While the debate rages on about how exactly Lightyear fits into Toy Story’s canon, yet another interesting idea is sparked. Has a movie like this, based on an in-universe canon, ever been done before? A story that’s not simply a spin-off following some character, but rather a story that inspires something in the original and expands on the world. Does Pixar's Lightyear mark a new precedent for where Hollywood can begin pulling ideas?
Originally announced in December of 2020, Lightyear is a spin-off of the Toy Story franchise marketed as telling the origin of the hero who inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy. While still being animated, the trailer points towards a more serious film about space travel, adventure, and heroism. The cinematography and animation both look incredible so far, and fans are excited to see how this new story will actually play out.
What’s interesting about this new film is that it’s not a spin-off story that follows a popular in-universe character like many others are. This is instead an original story, that expands on the Toy Story universe. Angus MacLane, a creator presently working for Pixar, pitched the idea of a story following Buzz Lightyear after finishing work on Finding Dory. He wanted to create the movie that Andy might have watched before getting the Buzz Lightyear action figure in the original Toy Story.
This idea of creating a story that an in-universe character might have seen could be taken in a couple of different directions. One possible direction is for Hollywood to look at IPs that exist within various canons and create full-fledged properties from those. There are a lot of examples, often from various comedies, of creators coming up with phony movies so as to avoid having to obtain the rights for any real movies.
Evidence of this can be seen in the likes of Home Alone, where Kevin watches an R-rated gangster movie called Angels With Filthy Souls. While this movie never actually existed beyond the scene Kevin watches, there are certainly grounds for a gritty gangster drama such as this to be made. Movies such as this were made extensively in the 1930s and 1940, and it might be time for them to get a revival in the modern era.
Another example, although these stem from parody, is the series of McBain movies from The Simpsons. Although they’re mainly meant to parody 80s action movies, there is actually a coherent enough plot in the short clips shown over the course of the show’s run for fans to assemble a short film. A classic 80s action movie in the vein of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s work that goes for full camp could be a hit, especially seeing how big of a hit McBain’s background work has been.
Another direction for Hollywood to take, although this could possibly be more difficult, is to expand on the world of various stories by creating movies that certain characters might have seen. There are plenty of movies and TV shows that take place in worlds slightly adjacent to our own. It might be interesting to see a story written as though it were intended to be popular in a different world. The difficulty with this would stem from who the intended audience is supposed to be. Should the creators make a film that only those characters might enjoy?
If Hollywood were to make a movie such as this, it would likely have to be created to appeal to our real-world values and interests. After all, Lightyear only seems as though it’s going to work because Toy Story is seemingly set in the “real” world. Therefore our values and interests are not too different from theirs, and either way people are likely going to enjoy a sci-fi story about an adventuring astronaut.
While this seems like an interesting premise from which to pull ideas, it does come with a lot of complications. One that immediately comes to mind is the debate arising out of Lightyear’s existence. It’s presently unclear whether this movie is meant to be the story of a real person in the Pixar universe that inspired Buzz Lightyear or not. While some of the marketing has claimed this to be the case, this has grand implications for the world of Toy Story. For example, do aliens actually exist and it’s just not that big of a deal for them?
Another difficulty stems from how often in-universe movies are simply meant to be parodies of real movies. The opening trailers from Tropic Thunder for example have direct parallels to real-world movies and are simply hyper-exaggerated versions of them. The same can be said for most long-running animated shows and their in-universe movies. While these might be comical as background filler in an episode, being expanded into a full movie might wear out the funnier aspects. At the end of the day, it looks as though this might not actually work so well for every IP, but it will certainly be interesting to see how Hollywood responds if Lightyear is a success.
Lightyear releases June 17th, 2022 in theaters.