Ranker Spotlight: Buzz Lightyear

Though Pixar fans required a little bit of explanation — “Is Buzz Lightyear a real person?” “Is this a Toy Story sequel or not?” “Where’s Tim Allen?” — they are fully ready for the studio’s latest film, Lightyear. This film will tell the story not of the toy Buzz Lightyear who starred in the four Toy Story films, but the heroic space ranger movie character the fictional toy was based on.  

It’s a pretty ambitious bit of world-building on the part of Pixar, creating the fictional film that inspired the original Toy Story’s Andy to love his meta-fictional toy. Played by Chris Evans rather than original Buzz voice Tim Allen, the character might be tough to reconcile with the one Disney fans have come to know and love. That begs the question: how do people feel about Buzz Lightyear the character? What is it that people love about the delusional toy who felt he was a real space ranger, and how might that affect their view of this new, yet same character who really is a bona-fide astronaut warrior? 

With Buzz zooming into movie theaters June 17, we decided to look at how well the character ranks on some of our biggest polls about Disney, kids’ movies, and film in general. The results could give us a sense of how the new film will be received by the franchise’s biggest fans, or at least help us understand why they feel the way they do once the movie is released.

How Buzz Lightyear Ranks on Ranker

Because Buzz Lightyear is one of the two main characters in Pixar’s mega-popular first film, it makes sense he would be high up on the list of The Best Toy Story Characters In The Whole Series (13K votes), with only Woody ahead of him. It appears that the Toy Story fan base, unlike Andy, would rather play with the sheriff than the space ranger. That’s also true on the Pixar-wide list The All-Time Greatest Pixar Characters, where Buzz is #10, trailing Woody’s #4.  

On more general lists, Buzz holds some pretty impressive titles, including the #8 ranking on our list of The Most Memorable Film Sidekicks Ever (37K votes). Buzz is ahead of iconic figures like Star Trek’s Spock and The Princess Bride’s Inigo Montoya, as well as fellow space cadets Rocket Racoon and Groot from The Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s got the extremely impressive distinction of being in the Top 50 on our Best Movie Characters Of All Time list (944K votes) at #40, higher than Sarah Connor, Sherlock Holmes, and Samwise Gangee. And even though he’s a kids’ movie character, he’s pretty high (#24) on Cartoon Characters You Totally Want To Have A Beer With (14K votes). Although that’s less surprising when you consider that people born in 1999, the year Toy Story 2 was released, are two years older than the legal drinking age.

What Do Buzz’s Fans Love?

Hundreds of thousands of votes have been cast for Buzz Lightyear on some of Ranker’s most popular lists. What and who else do those fans vote for? Ranker Insights can tell us more about the likes and dislikes of Buzz’s biggest fans.

Other Characters 

It’s not surprising that Buzz fans are 10X more likely to also love Woody, the other figure in their unlikely bromance. But the character isn’t just a draw for Pixar fans — those who love the Star Command trooper are 6X more likely to also love Dreamworks’ cantankerous ogre Shrek, and 5X more likely to love Olaf from Frozen, a Disney movie that doesn’t belong to the Pixar canon. They’re also fans of characters from live-action movies like the alien being from E.T. and Kevin McCallister of Home Alone fame, both of which are 4X more likely to share fans with Buzz. 

Finally, they’re also 4X more likely to love Captain America, the superhero made famous by Lightyear lead actor Chris Evans — that’s great news for Disney and Pixar, who are likely hoping the change in personnel won’t be jarring to moviegoers familiar with Buzz. 

Movies

The Top 4 choices for Buzz Lightyear fans when it comes to film are Toy Story movies. The movie outside that franchise they’re most likely to love is The Incredibles, followed by Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. But live-action adult films appeal to fans of this character, too, and they’re not movies about intrepid space cadets. Buzz fans are 3X more likely to love The Godfather, the iconic and violent gangster movie that many critics consider to be among the greatest films of all time. 

People

When it comes to real people and not film characters, what’s most interesting isn’t necessarily what appeals to Buzz Lightyear fans, but what doesn’t appeal to them: Tim Allen isn’t particularly likely to share fans with the character he voiced in four Pixar movies. Chris Evans is actually slightly more popular than Allen in this crowd, with Buzz fans almost 2X more likely to love the Captain America actor. Interestingly enough, the people Lightyear enthusiasts are most likely to love include Heath Ledger, Willem Dafoe, and Jack Nicholson, all famous for playing bad guys in superhero movies. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been cast for Tom Cruise on some of Ranker’s most popular lists.

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

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