Hollywood has produced quite a few superhero, sci-fi, and fantasy “origin” films, which rewind a series’ timeline to take a deeper look at a popular character. But I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a film that goes to the trouble of telling the origin story… of a manufactured toy in a fictional universe.

That is what this week’s Lightyear is: a fictional film that explains why a fictional toy was created in another fictional film. The overly serious Toy Story hero Buzz Lightyear, full of catch phrases and push-action tricks on his plastic spacesuit, wasn’t originally a children’s cartoon character, Pixar now says. The toy we grew to love was actually the children’s-toy version of a serious “live action” sci-fi hero—or, at least, live in the way that Andy was a “real” person in the Toy Story universe.