Lightyear

'Lightyear' goes to infinity, but not beyond, in a likable offshoot of 'Toy Story'. Review by Brian Lowry, CNN. Updated 6:26 PM ET ...

It's a small element of the movie that shouldn't be an issue, which, alas, probably won't prevent bad-faith actors from seeking to make it one. They don't rival something like "Up," whose lessons come to mind, and the most consistently pleasing addition might be among the silliest: A robot cat named Sox who behaves like a household pet, yet also proves extremely useful in a pinch. to the villainous Zurg. There's also a small group of upstart, unorthodox recruits, with Keke Palmer and Taika Waititi (the latter playing a character he seems to have done about seven times before) among the vocal contributors.

Whether by coincidence or design, this big-budget outer space adventure allows Disney to center Buzz Lightyear not voiced by Tim Allen (who has become a more ...

It leans into the idea that Buzz Lightyear shouldn’t matter enough to justify a feature-film spin-off, and that the film’s existence is another example of how the current adults in the room cannot let go of our childhood pop culture. Aduba is terrific as Buzz’s teammate (yes, she’s gay and kisses her wife at a key narrative juncture and no I don’t think it’ll affect the box office to any major degree), while Whitlock Jr. lends his distinct vocals and offers slight shading to what could have been a stock “disapproving superior” part. With everyone, both the crew and the copious hibernating scientists stranded and disillusioned, Lightyear relentlessly attempts to figure out how to crack a new formula for interstellar travel. The picture races out of the gates, with Lightyear trying and failing to get his ship away from a hostile alien world. That it plays like a mega-budget variation of the kind of thing, think Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins, that would have gone straight to VHS or DVD in a bygone era makes it doubly bittersweet that it’s now the first Pixar flick in over two years to avoid such a fate. Yes, it eventually flirts with being a glorified pilot for a Disney+ show, which it may well be, but the journey getting there is solid.

The United Arab Emirates has banned Pixar's animated feature 'Lightyear' from its movie theaters over its inclusion of two lesbian characters' kiss.

The movie also may be banned in Malaysia. The Star, the country’s top English-language newspaper, cited an anonymous, nongovernment source as saying that “Lightyear” will not be shown in Malaysian cinemas. The film “is not licensed for public screening in all cinemas in the UAE, due to its violation of the country’s media content standards,” the office said in a tweet. A newspaper in the Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain similarly has speculated the film wouldn’t be shown there. Recently, Disney has faced protests from activists and its own staff over what they described as CEO Bob Chapek’s slow response in publicly criticizing Florida legislation that opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Movie theaters in the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, had already advertised showtimes for the film. The UAE, like many other countries in the wider Mideast, is a Muslim-led nation that criminalizes same-sex relationships.

The United Arab Emirates on Monday banned the upcoming Pixar animated feature “Lightyear” from showing in movie theaters after its inclusion of a kiss ...

A newspaper in the Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain similarly has speculated the film wouldn’t be shown there. The film “is not licensed for public screening in all cinemas in the UAE, due to its violation of the country’s media content standards,” the office said in a tweet. The Star, the country’s top English-language newspaper, cited an anonymous, nongovernment source as saying that Lightyear will not be shown in Malaysian cinemas. Recently, Disney has faced protests from activists and its own staff over what they described as CEO Bob Chapek’s slow response in publicly criticizing Florida legislation that opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Movie theaters in the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, had already advertised showtimes for the film. The UAE, many other countries in the wider Mideast, is a Muslim-led nation that criminalizes same-sex relationships.

LOS ANGELES :Walt Disney Co has been unable to obtain permission to show its new Pixar movie "Lightyear" in 14 Middle Eastern and Asian countries, a source ...

But she said filmmakers would not make changes to the movie. In the film, Buzz's close friend is a female space ranger who marries another woman. A Lightyear producer told Reuters that authorities in China had asked for cuts to the movie, which Disney declined to make, and she assumed the movie would not open there either.

SINGAPORE - At a recent press conference, actors Chris Evans and Taika Waititi held their ground over the inclusion of a same-sex kiss in their animated film ...

“And I think that is the world we are living in right now. His co-star, the New Zealand film-maker and actor Taika Waititi, 46, plays Maurice “Mo” Morrison, a member of Lightyear’s team. Because that’s the world we want to get to. In the film, Buzz's close friend is a female space ranger (voiced by American actress Uzo Aduba) who marries another woman. A classification for Lightyear is expected on June 14 or just before its release in cinemas on June 16. That scene has caused the film to be banned in 14 Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

Pixar's Buzz Lightyear origin story fails to take flight. Lightyear. Source: Disney. 'Lightyear'. Dir: Angus MacLane. US. 2022. 105 mins.

