wanted the human Buzz to differentiate himself from the toy Buzz. Plus, Allen himself was fine with the recasting, and even encouraged his followers on social media to give Evans (who himself gave heavy praise to Allen's original performance) a chance in the role. Later, Allen reprised his role as Buzz for Disney Dreamlight Valley, and even confirmed he was coming back as Buzz for Toy Story 5, thoroughly debunking any claims he wouldn't continue to play the iconic toy.
• Creator Backlash: Pete Docter, the current Chief Creative Officer of Pixar and one of the studio's most prominent veterans, admitted in a later interview that despite the fact he and the crew were proud of the movie, he felt that it was "asking too much" of the audience by having too much of a disconnect from the Toy Story series.
• Creator Killer: The film's poor reception would get director Angus MacLane and producer Galyn Susman laid off from Pixar a year after the film's release, ending their tenures at Pixar after three decades.
• Dear Negative Reader: Chris Evans voiced his disdain towards Moral Guardians once word got out that the UAE would ban the film on the grounds of a same-sex kiss.
• Disowned Adaptation:
  • While Tim Allen praised Chris Evans' casting, he would later speak out against the film itself; Allen was under the impression that they would create a live-action film instead, and was surprised to find out that none of the staff behind the four Toy Story films would work on Lightyear. Allen stated that while he enjoyed the story, he felt the film didn't have a big adventure, and that he wished there was a better connection to the toy.
  • Tom Hanks, the voice of Woody in the original films, stated that he didn't understand why Buzz was "recast".
  • Toy Story creator John Lasseter reportedly hated the film, finding the movie to be substandard and its portrayal of Buzz to lack the essence and originality of the character that he "created and nurtured" for years before his departure. Ironically, he was the one who made the film happen in the first place, being the last film he greenlighted before his departure from Pixar.
• Defictionalization: The main purpose behind the existence of this movie. The film is envisaged as the one that first launched the Buzz Lightyear toyline in the Toy Story universe, and the very same one that Buzz's iconic action figure counterpart would go on to find himself to be a major component of.
  Angus MacLane: Maybe there was a movie starring Buzz Lightyear, and that's what Andy saw that made him want a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Why don't we just make that movie—and make it awesome?
• Dueling Works: With Minions: The Rise of Gru, another film that dealt with the origin story of its lead protagonist (albeit that Lightyear is an In-Universe movie about its lead's said origin). Both films received a similar reception, but while Lightyear struggled in its opening weekend and ultimately came up short, The Rise of Gru crushed the box-office on a relatively smaller budget.
• Gay Panic: A kiss between Hawthorne and another woman was originally cut from the film, apparently at the behest of Disney executives. In the wake of Pixar's open letter alleging Disney's systematic removal of LGBTQ content from Pixar features, following Disney's widely-criticized silence over Florida's controversial bill nicknamed by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, however, the kiss was restored to the film. This unfortunately resulted in several politicians and social media personalities starting a campaign against the film, often by claiming Pixar made Buzz gay and painting the kiss as extremely graphic and lewd when that's actually far from the case. This same backtracking would also cause the movie to be banned in 14 countries as noted under Banned in China above.
• Kids' Meal Toy: The movie got Happy Meal toys in June 2022. It features the characters in small vehicles and comes with stickers.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: The filmmakers have said this is meant to show the real Buzz Lightyear, with Buzz Lightyear of Star Command at best being considered a side-project In-Universe. It's not uncommon to see fans say they prefer the cartoon, with many arguing it lines up better with what the original Toy Story movies showed than this movie did.
• Market-Based Title: In some languages (like European Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Japanese and Korean), Lightyear was lengthened to Buzz Lightyear. Most languages that don't have "Lightyear" as his last name use his full name in that language, like European French (Buzz L'Éclair) or Polish (Buzz Astral).
• The Merch: Appropriately, the movie received a toyline push by Mattel, who gained the license in October 2021. Interestingly, Mattel proudly noted that its toy line boosted the toy company's profits in Quarters 1 and 2 in spite of the film's underperformance at the box office, though ultimately the lack of interest saw the line come to a premature end with many advertised figures and ships going unreleased.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Chris Evans voices Buzz Lightyear in this movie instead of Tim Allen (as in the Toy Story tetralogy) or Patrick Warburton (as in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command). Justified since Evans voices the original Buzz while Allen voices the toy and Warburton voices the cartoon character.
  • Similarly to Buzz, Zurg is voiced by James Brolin instead of either Andrew Stanton or Wayne Knight.
  • The same goes in the Latin American Spanish dub, as Buzz is voiced by Erick Selim instead of José Luis Orozco from the original tetralogy. Likewise, Zurg is voiced by Blas García rather than Rubén Moya.
  • The same about the European French dub, with François Civil replacing Richard Darbois as Buzz.
  • Ditto in the Japanese dub, as Buzz is voiced by movie actor Ryohei Suzuki, rather than either George Tokoro from the animated films, Minoru Inaba from the dub of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, or Yūichi Nakamura, Chris Evans' regular dub voice actor in Japan, while Zurg is voiced by Banjo Ginga, rather than either Umeji Sasaki from the dub of Toy Story 2 or Tesshō Genda from the dub of Star Command.
  • The Brazlian Portuguese dub will feature Marcos Mion doing the voice of Buzz instead of Guilherme Briggs.
  • The Italian dub has Buzz being voiced by Alberto Malanchino instead of Massimo Dapporto (who voiced him in all four Toy Story movies) and Stefano Mondini (who voiced him in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command).
  • A quite notable case with the Swedish dub. This is the first time across all media that Buzz hasn't been voiced by Fredrik Dolk. Instead he is played by Fredrik Hiller, known in the past for rolse such as Kronk and Prince Charming.
• Promoted Fanboy: Chris Evans is a longtime fan of Pixar and was excited when they pitched the film to him.
• Real-Life Relative: In the Swedish dub, Alisha is voiced by Sharon Dyall and Alisha's granddaughter Izzy is voiced by Sharon's niece Yamineth.
• Refitted for Sequel: Early concept art of Zurg from Toy Story 2 depicted him as a tiny alien being inside a suit of armor. This idea is partially reused in Lightyear, only with the future Buzz, a human character, inside a much larger Zurg armor.
• Tie-In Cereal: Kellogg's produced a Lightyear cereal that has vanilla-flavored star-shaped O's and marshmallows of green spaceships and purple moons.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sox was originally meant to be a helper monkey inspired by real life monkeys that were sent into space before they made him a robot cat.
  • The art book shows that Burnside was originally supposed to have a robotic arm.
  • Earlier drafts kept the reveal from Toy Story 2 that Zurg was Buzz's father; rather than a future version of Buzz himself from an alternate timeline. The creators decided not to go with this, because not only would everyone that had seen Toy Story 2 immediately guess the twist, but the character of Buzz's father would have to be established earlier in the film to set it up, which in turn would have made it even more obvious.
  • Mo was originally meant to be Izzy's brother, who would go by the name Maurice.
• Word of God: Per Angus MacLane's comments, Lightyear wound up receiving a trilogy of films in the Toy Story universe, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was made as an alternate canon Animated Adaptation to those movies, sponsored by the in-universe Pizza Planet restaurant (hence the inclusion of the LGM aliens). The versions of Buzz and Zurg seen in the Toy Story movies are based on the toy-line made for the TV series (and video game that Rex plays in Toy Story 2) and not for the movie.

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