How Lightyear Brought the Evil Emperor Zurg Back to the Big Screen

Buzz Lightyear is getting an origin story this summer, and his greatest rival is set to play a major role. In the mythos of Buzz the Space Ranger, there is no more important character than the evil Emperor Zurg, sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance. The toy version of Zurg was introduced in Toy Story 2, playing a massive role in that Buzz’s journey to understanding that he’s not an actual Space Ranger and becoming content with his role as a child’s plaything. In Lightyear, Zurg has a much more menacing part to play, leading a robot invasion that threatens to eliminate mankind. To help capture that power and menace, Lightyear brought on veteran actor James Brolin (father of Thanos actor Josh Brolin) to voice the villain.

This take on Zurg needed to be a little different than the one we’ve seen in the past, though still reminiscent of the character we met in Toy Story 2. This led to an exciting redesign project for the animators and filmmakers.

“There were so many amazing projects on this film, but probably the most exciting thing I got to personally work on was Zurg. He’s a key character in the Buzz Lightyear mythos, and I can’t talk about the mechanical design of our movie without taking a look at our villain,” Lightyear sets art director Greg Peltz explained during a recent press conference. 

“Adapting Zurg for our movie was a tall order,” he continued. “The original design from Toy Story 2 is iconic, and we wanted to draw from that source material as much as possible. But at the same time, our movie has a look that is more mature and detailed than the original toy version of the character. We needed our Zurg to fit within the hard boiled sci-fi world that we had created. But above all, Zurg, he needs to be a threat. His design has to be intimidating so he could carry the menace and the presence our story demanded. Taking all of those goals together, reimagining the character as a giant robot was a natural fit for the character and the world he occupies.”

Zurg underwent a slight redesign and reimagining for Lightyear, just as Buzz did. According to Peltz, Japanese anime was a huge influence on the new direction for the villainous emperor. This Zurg is much more menacing than the previous version, but he’s also the more fleshed-out character.

“Zurg’s design was, of course, influenced by our existing style, but he also needed to be visually distinct,” Peltz said. “So in addition to our other sci-fi inspirations, Zurg also takes cues from super robots and mecha in Japanese anime, which I am personally a huge fan of. It was so much fun reimagining the character into a form that exudes power and presence. Zurg is a force to be reckoned within our movie, and he has a crazy array of awesome features that you’ll get to see him use in the film. Most importantly, though, Zurg’s new mechanized form doesn’t mean that he’s a mindless automaton. He is still a fully-rounded character just like the rest of our cast.”

Zurg is one of the most memorable supporting characters in the history of the Toy Story franchise. Finally, fans will get to see his full potential as a villain when Lightyear hits theaters everywhere on June 17th.