Toy Story’s original Buzz Lightyear looked VERY different – and he even had another name
WHEN we think of the family-favourite movie Toy Story, its iconic characters stand out like nothing else.
But the infamous space ranger we know as Buzz Lightyear used to look very different - with new sketches revealing his original design and even different name.
The original cartoon sketches were released to mark the 25th anniversary of the first film and it's clear the animators at Pixar had experimented with a series of different faces, colours and designs before deciding on 'the one'.
Speaking of the family-favourite characters, Pixar historian Christine Freeman said: “Buzz is one of our most popular characters and it’s fascinating to see the different ways that Pixar’s artists imagined him during the evolution of his design."
While he still dons his recognisable space suit in the original drawings, some of the designs slightly different with some featuring star-detailing and , extra space-suitable equipment and even different colours.
His face is also noticeably different in many, with one displaying a funky Elvis-style hair do and a more chiselled jawline.
And while it's hard to imagine knowing him as anything other than Buzz, the animators also played with other names too
Christine said: “Even his name changed over time – from Tempus of Morph to Lunar Larry, to Buzz Lightyear. You can see the LL belt buckle for Lunar Larry in a few of these early designs.”
Despite making a whopping £2.3billion worldwide since the release of the first ever full-length computer animated film in 1995, the entire franchise was close to never existing at all.
At that time it had never been done before - despite Pixar signing up to a three-movie deal with Disney - so the creators, understandably, had a few hiccups.
"We didn’t have any production expertise except for short films and commercials. So we were all complete novices,” says retired Pixar president Ed Catmull.
Straight away there were problems with production, technology and scripts. And Disney, who could kill the deal at any moment, were getting impatient.
In November 1993 – on a date Pixar insiders refer to as “Black Friday” – they showed a rough cut of the film to Disney animation chief Peter Schneider, who claimed "it wasn't working"
After various changes to the storyline, and the characters, Disney finally liked what they saw - and so did we.
But along the way Woody changed as well - as the likeable cowboy was originally supposed to be a ventriloquist dummy.
Producers said it was “creeping people out”, according to Mirror Online, and made the change to a lovable cowboy with his trademark pull-string.
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