Lightyear starts with a smooth go-to-launch, then hits some launch delays, before taking off! It is of course based on the movie that inspired the action figure in Toy Story (1995). This has a short explaination at the film’s beginning. This animated feature is directed by Angus MacLane, co-director of Finding Dory (2016). The story is the team of MacLane, Matthew Aldrich, who also provided the story with Coco (2017), and Jason Headley, who was the co-story writer and screenwriter for Onward (2020). Headley is also the screenwriter of Lightyear. I feel the same premise potential here also with pacing problems as Onward. The spherical S.C.O.1 ship is commanded by Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba). The actress is known for Orange is the New Black and recently, her dramatic series, In Treatment (2021). The ship is similar to the Aries Ib Lunar Lander in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but more massive in size.
Her Space Ranger co-pilot is our lead character, Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Chris Evans. He is known for playing Captain America, lastly in Avengers: Endgame (2019), and voiced Stewart Stanton in Battle for Terra (2007). His design is strange, because he is supposed to the sci fi character that the toy is based on, but has the impossibly square jaw of the cartoon and toy. The ship’s A.I. is I.V.A.N. (Internal Voice Activated Navigator) voiced by Mary McDonald-Lewis. The voice actress was in Archer and also Lady Jaye in the G.I. Joe cartoon series. The craft contains a number of crew members in suspended animation. This is a colony ship possibly to settle a frontier planet. Hawthorne and Lightyear decide to divert their course to a planet with signs of lifeforms. We have their signature gesture, touching fingers, and saying, “To infinity and beyond.” They land, don’t scan for the lifeforms and the atmosphere, just wander to explore the landscape. Buzz is prone to monologuing recorded on his gauntlet.
This is caught by Alisha who finds it amusing that he is keeps narrating since no one will hear the mission logs. He calls their spaceship, a “turnip.” Buzz begins cutting through vines with his laser blade DX. She notes that they also have a rookie with the awkward name, Featheringhamstan, voiced by Bill Hader. He voiced Axel the Carnie in Toy Story 4 (2019). A new good luck actor for Pixar like John Ratzenberger? His appearance is sudden because he wasn’t present in the cockpit, monitoring the other crewmembers? Buzz doesn’t have time for a rookie even when the rookie is dragged away by animated vines. This hostile lifeform is never identified or understood, just tolerated as an annoyance. The vines begin threatening Buzz and Alisha so they use their laser blades and infinity blasters. Were the vines reacting to Buzz cutting through them earlier as a threat? If so, then they are holding down the spaceship for some reason.
Alisha’s clear thinking in this dangerous situation marks her as a good leader. They make it to the ship’s ramp, but Buzz notices that the rookie is lifted into the air by a vine. This is confusing since Star Command’s rules are not to leave anyone behind, yet up to that point, they don’t try to find Featheringhamstan. Buzz is exasperated, but attempts to save the rookie. It is Alisha who saves the day. They start to launch with the vines gripping the ship. Since the ship was threatened, I don’t know why the crew members were kept in suspended animation. Buzz is able to blast the ship free and go hurtling across the planet’s surface. Featheringhamstan is holding onto a console, not strapped in?, and says that he can help. Buzz ignores him and pulls the ship up, but it gets clipped by a mountain and crashes. This is the last time we see the rookie who doesn’t figure into Buzz’s character development.
We see that Buzz Lightyear is an action hero, but his flaw is that he basically works on his own to accomplish his missions. They have found that the hyperspace crystal is damaged and they are shipwrecked on the planet, later identified as T’Kani Prime. The stranding on the alien planet is right out of sci fi movies like Star Trek Beyond (2016). One of the story problems is that the setting is basically stuck on T’Kani, I think it should be tri-planetary system so we could have different environments. Also, a possible asteroid belt or cosmic anamoly (a great visual) to make leaving the system difficult. This is the basic stranded on an island scenario. The crash landing site on T’Kani Prime is where we get a time lapse of a base construction around the ship. After one year, Captain Buzz Lightyear is now the test pilot for the dagger-like XL-15 spaceship. Buzz is assisted by Airman Díaz (Efren Ramirez) to test new hyperspace crystals. The mixture is a colored fluid that turns into crystals.
