Lightyear (2022)

Starring: Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, James Brolin, Uzo Aduba, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Bill Hader, and Efren Ramirez
Grade: D-

Let me start off by saying, who was asking for this?

Never mind. It’s Disney. I should have seen this coming.

Summary

We open with a caption stating, “In 1995, a boy named Andy got a Buzz Lightyear toy for his birthday. It was from his favorite movie. This is that movie.”

In uncharted space, 4.2 million light years from Earth, a Star Command SC-O1 Exploration Vessel travels with a crew of 1200. Since they are reaching an uncharted planet, Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear (Evans) is awakened from hyper sleep to confirm the new destination. Through his mission log, Buzz says that sensors have detected life forms on unknown planet T’Kani Prime, so they’re making a detour to investigate.

Space rangers will make an initial evaluation and assess whether it’s worth waking up the science crew from their hyper sleep.

Robot ERIC (Angus MacLane) takes core samples as Buzz explores. Shortly after, fellow Space Ranger, Buzz’s commanding officer, and best friend Alisha Hawthorne (Aduba) joins up with him. She reminds Buzz he forgot to take rookie Space Ranger Benny Featheringhamstan (Hader) with him. The annoyed Buzz admits he hates rookies as much as autopilot. Because it’s protocol however, Hawthorne brought Benny along anyway. Buzz relents and gives him the spiel of what it means to be a space ranger but is distracted by Hawthorne mocking him. As they talk, Benny is attacked by some kind of alien creature that looks like a vine and acts like a snake. Right after, they’re all under attack from gigantic bugs, so they start running back to the ship without Benny. This is where they see that the ship is slowly sinking. At the same time Hawthorne fixes the control panel on the ship, Buzz goes back to save Benny. Another vine monster almost kills them until Hawthorne tosses Buzz a space sword to cut through one of them. All three get back to the ship. Hawthorne goes into the engine room, and Buzz goes to the cockpit. Benny offers to help, but Buzz insists he do nothing because he’s got this. They fix things just in time, allowing for Buzz to attempt to fly off the planet, despite a collision warning from the autopilot. Denying Benny’s help once again, Buzz tries to take the ship just above the mountain in front of him, but he cuts a sliver of the ship open as he flies upwards, causing enough damage to crash the entire vessel directly into the ground.

The aftermath is devasting.

The crew is woken up and sent to make camp on this planet, and Hawthorne tells Buzz that the hyper-speed crystal used to power the ship was destroyed. For the time being, they’re marooned. A depressed Buzz attempts to court-martial himself and tries to quit. He even handcuffs himself and tells Hawthorne to throw him in the brig because he failed everyone. Hawthorne shuts him down though and says they need to finish the mission and get everyone home. They have no fuel crystal, but Hawthorne is all about finding a solution, saying they can mine the resources on this planet and create a new crystal. As Buzz puts it, the reality is that crystallic fusion is highly unstable and manufacturing a crystal capable of hyper speed is like “trying to lasso the sun”. Someone would need to attach that “sun” to a ship and that ship needs someone to fly it without blowing themselves into oblivion. As he says this, he realizes he came up with a potential solution, and he’s going to be the test pilot that hopefully gets the job done.

One year later, Buzz and the crew are still marooned, but there is hope. The crew have put the planet’s vast resources to good use and the first hyper-speed test flight is ready to go. Buzz greets Hawthorne on the way to the facility but is again attacked by a vine creature. Thankfully, the other workers there rescue him from it. Buzz meets with Airman Diaz (Ramirez), and he takes Buzz to the rocket as they discuss how this whole years’ worth of work should be a four-minute flight. Before he gets on the ship, Diaz hands Buzz an I.V.A.N., a smaller autopilot device used for flights. Buzz is given the crystal, and the robot says it has a promising 87.6% chance of working. Watching and directing from mission control is Hawthorne. Right after, Buzz fires off into space and has I.V.A.N. ready the flight plans. His mission is to accelerate into deep space, slingshot around Alpha T’Kani, then go through the deceleration rings back to T’Kani Prime. The target flight time is 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

For the most part, the mission goes well, but after the slingshot around Alpha T’Kani, one of the engines goes out and the fuel cell becomes unstable. He’s at risk of swaying off course and hurtling into deep space. According to I.V.A.N., ejection is Buzz’s only option, but he refuses. Despite the computer odds of him surviving being low, he uses math and his own piloting skills to correct his course and safely make it through the deceleration rings to land back on T’Kani Prime. As soon as he gets out of his ship, he’s attacked by a vine alien and Airman Diaz saves him. Once Buzz gets up, he notices Diaz now has a goatee. More time has passed than he initially thought. In fact, Diaz tells Buzz he’s actually been gone 4 years, 2 months, and 3 days. He reconvenes with Hawthorne, and she tells him it happened because of “time dilation”. ERIC explains that as Buzz approached hyper-speed, his time slowed relative to everyone on T’Kani Prime. During his mission, he only aged minutes while everyone else aged years. Basically, the faster he flies, the further into the future he travels. Things are unclear at this point. They have to finish the mission, but Hawthorne asks Buzz if he’s willing to lose another four years of his life. He’s unsure. However, the guilt is eating at Buzz because everyone is stuck on the planet because of him. When they get back to their apartments, Hawthorne reveals she got engaged to Kiko, a woman from the science crew. Despite the time lost, Hawthorne seems to be thankful because she never would have met her if they weren’t stranded.

