To infinity and… box-office bomb?!
I tried to warn you, Pixar, not to release more than one movie a year. It’ll ruin the prestige, I said. But more than that, let’s count the reasons why Lightyear might’ve been a commercial flop. 2) no Tim Allen in the iconic role. 3) Pixar has become so cosy on Disney+, and there are so many other options for children on streaming – asking families to see Lightyear in cinemas may’ve proven too much. 4) Making a big deal about inclusivity and LGBT+ representation when I think the main concern for moviegoers should be fun and entertainment – not that representation isn’t important. I was super stoked when I first saw all the Lightyear merchandise in the shopping centres, looking like a surge to capture the same space adventure market as Star Wars, but sadly 5) the trailer reminded me too much of First Man, that Ryan Gosling/Neil Armstrong movie I found incredibly boring, and 6) we already had a worthwhile Toy Story‘s Buzz Lightyear spin-off cartoon with Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
So, I waited, and I’m seeing the movie now. Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans) and a group of allies find themselves marooned on a difficult planet, but with the savviness to bunker down and try to find a way home. They build a base and spaceships, but must experiment with different fuels to figure out how to get back into hyperspace. With every passing attempt, due to the time dilation, Lightyear’s Commanding Officer Alisha Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) grows four years older, while Buzz uses only minutes. With success finally on the horizon, Buzz returns to the base to find his comrades under a new threat of Zurg (voiced by James Brolin) and his technology-stealing robots. Buzz teams up with Alisha’s granddaughter Izzy (voiced by Keke Palmer), and some hopeful sidekicks, to help save the day.
Well, I didn’t realise Andy was such a punk-ass bitch. The first eye-raising moment of Lightyear should’ve been a warning sign for things to come, and that’s the story’s framing – we are told with the opening title that this is the movie that Toy Story’s Andy fell in love with, sparking the Buzz Lightyear craze. This movie. This movie right here. Lightyear is, say, not an in-universe remake of a twenty-year-old beloved property, or even a Tenacious D tribute, but it means to be the original powerhouse. At least by the other two options, I could imagine Andy being around my age, and just as disgusted at how this movie mistreated his boy, as I am. Lightyear could’ve been a metacommentary on how any and all nostalgic properties can undergo a faulty remake in the aims to make a quick buck! But this movie wants to soar to great heights, and be the thing that everyone in Toy Story loved before it even begins. It’s kind’ve funny when you think about it, the balls on this thing! I’ve grown up loving Toy Story, maybe curious to learn a little more about what made Buzz Lightyear so popular, but now that I’ve seen the movie, I would’ve asked my Mum for cash for Christmas. And rolled my eyes at any kids who were making ‘Lightyear’ such a hit. We know The Lion King exists in the Toy Story universe – baby Molly bops to ‘Hakuna Matata’ on the move – so why not ask your Mum for some Simba action figures, Andy, and have some self-respect. How this movie ever led to Al’s Toy Barn dedicating an entire isle to a second wave of Lightyear action figures, I’ll never know. And I call bullshit.
Safe to say, I didn’t like this thing. About halfway through I noticed I was genuinely sitting with my lips pursed, and my arms folded – glad I didn’t see this movie in cinemas, or I might’ve thrown my coke at the screen. In my recent Turning Red review, I made the point that Pixar keep bringing us complex issues, but debasing them into good versus evil by the end – necessary or not, it seems obvious to me that Lightyear should’ve been an exuberant simple action adventure concerning good and evil – Buzz = hero, Zurg = evil emperor; Toy Story gives you all the pieces, now write a fun action adventure around it. This could’ve been a bigger layup than Solo: A Star Wars Story – a movie where purer Star Wars fans were unsure if they needed to know more about Han Solo, but I could’ve enjoyed some more insight into Star Command. Just giving us the stuff that we already know in a lazy way, could’ve garnered a simple 3.0 movie before Lightyear even tried to impress. But radically, these ‘Space Rangers’ are their own thing – they use laser swords, Buzz swipes a detachable laser blaster for his forearm, and the button we recognise that makes Buzz’s wings pop out turns the Space Ranger suit into rubber berries 🤦♀️ This shit would be hilarious if it wasn’t all true. Fairly, Buzz and his co-stars eventually don the familiar spacesuit, for like the last two minutes! But I know toys, and you tell me if Luke Skywalker’s outfit accepting his medal from the Rebellion at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope is more iconic than the farm-boy rags he wears around the galaxy… Children want to interact with where the action is! What’s ironic is that sometimes a toy line doesn’t reflect its source material, and it’s usually because the source material underwent some drastic last-minute changes, or needed reedits or reshoots to be good. Basically, it usually means the source material sucked – hello, Lightyear! And this scenario has been reverse-engineered; twenty-odd years have passed since the Lightyear doll was dreamed into existence, and this movie still couldn’t get it right. Awful.