Even the occasional callback to that franchise drives home the impression that this origin story doesn’t significantly add to our understanding of Buzz Lightyear, while the adventure he goes on proves to be nothing special. But as much as Lightyear seeks to make Buzz appear more human than his toy counterpart, the effect doesn’t entirely work, only underlining how much less dynamic this character is than the one in the Toy Story series. By comparison, Lightyear is simply the story of a standard-issue sci-fi action hero, without the interesting wrinkles which Pixar gave the toy, forcing him to come to terms with his true nature. Plus, the viewer’s prior knowledge of the Buzz toy from Toy Story — a haughty action figure who thinks he’s the “real” Buzz Lightyear — ends up working against Evans’ vocal performance, which lacks Tim Allen’s endearingly foolhardy self-assurance and guarded vulnerability. Soon, we meet the fictional human character Buzz (voiced by Evans), who is marooned on a distant planet with a team of scientists, technicians and fellow Space Rangers after his piloting error crippled their ship. One of Pixar’s most beloved characters gets an origin story with Lightyear, a lacklustre sci-fi adventure which misses the wit and wonder that have been the studio’s hallmarks for decades.

In 1995, Andy got a toy from his favorite movie. This is that movie.” So begins “Lightyear,” a new Pixar release that takes a meta approach to the animation ...

What’s compelling “Lightyear” is harder to say, but there is a bland, vaguely “Planes” feeling here that smacks of a straight-to-video spinoff. But “Lightyear,” helmed by “Finding Dory” co-director Angus MacLane (who made some of the “Toy Story” shorts and TV specials that have expanded the film series), arrives in theaters just as summer movies are reaching the stratosphere again. “Lightyear” isn’t ambitious or existential or likely to make you cry. So should “Lightyear” have been a feature film or a Pixar short? It isn’t a prequel to “Toy Story,” exactly, but instead presents the movie that inspired Buzz Lightyear toys in the first place. So begins “Lightyear,” a new Pixar release that takes a meta approach to the animation studio’s flagship franchise.

A spinoff was bound to come out sooner or later. Did we need an origin story to the Buzz Lightyear character from Toy Story? No. But the Lightyear film by ...

It may not be a big deal to some, but seeing someone who looks like me take the reins in one of my favorite film genres hit me right in the feels. The only issue is sometimes the story becomes convoluted and drags on, almost like there was a need to pad the runtime, causing Lightyear to get into even more trouble and creating a never-ending slew of trampling obstacles. Izzy is put forth as a leader, and has a well-rounded that lends itself to future appearances, and Palmer is so energetic and fun to listen to. They need a new one to journey home, so the scientist creates a new one, and he has to test it out. Now, the people of the planet are trapped in a dome with violent alien robots hovering above and trying to break in. Did we need an origin story to the Buzz Lightyear character from Toy Story? No. But the Lightyear film by Angus MacLane certainly does know how to build a world around the character we only learned about through the Pixar franchise.

Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, and Taika Waititi lend their voices to "Lightyear," Pixar's spinoff of "Toy Story" hero Buzz Lightyear. Review.

And even though it walks in the shadow of the giant that is Toy Story, Lightyear manages to set its own course for fresh adventure. Evans's nuanced performance grounds the higher stakes of this spinoff, where the lives of a whole colony depend on Buzz and his team. From the moment Sox offers his version of sleep sounds (from whale to "white noise"), you can't help but become a cat person…or at least a "robot feline" person. In the end, Toy Story fans will have plenty of new reasons to cheer in Lightyear. Instead of a mournful Randy Newman song and a crushing fall from a banister, this Buzz comes face-to-face with how his good intentions and self-sacrifice aren't enough. While Alisha and the others build a settlement (and battle back the resident species of big bugs and clutching plants), Buzz dedicates himself to test flights to fix their hyperdrive system and get them all back home. Evans has plenty of experience playing a superhero with unprocessed trauma (see any Captain America movie). All of that bleeds into his vocal performance here. Like his playtime counterpart, Buzz is a man of action over emotion. Buzz Lightyear, the child's plaything, is merchandise from a movie that Andy loves. Tying the two together, Evans does a solid Allen imitation when Buzz is first "narrating" a mission log into his bracer. Funny enough, this movie essentially retcons Tim Allen as the knock-off voice actor who is hired to lend voice to toys when it's not in the star's contract. But now, with Lightyear, the Buzz we know and love gets a down-to-Earth plotline, which re-imagines him as a real man facing some all-too-real inner demons.

The new Pixar animated film features a kiss between two female characters, leading the UAE Media Regulatory Office to halt the film's release in the ...

The tweet included an image of the film's poster, with the profile image of its main character Buzz Lightyear with a "no" symbol over it in red. The film "is not licensed for public screening in all cinemas in the UAE, due to its violation of the country's media content standards," the office said in a tweet. - Lightyear is a film based on the character who inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy in the Toy Story films

Buzz Lightyear is voiced by Chris Evans, and he's not a toy, in his own 'Toy Story' spinoff adventure.

