Pixar movies are a must stop in the tour cinephile each year. The animation studio located in the Californian city of Emeryville has earned it by hand with everything it has made us enjoy in recent decades. So, first of all, because of it and how spin off of toy story (1995), one should not miss Lightyearthe second film made by Angus MacLane (2022) after the exciting Finding Dory with Andrew Stanton (2016).
Apart from the virtues of this entertaining science fiction adventure, such as its dazzling animation, the imaginative situations and genre twists and the moments capable of watering our eyes, we must admit that one was already very willing to sit down to watch it without question because its main character is the model for one of Pixar’s most beloved toys and the length it unleashed its three-dimensional revolution: our dear buzz lightyear.
The Andy Davis voiced by John Morris until toy story 4 (2019), in a grateful meta-cinematic detail, he loves the movie starring this space hero, and that’s why he wanted to have his talking doll. But it is not the only object for children’s entertainment, which hides its own life and which we know from this saga, which we are told here came from Lightyear in his fictional universe. Also the enigmatic villain: Emperor Zurg.
Warning, spoilers ahead!
The contradiction of ‘Lightyear’ with ‘Toy Story 2’ on Emperor Zurg
There is intelligence in how they have addressed certain points of the galactic toy’s behavior to turn it into someone “real” with Chris Evans’s vocal chords instead of Tim Allen’s, in an autonomous but recognizable character. And for Angus MacLane and his screenwriter, Jason Headley, to take advantage of one of science fiction’s tastiest and most compelling possibilities to the biggest swerve related to him conflicts with a very funny one of toy story two (1999).
The identity of Emperor Zurgby whose mouth we hear in Lightyear to Josh Brolin and not to the filmmaker Andrew Stanton, it’s not the same than in said sequel, but another much more interesting one: himself, already old, in another time thread. While the toy claims that he is Buzz’s father, in a dynamic along Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (since 1977) with James Earl Jones’s Darth Vader and Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker that makes us laugh out loud.
Date of high in Disney Plus now and save thanks to the annual subscriptionwith which you can enjoy its entire catalog of series and movies, access to the latest releasesto the catalog of Star and to the best National Geographic documentaries.
For this reason, the joke referential that when he sees himself in that amazing scene from Lightyear, the protagonist says: “Daddy?”, confusing himself with his own parent because, of course, the paternal-filial consanguinity link implies that they must look a lot alike. Apparently, his other self goes back in time to change Isiah Whitlock Jr.’s obtuse Commander Burnside from allowing him to complete his mission of hyperspace flights and, thus, his life.
The other toys that could also appear in the presumed sequel
Of course, we could develop some theory for which Emperor Zurg of toy story 2 he would decide to make him think that he is his son. For example, with the purpose of making him lower his guard so that he could kill him later at some point. Or that, in the context of Lightyear, the protagonist becomes as he is thanks to his intervention from the future and, therefore, he can be considered “the father” of his present character. But Angus MacLane’s film was not planned in 1999.
So there is no choice but to forgive Pixar the contradiction with pleasure, and assume that it is a thing of the singular world of toys in which the Woody of Tom Hanks and company exists. But the presumed continuation, in which the villain may return, has difficulty including other characters from the saga of toy story like the new one. Except, perhaps, and for gender, the funny martians green with three eyes and an antenna to those who introduced us to the machine from Pizza Planet.