Emperor Zurg is a recurring antagonist in the Disney•PixarToy Story franchise, first physically appearing in Toy Story 2. In accordance of the toyline's fictitious lore, Zurg is the main antagonist of the Buzz Lightyear franchise, the sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance and the archenemy of Buzz Lightyear.
Several Zurg toys appear throughout the film series. He is mentioned as a presence by Andy's Buzz, appears as an intangible video game boss, appears as an individual toy who pursues Al's Buzz, and another Zurg toy that arrives at Sunnyside Daycare.
Zurg is a tall, thin-built but broad-chested humanoid of unknown species dressed in royal purple armor and robes. His head is invariably encased in a massive helmet crested with grey horns, through which a pair of piercing red eyes and a grille of yellow teeth that light up. His chest is covered with a grey and purple chassis, probably made of steel, and has a rubber waist (just like Buzz's) and his hands are covered by steel gauntlets capped with sharp fingers. His feet are encased in long, royal purple robes, and he wears a dramatic black cloak lined with scarlet, with raised lapels in vampiric manner. The clasp on his cape is inscribed with "Z" standing for his name. He carries his signature Ion Blaster on his right hand with a hose connected to a circular cage storing his ammo of 8 yellow balls with a neon red light on top that is attached on the back of his cape.
As a toy, he is made of plastic, and has a hole at the back of his head that goes under the name "Zurg Vision" which the user can see through (which gimmick looks like the latter is wearing the helmet and seeing everything in red).
Zurg is first mentioned by Andy when he and his friends run to his room to play with his new Buzz Lightyear action figure. Buzz says he protects the galaxy from Zurg which Woody sees the exact speech on the box Buzz came from. At the gas station, Buzz stated to Woody that Zurg is secretly building a superweapon located at the galaxy's edge capable of destroying entire planets. This is an obvious allusion to the Galactic Empire from the Star Wars franchise. Zurg does not make a physical appearance in this film, though one of Andy's drawings featured a robot resembling him.
The first form appears during the opening sequence, where he is initially seen tracking Buzz's location through his fortress inside his control room. A little later, he is seen doing battle with Buzz, in which Zurg, using his ion blaster, blasts the top half of Buzz's body into smithereens; however, the opening sequence is revealed to be only Buzz Lightyear: Attack on Zurg, a video game Rex has been playing.
Though not a physical appearance, an image of Zurg is seen in a game manual Rex reads when the toys arrive in Al's Toy Barn.
Much later in the film, a Zurg action figure is accidentally released by Andy's Buzz Lightyear in Al's Toy Barn. Believing himself to be real much like Andy's Buzz has done in the first film and what Ultra Buzz Lightyear thinks that he's real too, he pursues after Andy's Buzz to destroy him. He seems to have followed Andy's Buzz across the street, through an air vent of Al's apartment, and up the elevator shaft as he is seen arriving atop the elevator when Andy's Buzz and his rescue squad of toys head back to the elevator after Al packs Woody and the Roundup gang into his case and leaves his room to head for the airport. Along with the group is an "alternate" Buzz Lightyear action figure (also released from Al's Toy Barn by Andy's Buzz Lightyear), who also believes himself to be real. Both the "alternate" Buzz and Rex, a fan of the video game "Buzz Lightyear: Attack on Zurg", are caught with surprise by Zurg's unexpected arrival. A showdown occurs between the "alternate" Buzz and Zurg atop the elevator, where Zurg uses his chief weapon: his "Ion Blaster" (which appears to be a Nerf ball gun). During this battle, after overpowering the other Buzz, Zurg claims he is Buzz Lightyear's father.
Zurg and Rex in Toy Story 2.
As Zurg sets his gun to his highest level and is about to finish the alternate Buzz off (at point-blank range), Rex, not bearing to watch the duel anymore, turns away, but his large thick tail hits Zurg, knocking him off the elevator and down into the shaft. While Rex feels excited about finally overcoming his frustration toward not being able to defeat Zurg previously, the alternate Buzz feels forlorn about losing his father, but it was revealed when the toys made it out of the apartment, that he managed to survive that fall. Zurg and the alternate Buzz are last seen playing catch and spending quality time together when the original Buzz and his rescue squad make their way out of Al's apartment. The alternate Buzz describes Zurg as a "great dad" as he rushes to catch another ball fired by Zurg. It is unknown what became of the two after this.