But more painfully, Buzz Lightyear isn’t even the hero of his own movie! You tell me three times where Buzz is on top of things, and I’ll give you 10 moments he botches. Watching Lightyear, I couldn’t wait for Zurg to come into it in the hopes that something exciting might happen… but I was wasting my time. The friction between the two archenemies turns out to be that Zurg has figured out a way to reverse time and take Buzz back to before he was ever stranded on this planet, but Buzz suddenly doesn’t want to do that, because he’s spent an annoying day with Izzy – noble, but Zurg is kind’ve right in that nobody would be any wiser if the plan works, and nobody would be hurt, although I can equally see how diabolical it is that Zurg disregards his friend and mentor life, as we see Alisha marry and have children (in a poor rip-off montage of the best emotional scene in Up), just because Alisha’s replacement officer didn’t believe in him 🤦♀️ What I’m saying is that either plan has merit, it’s a moral dilemma, and so the stakes in this movie feel contrived and almost non-existent. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker just sacrificed his connections in Spider-Man: No Way Home in a pursuit of a greater good, so there’s a scenario where Izzy could’ve felt the same for the lost on this harsh planet where vines are ever-attacking. Now, perhaps I’m nit-picking, but by this stage of the movie, I just didn’t care. Because remember when Buzz Lightyear thought Zurg killed his father, and Zurg turned out to be his father? 😄 Sure, it was a throwaway joke in Toy Story 2, and a reference to Star Wars, but it’s got to be canon now. How does Buzz think it’s true if he knows that Zurg is really a grumpy-wumpy him from an alternate timeline? P-lease. I cannot emphasise enough how this movie took a slasher to the revered Toy Story legacy, and produced… not much. It also turns out that Buzz Lightyear talks into his ‘mission log’ because he’s silly, and not because it’s important at all – laugh at the dumb hero. And where’s Izzy Hawthorne’s Toy Story merch? She’s just as cool, and important to the future of space exploration as Buzz Lightyear, so was Toy Story…racist? And don’t turn any racist crap on the audience when searching for reasons – when I was a kid in the nineties, I remember having the choice between all the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers figurines and I chose Zac; I still have the figure too – so let’s agree it’s Lightyear’s fault for writing Toy Story into a hole.
Continuing to bemoan the plot, Sox (voiced by Peter Sohn) is a very demeaning character. When the cute robotic cat was drifting off into space, I didn’t want the poor thing to perish though, as it wasn’t its fault the writers of this movie were using it as Mr. Ex Machina, there to have the tools required in any given situation. Yet Sox has competition for the worst character in Lightyear because Mo (voiced by Taika Waititi) is definitely more annoying. This bumbling fool offers nothing but a pen, quite literally. Voiced by Taika Waititi, I can’t hate anyone I’ve never met, but there’s very few people in Hollywood that grate me so; this is wrong-place-wrong-timing, but it’s been a bad year for the laidback Kiwi.
On the other hand, Chris Evans is fine 🤷♂️ As I’ve said, Buzz is so secondary in his own movie, you’re mostly learning with Buzz as he goes along so you’re hardly even focusing on him. I did appreciate the more high-pitch tone used at one point when Buzz exclaims about his ship, much like he does when he finds his box damaged on Andy’s bed in Toy Story 👍 but that was probably on the page. I should also point out that this movie starts by ripping a few lines right out of Toy Story that land as gracefully as a stampeding elephant – it’s akin to George Lucas giving Obi-Wan Kenobi the ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’ line, as the opening line of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace because it just has to be said, and subtlety is overrated. There’re a few more Toy Story lines sprinkled in, but they feel more organic, so they’re fine.
Positives… the animation is absolutely beautiful. Lightyear also shows some ingenuity integrating many recognisable sci-fi tropes into its story, even if it’s a bit choppy. Darby Steel (voiced by Dale Soules), the pensioner with a zest for firearms, also gets a tick. It wouldn’t surprise me if this script had been written before the Buzz Lightyear brand came into it, and it only did for marketability and greed. But the brand did come into it, and Lightyear has got to be one of the most disappointing movies of the year. It’s one of the most heartbreaking movies I’ve ever seen! I strongly doubt the people who wrote this movie grew up with and loved Toy Story as a child. But I’ve listened to the lads of ‘Red Letter Media’ bellyache about the bastardisation of their favoured franchises for years, butchered by contemporaries without a feel for the source material as they do, so I guess it’s my turn. Let’s look up the ages of this movie’s writers and assume their interaction with the Toy Story franchise; it’ll hurt more if they’re of my generation – director and co-writer Angus MacLane is 47 and has worked with Pixar since A Bug’s Life as an animator and more; Lightyear is his first feature writing credit. Co-writer Jason Headley doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry but his website states that he co-wrote Onward (which isn’t among Pixar’s best), and he looks older than 30 on his IMDB. Thank God they’re not my age, and I’ll assume they fucked this up out of ignorance or were overruled up the chain.
So, do I even have to rate Lightyear?! I’d rather forget it ever existed. I was hoping Lightyear would be a love letter and a step forward for Buzz Lightyear, but it’s all wrong; it’s the wrong tone. And as a space adventure alone, it’s completely lacklustre. A generous 1.0 for the animators.
1.0
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