Lightyear is a 2022 American animated science fiction action film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, and starring Chris Evans as the voice of Buzz Lightyear. Presented as a film within a film, Lightyear is a spin-off of the Toy Story film series and centers on the character Buzz Lightyear, who appears in Toy Story as an action figure of his character in Lightyear. The film was directed by Angus MacLane and written by MacLane and Jason Headley. Besides Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, James Brolin, and Uzo Aduba voice supporting roles. The film follows Buzz who, after being marooned on the hostile planet T'Kani Prime with his commander and crew, tries to find a way back home while encountering a threat to their safety.
The concept of a human Buzz Lightyear, who exists in a fictional universe within a fictional universe, was first introduced in the 2000 direct-to-video film Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, which was the pilot for the TV series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000–2001). MacLane, an avid science-fiction fan, pitched the idea of a film featuring Buzz Lightyear at Pixar, after finishing work on Finding Dory (2016). The project was officially announced in an investor meeting held by Disney in December 2020. The animators gave the film a "cinematic" and "chunky" look, evoking the science-fiction films MacLane grew up watching. To design the vehicles of the film, MacLane used Lego pieces to build various ships and pitch them to the designers and artists. For its IMAX scenes, the team used two virtual cameras, a regular camera with a 35mm equivalent sensor, and a larger sensor equivalent to 65 millimeters, a procedure earlier initiated by Pixar in WALL-E (2008). Development on Lightyear lasted for five and a half years. Michael Giacchino composed the film's score, while Ren Klyce served as its sound designer.
Lightyear premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on June 8, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 17. It became the first Pixar film to be released in theaters worldwide since Onward in March 2020, and the first to include scenes specifically formatted for IMAX theaters. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and was considered by analysts to be a box-office bomb, as it grossed $226.4 million worldwide against an approximate $200 million budget, losing the studio an estimated $106million.
Plot
A Star Command exploration vessel filled with hypersleeping personnel changes course to investigate signs of life on the unknown world T'Kani Prime. Awakened from hibernation by the ship AI, Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear and his commanding officer and best friend Alisha Hawthorne explore the planet with a new recruit in tow. They are forced to retreat to their exploration vessel after discovering that the planet hosts hostile lifeforms. While attempting to leave, Buzz accidentally damages their vessel, causing them and their many shipmates to be marooned on T'Kani Prime. After surveying the damage, they find that the fuel for the ship was destroyed. Buzz volunteers to be the test pilot for the hyperspace fuel crystal they will need to develop to power the ship home.
One year later, the crew has constructed a colony to extract resources from the planet and conduct repairs. However, after a four-minute test flight, Buzz finds that four years have passed on T'Kani Prime due to the effects of time dilation from travelling at relativistic speeds. Alisha gifts Buzz with Sox, a robotic feline companion, and Buzz decides to continue testing the hyperspace fuel. With every test, four more years pass on T'Kani Prime, until eventually over 66 years have passed. During this time, the colony develops, with Alisha raising a son with her wife Kiko, subsequently dying of old age, while Sox improves the fuel's composition, allowing the ship to obtain faster-than-light speeds.
Against the orders of Alisha's successor Commander Cal Burnside, Buzz, accompanied by Sox, uses the new fuel composition for a successful hyperspace test. However, he and Sox skip 22 years into the future during which T'Kani Prime has been invaded by Zyclops robots led by Zurg, the robots' commander. Buzz and Sox meet up with members of the colony's defense forces: Alisha's now-adult granddaughter Izzy Hawthorne; Mo Morrison, a fresh, naïve recruit; and Darby Steel, an elderly paroled convict. While initially reluctant to work with them, Buzz eventually warms to them after they escape from a nest of insects and investigate a mining facility to repair their ship. Together, they plan to destroy the invading force at Zurg's mothership.
As they head back to the ship, Zurg intervenes and captures Buzz, then reveals himself to be an older version of Buzz from an alternate timeline, which split upon Buzz's return to the planet after the successful hyperspace test: soldiers from the colony attempted to arrest him under Burnside's orders, forcing him to flee into space. This Buzz and his Sox escaped at full speed and, via time dilation, flew hundreds of years into the far future, where he encountered and stole extremely advanced technology, and eventually developed a way to travel back in time to prevent himself from stranding the Star Command crew upon the planet. Having worn out his own fuel, Zurg needs fresh fuel to travel further into the past and complete his mission, so he requests it from his younger self. Realizing this would erase Alisha and Kiko's life together, along with Izzy and the lives of all the other colonists, Buzz refuses.
