LIGHTYEAR Themed Cars

I know this little set has been out forever and that Lightyear has been pretty much DOA, but I finally spotted them for the first time 2 or 3 weeks back. Truth is these little collections used to pop up all the time at Walmart and now…maybe once or twice a year…? Oh well. Let’s dig in, ’cause I do like the artwork on these cardbacks.

• 1 / 5 – Buzz Lightyear – Sir Ominous
• 2 / 5 – Zurg – Hiway Hauler 2
• 3 / 5 – Star Command – ’67 Chevelle SS 396
• 4 / 5 – Zyclops – Fast Felion
• 5 / 5 – Sox – Amazoom

Here’s a cool feature – line ’em up and look at the tops (roofs?) and each little logo for each character shows up. It’s a small touch that adds some cohesion to the series.

For whatever reason, the Sir Ominous car is well-suited to Buzz Lightyear’s general shape. Lots of rounded curves balanced by a general stockiness that definitely reminds me of Buzz’s spacesuit. The white metalflake always looks cool and the detail and use of color in the graphics looks great. The car also gives off some futuristic vibes with the green stuff above the hood and the clear compartment in the rear.

If there’s one thing to love about Zurg, it’s that wonderful purple that always accompanies him. We get a metalflake version of this color on the exterior of the cab while the cargo area has a pinker, rose-like color. I wish more things in this world were this color. The Hiway Hauler 2 has a bulky, intimidating presence befitting of Zurg. I’ve always wished the Hiway Hauler 2 was weighted a little differently…I get that they don’t want the trailer to be metal and too heavy but as a result of it being plastic the whole thing feels too light and a bit lopsided. The trailer lends an optimal space for artwork and here we get different art on each side! Both look great and come across as a strange billboard, as if to advertise Zurg himself.

Star Command is represented by the more conventional ’67 Chevelle. It’s got that (almost) 70s muscle car look. The main draw is the small but detailed bit of artwork on the sides, showing Buzz, Izzy, and a couple of other members of Star Command. The small ZAP emblem for their specific team is a nice touch as well.

The Fast Felion embodies Zyclops, some big yellow robot thing. The vehicle shares the distinct yellow and red from the character, with the red making up the windows and vaguely resembling some kind of dangerous red light. Fast Felion is a great design, though it feels a bit small and sleek compared to the heavy robotics of Zyclops. The artwork is somewhat cramped and grainy on the sides but you can tell Zyclops is about to pop on off. It seems like the more spacious hood area would be more conducive to graphics….or at least something aside from the solid yellow.

Bringing in the rear is Sox and his Amazoom. The Amazoom is a positively spot-on rendition of the typical Fast & Furious street racer. Sox himself is just chillin’ on the sides, looking fairly innocent. I wish I knew a little more about Sox so that I had a little more to say…otherwise cool car, and I guess appropriate for a cat…?

I’m guessing this will probably be one of the last new things we see from Lightyear, at least until they greenlight the reboot in 2 or 3 years! I do like the overall aesthetic. It’s kid-friendly without being terribly kiddie. Proportions are kept nice and realistic, an aspect that I think a lot of modern animation completely underestimates. Any thoughts on Lightyear in general? Let me know and maybe I’ll give it a watch!

More Purple Stuff!

Man oh man, Lightyear sure did bomb, and now a lot of stores are clearancing out their Lightyear stuff in droves. The sad part is I don’t even think they finished coming out with stuff – there should be at least two more vehicle / spaceship thingies and likely another wave of Character Cars which would’ve included Zurg and Zyclops. I’m fairly sure of this after seeing pictures of an individually packaged Zurg.

Anyway, if you check out what’s left, you might just find a 2-pack of Monster Trucks under the “Demolition Doubles” line. Unfortunately it includes the Buzz Lightyear Monster Truck that I already friggin’ have as of a few months ago, but it also comes with a Zurg Monster Truck! The design is taken straight from the Character Car so it isn’t really anything new but it’s still pretty cool cuz it was a badass design to begin with.

Just like the car it’s got that awesome glossy purple paint job, that big ol’ arm cannon mounted on the back, and a very smooth integration of Zurg’s face into the front of the vehicle.

If you want one of your own, don’t wait for a potential single release, in fact, don’t wait for anything! Stores will want to move these quickly and I can guarantee that production of pretty much all things Lightyear has been indefinitely halted. In other words, if you want one, find it and grab it because these will be gone very soon. (At least that’s what I think.)

Exclusive LIGHTYEAR Character Cars – Only in Boxset!

Have you read over my spiel on the Disney Princess Character Car boxset yet? If you haven’t you probably should. I go into a little bit of detail about the current state of the Character Car boxset and I think it’d be pointless to reiterate all of that here. And if you don’t care about any of that then lucky you!

