by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
During the winter of 1995, Toy Story, the first fully computer animated movie came to theaters. I was 10 years old at the time, and my family and I had been living in Japan for a couple of years. We would come home to the states for summers and Christmas, and when we did, going to the movies was one of our favorite activities. This particular Christmas break was special because we got to go to the theater to see Toy Story. One memory I will never forget was when my brother, who was seven at the time, exclaimed very loudly at the sight of a toy that we owned, “I HAVE THAT TOY,” to the delight of our fellow movie goers. When it came to VHS, we watched it on repeat, and it remains to this day one of my favorite movies of all time. Now take a moment and think about the world created within the movie Toy Story. Andy, also a 10-year-old boy, also went to the movies, and saw what he will come to consider one of his favorite movies of all time. And for his birthday he got an action figure from that movie — “the world’s coolest space ranger, now the world’s coolest toy,” Buzz Lightyear! That is the premise behind the movie Lightyear. It is the movie Andy saw in the theaters and watched on repeat when it came to VHS. This is the movie which made him want a Buzz Lightyear action figure, which in turn gave us the events of Toy Story. Its such a wild idea and a creative direction to take a franchise that has been around for almost three decades. It breathes into it new life.
The moment I heard the premise of Lightyear, I was insanely curious as to what exactly the movie would be. The more information that came out surrounding the film, the more and more excited I became, and that excitement came to a crescendo upon seeing the first teaser trailer. In what I consider to be one of my new favorite teaser trailers of all time, thanks to the use of David Bowie’s “Starman”, we were introduced to a visual and auditory delight! I vowed to not watch another trailer for the movie after that, as I wanted to go into it as fresh as possible. Yes, I was that weirdo in the theater with his fingers in his ears, eyes closed, humming every time the longer trailers came on. Is it safe to say that over the last few months I put Lightyear on a rather unhealthy pedestal? Yes, almost certainly. I can only remember in recent years doing that to two other movies: 2012’s The Avengers and 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Both times I walked out of the theater even more blown away than I was expecting. Could I be three-for-three on this incredibly unique and weird list I had created for myself? Unfortunately, no, the short answer is no, Lightyear did not blow my 37-year-old mind the way those other movies had. But that’s okay, because after thinking on it for the last several hours, there was no way it could live up to my expectations. I still really liked the movie and would rank it among the upper-middle tier of Pixar’s long list of excellent movies.
Lightyear is the story of Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), a space ranger of Star Command, who accidentally maroons his ship, consisting of a crew of 1,200, on a dangerous planet. After a year of planning and using the planet’s resources trying to create a new fuel to power their ship, Buzz sets off on a test flight. The test flight was meant to take only four minutes, but due to an unforeseen bit of “time dilation”, it results in it taking four years. Desperate to atone for his mistake by taking on all the responsibility himself, Buzz attempts test flight after test flight to find the proper mix of fuel to achieve a successful hyper jump until he ends up 62 years in the future from their initial marooning. Unable to reach Star Command due to an unknown alien robot presence, Buzz is found by several cadets voiced by Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, and Dale Soules. Buzz and his cadets must defeat the robots, stop the siege on Star Command, and find a way to get everyone off the planet so that they can complete their mission in uncharted space.
Right off the bat this movie downright gorgeous. I like to say, “Pixar likes to show off how good they are,” when it comes to beautiful visuals, and once again, here they go showing off. I fully intend on finding every scene of this movie I can and turning them into a screen saver for my computer. If you are a fan of Easter eggs, references, and callbacks, then you are going to very much love the first 15 minutes of this movie. From visual callbacks to lines of dialogue, Lightyear wants to hit you in the nostalgia hard. I can see many people rolling their eyes at this, and I suppose depending on my mood of the day I might as well. But there is a weird sense of reverse psychology going on here, because even though we know these as references to Toy Story, technically, in universe, Buzz says and does certain things as a toy because he was programed to replicate his on-screen counterpart. So, is it a callback to Toy Story, or is Toy Story a call back to Lightyear?? In the words of William S. Preston Esq. and Theodore Logan, “woah!” The rest of the movie has a smattering of callbacks throughout, but for the most part, they get most of them out of the way early. Lightyear starts off great with an excellent opening scene that kicks off the adventure and gives you a real sense of who “the real” Buzz is and what makes him tick. Likewise, the third act is really well done, with great action and a satisfying final confrontation with the main villain complete with an amazing feat of “falling with style” that may or may not have been intentional. One of my favorite characters in this movie is Sox the robot cat (voiced by Peter Sohn). He definitely has my favorite gag and line delivery in the whole movie, which involves sneaking into the launch bay that you will know when you see.
My one problem with Lightyear, and the thing keeping it from being an A+ for me is the middle act, when the cadets are introduced. I feel that most people’s opinion of this movie will live or die with how they feel about these three particular characters. To me, they stop the movie dead, don’t add too much to the story, and are constantly prolonging Buzz’s hardships — not for the good of the story, but to pad the runtime. One might argue that is the point, as Buzz has a problem with letting people help him, especially those who he feels are unqualified. But the truth of the matter is, they are unqualified and Buzz eventually letting them help is not a sign that he’s grown; it’s a sign that he’s losing his ability to make rational decisions. These characters weren’t very interesting or funny, which is such a shame because most Pixar movies are enhanced by the amazing supporting characters. Pixar side characters are where the bulk of the comedy comes from, as well as the bulk of the heart. Sadly, I didn’t feel it from these characters. Don’t get me wrong — they do serve a purpose in the third act when they suddenly become good competent characters. But unfortunately, it is not because they learned anything in the second act. This is where the movie makes its one and only misstep, and if you can find a way to grasp onto these characters, then I believe you will love this movie even more.
Lightyear may not have lived up to the unrealistic expectations that I created for it in my head, but I still walked away from it with a smile on my face. A smile that I almost lost as I walked out and almost missed the third end credit scene by accident! I’m just asking, who puts a scene at the very end of the credits, shows the closing logos and then does another scene?? Who? Who does that? …but I digress. I am super excited to take my family to see Lightyear over the weekend, as I know they will undoubtedly love it. Hopefully, with more tempered expectations I too will find more to love. But the goal is to have a fun family outing to the movies which is a guarantee. I was 10 years old when I saw Toy Story and it became one of my all-time favorite movies. Maybe my soon-to-be 10-year-old will find her new favorite movie, just like Andy did when he saw Lightyear back in 1995 and it took him to infinity and beyond!
Score: 8/10
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