Aided by Zurg's Sox, Buzz and the cadets escape Zurg's ship and set it to self-destruct. On their return to the planet via a crash landing, Zurg attacks and takes the fuel for himself. Buzz ejects to shoot the fuel, causing an explosion that seemingly kills Zurg. With the fuel gone, Buzz finally accepts T'Kani Prime as his home. Burnside arrests the group with the intention of detaining them for their actions, but relents in light of Buzz's bravery against the robot armada. Allowed to revive the Space Ranger Corps, Buzz selects Izzy, Mo, Darby, and Sox as his team. With a new fuel crystal, Buzz and his team embark on a mission to investigate an unknown signal from the Gamma Quadrant of sector 4. Elsewhere, Zurg is shown to have survived the explosion.
Voice cast
Chris Evans as Buzz Lightyear, a young test pilot and Space Ranger who explores the uncharted planet called T'Kani Prime. Keke Palmer as Izzy Hawthorne, Alisha's granddaughter who fights in the colony's defense forces with Buzz against Zurg. Keira Hairston as a young version of Izzy. Peter Sohn as Sox, a robotic cat who acts as Buzz's companion. Sohn also voices an older, worn-out version of Sox used by Zurg. Taika Waititi as Mo Morrison, a fresh, naive recruit in the colonial defense forces. Dale Soules as Darby Steel, an elderly woman and recruit for the colonial defense forces who is currently on parole for shipjacking. James Brolin as Buzz Lightyear / Zurg, the commander of the invading robotic army who is later revealed to be an elderly, nihilistic version of himself from an alternate timeline. Uzo Aduba as Alisha Hawthorne, Buzz's best friend, commanding officer and Kiko's wife, who is one of Izzy's grandmothers. Mary McDonald-Lewis as I.V.A.N., a voice-activated virtual assistant and auto-pilot. Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Commander Calvin "Cal" Burnside, the officer who succeeds Alisha Hawthorne after she dies of old age. Angus MacLane as: ERIC DERIC, a robot that works with Izzy. Zyclops, the robotic foot soldiers of Zurg. Bill Hader as Benny Featheringhamstan / The Rookie, a new recruit partnered with Buzz and Alisha. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information. Efren Ramirez as Airman Diaz, an acquaintance of Buzz.
Additionally, Tim Peake appears in an uncredited cameo as a worker at the mission control center.
Production Development
Development of Lightyear began following the production of Finding Dory in 2016. After co-directing Finding Dory with Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane was allowed to pitch the idea of making a Buzz Lightyear film, having always wondered what movie Andy Davis saw in the original Toy Story (1995) to get interested in a Buzz Lightyear action figure. MacLane, a science fiction fan, had felt attracted to the character of Buzz since he started working at Pixar, feeling that the film's story was very "personal" for him, whose favorite movie since childhood had been Star Wars (1977). An aspect present in the Toy Story films that Lightyear explores is Buzz's disagreement over the nature of reality, which, coupled with his heroic ideals, made an amalgam of sci-fi clichés that MacLane intended to make more than just a punchline.
In February 2019, Tim Allen, who voiced Buzz in the films, expressed interest in doing another film as he did not "see any reason why they wouldn't do it", while in that May, on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Tom Hanks, who voiced Woody, said that Toy Story 4 (2019) would be the final installment in the franchise, but producer Mark Nielsen disclosed a possibility of a fifth film, as Pixar was not ruling out that possibility. In December 2020 at a Disney Investor Day meeting, Lightyear was announced as a spin-off film depicting the in-universe origin of the human Buzz Lightyear character, with Chris Evans providing the character's voice.
When asked about the relationship between Lightyear and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, a Toy Story spin-off series that also serves as an in-universe production starring the Buzz character, MacLane, who directed the CG opening sequence for Star Command, said that he did not have it in mind while working on the film, but always pictured the series being developed in-universe after a trilogy of Lightyear films. He later explained that Lightyear serves as a "live-action" film within the Toy Story universe, whereas Star Command serves as a hand-drawn animated series based on the film, from which the toy versions of Buzz and Zurg derive. On May 4, 2022, production of Lightyear was completed after spending five and a half years in development. The budget was approximately $200 million.
Casting
Producer Galyn Susman said that the creative team did not discuss bringing back the original voice actor for Buzz Lightyear, Tim Allen, in any capacity for this film because they believed that his voice would have tied the film too closely to Toy Story when the film aims to be its own stand-alone story while also saying: "Tim really is the embodiment of the toy Buzz, and this isn't the toy world, so it really doesn't make sense. There's not really a role. It would just cause more confusion for audiences instead of helping them understand the movie we're trying to tell."
Chris Evans was announced as the voice of the human Buzz Lightyear along with the project's announcement in December 2020. Evans was the first and only choice MacLane had for Buzz; MacLane defended the recasting as "Tim's version of Buzz [Lightyear] is a little goofier and is a little dumber, and so he is the comic relief. In this film, Buzz is the action hero. He's serious and ambitious and funny, but not in a goofy way that would undercut the drama [...] Chris Evans has the gravitas and that movie-star quality that our character needed to separate him and the movie from Tim's version of the toy in Toy Story."