First of all, hearing that Lightyear is totally tanking is depressing. I don’t want to pass judgement until seeing it myself but man, it was a bummer running up on all the Lightyear toys today marked down for clearance. (Not them damn LEGOs though…) However, this is good news if you want the Lightyear Boxset that I’m gettin’ ready to tell you about; instead of the standard $19.99, as of writing this it is down to $9.99! That’s pretty cool.

Interestingly enough, the boxset contains 2 exclusives instead of just 1. The drawback here is that only 3 of the 4 singles are included, so even if you grab the box before hunting for the singles you’ll still need to find the individual XL-01 Buzz Lightyear. The box will contain the other 3 (Space Ranger Alpha Buzz Lightyear (referred to as just “Buzz Lightyear” on the boxset’s packaging), Sox, and Izzy Hawthorne). The frankly awesome exclusives are Zyclops and Zurg.

I really dig how the humanoid robot forms of Zyclops & Zurg translate into their respective vehicles. The visors form the windshields and all the little details and markings you would expect ona robot are well placed. Zyclops’ arms fold up and under the sides, forming what would be the front doors. They end up looking like huge cannons just behind the front wheels.

Zurg is even more menacing. In addition to the red “eyes,” he also sports the grille that doubles as his oversized frown. His general form is a spacey, futuristic tank, complete with 6 whole wheels. I love all the little lines and panels that give it a retro, toyetic, techy look. The standout feature is probably the big triple-barreled cannon mounted at the mid-rear (I think this is analogous to Zurg’s arm cannon). All in all I think it’s a great design and I really love that purple. (I think Hot Wheels calls it “royal violet,” ha!)

Fun Fact: This is actually our second Zurg Character Car – the first one came to us back with the release of Toy Story 3!

I had hoped that with the single and the set and all the other formats in which Lightyear stuff is getting to us in that we might get to see a few continued releases of Hot Wheels stuff but now it seems pretty certain that the nails are already going into Lightear’s coffin. I thought the idea was cool but I certainly don’t put it beyond Disney to screw up a sure thing – look at how they’ve maimed Star Wars. Until next time…

LIGHTYEAR Character Cars

NOTE: The pics for this article didn’t turn out great for some reason; I think some settings on the camera may have been different. I did get some passable images from the lot and decided to run with it. Hopefully I’ll be able to do a reshoot and replace them with something better in the near future.

I finally found the Lightyear Character Cars about a week and a half ago and ever since then they’ve started to pop up almost everywhere! These cars are based on the Disney flick Lightyear, which came out this past week. At the time of writing this I haven’t seen it, so my commentary is limited. From what I do understand, the film looks at the Buzz Lightyear toy (from the Toy Story movies) as a real toy based on the real-life exploits of an actual Buzz Lightyear. Lightyear will then depict the “actual” events of Buzz Lightyear’s life (or some portion thereof). It gets kinda meta but I can dig it.

(After a little bit of thinking – and hell, maybe the film will answer this, if so then great – I started to wonder why Disney inserted the, “Buzz Lightyear is a toy” step. Why not just be like, “this is a film about Buzz Lightyear” period. I guess it’s because they wanted to ground “toy Buzz Lightyear” firmly in the world of toys and provide some framework for a “real-life Buzz.”)

The line-up is comprised of 4 cars:

• Space Ranger Alpha Buzz Lightyear
• Izzy Hawthorne
• Sox
• XL-01 Buzz Lightyear

Curiously it would seem as if Disney wants to treat every single outfit for Buzz (1 per ship) as a different character – this becomes even more evident when you start looking at the action figures that have been released so far. I think it’s kinda strange that nothing Zurg-like is included in the line-up, but this could just mean that future waves are on the way.

Space Ranger Alpha Buzz Lightyear is the classic Buzz we all remember from Toy Story and its sequels. The purple and green color scheme is immediately recognizable. I love all the panels and curves and spots and vents…it definitely strikes a cool middle ground between spaceship and hypercar.

Izzy Hawthorne is next…and I know nothing about her. The vehicle itself looks like a Character Car from the days of Star Wars: Rebels. It’s very rugged and utilitarian looking, with some tech-y compartments scattered around. Hopefully this’ll all make a little more sense once we know who Izzy is.

So I reckon that Sox is someone’s…cat? If we’re going from cat to car, it looks pretty good. I do like those green eyes.

Last up is Buzz in another suit, the XL-01 Buzz Lightyear. I don’t know how to comment on the transformation from XL flightsuit to car, but I can see the inspiration here. It’s all very technical and busy. For whatever reason, the back half does look quite similar to a spaceship.

I may lack the necessary knowledge of “Lightyear lore” to effectively comment on these new cars, but I do think they’re pretty cool. I guess Sox could be considered a bit lazy but the designers have poured a ton of detail and attention into the others and if it takes counting Buzz Lightyear as a character 7 times to give us some cool stuff, well, I’m ok with that. Seems like this could be the sort of IP that we get multiple waves from.