Putting the Pieces Together

It goes without saying that the Buzz Lightyear sequences in Toy Story fiction (e.g. Attack on Zurg, the Toy Story 3 video game) don't particularly fit together well. After a bit of thinking, I've arranged it into my own "timeline" - see what you think, and feel free to make modifications and suggestions.

1. Buzz joins the Academy, and after training for several years, graduates with flying colours (Tag Team). He meets lifelong friends Warp Darkmatter and Ty Parsec.

2. Buzz gets a little edgy in his work, leading to his suspension from service (Lone Wolf). He soon returns to Star Command, and continues to work alone.

During these years, Zurg utilises the Zurg Bots seen in Toy Story fiction. However, his R&D department is working on a slimmer, more athletic drone better suited for pursuit and elimination of Space Rangers (the Zurg Bots are only good for brute strength, and can teleport but cannot fly).

3. The events seen in the Attack on Zurg video game occur. Buzz utilises the Space Ranger Utility Belt to penetrate Zurg's outpost and defeat all of the Zurg Bots, but Zurg manages to teleport to safety.

In between this event and The Adventure Begins, Zurg finishes development on his new Hornet drones, and begins to deploy them in place of the Zurg Bots. Their success in securing several more planets (e.g. the mining planet in Shiv Katall) causes him to invest in further models, which he deploys to capture Tangea and Jo-Ad (though Buzz's interference rendered these attempts unsuccessful).

Basically, the rest of the series occurs afterwards, beginning with The Adventure Begins. The Buzz Lightyear of Star Command video game occurs during the series, with all levels excluding the Planet Z one occuring prior to Revenge of the Monsters due to Ty Parsecs continuing condition as the Wirewolf. The fight on Planet Z could be considered the true finale to the series, as one was never shown in the cartoon.

Finally, the Toy Story 3 video game. Here, a fleet of battlecruisers is seen preparing for invasion, though Zurg is curiously absent. We can either assume that a), the fleet is set upon retrieving Zurg, or b), the events occur in Andy's imagination, and therefore are useless to the plot of the series.

Basically, all that text was a long winded way of saying that Buzz's adventures in Toy Story fiction come before and after the series.

Thanks for moving the thread, by the way - I had no idea whether to put it in Fanfiction or General Discussion!

I always imagined that, once Buzz defeated Zurg in the video game, a stereotypical self-destruct sequence began and one of Buzz's comrades would be waiting at the end of the level (Ty, Warp, Rocket... take your pick). This would certainly make it tie in with the cartoon, though there's nothing to support it onscreen.

I do like the Zurg bots, though - there's a retrofuturistic feel to them that I like. Besides, they've just released them as action figures, so Zurg will finally have his robot army! They seem a lot more dangerous and menacing in the Toy Story 3 game than they do in Toy Story 2, as they strafe quite a lot and survive having their head or arm blown off!

I wish I could fit these two together, but I cannot. They are unlike things in many ways, and that is disheartening.

The only thing I can fashion is that the TS-verse (at least for the Buzz Lightyear action figure) is really a spin-off of the BLoSC cartoon; although the former receives much more recognition than the origins. At best I can rationalize that two different departments (Disney and Pixar) had two separate ideas and thus... we have the confusion that are TS and BLoSC canons.

Oh, those wily department studios.