Disney and Pixar Lightyear Funko Pops Are On Sale Now

The upcoming Disney / Pixar film Lightyear tells the story of the real Space Ranger (voiced by Chris Evans) that inspired the Buzz Lightyear action figure that we all known and love from the Toy Story series. We've already seen LEGO sets based on the film, and Funko recently chimed in with a range of Lightyear Pop figures.

The Lightyear Funko Pops actually went up for pre-order over the weekend, but, as is sometimes the case with Funko Pop releases, they got a low-key launch ahead of an official reveal. Common figures in the lineup include Buzz Lightyear (XL-15 suit) with Sox, Buzz Lightyear (XL-01 suit, Sox, and Izzy Hawthorne, all of which are available to pre-order here on Amazon and here at Entertainment Earth (free US shipping on orders $39+ using SPRINGFREE22 at checkout). As far as exclusives in the Lightyear Funko Pop wave are concerned, you can find a glow-in-the-dark Buzz (XL-01 suit) here on Amazon and a Flocked (fuzzy) version of Sox at the Funko Shop in the near future. 

Described as "The origin of Buzz Lightyear," this new film is meant to be the in-universe source material the Buzz Lightyear toy from the Toy Story franchise as based on. Director Angus MacLane explained how the new movie fits into the Toy Story universe in a recent interview with Fandango.

"There's a core idea about Buzz that we noticed when we really drilled down looking at all of the Toy Story movies: That Buzz has a disagreement over the nature of reality," MacLane began. "In the first Toy Story, he believes he's a space ranger when Woody says he's a toy. In the second movie, they had to bring in another Buzz Lightyear to kick jumpstart that again. And he had to convince his other self that HE was a toy. And there's Spanish Buzz in [Toy Story 3], and then the inner monologue in [Toy Story 4]. That was a bedrock for something we knew we needed to pay off."

"Buzz is somebody who takes his job very seriously, and is very much a rule follower," the director added. "And has a steadfast belief in himself. There's these tropes of that kind of hero that we're recognizing, feeding on, and playing with. But he's such an amalgam of weird sci-fi cliches. How do you make that more than a punchline? That was really the charge of [the] film."

Lightyear debuts in theaters on June 17th.