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Lightyear is currently the most-watched movie on Disney+, meaning many people who missed the Toy Story spin-off in cinemas are finally learning that Buzz has a different voice in the movie.
Chris Evans voices this new version of Buzz Lightyear in the Pixar film. The Captain America star replaces Last Man Standing's Tim Allen, who voiced the Star Command toy in all four Toy Story films.
Pixar and Tim Allen have both spoken about the casting change – and they don't agree on the reason why it happened.
Here's what they said, as well as what Chris Evans has said about taking on the voice role.
Why Doesn't Tim Allen Voice Buzz in Lightyear?
Per Allen, it was he who turned down the role. He told Extra: "The short answer is I've stayed out of this 'cause it has nothing to do [with his version of the character]."
The Home Improvement actor continued: "It's a wonderful story. It just doesn't seem to have any connection to the toy...this is a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies."
He also hinted that at some point there was a plan for him to voice the character again. He told Extra: "We talked about this many years ago. It came up in one of the sessions. I said, 'What a fun movie that would be.'"
Though the Pixar team have agreed with Allen that this is a new version of Buzz, they imply that they made the decision to change the character's voice.
Lightyear's director-screenwriter Angus MacLane told Vanity Fair that they changed the voice to differentiate this version of the character.
He told Vanity Fair: "Tim's version of Buzz is a little goofier and is a little dumber, and so he is the comic relief...Chris Evans has the gravitas and that movie-star quality that our character needed to separate him and the movie from Tim's version of the toy in Toy Story."
Woody actor Tom Hanks also seemed to confirm that the recast was Pixar's idea. Asked by CinemaBlend at an Elvis event what it was like to have his new film come out at the same time as the Toy Story spin-off, he said: "I actually wanted to go head-to-head with Tim Allen and then they didn't let Tim Allen do it. I don't understand that."
Lightyear is intended as a film that exists within the Toy Story universe – that is, it is meant to be the film that Andy watched that made him want to buy a Buzz Lightyear toy. MacLane called it "the movie that Andy saw that changed his life... Andy's Star Wars," in a Yahoo interview.
Of course, it can't be ignored that Chris Evans is a much bigger 2022 box office draw compared to Allen, who has not been in a live-action film since 2017.
This conceptual framework makes the voice change make a little less sense within the universe of Toy Story, however. Surely the toy's makers would put a sound chip into the Buzz that used voice quotes from the film?
The makers of Woody certainly used the same voice as the actor who voiced Woody in Woody's Roundup, a marionette show within the Toy Story universe. Then again, it ultimately is probably not worth delving too much into the reality of a universe in which toys have gained sentience.
For his part, Evans said he tried to bridge this logic hole through his performance by taking inspiration from Allen. The Knives Out star told USA Today: "Not only would you be a fool to not take his interpretation because it worked so well, but the truth is this character is in fact the human version of that toy, so there does need to be overlap in terms of their cadence and nature."
Lightyear is on Disney+ now.
