Lightyear Review

June 17, 2022 at 9:08pm
By Joelle Rondeau

Lightyear tells the origin story of the beloved character Buzz Lightyear from Disney Pixar’s Toy Story. The story provides insights into how Buzz came to be a beloved hero and the qualities that made him a role model for kids like Andy. Lightyear is a beautifully animated film crafted with a good balance of intriguing characters, comedy, and valuable moral messages.

Buzz Lightyear is a Space Ranger who engages in missions across the galaxy. The film opens with Buzz and his partner, Alisha Hawthorne, investigating a new planet. They soon realize the planet is hostile and attempt to return to the ship and leave the planet, but disaster occurs. Buzz, overconfident in his piloting skills and unable to accept help from a rookie Space Ranger, crashes the ship and in doing so destroys the hyperspace crystal.

The entire crew is now marooned on the hostile planet with no way home. Buzz, Alisha, and the rest of the crew work together to use the planets resources to survive and attempt to find a replacement for the hyperspace crystal.

Buzz is determined to finish the mission no matter what the cost, but failure after failure occurs and Buzz pays the heavy cost of lost time. Buzz is confronted by many obstacles and challenges and must work with a ragtag team in order to complete his mission.

The storyline was good, but it did not exceed expectations. At times I felt like the stakes were not high enough, Buzz Lightyear does not save humanity from an alien invasion or save the entire universe, he simply is trying to get his crew home. In addition, characters spoke about the importance of being a Space Ranger, but this was not really clearly seen in action.

The film takes place in space and on one planet, but how vast is the Space Ranger network? Also where is Star Command? These large unanswered questions leave large gaps in an origin story weakening the overall storyline. However, what lacked in storyline was made up for in well developed and quirky characters.

Though Buzz Lightyear is the central character of the film, I couldn’t help but fall in love with his companion Sox, a robot cat gifted to Buzz by Alisha after the first hyperspace crystal test. Sox had many moments within the film where I felt he stole the show, both in comedic and heartfelt aspects. Sox was definitely a highlight of the film for me, and I am sure will be the highlight for many other viewers as well.

The animation of the film was stunning and had an almost realistic quality to it. It felt more like a live action film than an animated film, which is a difficult feat to achieve. Many of the space shots felt reminiscent of Star Wars. The hyperspace animation in particular echoed the same visual intention as done in Star Wars.

The Conclusion

Lightyear is a gorgeously animated fun family film that is pleasant to watch. Though the storyline could have been improved, overall the film was well done and is a great spin-off of the Toy Story franchise. Lightyear teaches us valuable lessons such as: it’s okay to make mistakes, sometimes we cannot do things alone and we need the assistance of others, and never give up.

Lightyear Review at Theater with Standard Viewing
Screening Provided by Disney

Rating Overall: 7.0