Buzz Lightyear: Attack on Zurg



Buzz Lightyear: Attack on Zurg is a video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System shown at the very beginning of Toy Story 2.

It started in Gamma Quadrant, Sector 4, when Buzz Lightyear landed on Zurg's planet and, almost immediately, found himself surrounded by Zurg's robots, who were preparing to destroy him! Thinking fast, Buzz fired his laser at the crystal, which sent his laser light in all directions, plowing through the robots, destroying them in a massive explosion, and blowing Buzz into the air. Next, Buzz encountered another robot that popped out of a wall like a camera and blasted the robot before it, too, could destroy him. Suddenly, the ground below him gave way, and Buzz jumped in through an opening. Activating his glow-in-the-dark function, he ran through the dark tunnel, unaware that Emperor Zurg was tracking Buzz's location inside his control room.



Zurg then activated the levers, and Buzz was caught by surprise when the tunnel suddenly lit up, a spiked wall appeared behind him, and it started charging toward him! In a style similar to Indiana Jones, Buzz ran away from the pursuing spiked wall and jumped through the closing doors in front of him. Finding himself inside a catacomb, Buzz saw an AA battery that indicated it was a source of Zurg's power. Approaching cautiously, he jumped on the bridge of floating discs, but the bridge gave way, sending him falling into the bottomless pit below. Activating his anti-gravity servos on his attached utility belt, Buzz floated back up to the other side of the now-gone bridge. He reached for the battery, but it turned out to be just a hologram, which disappeared as Emperor Zurg suddenly appeared behind him!

Buzz fought Zurg, but as he was about to fire his laser at Zurg, Zurg blasted the top half of Buzz's body into smithereens! Zurg then laughed maniacally on his triumph over Buzz as the words GAME OVER appeared on the TV screen with stereotypical 8-bit music, revealing that it was only a video game in which Rex had been playing.



Rex, a fan of the video game, is unable to admit the fact that he had lost to Zurg again, and is really frustrated that he will never be able to defeat Zurg. Nevertheless, thinking he is all prepared with his experiences on the video game, he goes on a mission led by Buzz to rescue Woody after he is stolen from a yard sale by Al McWhiggin (who turns out to be the owner of Al's Toy Barn).

Later, when the toys enter Al's Toy Barn to search for Woody inside, Rex excitedly finds a manual to the video game that reveals secrets on how to defeat Zurg. However, he loses grip on manual when Tour Guide Barbie turns the car the toys were riding into a spin, prompting Rex to jump out of the car to chase after the manual, but it disappears below the shelf, out of Rex's reach. Despite losing the manual, he is still able to tell Buzz (the toys take an Utility Belt Buzz instead) some secrets he has learned from the manual.

Much later, after witnessing the duel between Zurg and the Utility Belt Buzz on the elevator in which he accidentally intervenes when his tail knocks Zurg down the elevator shaft, he seems to have finally overcome his frustration toward not being able to defeat Zurg in the video game previously.

After the toys return home, Hamm is seen playing the video game. He asks Rex for a hand, but Rex, too overjoyed about his triumph over Zurg previously, doesn't help, and Hamm loses the game before he can continue with his play-through.

Trivia

 * When Buzz enters the planet, he flies through a canyon, which is reused from A Bug's Life.
 * Note: the floating rocks in the canyon were accidentally inserted, but John Lasseter liked how it looked, so it was used in the final version of the film.
 * Various sound effects from the original Star Wars trilogy are audible during the video game sequence such as the TIE Fighter laser blast, the torture droid's hum, the lightsaber wave, and Darth Vader's breathing.
 * The robot that pops out of a wall like a camera may resemble a Perimeter Droid who pops out of the door to a palace of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * Buzz running away from the spiked wall that tries to crush him while chasing him through a tunnel may mirror a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when a character Indiana Jones runs away a rolling boulder that tries to squish him while chasing him out of a temple in South America.
 * When Buzz jumps on the floating discs, the sound effect that plays is the first 3 notes from the theme "Also sprach zarathustra" (the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey).
 * The game is played on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (although the graphics are vastly superior than what an actual Super Nintendo is capable of).
 * Also of note is the stereotypical 8-bit music that plays for "Game Over".
 * On the back of the strategy guide, it mentions that the price is $4.95, although in Canada, it's $50.00.
 * Toy Story 3: The Video Game contains a playable level designed as the "real-life" version of the game.