Zurg is mentioned by a brainwashed Buzz Lightyear (as Lotso had earlier reset him to Demo Mode), as he sees Andy's toys as minions of Zurg, and is mentioned briefly by Andy when he gives Buzz to Bonnie Anderson. Zurg himself makes a brief appearance in the end credits of Toy Story 3, where he is shown being donated to Sunnyside Daycare in a box along with a dinosaur, a giraffe plush, and two Fisher-Price Little People. He is helped down to the floor by Stretch and meets Barbie and Ken who welcome him to a new cool and groovy Sunnyside, of which the two are leaders. It is unknown what actually happened to his ion blaster unless it was lost by his previous owner. It is also unknown whether he thinks he's the "real" Zurg or if he already knows that he's just a toy. He is later seen doing the robot dance during the song "We Belong Together".
It was revealed on Lee Unkrich's now-defunct Formspring that this was a different Zurg than the one in Toy Story 2.
Emperor Zurg is one of the villains that appear in Disney Infinity. He is a part of the final mission in the Toy Story in Space playset after the player conquers all the simulation missions. He appears as a giant version of himself in the skies above the alien planet, unable to be attacked or interacted with. The player has to gather the batteries to convert the great tower in the alien city into a shrink ray. Once powered up, the laser is fired and Zurg is shrunk down to toy size and later given to Buzz as a trophy for their heroics. However, soon after, he comically attacks everyone with blasts from his blaster before scurrying off to who knows where.
In the 3DS version, he appears on a game board where the player must start up the shield generators and beat Zurg. He also a character is faced off against in the adventure games.
Zurg appears in the game as an unlockable character and one of the heroes (despite being a villain) corrupted by the virus, he is a damage hero and his plasma pistol turns him into a destructive machine that with his white ability can destroy his enemies.
Before Zurg made his first appearance in Toy Story 2, he was mentioned in the first Toy Story movie. An earlier version of him is shown in an alternate opening of the first film. In "Strange Things", on a partially covered drawing done by Andy, Buzz can be seen blasting a giant robot that appears to be Zurg, due to him having giant horns along with a large robe and cape, but his head is not visible.
If the aforementioned deleted scene was kept in the final version, he would be the first character to appear in the franchise instead of Mr. Potato Head.
While he has a different design in the storyboard for the deleted opening scene alongside Buzz having his earlier look, it's unknown if he would actually look like his final design had he made it to the final version.
In 2012, The Disney Store released a talking Zurg action figure completely based off the films version that was sold separately from a talking Buzz action figure.
Zurg's character appears to draw from Darth Vader, the villain in the original Star Wars trilogy, with a similar voice, appearance, and set of mannerisms. A major difference between the two, however, is that Zurg is the absolute ruler of his dominion (hence his title of Emperor), while Vader merely acted as an enforcer for the Galactic Empire.
In the first Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear mentions that Zurg is building a "weapon with the destructive capacity to annihilate an entire planet," making a reference to the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
As Zurg and Utility Belt Buzz battle, the former lifts the latter off the floor by his "neck," and Buzz uses both hands to try to wrench Zurg's hand off him. A similar manner occurred at the beginning of A New Hope, where Darth Vader lifts a rebel soldier off the floor by his neck and the rebel soldier also uses both hands to try to wrench Vader's hand off him.
During the same battle, Zurg claims to be Buzz's father, a parody of when Darth Vader reveals he is Luke Skywalker's father in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
A deleted concept for the scene where Buzz and the other toys pursue Al to the airport had Utility Belt Buzz carrying Zurg off to "bury him" in a similar manner to how Luke carried a dying Vader over to his shuttle in the ending of Return to the Jedi.
Buzz #2 spending "quality time" with Zurg may be a reference to Kevin Costner's character Ray Kinsella reunited and playing catch with his father in the final scene of Field of Dreams.
According to the first two films' director John Lasseter on the Toy Story 2 DVD commentary, there was a script where Zurg was actually going to perish from that fall and Ultra Buzz Lightyear said he was going to be burying his "father", but as they decided that it would be too morbid of Zurg dying, they changed the scene to have Ultra Buzz playing catch with Zurg instead where the latter actually cheated death, though the scene does however appear in the novelization.[citation needed] A sketch for this scrapped scene can also be seen here.
If one looks closely in the scene were he plays catch with Ultra Buzz, Zurg has received some damage after his fall from the elevator; one of his horns is bent slightly backwards, one of his teeth lights is defunct, his iron blaster scope is damaged, and his cape is mangled into several pieces.
