Lightyear

4 / 10

“BUZZ LIGHTYEAR here, I am stationed in the Gamma Quadrant of sector 4. As a member of the elite Universe Protection Unit of the SPACE RANGER Corps, I protect the galaxy from the threat of invasion from the Evil Emperor Zurg, sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance.”

Lightyear is an unsurprising low point for Pixar whose origin story is doomed to fail because it is already limited through the above mentioned introduction received from a Buzz Lightyear box seen in Toy Story 1 and a 16 second-long Star Wars parody segment from Toy Story 2, destroying the plot twist in a matter of seconds. What’s even more mind-boggling is that their latest animated picture samples Top Gun: Maverick’s Mach 10 test and stretches its consequences over 100 tiring minutes of runtime and simultaneously gives off weak Interstellar vibes in failing to reach hyper-speed levels of entertainment. The main goal of the film is to create that same level of excitement for the children that Toy Story’s Andy had back in 1995 by incorporating Top Gun’s advertising spirit with the sole difference that children don’t want to join the space command/US Navy (yet) – they probably want to own a precious copy of the space ranger’s action figure and his Darkstar-resembling jet XL-15.

The story makes a detour into existentialism with Buzz having to decide either for the thriving life of the present – thereby accepting the new permanent residence on the planet T’Kani Prime – or the return to the galactic adventures with his peer Alisha Hawthorne from the past. The paraphrased conflict between childhood and adulthood or the transition from one to another has potential, but it’s ultimately uninteresting because director Angus MacLane refuses to make a deep dive into Buzz’ early life and his aspirations to be a space ranger in the first place. Instead, they focus on the predictable encounter with Emperor Zurg and his pawns and fuel the action with a constant stream of clumsiness from Buzz' crew consisting of expelled space rangers.

Pixar’s return to the big screen after the Covid-19 pandemic comes with a violation of their own storytelling guidelines: It cannot get the obvious – the fight against the emperor – out of the way and is therefore unsurprising (rule 12), the stakes are non-existent due to Toy Story (rules 7 & 16) and the coincidences devolve into redundancy and annoyance (rule 19). In addition, they ran into a dead end considering Zurg and Toy Story 2’s Star Wars joke which ruins any sort of hype for a sequel. Lightyear is Disney’s and Pixar’s Top Gun: Maverick. It is geared towards children who have not seen John Lasseter’s first two films yet and is an otherwise boring highway to the nostalgic zone for adult viewers. There is the usual high quality of animation, a vibrant sound design for the galactic traveling and action sequences and a pretty theme arranged by Michael Giacchino, but that does not distract from the impression that anything beyond the justification for the action figure’s existence has been barely explored.

Review published on 16th June 2022.