Buzz Lightyear

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Image:Buzz-lightyear.jpg Buzz Lightyear is a fictional character appearing in several Computer-generated imagery films and cartoons by Disney and Pixar, notably the blockbuster Toy Story and its sequels Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, as well as a spin-off series.

In the films, the featured Buzz is a toy - a space action figure - whereas the cartoon follows the adventures of the fictional Space Ranger on whom the toy is modelled. After the release of the first movie, he became available in the real world as a toy. He appears in two storylines:

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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Toy Story

In the two Toy Story cartoon movies, Buzz is a plastic toy with electronic voice, spring-loaded wings, a blinking LED labeled "laser", and a rocket ship cardboard box. He has the memories of the Buzz Lightyear which appeared in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.

Buzz was a birthday gift for the boy Andy. Buzz at first does not realize that he is a toy. He has no science-fiction-type devices available. He finds by experience that Star Command does not exist or cannot be contacted, and his spacesuit radio does not work, and that his laser weapon is only a flashing light bulb, and that his spacesuit's backpack propulsor does not work. He teams up with various other animated toys including a cowboy toy called Sheriff Woody.

Image:Movie poster toy story.jpg Previously, Woody was Andy's favorite toy. Woody felt that his position was threatened, and schemed to get Buzz out of the house. After several quarrels, misunderstandings and adventures, Woody and Buzz become best friends.

Many fans have wondered, if Buzz Lightyear did not consider himself to be a toy, why did he never move or speak when people are around? A theory suggests that, in his memories, Star Command might have ordered Lightyear, as a scout, to adapt to the environment of the "planets" he visits, trying to reproduce the behaviour of the locals.

In Toy Story and Toy Story 2 Buzz is seen on a TV set in his life as part of the cartoon series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. In this, Buzz Lightyear is the son of Evil Emperor Zurg, though he does not know this until near the end of Toy Story 2: this is a parody of the Star Wars saga, where Luke Skywalker does not know that Darth Vader is really Anakin Skywalker, his father, until near the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

As we see in Toy Story 2, all toys from the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command series (including the many copies of Buzz himself) seem to have the same ignorance of being toys as Andy's Buzz once had. In the currently-known script for Toy Story 3, the toy line ends up being recalled back to Taiwan due to a defect; this defect may explain why the toys in the line believe themselves to be the real thing instead of being "a child's plaything".

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Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

Image:Buzz-lightyear2.jpg In the cartoon series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and its movie Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (which also functions as a show within a show in the Toy Story universe). Buzz Lightyear is a human, science fiction hero, a Space Ranger of Star Command. His mission is to protect the universe from the Evil Emperor Zurg. His catchphrases are "I'm Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger, Universe Protection Unit." and "To infinity, and beyond!". The show had 64 episodes.

This cartoon series appeared after Toy Story, and its choice of characters was somewhat constrained by the nature of some of the characters mentioned in Toy Story, e.g. the three-eyed green aliens (called Little Green Men on the show) and Zurg. One of the LGMs' special-purpose rooms is inspired by the coin-slot steer-the-grab machine of Toy Story.

One of those episodes approximately reproduces the Roswell UFO incident, but with humans instead of Greys and Greys instead of humans, including Greys in USA GI uniforms riding in jeeps and acting like 1960's GI's, and Greys not believing that humans exist.

On another episode (a follow-up to the previously mentioned incident, actually), Zurg says he is Lightyear's father during a fight so that Lightyear is shocked; then, Zurg regains the advantage during the fight and says that he is not Lightyear's father. Likeliest the writer of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command had to refer to this feature of Toy Story but did not want to make it canon fact in the cartoon. This could also be a parody of The Empire Strikes Back.

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Appearances

Image:Toystory2.jpg Buzz Lightyear has appeared in:

Buzz Lightyear has also appeared in several video games for computers, consoles and handhelds including:

  • Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (on Dreamcast, Sony Playstation, Gameboy Color, and PC)
  • Toy Story (on Sega Genesis, Super NES, Game Boy and PC.)
  • Toy Story 2 (on Dreamcast, Gameboy Color, Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation and PC.)
  • Toy Story Racer (on Sony Playstation and GameBoy Color.)
  • Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure (Gameboy Advance, PC, Playstation and Microsoft Xbox)

Buzz has also been featured in several educational software products for elementary school students.

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Trivia

  • The name "Buzz" is been based on Buzz Aldrin who was one of the early space pioneers.
  • Buzz Lightyear's name was originally "Lunar Larry". (src: The Pixar Story)
  • In the Pixar film Cars, a reference to Buzz Lightyear is made via Lightning McQueen's tires being "Lightyear" brand.
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