Former Toy Story voice actor Tim Allen has broken his silence about Chris Evans replacing him as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in Disney Pixar's Lightyear.
Allen, who voiced Buzz for 1995's Toy Story and its three sequels and television specials, commented to Extra about the Lightyear spinoff's lack of connection with the original franchise. "This is a whole new team that really had nothing to do with the first movies," said Allen. While Lightyear was intended by the filmmakers to be the movie that inspired Andy to get the action figure in Toy Story, Allen expressed confusion when he first heard about the spinoff movie, expecting it to be a live-action adaptation with "real humans."
To Allen, Lightyear is not a Toy Story movie without the character of Woody, originally voiced by Tom Hanks. "There’s really no ‘Toy Story,' Buzz without Woody," said Allen. "It just doesn’t seem to have any connection to the toy."
Allen was not the only one lost by Lightyear's story direction. Fans of Allen and the Toy Story franchise were left confused when the trailer was released last year, but the reason for the change in voice actors had less to do with Allen and more about what Evans brought to the 'real' space hero, according to producer Galyn Susman. "We needed a new voice for Buzz. He needed to have a nice, rich sound, able to be both dramatic and comedic, and most importantly, he needed to be heroic without coming off as arrogant or dense," said Susman. "That's a tall order, and we immediately knew we had to ask Chris."
Allen's contributions did not get overlooked during the making of Lightyear, however. Evans had previously talked about stopping short of using Buzz's iconic catchphrase, "To infinity and beyond." "As proud as I am to play this role and as honored as I am to be a part of this universe now, that line belongs to someone else," Evans said. "It almost kind of felt like I was wearing someone else's clothes or something, you know? So you do your best to honor it and put your own spin on it. But let's be honest, that's Tim Allen's line."
Lightyear is playing only in theaters.
Source: Extra