After two years of pandemic, Pixar has finally managed to return to theaters with a new release. It was with “Lightyear”, a film that has been in theaters around the world for a few days and which reprises the iconic character from “Toy Story”. In this case it does so in its “true story”, which is a science fiction film from which the toy was born. Thus, the company was able to rely on something very expensive and known to go further with an extraordinary family adventure.
“For me, ‘Toy Story’ was the movie that made me want to be an animator. So when I opened the computer on the first day and Buzz Lightyear was standing there in the scene, I turned off the screen and walked away because it gave me a very impressive feeling that I could work on this character.”, confesses laughing Lluís Llobera, a Spanish animator who worked on ‘Lightyear’ and whom we were able to interview on eCartelera. Alongside him is the lighting artist, also Spanish, Alfonso Caparrini. The latter ensures that working at Pixar is exciting: “I’ve been here for 12 years and still every day I walk through the arc that Pixar puts in there is something inside that says ‘holy shit, you’re Pixar man’. It’s something that never ceases to amaze”.
Being science fiction, the technical and creative team had to work hard on the formal side of the film to maintain Pixar’s extremely high standards. To do so, they relied on many references by the explicit order of the film’s director, Angus MacLane. “The director is a big fanatic of science fiction films: ‘Star Wars’, ‘Starship Troopers’, ‘Blade Runner’ … Every day he gave us notes and referred to one of these films “says Llobera. For Caparrini, this initial premise of actually bringing Buzz into space fully invested him in the project. “I remember the first time they mentioned the idea, about 6 or 7 years ago. And even then it seemed brilliant to me.”he points out.
The ambitious proposal was a challenge for the professionals who worked on ‘Lightyear’. “It’s something we don’t think about very often, but a spaceship or a science fiction city has an absolutely insane amount of lights.”comments Caparrini about the greater difficulty he had to face, “it was a great technical challenge”. On Llobera’s part, it was something even more unexpected: “The director is a veteran Pixar animator and it was hard to please him because he is so meticulous. And one of the big challenges we faced was … In a normal movie, if they ask you for a shot of the hand by pressing a button or pulling down. a lever, you just do it, but in this one you can’t imagine how many times this was the most difficult scene of the sequence, you had to do the meat press something etc. what “.
The kiss controversy
Unfortunately, one of the reasons why “Lightyear” is making the headlines is the reaction of an openly homophobic part of society that has opposed two same-sex characters kissing during a scene. Without wishing to enter into absurd controversies, Caparrini underlines this “I find it sad that people are opposed to a beautiful moment that should simply be a sign of love between two human beings”. Llobera joins her partner, adding him “We are proud that there is a moment like this in one of our films. It is a feeling of normality, it is as it should be”.
Source: E Cartelera
