Disney hit a black hole with the release of Lightyear in 2022 when the surefire Toy Story spin-off became one of their biggest flops in cinemas. While it is hard to put a finger on exactly why the film failed to connect with anyone, the confusion over what exactly the relationship of the movie to the Toy Story franchise did not help. It was not only the audiences who didn’t know what to make of it all, as Tim Allen, who regularly voices the space ranger, really didn’t know what Lightyear’s version of Buzz was all about.
While it seems that Allen will be reprising his role again as the voice of Buzz in Toy Story 5, the actor told The Daily Mail that he and the Toy Story crew were very unsure about what Lightyear was meant to be, but he did feel that Chris Evans did a good job in the lead role. He said:
“They were two completely different movies. And Chris did a great job doing an ancillary part. It was very confusing to all of us on the Toy Story movie side, which was real? I’m a script guy, so if Buzz is real, then Chris’s version of it was, as an actor doing it, real confusing to me.”
Tim Allen will be joined in Toy Story 5 by Tom Hanks and the usual gang to provide the more familiar voices of the characters who first appeared way back in 1995, and Disney will be hoping that delivering a fifth Toy Story movie will be the best way of eradicating the disappointment of Lightyear.
Why Did Lightyear Fail To Blast Off?
The simple answer to that question is that it wasn’t a Toy Story movie. While the character of Buzz Lightyear is an instantly recognisable piece of Disney’s catalogue, it is his place in the Toy Story franchise, and being surrounded by the familiarity of characters like Woody, Slinky, Bo-Peep and more. Even spin-offs like Buzz Lightyear of Star Command have not resonated with audiences in the same way as the main franchise.
Lightyear disconnected from Toy Story by trying to be too much of a clever idea, and that is what caused so much confusion and in the end saw the movie crash on impact. The main idea of Buzz in the context of the Toy Storymovies is that he is a toy based on a popular kids TV show. Lightyear made its Buzz the real Buzz Lightyear, the astronaut who inspired the TV show, which spawned the toy. This idea, while not bad in itself, brought about the unavoidable problem that going back to look at the human Buzz Lightyear meant that there could be no Toy Storyreferences and that is what every Buzz fan wants and needs.
The lesson to be learned from Lightyear was just to know your audience and make sure you are making something that they want to see. The movie itself was not a disaster, but when you have audiences turning up with the expectation of a funny Toy Story spin-off and instead getting a more serious movie, then there is never going to be a good outcome.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
