Lightyear, the new movie from Pixar that’s somewhat in the studio’s respectable Toy Story universe, begins with a three-line text crawl that is essentially a Hail Mary passage to explain the whole plot of the film: “In 1995 Andy got a game. This game is from his favorite movie. This is the movie. ” It’s actually a small miracle of screenwriting ingenuity, apparently provided by producer Andrew Stanton in an attempt to break the confusion that comes from a cinematic hypothesis that was never clear enough about how “real” or “untrue” the film is supposed to be about the wider world of Toy Story. And more! And yet, Uproxx has even published an interview with the film’s director, Angus MacLane, tonight, which is blurring the intergalactic waters again. Led by author Mike Ryan, it is, according to Ryan himself, an incredibly grim article, despite McLain’s best efforts to note that the whole affair was really just an excuse to make it a “cool science fiction movie.” All well and good, except that MacLane immediately blows up the arrogance of this small title, revealing that the Buzz doll played by Tim Allen in Toy Story is not based on the movie Lightyear that is going to be released in theaters. It is actually based on a cartoon based on this movie, with MacLane comparing it directly to the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. (Is this the Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command animated series that existed in our world? Ryan’s failure to answer that question is damning.) given to Tim Allen, who apparently gave the voice of the Buzz cartoon and his dolls, while the Lightyear version was played by a chronically displaced Chris Evans (see: Avengers: Endgame) can be described as the Lorenzo Music of the Toy Story. Then they talk about the Wheel. It’s a wild interview. Tragically, at no point do any of the parties address the question that is driving us crazy right now: In Lightyear fiction, are games secretly felt, watching their bosses grow old and die every year? How does the Sox robot cat fit into this bleak synthetic cosmology? Are we real or just a dream Buzz Lightyear once had? We need to know!
