From the moment Pixar Animation Studios announced that they were making an origin story movie about the real Buzz Lightyear, fans of the Toy Story franchise have been kind of confused. Lightyear is the brainchild of longtime Pixar animator and director Angus MacLane (Finding Dory), who wanted to explore what inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy that was so near and dear to Andy in the Toy Story movies. He hypothesized a film franchise akin to Star Wars in which Buzz was a real Space Ranger who has a huge cinematic adventure which was then distilled into the marketing version of Buzz which has been voiced by actor Tim Allen since 1995.
Other well-known dinosaurs, such as Velociraptor, have previously appeared in popular movies wearing scaly, lizard-like skin, but in the “Prehistoric Planet” trailer, these dinosaurs are covered in feathers, reflecting recent discoveries about how commonly feathers appeared across the theropod lineage. In one of the trailer’s most dramatic images, an extreme close-up of a Velociraptor’s enormous claw hints at further adaptations that contributed to this dinosaur’s reputation as a deadly predator.
Despite expectations that Pixar’s Lightyear will offer an origin story for everyone’s favorite Space Ranger, director Angus MacLane and producer Galyn Susman first and foremost wanted to deliver a rollicking and original sci-fi adventure. The second Lightyear trailer, which premiered this week, hints at how the filmmakers have built around the foundational elements of Buzz, including his spacesuit and his robot-nemesis Zurg, to take the character into new territory and expand the Toy Story universe.