Why Lightyear Failed
Breaking down why Pixar's Toy Story spin-off failed to connect with audiences.
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00:00 To say it's been a rough week for Pixar is quite the understatement.
00:03 The beloved animation studio just released their first theatrical film in two years in lightyear
00:08 and sadly it wasn't quite the big comeback that everyone hoped for.
00:12 With a $200 million budget, the movie is going to have to make around $500 million just to make a profit
00:19 and given the opening weekend's box office numbers, it's actually looking unlikely that it's even going to break $400 million.
00:27 Now $400 million might be a lot of money to me and you but in Pixar terms and especially in Disney terms,
00:33 that is not a good margin.
00:35 Consequently, in the days since, everybody has been trying to rack their brains to figure out why this happened.
00:42 Why did a spin-off to one of the most successful movie franchises ever completely fall flat?
00:48 Well, there isn't really just one reason.
00:50 There are a bunch of elements which informed Lightyear's failure.
00:54 With that in mind then, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and this is why Lightyear failed.
00:59 Now, one of the biggest reasons why Lightyear didn't make a dent with the millions and millions of Toy Story fans around the globe
01:06 is the simple fact that this isn't our Buzz Lightyear.
01:09 Fans of course love this character.
01:11 I mean, anyone my age probably grew up with a Buzz Lightyear toy
01:16 but the version that we see in this movie, a human voiced by Chris Evans,
01:20 is a far cry from the neurotic toy that we all fell in love with to begin with.
01:25 Knowing that the goofy Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story films was inspired by a relatively poor-faced version of the character from a 1995 movie
01:34 isn't all that appealing really.
01:36 Quite simply, this is a movie that is clearly cashing in on nostalgia
01:40 but the issue is, fans are only nostalgic for the version of Buzz Lightyear that they grew up with, that they know.
01:46 In fact, it's the same issue that Solo, a Star Wars story had
01:49 and yes, be warned, I will be mentioning that movie throughout this editorial
01:53 because the similarities are too obvious to ignore.
01:56 Like Buzz Lightyear, people love Han Solo
01:58 but they didn't like this imposter who was calling himself Han Solo that Disney decided to make a movie about.
02:05 So, had Lightyear been presented in the style of the Star Command movie or TV show
02:09 with Buzz being a version of his toy self, then it would have attracted the interest of longtime fans
02:15 rather than what we got, which didn't really interest longtime fans
02:20 and also didn't have enough original pull to get a brand new, intrigued audience.
02:26 Talking about the new Buzz as well, it would be remiss to not mention the fact that the voice actors had changed
02:32 with original actor Tim Allen being swapped for Chris Evans, like I mentioned earlier.
02:36 Now, of course, that does make sense.
02:38 As I've mentioned, this is a different version of Buzz, we're not talking about the toy
02:41 so getting a new actor in isn't sacrilege or anything like that.
02:45 However, the swapping of the actors does just strengthen the idea to audiences
02:50 that this isn't the Buzz that they know and why should they care if they don't have that connection to him.
02:56 Now, am I saying that Tim Allen's involvement would have made this a billion dollar movie?
03:01 Absolutely not.
03:02 I'm just saying that the instantly identifiable switch between voice actors, again,
03:07 strengthens the fact that this is a very different movie from the thing that people actually remember.
03:14 And all of this can be rolled into one of the most common complaints ever since the first trailer dropped
03:19 and that's the question of, "Who is this movie actually for?"
03:23 Now, the obvious answer to that might, of course, just be, "Well, Toy Story fans, you idiot."
03:27 But you need to bear in mind that the first trailers for this movie kind of underplayed these Toy Story connections.
03:34 Instead, it focused initially on the gritty sci-fi elements
03:37 and then in later trailers, the emphasis was on the goofier comedy.
03:40 Yet, the final film itself is an awkward stew of elements that don't quite cohere.
03:46 The sci-fi adventure story is too formulaic and familiar to make much of an impression with older viewers
03:51 while the time dilation mechanics will simply be too complex for younger viewers to make sense of.
03:57 And one of the biggest criticisms leveled at this movie is that despite supposedly being Andy's favorite movie ever,
04:03 his Star Wars, it's actually a little bit too drab and a little bit too boring for kids to even get excited about.
04:10 And that's criminal, right? This is supposed to be the movie of Andy's formative years.
04:15 Yet, in real life, it can't even keep kids engaged for the full duration of the runtime.
04:20 The marketing for the movie just generally as well was also needlessly convoluted.
04:25 Like, you needed to know Toy Story lore to fully understand what Lightyear even was.
04:30 This should have been a straightforward sci-fi romp, but instead, you needed to know all of his backstory going into it.
04:36 This confusion led to people watching the first trailer and assuming that it was an in-universe biopic of the real Buzz Lightyear
04:43 that the toy in Toy Story was inspired by.
04:47 It was only later trailers which revealed that this is actually a 1995 movie in-universe that Andy saw when he was a kid.
04:54 Throwing confusion over its tone with it at once being this serious sci-fi movie as well as a goofy family drama,
05:02 many people were just going into it confused as to what Lightyear was.
05:06 How was it related to the franchise it was spinning off of, and what kind of movie was this going to be?