Once Buzz gets inside, he finds a box gifted to him by Hawthorne. In it is a personal companion cat robot named Sox (Peter Sohn). He was issued by Star Command to ease his emotional transition after his time away. Buzz isn’t necessarily interested, but it’s protocol. Later, he wakes up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare centered around him crashing the vessel. The next morning, Sox asks if he wants to talk about it, but Buzz isn’t interested. When Sox says he isn’t giving up on his mission to make Buzz feel better, this inspires Buzz to not give up on his mission either. Before he leaves, Sox asks for a challenging project to work on, so Buzz gives him the job of trying to figure out the formula for a crystal with the right fuel stability. As Buzz leaves, he tells Sox he’ll be back in four years. Back at the station, Hawthorne tries to talk Buzz out of flying again, but he’s too determined to fix everything and heads out. Through a montage sequence, we see Buzz try his mission again and again, continuously failing but refusing to give up. As time goes by, we see Hawthorne get pregnant, have a son, the son graduating, the son getting married, and her 40th wedding anniversary. One day, Buzz gets back from his regular mission and goes to see Hawthorne, but she’s not there. He opens a hologram message labeled for him, and it’s a recorded video message she made a year ago to greet Buzz while on her death bed. During the message, Hawthorne’s granddaughter Izzy appears who promises to become a space ranger too. Hawthorne then tells Buzz goodbye for the last time, saying how sad she is that she won’t be there to see Buzz complete the mission. Following this, Commander Cal Burnside (Whitlock Jr.) comes into the office to take over, as he’s officially succeeding Hawthorne as his commanding officer. He tells Buzz this mission was his last because they’ve decided to stay on T’Kani Prime on account of a laser shield protecting them. A discouraged Buzz goes back to his place.

There, Sox gives him some good news. He figured out the fuel problem! It took him 62 years, 7 months, and 5 days, but he did it! Theoretically, it’s stable!

Unfortunately, two soldiers from Star Command show up to pick up Sox because they’re shutting down the program and have to decommission him. Buzz convinces them to let him do it, but when he closes the door, he smashes the window and escapes with Sox. They go all the way back to the base with the goal of stealing a ship. In the elevator, Sox threatens to tell Star Command what’s happening, but once Buzz tells him Star Command was there to decommission him, Sox takes out a guard, buying Buzz five minutes. They create the formula Sox came up with. Unfortunately, when a guard shows up, Buzz jumps to the ground and breaks the computer the formula was on. Now, they have the formula, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to recreate it. As security checks the place out, Buzz and Sox sneak onto a ship, but their presence is known once Buzz installs an I.V.A.N. and it starts talking loud enough for everyone to hear. Buzz is outed as the one behind it after failing to come up with a believable lie when mission control calls in, and Burnside is alerted to the mess. He orders Buzz out of the ship immediately, but he refuses. Star Command tries to close the doors, but Sox is able to override them with a chip in his tail inserted into the ship’s controls. They fly off to test the hyper-speed formula one more time. This go-around, they succeed! When they get back into the atmosphere however, their velocity is still too high, and they zoom right past the base, which is now being protected by the laser shield Burnside was so excited about. They land elsewhere on the planet. Buzz fires a flare into the air and grabs the crystal from the ship. He tries to reach Star Command, but there’s no response. Just then, an unknown soldier tackles him to the ground, telling him to be quiet.

A robot walks over to Buzz’s ship and puts some device on it. In an instant, both the robot and the ship disappear. The soldier tells Buzz they’ve been transported to the massive starship above them. On this ship, the robot goes to the main room to show Zurg (Brolin) of Buzz’s ship. Zurg asks where the pilot is. Back on T’Kani Prime, a confused Buzz questions what’s going on. It leads to the soldier realizing who Buzz is and her revealing herself to be Izzy (Palmer), the now grown granddaughter of Commander Hawthorne. Realizing a lot more time has passed, he asks Sox how much time he has missed. It’s a staggering 22 years, 19 weeks, and 4 days. Izzy tells Buzz that the Zurg ship showed up around a week ago. The term “Zurg” came about because it’s the only thing the robots say, so that’s why they call the ship this.

