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The last few Pixar films have gone straight to Disney Plus, so I'm sure that played a role in its performance. But I also feel the marketing for it has been rather confusing and maybe just put people off of it entirely because they couldn't grasp the concept they were selling.
Their wording was originally that this was the real Buzz and not only until recently have I heard that this was now a movie Andy saw that made him want the toy. The film even opens up with text explaining that, because they've struggled to provide proper context for the film's existence and admitted they didn't know how to explain the movie to people. It honestly seems like a last minute "fix" to rope in more viewers by using Andy, despite the film itself contradicting some of the Buzz Lightyear lore established in Toy Story.
If making this a movie within the Toy Story universe was truly their intention from the start, you'd think the Toy Story universe could have been worked into the film better than just opening text. Otherwise, there's nothing about it that feels like it's supposed to be a movie from another time/universe. It's just a movie about Buzz Lightyear on a random space mission.
Personally, I thought the movie was okay, but it certainly didn't live up to the tone and premise they were setting up. There's too much focus on other characters even though Buzz is still the protagonist through and through, but you never really learn anything about him or where he came from. He's just a guy doing things who's dedicated to his mission. So he basically acts just like the toy rather than a real human like they made it seem originally. We already had the Buzz Lightyear: Star Command series and this basically fulfills that same purpose but as a Pixar movie.
Honestly, I think it would have been much more interesting and worthwhile had they approached the movie from the angle that this was a movie from 1995 or as something that actually happened in Andy's world that started a Buzz Lightyear phenomenon. I think audiences would have connected with that more and it certainly would have added some much needed depth that I think some people were looking for. It was still a fun movie all things considered and it definitely has franchise potential, but rather than make a sequel as the post-credits sequence hinted, I think a project like this would be better served as a Disney Plus series.
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