Starman

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue (Massive Spoilers)

Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) of Star Command is on an exploration vessel that decides to check out an unknown planet to see if the locale lifeforms are hostile. Early on, Buzz makes it clear that he hates rookies and autopilots for getting in the way, believing that he can do everything himself. So much so that when making an emergency evacuation, Buzz disregards the warnings of his autopilot and insists that he won’t crash. And he ends up crashing, stranding everyone on the planet.

The ship’s fuel cell was damaged, so now they need to develop a new power source that will allow them to reach hyperspeed. Luckily for Buzz, his commanding officer, Allisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba)(NSFW), is also his best friend. So instead of getting locked up in the bridge, Buzz is allowed to become the pilot to test the experimental hyperspace fuel. Sure, putting someone reckless enough to get them stranded in the first place is a bad idea, but this way, the rest of the movie can happen. 

Due to some scientific mambo jumbo, during each test flight, minutes for Buzz are years for everyone back on the planet. Regardless, Buzz carries on with his test runs. Generations pass. Alisha and everyone else starts a colony and families and have a life for themself. Except for Buzz, who’s too focused on completing his mission. It’s not hard to predict Buzz’s character arc in the film.

Eventually, Allisha dies. The new commander, Burnside (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), declares the program a failure. But Buzz’s emotional support robot, Sox (Peter Sohn), is ridiculously overqualified and cracked the fuel code (it took him over sixty years, but still). So Buzz decides to steal a ship and do one last run. When he gets back, he finds the base is being attacked by an army of robots led by Zurg (James Brolin). 

This forces Buzz to team up with a team of misfits. They are Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi), a cowardly screwup who was going to quit the program, Darby Steel (Dale Soules), an elderly parolee and explosive expert, and Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), Alisha’s granddaughter. She’s the one who gets it through Buzz’s head that while Alisha might have missed going on adventures, she still had a fulfilling life thanks to her family.

The beginning of Lightyear states that Andy acquired Buzz in 1995 because he fell in love with this movie. My biggest issue with the film is that, beyond the aesthetic, Lightyear doesn’t feel like a late ’80s or early ’90s movie. Instead of the type of cheesy, over-the-top action film that would have been made then, it’s instead fairly serious like Up (spoilers), but nowhere near as good, which is a very modern style of movie.

Then there’s how Alisha is a gay, black woman. And when Alisha reveals she’s engaged to someone she wouldn’t have met without the crash, Buzz doesn’t ask what his name is. He asks who she is. Now, I like how the film treats two women getting together and starting a family like it’s perfectly natural, so I’m willing to let that one slide. But that’s still something you’d be unlikely to find in an actual movie made three or four decades ago.

Lightyear also disregards most of the bits and pieces of Buzz Lightyear canon we’ve learned from Toy Story. For instance, Evil Emperor Zurg isn’t an emperor or Buzz’s dad, though he briefly thinks the latter in an admittedly funny callback. Instead, Zurg is an elderly Buzz who’s come back in time thanks to some conveniently found space technology to finally complete his mission—embodying Buzz’s toxic pride and determination.

In light of the controversy of not having Tim Allen voice Buzz, they should have had him do an unmasked Zurg. To conceal the plot twist, they could have Zurg use a voice modulator while in the suit, which a separate actor would do. That way, they could also have Thanos’ dad voicing the big purple villain of this movie. That’s not a perfect workaround, but that would have been cool.

In the end, after the battle’s won thanks to teamwork, Burnside finally catches up to Buzz. Instead of getting thrown into the stockades, Buzz is instead allowed to form a new Space Rangers team. Sure, Buzz spends the whole movie coming to grips with how you don’t need to be a Space Ranger to be happy so long as you have a family and community, but this way, we can have sequels.

Now, I certainly didn’t agree with all the creative choices this movie makes, as you’ve no doubt gathered from the preceding paragraphs, but Lightyear is still a cute movie. And while it’s not Toy Story, it’s fine enough if you watch it on its own. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, then I recommend checking it out.