Anyway, the ship arrived and surrounded the base. She shows Buzz a video of what happened, with Commander Burnside alerting everyone on base they’re under attack, forcing them to activate the laser shield. Buzz uses binoculars and sees the robots constantly firing against the shield but not penetrating it whatsoever. The people are safe, but they’re trapped. Izzy has a plan and a team. All she needs is a pilot, so Buzz couldn’t come at a perfect time. Her team consists of the idiotic Mo Morrison (Waititi) and an old woman in Darby Steel (Dale Soules). They all discuss Izzy’s plan “Operation Surprise Party”, a variation on “Operation Thunder Spear”, which is a mission Buzz got two medals for. Buzz is surprised to see that Izzy knows this, but she’s well versed in the lore of space rangers, saying she’s read every book on the subject her grandmother had. The DERIC robot says sensors have indicated that the Zurg ship powers the robots on the ground. The idea they have is to blow up the ship and kill the robots first. Then, they can put the crystal in the vessel and get everyone home. They load their munitions in the armadillo and get ready. However, they all hear something. Though Mo doesn’t think it could be a robot because they’ve never been spotted this far off base, it ends up being the robot from earlier that took Buzz’s ship and talked to Zurg. It grabs Buzz and the others try to save him, but the supreme incompetence of the “Junior Patrol” starts to show.

To buy them time, Buzz knocks the teleportation device off of him. The robot carries Buzz upside down as it travels to grab it. Meanwhile, the others try individually to help him and (for the most part) fail miserably. First, they start firing training ammo at the robot which is just paint balls. Secondly, Mo fires a harpoon but misses, admitting he’s never been trained with the weapon. Thirdly, Buzz yells at Darby to grab his gun from the ground, but she refuses because it would be in violation of her parole. Izzy throws the gun at Buzz but misses him. This allows for the robot to step on it and break it. Mo shoots another harpoon and hits the device, transporting the harpoon and the device back to the Zurg ship. The robot shoots at Mo, but Buzz breaks it’s arm off (due to Sox messing with its controls early in the fight). The robot just misses Mo’s head. Following all of this, Mo is able to strike the robot with another harpoon to take him out. Zurg sees his robot failed on his computer, so he gets onto a smaller ship of his own and heads down to T’Kani Prime. A now frustrated Buzz wants to know who this group of cadets actually are. Izzy admits they’re volunteers that train one weekend a month at this specific outpost. They were the first to arrive last weekend when the robots showed up. On the totem pole, they’re a step below rookies. They only have partial munitions training, pending tactical engagement training, and the only combat experience they’ve received was the fight they just had with the robot. There’s no time for this, and Buzz knows it. He takes Sox and tells the others he’s going to go about this alone because it’s too risky to include them. He just wants to know where he can get another ship. DERIC tells him there’s one at the abandoned storage depot.

Since DERIC is confused on his own directions on how to get there, Izzy and the crew decide to show Buzz the location. At the depot, there’s a mishap with the plan. Once the group’s invisibility feature on their space ranger suits wears off, and the monstrous bugs they were trying to avoid chase them into the same ship Buzz was leaving with Sox in, they get their wish to be a part of the plan. They’re all in this together whether Buzz likes it or not. Then again, this mission is a big one, and he’s going to need all the help he can get.

My Thoughts:

Had Lightyear been successful, this could have changed the trajectory of the Toy Story franchise and the potential direction in which Pixar was headed.

Thank God it failed.

For the record, we love Buzz Lightyear. That goes without saying. I consider myself a Toy Story purist and superfan of the franchise. The writing has been magnificent, the creativity has always been top-notch, each story is as engrossing as any regular Oscar-nominated drama, and every character introduced into this expanded universe has been treated with thought and care and have subsequently brought their own special contributions to each movie. Even if we never wanted Toy Story 4, elements of everything I just mentioned can be found in that film just as well. Spinoffs are tricky to figure out though. If done wrong, you risk alienated the fans who allowed for the spinoff to be possible, and you could fail to gain a new audience at the same time. If done right, you can spawn an entirely different avenue of storytelling possibilities that can generate huge money, interest, and further expansion. For all intents and purposes, Buzz Lightyear is the right guy to do a spinoff with, if you were forced to choose. Toy Story as a whole is more Woody’s story, and nobody else really shows enough character development to warrant their own movie unless Disney decides to do some off-the-wall shit with Mr. Potato Head.

Actually, that would be kind of interesting, but I digress.

