The teaser trailer for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming animated Toy Story spinoff film Lightyear has been released. Chris Evans is heading to the farthest reaches of the universe. In Pixar’s upcoming origin narrative for everyone’s favorite Toy Story character, suitably titled Lightyear, the iconic figure who played Captain America himself will voice Buzz Lightyear. The first trailer for Pixar’s animated, family-friendly sci-fi film has been unveiled.
Buzz, as spoken by Tim Allen, is a toy based on the Buzz of a popular sci-fi series, a figure who is captain of the Universe Protection Unit of the Space Ranger corps from the Intergalactic Alliance, according to what we know from the Toy Story movie. When the film was first announced with Evans in the lead vocal role in December of last year, Pixar said Lightyear would be the genesis story for that character, “the youthful test pilot who became the space ranger we all know him to be today.”
Buzz had a debate over the nature of reality, which he found to be a similar thread in all of the films. Buzz believes he is a space ranger in the first Toy Story, but Woody is well aware that he is a toy. MacLane directed the 2011 short Toy Story Toons: Small Fry, which featured a miniature Buzz who suffered from the same condition. According to him, the fundamental concept they wanted to explore was how to create a character that is out of touch with the world around them.
Other details, such as the iconic Buzz Lightyear space outfit seen in the video and the character’s famed catchphrase, will tie Evans’ Buzz to Allen’s Buzz. Before the Lightyear trailer cuts him off, Evans is about to continue the “To infinity and beyond” statement. It’s a tactic Disney most certainly took from the Avengers movies, which consistently prevented Evan’s Captain America from declaring “Avengers, unite!” until the end of the film.
Not only that, although MacLane can’t say much about it, a version of Emperor Zurg, Buzz’s famed enemy in Toy Story, is likely to appear in Lightyear as well. He added that if the main features of Buzz were to pay off, they’d want to make sure he had a laser, rocket legs, and an identifiable opponent at some point.
Beyond that, Lightyear is primarily intended to be an epic science fiction film. Buzz locks into a rocket, fueled by a mystery crystallized energy source that allows him to shoot around the sun without getting scorched, in the trailer’s first scene. MacLane says he wants to give spectators “more current sensibilities” than the sci-fi films he grew up watching from 1977 to 1991. Lightyear is “a distillation of things” that MacLane finds cool.
Lightyear debuts in theaters in Summer 2022.
Sources: Pixar,Entertainment Weekly,Deadline,Hype Beast