Disney Pixar's Lightyear

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 28th, 2022, 4:05 am

I’ve still only seen bits of Penguins, and have no idea how it feeds into the three Madagascar films or the numerous TV shows, but I just figured it was a standalone spin-off adventure along the lines of the Christmas Caper short or the TV specials. It doesn’t really matter, ultimately, where it fits in.

Lightyear, however, doesn’t have that same "luxury", because these are *not* the same characters. "Why is Buzz not a toy in this one?", "Is he still animated or is this 'real' CGI?", "Why does he not have the same voice?", "Is it a prequel?", "Where's Woody…?" are just a few of the things I’ve seen floating around being asked.

And then the explanation is not just "it’s an origin story", or a simple takeaway that people can grasp easily, it turns to be a convoluted "remember Andy got a Buzz in the first Toy Story well that Buzz was an action figure based on a movie that Andy saw so this is the movie that Andy saw and 'inspired' him to as for a Buzz Lightyear for his birthday". Phew.

None of which really makes sense, because original toy Buzz's design is clearly a caricature of a spaceman in a 70s-style Elvis jumpsuit, and an action figure from 1985 (as has also been confirmed is the rough date the film was "made'; Andy didn’t see it until years later on VHS, which also doesn’t make sense and only adds to the confusion) would have resembled something more like the toys of that decade: basically an astronaut GI Joe or Action Man figure.

Buzz worked perfectly in 1995 and onwards as a generic "spaceman" toy in those films. We totally got it. Here they have over thought things and made it all too complicated for it to cut through to an audience with a myriad of other distractions. Remember the rule: if you have to actually start picking apart your movie and provide explanations for its very *description*, you haven’t done a very good job of setting things up well, or the marketing is as confused as the idea was.

They should have come right out at the start with a tease that had Andy getting all excited because the movie was on VHS, putting a that tape in the machine, and pressing play. Instantly simple, sets things up, and gets us excited to see what the movie that Andy saw was. Instead, they just gave audiences the actual movie…and then left us to work out what the heck it was supposed to be, by which point half of the confused audience had checked out, probably to go watch Penguins again. On VHS. ;)

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Farerb » June 28th, 2022, 5:13 am

Thank god this was a one and done film for me and I don't have to care about all that nonsense.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Randall » June 28th, 2022, 9:51 am

I don't recall people getting so confused about the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command cartoon show, and I don't get the confusion now. It's a movie about the Buzz character, obviously in a different style than the Toy Story films, and hence not the toy. Seems simple enough to me.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » June 28th, 2022, 10:11 am

Disney and Pixar just keep denying that they made a Buzz Lightyear TV series...

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 28th, 2022, 11:29 am

I’m not saying I was confused, Rand, only what has been being said about why the film underperformed. The Buzz cartoon show was an easy sell — this *was* the Buzz of the Toy Story films in further adventures as had been seen at the start of TS2. Very easy sell.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Daniel » June 28th, 2022, 1:40 pm

Ben wrote:
June 28th, 2022, 4:05 am
They should have come right out at the start with a tease that had Andy getting all excited because the movie was on VHS, putting a that tape in the machine, and pressing play. Instantly simple, sets things up, and gets us excited to see what the movie that Andy saw was.
Sounds like the opening sequence of the Buzz pilot movie:



Yeah, that could've been neat...

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by James » July 7th, 2022, 10:32 am

Lightyear at $107 million after three weeks and Minions 2 at $125 million in a long weekend?

https://animatedviews.com/2022/minions- ... g-fashion/

Wow. Disney has some soul searching to do because that’s crazy!

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » July 7th, 2022, 12:21 pm

If Lightyear keeps dropping the way it is, it might not even match The Good Dinosaur's grosses.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » July 7th, 2022, 6:39 pm

Ouch!

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by kodpodcast » July 15th, 2022, 2:23 pm

There can't be any buzz light year without Tim Allen. No matter what Disney says, I feel he wasn't hired because of his pro Trump views. Aside from that there was absolutely no story.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Randall » July 15th, 2022, 7:01 pm

Though I haven't seen the film yet (like most, waiting for it to hit D+), I can understand them not wanting a perceived "cartoon voice" for this more serious film, from an actor no longer as popular as he once was. Chris Evans is today's movie star, Allen is yesterday's TV star. That said, Tim could have handled it.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » July 15th, 2022, 7:41 pm

That said, Evans is doing a Tim Allen impression. What’s the point in that!?

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Daniel » July 15th, 2022, 8:20 pm

Kinda defeats the purpose.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by EricJ » July 16th, 2022, 12:25 am

Randall wrote:
July 15th, 2022, 7:01 pm
Though I haven't seen the film yet (like most, waiting for it to hit D+), I can understand them not wanting a perceived "cartoon voice" for this more serious film, from an actor no longer as popular as he once was. Chris Evans is today's movie star, Allen is yesterday's TV star. That said, Tim could have handled it.
It's not "popularity", it's that that studio sees Tim Allen as a risk for being too OLD. All the great 90's-00's actors are sporting that touch of gray, and it's not doing wonders for my self-image, either. :(

Age is guaranteed to take a toll on a voice-actor's voice, even though Casey Kasem still voiced Scooby-Doo's Shaggy at the age of 81 (zoinks!) before being replaced by Matthew Lillard.
Without a justifying prequel franchise to explain the replacement, we need add.

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Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Daniel » July 16th, 2022, 1:54 am

Probably closer to 77, as Casey retired from the role in 2009.

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