Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Features, Shorts, Live-Action and Direct-To-Video
Post Reply
AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 459
Joined: May 24th, 2021

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » June 18th, 2022, 2:08 pm

Wow! Lightyear doesn't look it is doing so well...

https://deadline.com/2022/06/lightyear- ... 235047729/

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 7245
Joined: October 23rd, 2004
Location: SaskaTOON, Canada

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Randall » June 18th, 2022, 5:22 pm

It just didn't have enough buzz. Heh.

But really, over $50M for a tie-in to a franchise that maybe wore out its welcome already with its weaker fourth installment ain't that bad. Disney may feel it underperformed, but low anticipation and lukewarm reviews, in addition to a maybe overperforming Jurassic film, have led to this. We also know it's coming to Disney+ soon, so if it's not all that great, it easy to wait.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by EricJ » June 18th, 2022, 7:49 pm

And although we do get an answer to the "The toy, or the guy?" question (we get a card saying "In 1995, a boy named Andy saw a movie..."), it still feels like we're not escaping Warner Syndrome, ie., the remarketing of older house brands through reunions and prequels that give them an excuse to put the original actors, in this case, old Tim Allen, out to pasture.
That's...even sadder than grownup Andy giving away his toys in TS3. :(
Last edited by EricJ on June 18th, 2022, 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by EricJ » June 18th, 2022, 7:49 pm

We also know it's coming to Disney+ soon, so if it's not all that great, it easy to wait.
That was my reaction the minute I saw this was a real thing--It LOOKS like its own Disney+ spinoff.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25268
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 18th, 2022, 8:43 pm

If this was the movie Andy saw in 1995, how come it has a same sex kiss? I mean, it’s apparently a blink and you’ll miss it same sex kiss, but it has one all the same, which I don’t remember seeing in any big family blockbuster of 1995. That’s an anachronism that breaks the 1990s spell (and shouldn’t it really have been set in 1985 to have a better retro impact and more moviemaking tropes to have fun with?)

Also, I’m still not sold on the Buzz voice change. Evans is basically doing a Tim Allen impression, so why not just use Tim Allen? Merchandised figures from a film would have used the same voice artist — either in recorded lines from the film or specially recorded toy lines — so it doesn’t make sense that another actor — Allen — is the toy voice after the Evans fact…

And is this supposed to be a live-action film? The CGI is awfully good if it’s supposed to be a CG film from 1995…! This is often the problem with later-made prequels that have better production values than their groundbreaking originals, but in this case there’s nothing to really suggest we’re seeing anything other than a tacked-on prequel from 2022 with an alternative vocalist for the main character, for whatever other reasons Allen may have made himself less than buzz-worthy…

Surely I’m not the only one thinking along these lines, hence the less than stellar opening, and clearly I’m not. There were too many unanswered or confusing questions for those not knowing what they were being asked to see, so many are just waiting for the inevitable D+ dump, again proving that cinema windows need to be longer so as to provide an incentive to see a film first before having to wait until the fall to have it on in the home.

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 8200
Joined: October 16th, 2004
Location: Orlando
Contact:

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by James » June 18th, 2022, 10:25 pm

The director actually says Lightyear was an 80s movie that got a animated spinoff series. Andy saw the film in 1995 on VHS.

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/w ... year-pixar

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25268
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 19th, 2022, 4:32 am

Ahh, I pontificated on that in my post above, but then didn’t include it!

I figured that Lightyear may have been an 80s film — say 1985 — that came to tape around 1989 or 1990 (as used to be the wait, especially if it was animated). But then I did that thing of thinking it out too much and the timing doesn’t add up. Even if it’s a later 80s movie: spin-off series didn’t really start until the early 90s, but okay, we'll still go with it. But why would there be a sudden surge in Buzz toy interest in 1995? The series will have been running for a while, and with no new film or sequel to power the franchise, why would a five to ten year old film on VHS suddenly have kids rushing for Buzz toys?

It’s still all little screwy when a director has to explain, tweak, and re-explain the basis behind a film. And some of those explanations don’t really hold up: Woody, for instance, is undoubtedly a legacy toy, probably from Andy's Grandpa, that he likes because it has that connection. Woody is a rare original, and valuable and fragile as such, as we see in TS2, so to say Andy just "likes toys from before his time" is loose and weird and wrong. So that piece still doesn’t clear things up, and asks more questions, including several that I’m still puzzled by.

Yeah, of course I’m (and many others) overthinking it. But that just means it wasn’t really thought out and concreted down to begin with… :)

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 8200
Joined: October 16th, 2004
Location: Orlando
Contact:

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by James » June 20th, 2022, 2:16 pm

That Deadline article about the box office seems a little disingenuous.
Blame the fact that it doesn’t appeal to girls, blame Disney+ for stealing family moviegoers, blame the lack of an ensemble Toy Story cast, heck, blame everything as Disney/Pixar’s Lightyear didn’t do its magic by internal studio or industry standards this weekend...
Everyone involved has spent the last month talking about part of the film as if it was going to be some historic moment. Based on that, it looks like a lot of families didn't show up, not wanting to have to spend any of their ever-decreasing amount of hard-earned money on what was a movie all but marketed as pushing an agenda they might then have to explain to their curious kids. Of course, it was not that at all, but an insignificant blink-and-you'll-miss-it kiss.

Once again, I think Disney put their own foot in their mouths trying to make sure they looked cool in the media rather than just doing what they want to do without having to announce their opinions.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25268
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 20th, 2022, 7:13 pm

I do believe shoving the last three Pixars to direct-to-TV streaming has hurt the brand, though. Cash-strapped families can wait knowing that it’ll turn up there in a month or so, ironically putting another nail in Pixar's future cinema release plans…

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 459
Joined: May 24th, 2021

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » June 27th, 2022, 2:58 pm

Lightyear has been dropping hard, especially over its second weekend...

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office- ... 18185.html

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 9990
Joined: September 1st, 2006

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Daniel » June 27th, 2022, 3:21 pm

One wonders if it had been titled Buzz Lightyear: The Movie that might've helped a little.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25268
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by Ben » June 27th, 2022, 4:24 pm

Or even just Lightyear: The Movie. Confusion over just what this is — as we saw early on here too — is driving the conversation behind the scenes as to why this hasn’t hit as big as expected.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 459
Joined: May 24th, 2021

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » June 27th, 2022, 8:34 pm

It's sort of like with DreamWorks Animation's Penguins of Madagascar film, though that didn't have any of the behind-the-scenes drama while still being a retcon of the show.

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by EricJ » June 27th, 2022, 9:26 pm

Well, if Ben Stiller was in his gray-haired sixties, and DreamWorks couldn't make Madagascar movies anymore and had to switch off-topic to a younger splinter-franchise, yes...

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 459
Joined: May 24th, 2021

Re: Disney Pixar's Lightyear

Post by GeffreyDrogon » June 27th, 2022, 10:41 pm

I meant that because both films were spin-offs of more successful films, and I am very aware that POM didn't really have the Main Four, but at least that film wasn't bad or one that had a couple of throwaway characters to build up hype like Lightyear.

Post Reply