The potential within the genre of science fiction regarding Buzz Lightyear as a real person rather than a toy who thinks he’s real has always yielded glorious possibilities, as a franchise based around a space hero travelling the galaxy to fight crime is a surefire way to get heads turning in your direction. This was the thought process behind the ridiculously underrated direct-to-video feature Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure begins and the resulting television show that followed it in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. If you have read my previous reviews of both programs, you are aware of my fandom regarding these projects and how well the premise was utilized by the creative minds behind it. To this day, they stand the test of time, turning Buzz into Disney’s version of a Luke Skywalker-like hero who protected the Galactic Alliance from aliens, criminals, and the ultra-cool (and very funny) Evil Emperor Zurg. Along with this, Buzz is aided by a team of rookies who he trains and takes along with him, and they all have distinct and fun personalities that add a lot to each adventure. When Lightyear was announced, the initial thought may have just been me being hopeful. Are they going to do it? Are they going to make Buzz Lightyear of Star Command into a huge feature film with a massive budget and give the fans a sci-fi extravaganza that reminds everyone how good the cartoon was all those years back? Are we going to see Mira Nova, XR, Booster, Commander Nebula, Star Command, the Galactic Alliance, the funny little LGMs, and badass Buzz Lightyear on the big screen, waging war with Emperor Zurg as they pursue criminals across the galaxy at the same time? Despite all the makings of a computer-animated sci-fi masterpiece seemingly under the fingertips, all of it was thrown to the side for an entirely new take on Buzz Lightyear, one without life or fun of any kind.

There was a glimmer of hope though. Disney made it known ahead of time, and reiterated in the opening credits of the movie, that Lightyear is a film within a film. Within the Toy Story universe, this is the movie Andy saw when he was a kid that led to his birthday gift of the Buzz Lightyear toy in the first Toy Story movie. Basically, this means Lightyear is the movie that could be looked at as the one that started it all.

With this, the bar is set high. If this is a movie that inspired the imagination of a young boy, there’s a lot of expectations that go with it. Knowing what their mission statement was and looking at the whole point of this movie in general, Lightyear failed fucking miserably. So much of this film has made my blood boil, not only from a fan perspective but as a lover of cinema, franchise lore, and full-length animated movies. The entirety of this unimaginative, unoriginal, flat, spiritless mess from start to finish felt like it was created for merchandising opportunities and for PR reasons. This was not a film made for lovers of the science fiction genre or for the love of the Buzz Lightyear and the lore behind his character. Actually, the movie’s biggest problem was their handling of the star, who spent a majority of the movie looking like a sad sack of shit. In some of the most sequences of the entire film, especially the ones that include the ever-important “Hero” moment that define a character like this, Buzz looks and acts absolutely helpless. As a ship is crashing through space and Buzz gets under it to try and hold it, he just plainly states aloud that he can’t do it. This doesn’t make for a good protagonist, let alone a known character like Buzz fucking Lightyear. In fact, this has never been Buzz Lightyear! Hell, the toy version of Buzz would have died before he gave up like this Buzz did. The fact that he did so on so many occasions in Lightyear, giving up in the heat of the moment and looking to be inspired by others who had no business being there, was a complete slap in the face to the loyal fans that have been with him from day one. It’s not supposed to be about the ensemble. It never was! It’s about Buzz Lightyear and then everyone else. That’s the whole point of a standalone spinoff!

People put the blame on being “woke” for a lot of movies’ failure in these last few years, and I hate it. Bringing politics into things is the last thing I would ever want to do, but Lightyear was so blatant about its disrespect for the character and the potential for its own idea that something needed to be said. In terms of muddying the story to push an agenda, Lightyear may have a legitimate gripe. If this was truly about Buzz Lightyear, and Andy was inspired by said character, why did the movie make it a point to create a statue celebrating a character that died in the first act instead of the guy who actually saved the galaxy? This ending point by itself contradicts the entire premise of this film. You’re telling me young Andy loved Buzz Lightyear this much after the events of a poorly-constructed movie like this? I find that hard to believe because not only does Buzz spend a good portion of this movie feeling sorry for himself, failing constantly, and just not being nearly as cool as he was before, but the film spends most of its running time trying to make Buzz look inferior to Commander Hawthorne even after she passes away. At every turn, Buzz looks down, talks about how he can’t do something, and how awesome she was. Doesn’t this seem strange for a movie that supposed to be about the heroics of Buzz Lightyear? Hawthorne’s superiority beyond the grave is so incessant and in-your-face, you can’t help but feel like there is a hidden agenda of some sort rather than the supposed positive message about working as a team. It was exhausting. Again, please explain to me how even after Buzz and the three losers save the world, they make it a point to create a statue for Hawthorne, despite her having no influence on the mission whatsoever. All she did was wish him good luck every time he failed, be his partner and direct superior early on, and married a woman. That’s it. This is all she did in the movie. Why do they treat her like she’s James T. Kirk himself?

