Before he became a toy loved by children everywhere, Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans) was a legendary Space Ranger on an intergalactic adventure, alongside a group of ambitious but untested recruits (voiced by Keke Palmer, Dale Soules and Taika Waititi) and a robot cat named Sox (voiced by Peter Sohn). As part of a virtual early preview, Collider got the opportunity to watch a portion of the Disney and Pixar animated sci-fi action-adventure flick Lightyear, and in about 30 minutes of footage, I laughed, I cried, and I can’t wait to get to know all the characters better when the movie hits theaters on June 17th.
During this interview, director/screenwriter Angus MacLane and producer Galyn Susman talked about what they’re most excited about with the Lightyear release, how they enjoyed the process of making the film even with the challenges that working during COVID presented, how Sox evolved from a helper monkey to a robot cat, and what they experimented with a lot of things to get to the film they have now.
Collider: First of all, I’ve tremendously enjoyed what I’ve gotten to see of Lightyear. When I saw the opening montage of Up, I was bawling like a baby, and the movie hadn’t even really started yet. With the first 30 minutes of Lightyear [that] I watched and I was thinking, “Okay, this is interesting. I’m digging this concept. These characters are cool.” But by the end of that, when Buzz Lightyear gets the hologram message from Alicia, I was ugly crying in the most embarrassing way possible. So, congratulations, screw you, and thank you, all at once, for that.
ANGUS MacLANE: That’s fair.
Those were all of my emotions. So, like with any animated movie, you guys have been working for a while now on this, and there are so many cool things and layers to this. What are you each most excited about, with this finally coming out, knowing that people are going to get to see this film and understand what you guys are doing with it?
MacLANE: I’m most excited about it coming out in theaters and seeing it with an audience. We’ve been so sequestered in our homes, for so long, making this movie apart from each other. Sharing the movie, as it was always intended to be, in the theater, is really what I’m most excited about.
GALYN SUSMAN: I’m very pleased with how I feel like we organically put together an environment where the world is integrated and diverse, with diverse people, and that it reflects the audience that’s gonna be coming to see the film. I’m really hopeful that people are gonna be able to look at the screen and identify with somebody on the screen.
Angus, when I spoke to you about the trailer of this film in October of 2021, I asked if you were at a stage in production where you could see the finish line, and you said that you could definitely see it, but that you still had a ton of work to do and that you were just trying to enjoy it. Are you more confident about the finish line now? What have you most enjoyed about the process of actually getting this film finished?
MacLANE: I was just thinking how that answer is pretty much applicable to now.
SUSMAN: We’re there. It’s so close.
MacLANE: I have tried to enjoy it. It’s just been really hard. It’s hard to know what would be hard normally with a film of this size, if we weren’t also dealing with COVID, at the same time. I try not to dwell too much on, what if we didn’t have to work that way? But that’s also part of the movie itself, and the story of the making of the movie is so linked to that, I think it shows up in the movie in the way that the connectivity that we had in the film. I definitely have a better picture of what the final product looks like than I did in October. So much of the movie has gotten produced in that time. I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of the work we did. It’s really edifying. It’s weird to talk to people about it. It’s still only the first 30 minutes that we’re talking about, but people seem to enjoy it quite a bit, so that’s nice to hear. It’s just weird.
Galyn, you’ve been working, on films at Pixar since Toy Story. What has it been like for you to see that film then evolve into a franchise, and now be telling this story in like a different piece of that world?
SUSMAN: I know. That is kind of crazy. Having made Toy Story films and a television special and short films, I felt like I had explored everything that there was to explore in the Toy Story universe. And then, we come up with something that is related, but utterly different, and my absolute favorite genre. So, I feel almost like I’ve graduated because I’m getting to now do this film that, if somebody had said to me, “If you could only make one film in your life, what would it be?” I would’ve said sci-fi. And here I am, so I can’t complain.
I love Sox. Everyone is going to love Sox. Have you already been thinking about all the possible merchandise for Sox?
MacLANE: I don’t actually know the breadth of that. I’ve only seen some of the Sox toys. I’ve seen some great ones that have not been announced, but I’m excited about it. I know that it would be impossible to make one that’s completely screen accurate, but there are a couple I’ve seen that are great.
At what point in the process of making this did Sox come into the picture, and did you know that character would just take over?
MacLANE: Pretty early. It was originally a helper monkey. That changed to a cat, mostly because I think that it was gonna be funnier to animate a quadri-ped. Animating a monkey was never gonna be funny in the way that a cat with a simple robotic head would be. It just became a comedy in motion decision.
SUSMAN: And then, if you’re telling a story about a guy who gets separated from everybody and is alone, how do you know what he’s thinking, if he has no one to talk to? You don’t want him walking around, talking to himself. He needs somebody. It was pretty clear that it could either be really depressing, or we could come up with something cute and comedic that would help balance out the heaviness of the idea of basically outliving everybody you know and love.
MacLANE: And more people have cats than monkeys, so that became a better comic well.
Animated movies always change. Is there a biggest change that happened with this, along the way?
MacLANE: There was a pretty big change that we made that we can’t really talk about because it has to do with other spoilers for the movie. But I would say that this film went through a normal amount of revision. It was pretty normal, as far as the amount of churn. A lot of what we did was experiment with things. We really tried all the possibilities we could, to get to a more perfect film. That involved a lot of trying things out. It’s just a process.
We see that Zurg is clearly angry about something, but we don’t know what his purpose is yet. What can you say about that character?
MacLANE: I’ve been told that we can’t talk about Zurg.
SUSMAN: Not just yet. You don’t want us to spoil it for you. He’s angry about something, sure. He has a purpose. He has a mission.
Lightyear is in theaters on June 17th.