05:11 Speaking of brand confusion as well, I can't talk about the next point without jumping into spoilers for the film,
05:16 so if you haven't seen Lightyear and you do want to see it, this is your warning that I'm about to spoil the big twist.
05:22 By far, the most divisive aspect of Lightyear's story is the fact that they completely change Zurg's origin.
05:28 As you may know, in Toy Story 2, villain Zurg is revealed to be Buzz Lightyear's father,
05:33 but in this movie, he's actually an older Buzz Lightyear from an alternate dimension.
05:39 Yeah, this is a multiverse movie, like we haven't had enough of those this year and last.
05:43 Now, this twist naturally rankled many long-time fans because like I mentioned, this goes against the canon that was previously established.
05:50 More than that, many felt like it was just an attempt at shock value, to change something because otherwise the movie would have been even more predictable
05:58 because this beat had been revealed previously.
06:01 So, despite people understanding why a change like this might have been made, and despite actor Josh Brolin being fine in the role,
06:07 a lot of Toy Story fans were just annoyed that it was going against the canon, and again, establishing itself as this different entity
06:14 that didn't really even have connections to the thing that it's spinning off from.
06:18 And so, the vitriolic response to this big reveal ultimately didn't help the movie garner any strong word of mouth after it came out,
06:24 and if anything, only further put people off who were on the fence to see fan reactions.
06:30 Outside of the movie's own quality in its marketing though, it's also important to put it into context
06:35 because animation movies generally on the big screen haven't fared all that well recently.
06:41 And while yes, many might put that down to services like Disney+, putting some movies day and date,
06:46 it doesn't account for the animation industry at large. This isn't just a Disney+ problem.
06:52 For instance, since the pandemic started, the highest grossing animated movie in theatres has been Sing 2,
06:58 which got $407 million at the box office, which is paltry compared to the highest grossing live action movies even in the pandemic era.
07:07 And the reason for this? Well, it could just be that families are struggling to justify a trip to the cinema to see a movie like this
07:14 because when you take into account tickets, parking, petrol, snacks, and everything else,
07:19 you could be looking at $100+ for this trip when the movie is going to drop on a streaming service in like 6 weeks anyway,
07:28 and that streaming service generally has a lot of material that would please the family already.
07:34 Likewise, taking into account the current global inflation crisis, it's easy to see why this is an expense that people will just be cutting out
07:42 because again, these movies will trickle onto streaming services sooner rather than later.
07:47 And in Lightyear's specific case, it didn't help that it was going up against two titans in the form of Top Gun Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion.
07:55 Both of these were just box office smashes. In the case of Top Gun Maverick, that has been helped by strong word of mouth and some incredible reviews,
08:02 while Jurassic World Dominion... well, it's Jurassic World, isn't it? That thing is just an excuse to print money.
08:08 Still, even with all of these in fact, the prevailing idea is that animation just generally is in a kind of weird place on the big screen.
08:14 Likewise, it is somewhat ironic that Pixar's first big screen effort in two years is actually probably the most Disney+ feeling movie that they've ever released.
08:25 Now, that's not to slight Disney+ movies at all. There is a lot of great material that comes straight to that service,
08:31 but simply the fact that Lightyear lacks the finesse that defines almost all of Pixar's work, including their three prior films, Soul, Luca, and Turning Red,
08:41 which were themselves sent straight to Disney+ when they probably should have been in theaters.
08:46 Despite its stonking $200 million production budget, which is way more than the previous three movies I just mentioned by the way,
08:52 this feels like an amusing little Toy Story spin-off, something designed for a Disney+ audience.
08:59 Yeah, the visuals might be something else, but every other element feels too safe.
09:03 Furthermore, while it would be silly to call Lightyear a critical dud or anything like that,
09:08 it did score 76% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 6.8 out of 10 average score, which definitely puts it on the lower end of the Pixar spectrum.
09:17 Considering the film's aforementioned marketing wars then, these three-star tepid reviews didn't really get people excited to want to go out and see an amazing movie.
09:26 Strong reviews can lead to better box office. I mean, again, like I mentioned, just look at something like Top Gun Maverick,
09:32 which did insanely well, partly because critics were calling it the best movie of the year.
09:37 In Lightyear's case, they were just calling it a movie of the year.
09:40 And yet, perhaps the primary reason why Lightyear failed, well, it was just a spin-off ultimately that nobody asked for,
09:48 and when they got their first look at it in the trailers, weren't all that interested in.
09:52 It's the same issue that killed Solo. You can't just take a recognisable name and slap it in the title and put it in the trailers and expect to print $1 billion in return.
10:04 If movie-making was that easy, let me tell you, I'd be doing it, and I'm a fool.
10:08 Stories need intrigue, they need some kind of justification, and to quote Ed from Shaun of the Dead,
10:14 "Audiences aren't just a bunch of performing monkeys. We're not just gonna go flock out and see something because we recognise the thing."
10:21 So yeah, I guess the moral of the story is that if you're going to drop $200 million on a brand new blockbuster,
10:27 probably make sure people are interested in seeing it before you, you know, spend the money.
10:33 I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below. What did you think about Lightyear?
10:36 Do you think it deserved a bum, or do you think it's an underrated gem?
10:40 Let us know, and if you can, while you're down there, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
10:43 and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
10:47 Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.