After largely avoiding talking about the Toy Story spinoff Lightyear, original Buzz Lightyear actor Tim Allen has addressed Chris Evans voicing the inspiration for the toy in the franchise, pointing out how the character in Lightyear has little connection to the adventures of the toys in the proper series. The actor did note that talks of doing an action-adventure movie focusing on Buzz had been talked about back in the ’90s, though that the goal at the time was to potentially due so in a live-action project. While director of Lightyear Angus MacLane was an animator on Toy Story 2 and 3, Allen implied the creatives he discussed the idea with weren’t involved in the new film. Lightyear is in theaters now.
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When asked by Extra about why he was absent from the new film, Allen explained, “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.”
He added, “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.”
Ahead of the release of the film, audiences were a bit confused about how this new film connected to the events of Toy Story, with its opening moments confirming that Lightyear was the fictional film within the Toy Story mythos that the young Andy fell in love with and inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy, voiced by Allen. Director MacLane previously explained how Lightyear was a much more earnest sci-fi film and how Allen wasn’t approached about the project, not only as to avoid confusion but also because his performance of Buzz is more comedic than Evans’ more authentic interpretation of the character.
“It has no relationship to Buzz … It’s just no connection, I wish there was a better connection to it,” Allen admitted.
Lightyear is in theaters now. There are currently no confirmed plans of another entry in the Toy Story series.
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