Why does Hawthorne warrant so much attention in a movie that’s supposed to be centered around the heroics of BUZZ FUCKING LIGHTYEAR? His name is in the title, but yet, he gets less attention than he did in the last two Toy Story films in favor of the female characters, much like how Doctor Strange was treated in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Oddly enough, this version of Buzz is presented as an even worse hero in comparison to THE FUCKING TOY! Disney never had the story, the already known mythology created decades ago, or the character of Buzz Lightyear in their best interests. As a result, I have no respect for this movie whatsoever. It didn’t represent at all what it was supposed to, or at least claimed to. If Lightyear hypothetically were the movie Andy watched when he was a kid, then he would have wanted a Commander Hawthorne or Izzy toy because that’s how the story is structured and presented to the audience. Buzz isn’t a bystander by any means, but he’s not the one-man wrecking crew that would have excited a generation of young boys to buy his action figure. Truthfully, I don’t think kids in general would latch onto a movie like Lightyear because of how poorly done it was and how much of a disservice the characterization was for the protagonist. Look, we have no issues with having a strong-minded female character. A badly written one that forces the protagonist to be brought down a couple of notches, so they look better however is when it stops becoming a movie and turns more into an assignment where a studio is looking to check boxes for PR reasons. As Buzz Lightyear fans, we know the importance of a strong female character. The blueprint was already there with Princess Mira Nova! In the direct-to-video feature and the cartoon, one of the biggest positives came from Mira Nova, a talented space ranger who denounced her royal duties to work in Star Command and become a badass in her own right.

She was never used as fodder for Buzz nor a love interest. Mira was treated as an equal with potential and could have very easily done the same had this movie been a computer-animated version of the show, or had either Hawthorne or Izzy were created with this in mind. What’s frustrating is that they treat Hawthorne and her granddaughter Izzy much worse in terms of characterization but are both still pushed as being more important to the overall mission/story than Buzz in his own fucking movie! If you wanted to make a spinoff about Izzy to promote whatever agenda Disney may have (I can guarantee you that if this movie succeeded, Izzy would have gotten her own film or unwanted TV show on Disney Plus within three years), this type of story would have fit the third film in a full Lightyear spinoff franchise. However, since this was the first movie in what could have been a franchise, it needed to be all about Buzz and how he turned into the biggest hero of the galaxy, especially to make sense of why Andy is such a massive fan of the character. When you look at it this from this perspective, this production completely failed Buzz Lightyear as a character and killed his credibility completely. This is how badly the movie does Buzz Lightyear justice, and why a feature film version of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command would’ve just flat-out made more sense had this been the idea behind it all. If you think my love for the cartoon is overstated, that’s fine. I can accept that. What I can’t accept is that the opening sequence from Toy Story 2 was more imaginative, action-packed, fit the premise of “Andy’s favorite movie in 1995” idea, honored the Buzz Lightyear character, and was generally more interesting than the entire running time of this $200 million box office bomb.

Apparently, the animation team went to NASA to research about spaceships, space suits, and overall set pieces as they wanted “everything to look like a live-action film rather than an animated one”, but don’t you see the problem? Right in pre-production is where they fucked up. Making Lightyear too realistic makes us miss out on the fun on what could have a been a space opera for the ages, quite like the previous adaptations of Buzz spinoff projects have been. It’s just logic at this point. The presentation of this premise is everything. Why would Andy or any kid for that matter be enthralled by a movie like this? First of all, it’s a visually dark movie, something that goes against the most basic of unofficial rules regarding children’s entertainment. The imagery is boring and colorless. The environments are dreary, they do very little exploring regarding all the planets around them, and even when they settle into the story a bit, there’s zero imagination regarding the locations they get to. For some reason, the decision was to go into a gritty and realistic depiction of space. As a result, everything looked and felt mechanical. Honestly, the film had more in common with Ad Astra than it did with Toy Story or the other spinoff projects revolving around our beloved space ranger. The only alien life forms they crossed paths with were bugs and non-speaking monsters. In the cartoon, one of its biggest attractions was the humanoid alien life forms they help out or have to defeat. This was the basic formula for each episode and for almost any successful sci-fi franchise. Even Star Command had alien space rangers, and the LGMs (Little Green Men) were a huge part of helping the day-to-day operations of the galactic law enforcement program. Plus, they were a big part of the humor. Taking such a fundamental part out of the story for Lightyear sucked the fun out of it.

Their idea of humor was making the people in the future eat sandwiches with two slices of meat taking place of the bread, with the lone bread slice being in the middle. The argument is that it’s a good thing for your fingers to get all slimy because it allows you to suck your fingers like a child, with Mo referring to “juicy fingers” being the best part in yet another weird and unfunny scene. Also, they are seen laying the sandwich on a table in the sequence too, which is disgusting. Did they actually find this funny when they were writing it? Did they consider that kids would repeat this behavior because the characters in the movie did it, especially after Buzz agreed this was a better way to eat a sandwich too?

