Buzz Lightyear at 30: How sci-fi’s most famous flying toy took us to infinity… and beyond

Al Jolson talking out loud in “The Jazz Singer”, Dorothy going Technicolor in “The Wizard of Oz”, Neo slowing down bullets in “The Matrix”… As the first-ever entirely computer-generated movie, “Toy Story”‘s place among cinema’s gamechangers would have been assured, even if it had been a critical and commercial dud back in 1995. It was anything but, of course, and within a few short years, pixel-based animation was well on its way to easing out its two-dimensional ancestor, as traditional hand-drawn cartoons started to look like yesterday’s news in the new world shaped by Pixar’s innovation.1

But the medium isn’t the only reason “Toy Story” broke the die-cast mould. Although Disney (who’d signed on to distribute the movie) had achieved plenty of recent box-office success by resurrecting the fairytale formula popularized by “Snow White”, “Cinderella,” and “Sleeping Beauty” and the rest, Pixar took a different approach. In stark contrast to “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin”, they opted to tell an entirely new story, populated by an ensemble of memorable characters who never break into song — Randy Newman’s soundtrack is resolutely non-diegetic.

And, at a time when big-screen cartoons were most likely to be aimed at pre-teens — and often torture for their parents — “Toy Story” followed the example of “The Simpsons” (then at the height of its powers) with a smart, highly quotable script with cross-generational appeal.

At the heart of this infectious concoction is one of the greatest double-acts in movie history, a mismatched duo who could happily go toe-to-toe with “The Odd Couple”‘s Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, “Lethal Weapon”‘s Riggs and Murtaugh, and “The X-Files”‘ Mulder and Scully — even though they’d struggle to reach their knees.

Woody (occupation: cowboy) and Buzz Lightyear (occupation: Space Ranger) are the yin to the other’s yang, or — to use Dr Evil parlance — the mongoose to the other’s snake. It’s hard to imagine one without the other, though the sci-fi half of the equation is first among equals, up there with the greatest comic creations of the last 30 years.

Like British kids’ TV classic “Bagpuss“, “Toy Story” is based around a simple premise, a question that children have been asking themselves for generations: what if my toys come to life when I’m not looking? There’s a universe where this is the stuff of nightmares — My toys are possessed! Call an exorcist!— but Pixar ensure the notion is as magical as anything else in the Disney back catalog.

At the start of the movie, Andy’s playroom has a clearly established hierarchy, the rag-tag assortment of action figures, piggy banks, and games all falling into line with Woody’s benign dictatorship. But Buzz Lightyear (his name inspired by Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin) is the kind of toy who can turn heads.

He’s the moulded plastic hero any eight-year-old would want to play with: he has a retractable helmet, he glows in the dark, the laser on his wrist is a light-up LED, he’s equipped with a cool karate chop attack motion, and — at the touch of a button — his “high pressure space wings” pop open.

Suddenly, Woody’s ability to shout “There’s a snake in my boots” when you pull the string on his back doesn’t seem quite so swell. It’s a smart echo of the way “Star Wars” made the Western feel old hat back in 1977 — as much as Woody hates the new normal, Buzz was always destined to be ’90s kid Andy’s number one.

What separates Buzz from the rest of the Andy’s Room gang, however, is his complete lack of awareness that he’s actually a child’s plaything. In his mind, he’s a bona fide Space Ranger, sent by Star Command to save the universe from Emperor Zurg and a secret weapon with the destructive capacity to destroy a whole planet. Buzz is carrying the information required to unveil its only weakness — he’s either telling the truth or his manufacturers are about to get an angry letter from Lucasfilm.

This delusion is the source of great comedy. To Buzz, Andy’s room is an alien world, the likes of Hamm, Mr Potato Head, and Rex — aka “Slotted Pig”, “Vegetable Man,” and “Lizard Man” in Buzz-speak — its friendly inhabitants. The openly hostile Woody fulfils the role of the narrow-minded town elder suppressing new ideas in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation“.

It would have been easy to make Buzz a one-joke character, the sci-fi toy who never comes to terms with his terrestrial origins. But this Space Ranger comes out of the box with so many bonus accessories that he leaves most live-action characters trailing in his wake — those groundbreaking computer graphics aren’t the only thing about “Toy Story” that proved to be surprisingly three-dimensional.

He’s animated to perfection — nobody moves like Buzz Lightyear — and delivers one-liners to die for: “You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity” deserves a place in the movie put-down hall of fame. Meanwhile, Tim Allen makes it easy to see why Billy Crystal (who went on to voice Mike Wazowski in “Monsters, Inc.”) regretted turning down the chance to play Buzz. Allen delivers one of the all-time great vocal performances, effortlessly shifting from big laughs to extreme pathos.

Crucially, Buzz is so much more than a one-note comedy character — he even becomes a truly tragic (action) figure when a TV commercial confirms his worst nightmares are true: he really is a toy, and not a flying one at that. Had the guilt-ridden Woody not turned up at Buzz’s nadir, the crest-fallen Space Ranger might have lived out his days as Mrs Nesbitt, sipping Darjeeling in a cute little apron with toy killer Sid’s little sister, Hannah. Even then, it takes an epic pep talk from the insecure cowboy (unsympathetic analysis might portray Woody as the villain of the piece) to assure Buzz that while he is undoubtedly a toy, he’s undoubtedly the coolest toy around.

This status was confirmed in real life when actual Buzz Lightyear action figures became one of the most desirable toys of the late ’90s — Buzz even went on to join “Toy Story” franchise co-stars Mr Potato Head, Barbie, and Etch A Sketch on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest toys of all time. (Probably better not to tell Woody about that one…)

Buzz was the breakout star of Andy’s playroom, fronting his own cartoon spin-off, “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command”, and becoming the inspiration for Pixar’s excessively meta “Lightyear“, supposedly the movie that inspired the cartoon that inspired the toy that became a star in “Toy Story”. But while OG Buzz has been an integral part of the ensemble in the three “Toy Story” sequels — and presumably has a big part to play in the upcoming “Toy Story 5“, as well — he’s never quite recaptured the dashing, out-of-the-box appeal of his 1995 debut. Because when it comes to plastic Space Rangers with delusions of grandeur, it turns out they don’t make them quite like they used to.

All four “Toy Story” movies and “Lightyear” are available on Disney+ in the US and the UK.

*Yes, we know we’re a week late on the actual anniversary of the movie. Blame our Editor Ian for mixing up the dates.