In many storybook adaptations, Zurg's actual fate after being shoved down the elavator is not revealed, implying he may have perished.[2]
Zurg appears as a playable character exclusive to the PlayStation 3 version of Toy Story 3: The Video Game, along with his custom-made car.
When looking at the shot where Zurg is about to finish Buzz #2 off, it is noticeable that the levels on his gun are numbered to 11, a reference to Nigel Tufnel's amplifier in This is Spinal Tap.
Zurg was actually to have a slightly bigger role in Toy Story 3, according to the original script. He was one of the recalled toys along with Buzz Lightyear. A quite insane Zurg was the first one to introduce Buzz to his ultimate fate of not being repaired but sent to the toy crusher. Despite this, that Zurg was actually friendly and would open his helmet to reveal a pink and pruny, baby face.[3] He would even refer to himself as 'Zurg Feldman, favorite toy of Zach Feldman' who was "the best 9-year-old boy in Skokie".
The character may also be based on Emperor Ming in the 1980 film Flash Gordon because he sports a cape similar to that of Ming's and is referred to as "Emperor".
During Woody's nightmare earlier in Toy Story 2, some of the mismatched toy arms in the trash can Woody was discarded in belonged to Zurg (although there were a couple of color variations).
It's unexplained why Zurg (the toy) shoots endless amounts of balls out of his blaster as his blaster cage looks like it only holds eight balls in total.
Zurg was based partially on Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich's favorite toy, the Six Million Dollar Man.
The "Zerg" faction in the Blizzard produced computer game StarCraft originally had their name spelled identically to Emperor Zurg's during the game's earlier builds. However, in order to avoid possible copyright issues, the faction later had its name re-spelled with an "e" instead of "u".
In early concept art, Zurg depicted as just a small alien in robotic armor.
Some concept arts show him in alternative colors of black, red, and green.
In the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command episode "The Lightyear Factor", Zurg enters an alternate universe where he finds an Evil Buzz Lightyear ruling the galaxy. The Zurg from that universe is a burger guy at Cosmo's restaurant, due to not having what it took to be "ultimate evil".
In World of Cars Online, Zurg has a cameo where he is depicted as a train in an arcade game.
In opening scenes of Star Command, a Zurg toy makes an appearance in Andy's room replacing Hamm, this might imply that Andy once had a Zurg toy.
Zurg's "villainy" may have been due to the fact that Zurg (the toy) actually thinks that he is the real Zurg and not just a toy, very much like how the toy Buzz Lightyear actually thinks that he is the real Buzz and if he ever realized that he is just a toy, he will just remain evil and decides that he can be Buzz's enemy as a toy as well as be the real Zurg. It's implied that the toy Zurg is actually friendly, had he realized that he is just a toy if he chose to.
Although his toy shoots balls in the actual film, his real-life toy release can't do that, possibly due to time and budgetary reasons.
In a deleted scene for Toy Story 2, Andy's toys were going to meet Zurg in Al's office instead of the elevator shaft. At one point, when Zurg was firing his Nurf ball gun at Andy's Buzz, Buzz would remove the battery from Zurg's gun and throw it at a boxing ring where the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots beat him up.
And in an earlier script of the film, he had a slightly shorter role; after Ultra Buzz 2000 (who became Utility Belt Buzz) and Andy's Buzz were brawling, they would knock down Zurg's box and the latter would think that he crashed onto a hostile planet and would see Ultra Buzz and would torment him. Our Buzz would walk cooly into the fight and pull out the batteries of Zurg's blaster, causing it to stop firing. Zurg would gain fright and realize that his ion blaster is rendered ''useless'' and would back away cowardly and throws his ion blaster gun at Buzz and flees in terror.[4]
As the real-life toy release of Zurg by Disney Store hints, it's possible that he (the toy) talks (when not alive) by pushing his Z button on his chest.
According to the front of Zurg's box seen when Buzz runs over it before waking him in Toy Story 2, the company he (along with Buzz) is produced by is named Wocka Wocka Toys.
Toy Story 4 is the only film where Zurg neither appears nor is mentioned.
There is a chance that Zurg will return in Toy Story 5 possibly as the one controlling the Malfunctioning Buzz Lightyear Army. Although there's a chance that Zurg could be in cahoots with another toy who might be the real master of the army.
Emperor Zurg on Pixar Wiki
Emperor Zurg (Toy Story) on Villains Wiki