Besides this, everything was too grounded, serious, and because of the time dilation thing and Buzz seeing face-to-face what he could become in the future, it’s quite depressing for the age group it’s intended for. Furthermore, the last thing we need is another group of formulaic human characters that can be plugged into the same basic story, but Lightyear was exactly that, formulaic. In science fiction, you can do anything. There is no limit to what you can create or make into a certain plot point or character. You can cross dimensions, you can create universes, races, planets, and the technology can be whatever you want it to be. Unfortunately, they don’t even scratch the surface of what Lightyear could have been. The 70-minute direct-to-video movie from 2000 does all of this that much better. In fact, it’s not even close. Lightyear is just filled to the brim with lazy writing, all the way down to the twist, which may go down as one of the worst of all time. All of Lightyear can be summed up as Buzz needing to learn from a ragtag group of space rangers with zero experience, about what it means to be a team. They try to paint Buzz as this one-man hero who needs to learn, but right from the beginning of this movie, he never was that. From the outset, he was partnered with Commander Hawthorne and another idiot rookie. He was never the main guy, so when they try to make him this once he comes back to T’Kani Prime, it doesn’t hold any weight story-wise. A big pro of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins was that in a way to subvert the expected tropes of the story and genre, Buzz doesn’t go the route of hating rookies or having partners. The only reason he just doesn’t want a partner when Commander Nebula asks Buzz to team with Mira Nova was because he still felt responsible for Warp Darkmatter’s “death” and was still grieving enough to refuse extra help because he felt like he could cause someone else’s death. Besides this, he respects Mira and her abilities.

In Lightyear, they go right back to the storyline expectation of Buzz hating rookies, and its groan-inducing because we’ve seen this type of story a million fucking times. Funnily enough, the story serves Buzz right more than it would like to admit. Featheringhamstan had the abilities of a fucking janitor. Buzz was right to dismiss him. The man helped in no way, was a total nuisance, and was completely useless even in hindsight. If he were to help Buzz in trying to fly the Turnip away, chances are they would’ve crashed headfirst and killed everyone on board. When it comes to the new crop of dipshit rookies Buzz meets upon his return and hears their plan to infiltrate Zurg’s ship, his dismissing of them as well just comes off as admirable because he’s right. They aren’t ready. He’s doing them a favor by attempting the mission himself, and had they gone this route from a writing perspective, this would’ve served the purpose of the movie a lot better because that would’ve been cool enough to warrant a young kid like Andy to fall in love with the space ranger’s heroics. Everything that happened that resulted in Buzz being saved by this team, which they can’t stop reminding him of, was pure fucking luck just as he says. This potential “Team Lightyear” or “Junior Cadet” group sucks so much and are so distressingly naive, it doesn’t even come off as humorous or endearing, which is the clear intention. We’ve seen a lot of movies and animated features that have these types of supporting characters, but the fine line to making them work is to do just enough to endear them to the viewer, despite their illogic. Lightyear never finds this line. They don’t even come close. If watching this film intently, you find yourself getting just as angry with them as Buzz is if not more so.

In one of the more boneheaded scenes in a movie full of them, the “Stealth Mode” sequence had to have been the worst. They all agree to part ways and Buzz gives a quick crash-course to these morons on how the space suits work, to the best of his ability in the heat of the moment. He does his part right, but he forgets to tell the others about the timer when using stealth mode. Alright, Mo did have a point that Buzz didn’t tell the group about that before they went out in the face of danger. Nevertheless, did the group need to fuck around by messing with bugs when they were invisible instead of following orders from a direct superior? No, and the idiocy of this moment and these characters wanting to mess around when the fate of the fucking galaxy is in their hands makes them that much more unlikable because of how careless each of them actually are. Then, the first thing Mo does is pull the one device Buzz said not to press in the face of danger, and it turns his suit into a giant protection bubble. When they all start panicking when their position is revealed and they run back to Buzz and basically force themselves into the mission, Buzz has to save them again at the last second and they barely get away in the armadillo. Following all of this, they have the AUDACITY to congratulate themselves on a job well done? Once again, YOU GOT LUCKY. If Buzz didn’t think quickly, they would’ve all been ravaged to death because of their carelessness and failure to act in the face of danger. Even if they didn’t know about stealth mode, they would’ve gotten pretty fucking far had they just run a straight line, but no, they had to work extra hard to prove how much they suck. Even if they helped Buzz in the climax of the movie, they still didn’t do nearly enough to vindicate their existence.