His mission is to sling shot around the sun to pass through rings and accelerate in a hyperlaunch. Commander Hawthorne has given him a flight time of four minutes. Buzz pushes the ship, but the hyperspace crystal cracks and the mission is a failure. He returns and finds out from Alisha that he has been away for four years! Buzz Lightyear is literally a Man out of Time like Steve Rogers or the sci fi show, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century! We see again and again Buzz’s attempt to complete the mission. He is assigned a “personal companion robot” in the shape of a cat, Sox (Peter Sohn), to assist and adjust to his new life. Sohn has voiced Ciccio in Luca (2021) and also Squishy in Monsters University (2013). The design of Sox is meant to be cute and perfect as a toy. His use is utilitarian like R2-D2, but not helpful like Baymax in advising Buzz about how to build his trust in others. Buzz eventually has Sox work on a design for a functional hyperspace crystal. We see that over the years that Alisha has married and has a son who grows up and graduates.
He has another failed mission and returns to find a changed world. Alisha’s office is empty and he finds a recording of her last days since she has been sick in his absence. She also has a granddaughter, young Izzy (Keira Hairston). Also, there is a new commander, Burnside (Isiah Whitlock Jr.). The new mission is to stay on the planet and build a laser shield to protect the base in a dome. Buzz finds out that Sox has worked out a stable and effective formula for a hyperspace crystal. Star Command is going to decommission Sox, but Buzz says he will put his robot companion in the cat carrier. Security discovers that Buzz has leaped out the window of his quarters and slips away. He reaches the hangar and uses a rainbow of colored fluids to make the working hyperspace crystal. They slip into the XL-15 ship and escape against Burnside’s orders. Buzz completes the hyperlaunch and returns to T’Kani Prime.
He sends out an emergency flare and then is tackled by a woman in a robot suit. A yellow robot, called a Zyclops, attaches a disc-like device to his ship and it is teleported away. Buzz discovers that the other’s suit has a Hawthorne tag and thinks it is Alisha. This is actually her granddaughter, voiced by Keke Palmer, she has upcoming the film Nope and voiced Maya in The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. Izzy points out that his ship is now in the larger space ship, a purple mothership that resembles a Star Destroyer with its wedge shape split in two. Izzy is a space cadet, but has a fear of space, astrophobia! Buzz is surprised at this strange, new world and he finds from Sox that they have been gone for 62 years! Izzy notes that they can’t communicate with the base and have taken refuge at an abandoned base. There he meets other robot-helmeted members of Izzy’s team. This is to hide their identities, but later, they don’t wear the helmets.
Her team is part of the Junior Zap Patrol. It is made up of Darby Steel (Dale Soules), a grizzled, but resourceful explosives expert like Vinny Santorini in Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). Soules was also in Orange is the New Black. Darby is working off her sentence as a convict, a nod to Soules' other acting credit? The other member of the team is Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi), a clumsy, but well-meaning recruit. Waititi returns as Korg in Thor: Love and Thunder and was also in Free Guy (2021). This “ragtag band of misfits” has to somehow recover the ship from the mothership run by the mysterious Zurg (James Brolin). The Narrator is voiced by Brolin in the Sweet Tooth series and he was in the original Westworld (1973) movie. Izzy explains that Zurg is the noise made by the Zyclops. Buzz has to learn to be part of a team, work with rookies, to accomplish the mission. There is a short mid-credit scene. Lightyear has the mission to juggle the background of the Buzz Lightyear character, become the sci fi hero, but there are some pacing and story problems.
Three Hyperspace Crystals out of Five!
#Lightyear, #AngusMacLane, #ChrisEvans, #KekePalmer, #PeterSohn, #TaikaWaititi, #DaleSoules, #UzoAduba, #JamesBrolin, #MaryMcDonaldLewis, #IsiahWhitlockJr, BillHader
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