Cinema Sunday: Lightyear

Last weekend, me and the fam absconded from the environs of the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see a new movie, the Disney/Pixar release known as Lightyear.

Lightyear is a spin off of sorts from Pixar's Toy Story franchise. It is not about the Buzz Lightyear action figure but about Buzz Lightyear, sci-fi action movie character on which the action figure is based.

Some people find this confusing.

Some people are, quite frankly, stupid. 

Putting aside any connections to the Toy Story character, Lightyear is a remarkably solid science fiction adventure that challenges the viewer to think and feel. You know, like the best Pixar films do. 

Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger in Star Command, and his commanding officer and best friend, Alisha Hawthorne, explore the planet T'Kani Prime.  The planet is perfectly habitable. Well, except for the tentacle vine things that keep bursting through the surface of the planet to eat people.

Time to beat a hasty retreat.

Maybe a tad too hasty? Buzz damages the ship during lift off. Bad enough it takes a year to fix the ship. Meanwhile a nascent colony has taken shape despite the constant barrage of tentacle vine thing attacks.  

Buzz goes on a test flight to test hyperspace fuel, a key component of the repairs. However, after a four-minute excursion into space, he finds that four years have passed on T'Kani Prime, due to the effects of time dilation from having traveled at relativistic speeds. 

Ouch! Pixar make my brain... hurt. 

Buzz is introduced to Sox, his emotional support robot cat. On one hand, Sox is the movie's blatant marketing pitch for young kids to want their own emotional support robot cat.  On the other hand, Sox is ridiculously effective and so damn useful.  

I want an emotional support robot cat.  

Buzz keeps testing the damn hyperspace fuel but each 4 minute flight eats up 4 years down on T'Kani Prime where Alisha Hawthorne is getting on with her life,  getting married to her wife Kiko.

This is the bit that has gotten Lightyear banned in 14 countries.

Anyway it's montage time as we watch Buzz keeping blasting off into space for  another 4 minute test flight while Alisha ages another 4 years, having children with her wife who in turns begant grandkids, all before Alisha subsequently dies of old age after 62 years.

It's the saddest Pixar montage since Up.

...

...

I'm not crying! You're crying!

...

Oh shut up!

Anyway....

There is a new commanding officer, Commander Burnside, who orders Buzz to stand down from his constant testing. But he does one more test that proves the hyperspace fuel works but instead of losing 4 years,  now 22 years have passed on T'Kani Prime which has been invaded by robots led by the mysterious Zurg.

Hey, it's Zurg, y'all. 

Buzz is most reluctantly joined by Izzy Hawthorne, Alisha’s now-adult granddaughter; Izzy has a lot of Alisha’s spirit and energy but lacks training and experience. Izzy's gang includes 

Mo Morrison, a fresh, naïve recruit who's pretty much useless but damn he's voiced by Taika Waititi so we cut him some slack. And Darby Steel, an elderly former convict who can make anything into an explosive. 

There's a big damn knock down drag out between Buzz Lightyear and Zurg who turns out be...

Buzz's dad? 

Er, not quite. Zurg is another version of Buzz from the future! 

Future Buzz wants to go back into time and stop himself from wrecking the ship that stuck everyone on T'Kani Prime in the first damn place.  Our Buzz who is weighed down by the guilt of what happened that day might normally be on board with this but hell, a lot has happened over the intervening decades he missed out on. If the events of that day were reversed, where would that leave Izzy?

Or Alisha who met a woman she fell in love with and started a family and lived a full life on T'Kani Prime? 

Or everyone who made a life on T'Kani Prime? 

It's an existential crisis as Buzz vs. Buzz.  

Long story made short: Zurg is fought and defeated, Buzz learns a valuable lesson in accepting help from others and gets to be a space ranger again.

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department 

• James Brolin is the voice of Zurg.  Not Brolin's first go at personifying a big bad having previously devastated half the universe as Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.   
• Peter Sohn is the voice of Sox, Buzz's emotional support robot cat. In addition to his director work for Pixar (The Good Dinosaur), he has also provided voice work for Ratatouille and Monsters University.   
• As we mentioned earlier, Taika Waititi provides the voice of Mo Morrison.  In addition to his live action work (I'll be posting about Our Flag Means Death in this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase), he's also done time in the MCU as the director of Thor: Ragnorok and it's forthcoming sequel as well as providing the voice for Korg, a CGI alien made of rock.   

Lightyear has some clever connections to it's Toy Story origins.

• Buzz comment that the terrain of T'Kani Prime is unstable echoes toy Buzz's description of the bed in Andy's room.
• When Alisha is messing with Buzz, he replied "You're mocking me, aren't you?"
• Buzz's incessant monologue reports to Star Command. 

Beyond the character design and these call backs, Lightyear nearly exists as it's own thing.  

Lightyear may not be one for the books as one of Pixar's all time greats but it is a solidly entertaining sci-fi adventure with heart and humor.