To infinity and... the same place as before.
So I saw Lightyear. I had to, I grew up with the Toy Story franchise and I love Chris Evans, as well as the original cartoon series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command that ran for 62 episodes and one badass TV movie, so this film should have been an instant win for me. And while the film certainly isn't bad, it might be the most disappointing film of 2022 so far.
Note: Major SPOILERS for Lightyear.
Lightyear has a great premise, and even a great idea behind that premise. As the film itself opens up with, this is the film Andy loved as a kid and which his new favourite toy came from. This is the origin story of the space ranger, Buzz Lightyear, and his time fighting against the Evil Emperor Zurg, sworn enemy of the Galactic Alliance! It's an idea dripping with potential ever since it was first thought of back in 1995, when the first Toy Story film was released and Buzz's backstory was on the back of his own packaging.
As expected, Lightyear has gorgeous animation, mostly-strong dialogue, a lovely LGBT+ relationship, a good punch of the feels, and a bunch of wonderful characters including Sox the robot cat (who was obviously made for marketing and levity, but is honestly needed considering how dark this film can get at times) and an old lady who is on parole and loves to make bombs. Chris Evans makes a wonderful replacement for Tim Allen, able to make the character his own while still retaining what makes Buzz Lightyear the character we love.
So why isn't the film the masterpiece it should be?
Well, there's two major creative decisions that bring down the entire film, for me anyway. Let's start with the location. And yes, I said location because despite this being a film about a space ranger fighting an evil emperor who wants to conquer the universe, the entire film takes place on one ugly planet. The plot involves Buzz causing a major accident that leaves the population of his ship stranded, and he vows to save them all by constantly testing experimental fuel. Every time he fails however, he goes forward by four years and returns to the planet he was just on. We see his best friend age four years every time he tries this, as she falls in love, has kids, retires, and eventually passes away, showing not only the life he is giving up but also what he feels is consequences of his actions. When she's gone, and he enters her empty office, it's a powerful and emotional image that breaks my heart.
After that greatness however, we stay on the planet. And that's where this decision becomes a detriment to the film. The planet they are on is an ugly one, brown and swamp green, with big bugs and living vines that trap and ensnare their prey. This makes for a great opening and motivation, but it's a damn dull setting to endure your entire film on! The majority of this film is spent in a state of misery, as the wasteland is unappealing and even when we do go to Zurg's space station, the lights go off and the final fight is in darkness!
A film is a medium of many senses, and visuals are one of the biggest factors. It's what we are looking at for the entire runtime, and a visual we hate to see can make us not want to watch. Think back on some of the biggest animated movies and shows of the past few years, like Encanto or Owl House or Into the Spider-Verse, and remember how much creativity and energy and life was in every frame. The characters, the setting, the movements, all of these factor into our enjoyment. If everyone sang "We Don't Talk about Bruno" while sitting still on a chair in a grey bathroom, I don't think it would have gotten the love it did.
Now look at how every character looks and moves in this film, and where they are. These scenes are emotional, yes, but 90 minutes of it gets boring. If the story had instead gotten Buzz to another planet after the fantastic emotional opening of him going forward through time repeatedly, this film could have been more entertaining by that alone. Drama is absolutely important and I do go to a Pixar film to get a good feel of emotion and themes, but you need a stronger balance for it, especially when you're making a film about something as exciting as a space ranger!
And the second major problem I had... was Zurg.
Remember how I said I grew up with Toy Story films? Well, I didn't want Buzz or Woody. I wanted the Zurg toy, which I got thankfully. I love Zurg, always have. He's so much fun, a child-friendly Darth Vader with a cannon for an arm and a pointy cape, wheeling around and then being a good dad to Other Buzz. Brilliant! And it gets even better, because the cartoon I mentioned earlier had him voiced by Wayne Knight of all people, and he's hilarious and wicked, torturing and planning to blow up the "Planet of Widows and Orphans" just to piss off his mortal enemy.
In Lightyear... he's an old man in a robot suit. He's Buzz Lightyear from the future.
And old Buzz has grey hair, frail arms, probably needs help going to the bathroom, and he's just really really sad about losing his years of life, so he wants to go back in time to fix it. The robots call him "Zurg" because it's all they can say, the implication being that the robots and such are all stolen from a future Zurg and... this is better than Evil Emperor Zurg?
I get what the film is going for. I even read the interviews with the crew about why they took this route. Buzz is his own worst enemy, his hubris has ruined his own life and the lives of others, and his inability to stop and live with the consequences of his own actions have made him waste away to a point he's barely recognisable as himself anymore. He can't trust anyone but himself, and now he's alone and mad. Yes, very emotional. Truly, I do believe that. It's just that it's also very boring.
Again, I want to emphasise this. Buzz's mortal enemy and the final boss of this film is depicted as a frail old man in a robot suit. He is not fun, he is barely evil, and he is not enjoying his actions. The character is somewhat tragic, I guess, but that quickly fades away as you remember he literally has an evil army of robots that are trying to take over the ugly planet, and the predictability of what he will do when Buzz inevitably says no to his plan just makes conversations with him feel pointless. We know Buzz is going to say no to Other Buzz, because that's what happens every time the villain reveals their twist, and we know that will cause Other Buzz to attack him and then we can properly begin our action-packed climax. It's just... formulaic.
I look at Other Buzz and think "Hm yes, very good on-the-nose representation of Buzz's own failings as a person and the flaws he must face. Very dramatic.". And then I look at the other versions of Zurg from Toy Story and the Buzz Lightyear cartoon and I have fun. In this day and age, truly evil villains are thinning out, so a character more like the classic versions of Zurg would have actually stood out more now, ironically.
To make it clear, I will repeat myself: Lightyear is not a bad film, but it is disappointing. If this film hadn't been based on Buzz Lightyear, I'd probably be nicer towards it but it, as the title of this article says, prioritised drama and theme over entertainment. The film does great with diversity, relationships both romantic and platonic, and has great work and effort behind it, so it's definitely worth at least one watch. Just be prepared to be let down, especially if you are a fan of Zurg, environment design or the pure potential of a galaxy-themed hero for kids.
Now we've had sequels to almost every nostalgic Pixar film recently... I guess next is A Bug's Life? I have a feeling they won't be bringing back Hopper though. For a few reasons.
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| Give the people what they truly want, Pixar! Geri's Game 2! |
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