The result is a giant robot Zurg which is aesthetically influenced by the designs of Super Robots, Mecha and Japanese anime. His design has to be intimidating so he could carry the menace and the presence our story demanded.” “But above all, Zurg needs to be a threat. “We needed our Zurg to fit within the hard-boiled sci-fi world that we had created,” he explains. And as for his look, Lightyear sets art director Greg Peltz helped guide Zurg’s more mature reinvention.

He’s now voiced by James Brolin with some added vocal effects. In Lightyear, Zurg has undergone a major makeover to get rid of his cartoony silhouette and to gain some emotional and physical heft as a character. Labeling it a fish out of water story, he adds, “It's like Rip Van Winkle, trapped in a future he doesn't recognize, desperately trying to get back to the past to correct a mistake of his youth a hero out of his own time.” Zurg Is a Reimagined, Scarier VillainĮvery hero needs a worthy nemesis and for Buzz that’s always been Emperor Zurg who was introduced in Toy Story 2. “It’s a story where Buzz is traveling rapidly through time because of his job, and because of that, it would separate him from society and his loved ones,” MacLean explains. This movie is his official origin story and spells out the whole, very grounded story of how Buzz’s mission goes awry and turns him into a man out of time.

In Lightyear, Buzz Lightyear is the earnest Star Command test pilot/astronaut that the toy is based upon. In the Toy Story films, Buzz Lightyear is the cartoony, arrogant Space Ranger toy whose basic mission is to fight Emperor Zurg.

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