Taika Waititi Didn't Really Know What Was Going On In His Lightyear Scenes
Taika Waititi, folks: He's just like you and me!
Few studios can boast a track record of such consistency and quality as Pixar. At the same time, few movies can send viewers into an inadvertent tailspin of existential dread quite like certain Pixar movies have. "Cars" famously sent audiences (and at least one /Film writer) down the weirdest possible rabbit hole as a result of its unique rules of world-building. If nobody drives those characters, why do they have doors? How do they reproduce? If there's a World War II Jeep in the movies, was there a Car-Hitler out there? In case that didn't drive anyone batty enough, Pixar has decided to bring that tradition back with the upcoming "Lightyear" ... and we're not the only ones in need of a clarifying Chris Evans tweet that only makes matters worse.
Taika Waititi is a busy man these days, guiding "Thor: Love and Thunder" to the finish line, turning "Our Flag Means Death" into a roundly well-received hit, and even saying all the right things about his upcoming "Star Wars" movie. He'll next appear (well, aurally, at least) in Pixar's "Lightyear" as Mo Morrison, a colonial defense forces recruit that Buzz (Chris Evans) encounters at one point in the film. Predictably, it didn't take much convincing to bring the writer/director/actor on board the animated movie. Hilariously, however, even Waititi recently had to admit that he spent most of the time trying to figure out what was actually happening in the story.
How confusing could it be ... right?
Are movies getting weirder these days or are we just collectively losing our brain cells? It's probably a bit of both, though it doesn't help matters much that the very premise of "Lightyear" has invited some head-scratching trains of thought. Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to be the movie that Andy watched as a kid that made him buy the Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place, but how does that explain why the "humans" in the film look so different from the people in the "Toy Story" movies? Is it meant to be an "animated" movie taking place in the already-animated world of "Toy Story," or is it somehow what a "live-action" movie is supposed to look like? I don't know and, frankly, Taika Waititi is just as confused.
In an interview with CinemaBlend, Waititi may have briefly stated the quiet part out loud while mentioning how pleased he was to join the film.
"I was honored to be asked, and it didn't take much to convince me except just hearing the word 'Lightyear' and knowing that Chris was going to do it, yeah. And they were wonderful. Again, I went in and I knew nothing. I was reading scenes and then halfway through trying to figure out, still, what was going on. What the scene was following. Despite that, you know, it all works, and it's a great film."
Let's just say I've heard ringing endorsements that were slightly more convincing than that one, but then again, Waititi has always had an oddball sense of humor. I'm assuming it was the time dilation stuff that threw him off, but in any case, "Lightyear" will hopefully clear up any further questions when it blasts off into theaters on June 17, 2022.