I’ve had a couple questions about Buzz, seeing as there’ve been a few inconsistancies in the movies.
First, are his fingers straight or bent? It’s always confusing, since it’s constantly changing, sometimes, one hand is straight, while the other is almost making a fist. I doubt each of his fingers would be bendy.
Second, how do his wings work? At first, I thought each one would take up half of his jetpack, but after looking into it, his wings are so wide that they have to overlap, like the Toy Story Collection. So how would the karate chop action work? And pressing his wing release button makes them retract, too… though I can see why this feature was left out in the real toy.
Well he has no joints in his actual fingers to make a fist, but neither does Woody and he can grab things. Same with Poatato Head, Rex, and pretty much everyone. They have way more poseability than what YOU can do. And the jetpack/karate chop action are pretty much cheating. I mean there’s nothing in his back when they open it in TS3 for karate chop action. And a quick thing I noticed is that when he presses the wing button for retraction, it’s never a kid doing it, it’s when he’s alive. Maybe it doesn’t actually happen in toy mode…
Never noticed that, but it’s a really good point. Pixar has admitted before that Buzz, the pack in particular, is just cheating. There is no physical way for his wings to fit in there, let alone the springs/parts to make them retract and light up, especally since the wings are thin and semi translucent in the movies. The Karate Chop action is much simpler to explain and IS possible, but in TS3 his back is opened and there is clearly nothing to let that happen. Same with the full helmet retraction.
They cheated quite a bit, but it is to push the point that Buzz is the “coolest toy ever”. What chance does a pull-string cowboy have against a glow-in-the-dark, Talking, flying spaceman, who’s helmet has that… that… Whoosh thing.
But as for features, the Disney Store Buzz is the most accurate. He’s got everything Buzz has (in some form or another), except for the glow-in-the-dark. And his back opens almost EXACTLY like in TS3, but there are two pins, one that activates the Karate Chop from the pack, one that activates the latch that holds the wings, and there is a metal connector that lines up for the lights in the wing tips. So it IS possible, but the features are exagerated to help the story. Sorry for such a rant, but I hope there is something useful in there.
OneEyedBart95, I was just going to say that it is possible to get the laser, wing lights, karate chop action etc. TS was a bit ahead of its time, because it took us 15 years to get an actual toy Buzz to be able to do everything he does in the movie.
There’s a really nice review of the Disney Store Buzz that shows everything he does-
youtube.com/watch?v=7XcMvxv9f8A
YouUnculturedSwine, there are several times when Andy presses Buzz’s red chest button to deploy the wings- namely in the flashback sequence in TS3 and again at the end to show off Buzz’s gadgetry. -Omar
I know it’s possible, but his wings are far to big in the movies to fold into the backpack, but the closest is DS’s Advanced Talking Buzz. I actually own that Buzz, which is why I commented on his battery compartment.
A lot of the basic componants, Buzz’s wings, Karate Chop, “Woosh” Helmet, are all possible, but they are exagerated in the movie to make Buzz distinctly “cooler” than any other toy in Andy’s room. His wings are too wide and long to fit inside the backpack as completly as they do in the movies, even DS Buzz’s wingtips stick out of the pack when folded in. TSC Buzz doesnt have this, but his wings are also much shorter. There is simply not enough space inside Buzz’s chest, especially with the electronic for his talking, and batteries. That’s why the helmet only opens half way.
For features, the Disney Store’s Buzz has all but Glow-In-The-Dark, but each has a limitation to make them not exactly like in the movies. Even with today’s technology we still haven’t gotten a “fully accurate” Buzz, but it’s a lot closer than the original. Pixar was really ahead of their time, but they really stretched the limit a bit for that “cool” factor, if that makes sense.
For the wings, I guess the movie is pretty much a hybrid of the Toy Story Collection and Disney Store Buzz. By that, I mean that the actual width is in the TSC on, but the deployment seems to reflact the DS one (side by side). Though, I guess we’d have a better idea if the TSC Buzz’z wings were a lot thinner, but I guess they couldn’t do that because it would be too fragile (they also include the break-off feature which also makes it thicker).
The full retracting helmet may also be done. It probably couldn’t retract as well, but that’s fine. From the movie, it seems like enough of his helmet was sticking out that it wouldn’t get lost. Plus, there’s a tab sticking out of the end of his helmet, used to secure it in place, that could also be used as a grip to manually pull the helmet back into place.
From the movie, the fact that the karate chop action was missing was a problem, but everything else looked fine. The unscrewed backpack reminded me of the original thinkway toy; his wings looked like they were attached to the part that was removed. The only possible problem was that it looked like his helmet went right through the middle of his chest.
And the issue with the hands is that he changes from scene to scene when he’s in toy mode.
To deploy them yes, but never to CLOSE them. Only Buzz does that himself…
I just figured that’s self explanatory- that Andy or whoever is playing with Buzz at the time, closes the wings again. True, we only see Buzz closing the wings, again by pressing the red large button on his chest. I really dunno if it only works when he’s alive or not.
Although in 3, he does snap his helmet shut when the toddlers come in and wreak havoc. He’s in play mode and that’s the visual joke- that his helmet snaps shut, seemingly automatically.
I’m really looking forward for the Disney Store Buzz to arrive so I can check out all his features. To have the writing set up inside him to allow the laser and karate chop action is pretty intense, at least in my mind. Lovin’ it! -Omar 
I’m trying to make an instruction manual for Buzz, and can make out the words pretty well and under Maintenance it says “simply push the wings back into locked position”.