Toy Story star Tim Allen recently shared some intriguing thoughts about the movie’s spin-off Lightyear. The new animated prequel features Chris Evans as Buzz Lightyear, the fictional space hero on which the toy (voiced by Allen in the Toy Story movies) is modeled after in-universe.
“I’ve stayed out of this ’cause it has nothing to do [with my character],” he told Extra in a June 29 interview. “We talked about this many years ago…but the brass that did the first four movies is not this. It’s a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies.”
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Allen, 69, added that when he heard that a live-action film was being made about Buzz Lightyear, he initially thought it would be a film with “real humans, not an animated thing.”There’s really no Toy Story Buzz without Woody,” he continued.
“I’m not sure what the idea—I’m a plot guy. It would seem to be a big adventure story, and as I see, it’s not a big adventure story. It’s a wonderful story, it just doesn’t seem to have any connection to the toy. It has no relationship to Buzz. “I wish there was a better connection,” he said.
Lightyear, released on June 17, acts as a prequel to the 1995 movie Toy Story, which starred Tom Hanks as Woody and Allen as Buzz Lightyear. Although Allen voiced Buzz for four films in the franchise, Captain America alum Evans, 41, was chosen to play the character in the “sidequel,” surprising many, including Patricia Heaton.
The Everybody Loves Raymond star blasted Disney and Pixar for not casting Allen as Buzz three days before Lightyear was set to release. “Saw the trailer for Buzz Lightyear and all I can say is Disney/Pixar made a HUGE mistake in not casting my pal @ofctimallen Tim Allen in the role that he originated, the role that he owns,” Heaton tweeted on June 14. “Tim IS Buzz! Why would they completely castrate this iconic, beloved character?” She added, “Why remove the one element that makes us want to see it? #stupidHollywooddecisions.”
Writer-director Angus MacLane discussed the decision to cast Evans for the role in a June interview with Yahoo. He explained that the movie’s premise, which is not about the toy from the Toy Story films, but the movie the toy is based on, had begun to confuse audiences and that including Allen would only “add to that confusion.”
Tim Allen voiced the Toy Story action figure in the first four installments but was not approached for the ‘sidequel.’ According to MacLane, “action figure Buzz,” voiced by Allen, “is a little goofier and is a little dumber, and so he is the comic relief. In this film, Buzz is the action hero. He’s serious and ambitious and funny, but not in a goofy way that would undercut the drama.”
MacLane revealed Evans was a logical choice because he “has the gravitas and that movie-star quality that our character needed to separate him and the movie from Tim’s version of the toy in Toy Story.” He explained the difference between the Buzz Lightyear films and their counterparts, saying, “The tone is a lot different. Tim is hilarious, but this character wouldn’t work as well with him doing the Space Ranger voice. It would not be as emotional. It just changes the tone of the movie. We were going for more of a classic sci-fi film.”