For example, Mo did not do a single fucking thing right the entire movie. He wasn’t funny, he was a complete trash fire masquerading as a human, and he didn’t even want to be there in the first place. Additionally, he was an admitted quitter and was willing to give up in the face of any threat whatsoever. Somehow, he was infinitely more annoying and incompetent than Booster from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. What is the one redeeming moment he had? He was able to conjure up a pen to help pry up the floorboard for the elderly Darby to actually save the day. That’s it. All he did was produce a pen when they needed it most. This fucking idiot couldn’t even sit down right without messing something up, accidentally knocking Sox off the table and almost breaking him as a result. As he profusely apologized and the rest of the group tries to make him feel better, they get mad at Buzz’s insensitive advice for him to just do better. Why is this? Again, HE’S RIGHT. Mo has done nothing to warrant sympathy and has done even less to prove himself for this team. He doesn’t deserve coddling. He’s a complete liability and should be left behind. Why give him a pass because he feels bad? Fuck him! This is purely propaganda for the pro “Participation Award” crowd that has risen up over the last few years. Look, there’s a time and place for that, but Lightyear is neither. This is the military, and we’re at war! Mo does have to do better. He has to rise to the occasion.

Can you imagine not being able to just sit down without fucking something up? On top of that, you almost kill the only thing that has gotten Buzz through his PTSD regarding losing 60 years of his life through space travel? I have no sympathy for a character like this, and neither should you or anyone in the movie for that matter. Izzy was extremely frustrating to watch as well. Her whole thing is being plucky and confident, but she comes off as annoying and needy. Technically, she’s the only one with talent but the only real talent she possesses is moxie. Enthusiasm is great, but this can only get you so far as a character in a situation like this. Continuously, Izzy tries to argue that Buzz “needs” them, but does he? Why does she think Buzz needs her and her gang of assclowns? Is it because that this group (mostly her) has basic problem-solving skills that 99% of humanity has? Mo can’t even turn off a car alarm in a timely fashion, and Izzy is basically a kid. Darby is the only useful one in a combat situation, but she’s past retirement age. As the de-facto leader of this group of grocery store baggers, Izzy brings nothing else to the table, other than the fact that she has the last name of someone who was actually worth a damn. Now, I understand each character has to have flaws they overcome, but there’s two major problems with this regarding Lightyear. Mo has so many flaws that I can’t think of ANY positives, and the major flaw they give Izzy is that she’s AFRAID OF FUCKING SPACE! What?! This isn’t even funny. It’s so illogical that it actually bothered me! Why would someone pursue a career path like this if they can’t go in space? How could she pass any basic test during the beginning stages of signing up when almost everyone in her career field has to face space at one point in their life? It’s a requirement! Buzz himself says this should have disqualified her from getting as far as she did according to protocol, so why isn’t she? Oh, that’s right. There is no valid reason given.

They just choose the most illogical way to make her character memorable.

Why is Izzy so inspired by what her grandmother did? How come she doesn’t talk about her actual parents? What did they do? Had Izzy been a regular citizen of T’Kani Prime with no interest in her grandmother’s career as a result of her fear of space, then her overcoming such a thing in the third act to aide Buzz in his quest to save the world would make a lot more sense than what we got here. However, making Izzy gung-ho about everything but not having the ability to look at space without damn near crying makes this one of the dumbest written characters I’ve seen in years. The only clear-cut money-grab tactic that actually worked for this bullshit movie was robot cat Sox, as he was the only source of laughter throughout this entire frustrating experience. The real shame is that if the LGMs were in this movie, they would’ve KILLED from a comedic perspective and would have given a much-needed injection of humor for an otherwise dismal film with only one funny character. Buzz didn’t even generate any worthwhile laughs either. Considering an actual comedian played him before and was able to make the character funny and serious when the time called for it, it begs the question why they just didn’t call Tim Allen back. Wanting to make Lightyear separate from Toy Story almost entirely, the decision was made to let Chris Evans voice the titular star. Unfortunately, he has about half the personality Allen’s performance showed. With this being said, of all the egregious problems with this spinoff, Evans may have been the only tolerable thing. The intention behind his casting is understandable, but the question stemming from it becomes, “Was this truly necessary to make Lightyear work?”

At the very least, maybe letting Tim Allen voice the character he made famous and played in every feature film would’ve been okay. Having at least one connection to Toy Story wouldn’t be a bad thing. If anything, it could’ve helped the film from a nostalgia perspective instead of letting Chris Evans repeat certain lines that Tim Allen made famous with his delivery. I just don’t understand the harm in letting Allen continue reprising the character while he’s alive. His ability to make the character work in a serious and comedic manner has been demonstrated in every film and was heavily evidenced by his dynamic performance in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins. Considering how much he’s proven in the role and his connection to generations because of how well he nailed it over a span of twenty years or so, it seems like a no-brainer. Honestly, Tim Allen fans should be vindicated by Lightyear‘s failure because Disney wanting to succeed without him and refusing the possibility of casting him in favor of Chris Evans was downright disrespectful. You know damn well they would have never done this to Tom Hanks had the circumstances been different. Then again, the fact that this movie was made was the real issue. The love was gone, the fun was nonexistent, it’s depressing in a lot of ways, and misses the point on what made Buzz Lightyear and his universe cool in the first place. The opening sequence is another great example as to the creators not having the best interests of the character at heart, and it’s as simple as the weaponry. In five minutes, Buzz uses a laser sword and a pistol, and it’s awkward. Anyone who is watching Lightyear are fans of Toy Story and other Buzz-related projects, so Buzz not using his laser shooter until late in the second act by pure happenstance was uncomfortable and again, disrespectful to the character.

They even failed at the little details. The designs of the suits are clunky and rough-looking, and Zurg’s armor was too bulky and dull. The only notable imagery was the fuel crystal that drove the film. Other than that, everything was mundane. In an even more irritating decision, there’s the twist regarding Zurg, which I won’t spoil because I’ve done enough damage regarding the rest of the product. At the very least, I’ll say it was uninspired and a major letdown. One of the best parts about Buzz Lightyear lore was his famed Darth Vader-like enemy who was just as good at being the villain as Buzz was being the hero. Seeing the two face off on the big screen, had the two characters been treated with the utmost seriousness that they were in the direct-to-video movie and show, would have been “Movie magic”, but they opted for a surprise that makes a bad movie somehow worse. Now, the reasoning for the villain’s thought process does makes sense based off the story told. Selfishly, I agreed with him enough to appreciate the issues of morality regarding time travel, regrets, and changing one’s past to better themselves compared to the lives they affected and if this is an ethical move, but what ultimately bogs this down is that not enough is explained in regards as to how he even exists in the first place, never mind the fact that he’s just not the supervillain and known archenemy of the Buzz Lightyear universe. Then, there’s the little quote where Buzz asks him where he got the technologically advanced ship, and he says he borrowed it and made modifications. Who did he borrow it from? I have no clue. At that point, you just stop caring. This is probably why I was inclined to agree somewhat with the villain because the movie didn’t do a good enough job in making me feel the emotional connection between Buzz and the Hawthorne family.

As I said before, they’re so in-your-face about Hawthorne’s importance that it has the opposite effect, and it seems like more of a potential promotional tactic rather than an important plot point. The whole movie works desperately to tear Buzz down to make Hawthorne look like the GOAT of space rangers (he actually calls her this at one point when he is supposed to be considered the “Greatest”) and so the other characters look better in comparison, and it defeats the purpose of this being celebrated as the Buzz Lightyear movie when the effort is so misguided in its delivery. When you combine this with the lack of alien representation and the dogshit twist with the nonsensical payoff of robots not being able to say “Buzz”, so the villain is referred to as “Zurg” because it’s the only word they utter (even though “Buzz” is an easier word to say in general), you have an overall maddening experience from concept to execution.

On a side note, how you miss casting Keith David in the role of Whitlock is beyond me. The character practically screamed for it.

Buzz Lightyear was a cool action hero who travelled to the ends of the universe in the name of the Galactic Alliance as the greatest space ranger to ever come out of Star Command. He was a sign of hope and a representation for all that is good in the face of constant evil. It’s pretty much set in stone who Buzz Lightyear is. Why the actual movie in Lightyear managed to fuck up these basic fundamentals of the character by making him look like a loser, introduce a bunch of other LOSER characters to bring this LOSER film down even more, and made it unfunny and boring to boot is beyond me. It could have been so simple too. Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was the blueprint on how to treat the character right while expanding the spinoff universe that he is the star of. The villains were there, the supporting characters had room to grow, it was funny, and it was action-packed. Had they just done a computer-animated sequel film of the show and brought these characters back with better writing, this would have been a fantastic movie that could have revitalized the IP, but we got whatever this was instead. Look, the fans didn’t like the cartoon better because of nostalgia. They liked it more because it capitalized on the freedom of the blank canvas that is space. Lightyear did no such thing. Minus the airlock sequence (“Don’t miss”), some of the third act action, and the transition when Buzz flies out of Zurg’s ship into deep space after the explosion, before landing on a smaller ship as he free falls, there’s nothing else that makes this remotely entertaining enough to make me appreciate the viewing experience.

The fact that a cartoon that only lasted a single season and a 70-minute direct-to-video feature did the character that much better shows you how bad Lightyear actually is. They were given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and were given a $200 million budget, and this is what came of it? Shame on everyone.

The main character didn’t evoke the aura of “Buzz Lightyear” until the final minute of the movie, but the team behind this awful spinoff lost the audience a half-hour in and the film never recovered. At the very least, all they had to do was make Buzz look like a leader. Sadly, they couldn’t even do that.