And yes, there’s also Sox, a futuristic emotional-support animal designed to ease Buzz’s trauma, and also to bring doses of whimsy and cuteness — to strike a note of “aww” — amid all the noise and action. She’s granted an accelerated blip of a life story — over six decades she finds a wife, has a son and becomes a grandmother — that achieves some of the emotional sublimity of the “Married Life” montage from “Up.” In this case, though, the poignancy derives from the fact that Buzz misses out on almost all of it, being too absorbed with his mission to open his eyes and appreciate the living of life and the passage of time. And so, like the brave astronauts in “Interstellar” — or the unwitting young time traveler in “Flight of the Navigator” — Buzz must grapple with the painful conundrum of aging more slowly than those he loves. Though visually grander and more cosmic in scale than the “Toy Story” quadrilogy, its story feels thinner and more generic. In at least one respect, “Lightyear” can claim some distinction: It’s the first Pixar movie ever to be cited as a Pixar character’s favorite movie.

The latest entry in the Toy Story cinematic universe is "thin and repetitive", with a "sloppy screenplay", writes Nicholas Barber.

Bear in mind that this is a Pixar film, so of course the animation is hard to fault, and of course it has some ambitious philosophical concepts. Is this dreary ordeal really what anyone had in mind when they first heard the phrase "To infinity – and beyond"? Whatever escapades young Andy imagined in 1995 when he was playing with his Space Ranger toy, they were bound to be more fun than this one. They learn about the value of teamwork over and over again, and then they learn that family life is an adventure in itself, a lesson which was a lot more moving when it was taught in Pixar's Up back in 2009. (The closing credits are excruciatingly slow, a sure sign that the producers wanted the film to appear longer than it is.) And the characterisation is weirdly vague, as if the writers meant to fill in the gaps later, but never got around to it. Worst of all, its doubt-racked main character is a lot less endearing than the swaggering lunk we know and love from Toy Story. Again, the answer is a big fat no.

Walt Disney Co has been unable to obtain permission to show its new Pixar movie "Lightyear" in 14 Middle Eastern and Asian countries, a source said on ...

China is not a "make or break" market for Pixar, one theater industry source said. China has rejected other on-screen depictions of homosexuality in the past. But she said filmmakers would not make changes to the movie. In the film, Buzz's close friend is a female space ranger who marries another woman. Chris Evans voices the lead character, Buzz Lightyear, a legendary space ranger. A "Lightyear" producer told Reuters that authorities in China had asked for cuts to the movie, which Disney declined to make, and she assumed the movie would not open there either.

Pixar's handsomely made yet inconsequential Toy Story spin-off lacks the lean accessibility of the originals.

Still, there is a worthier lesson at the heart of Lightyear, one that embraces the unexpected turns that life takes when you’re “busy making other plans.” But it sadly lands like an afterthought in a movie that suffers from an excess of plot. After what already feels like a whole film, the increasingly convoluted Lightyear introduces new characters far too late into the plot: a genuinely likable ragtag team of underdogs called the Junior Zap Patrol. Joining the reluctant Buzz in his never-ending mission, the trio consists of Alisha’s space-shy granddaughter Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), Taika Waititi’s affable slacker Mo Morrison, and Dale Soules’ grumpy Darby Steel. Along with Buzz, they stand their ground against the evil robots of Captain Zurg, a character you might vaguely recall from Toy Story 2. Soundcore offers a selection of Sound Frames—glasses with built-in speakers that deliver clear, immersive sound to the space around your ears. As revealed in an early title card, this is apparently the movie that made 6-year-old Andy fall in love with Buzz Lightyear in 1995. Why not just make a unique space film without the Toy Story connection, you might rightfully ask Pixar. The wretched marketing phrase “existing IP” is the answer you’re looking for there, and it seems to be an indispensable concept to narrow-minded studios in a theatrical release climate unfriendly to original stories not based on proven moneymakers. What is the premise going to be; an existential, animated, making-of mockumentary set on a factory floor, with aisles of Buzz Lightyear pieces waiting to be assembled and boxed?

This is the first children's animated film to be given an NC16 rating in Singapore over LGBTQ content.

Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement

The movie, which chronicles the adventures of space cadet Buzz Lightyear, is slated to be released June 16.

You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. If you click “Agree and Continue” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic.

It is the first children's animation film in Singapore to be given the NC16 rating for LGBTQ+ content. Read more at straitstimes.com.

She added: "It would have been good if Disney had released dual versions of the film. Ms Cheryl Ng, the chairman of the panel said: "While it is an excellent animated film set in the US context, Singapore is a diverse society where we have multiple sensibilities and viewpoints. Variety reported that it appears in the first 30 minutes of the film.

Walt Disney Co.'s animated Pixar film 'Lightyear' won't be able to be watched by kids in Singapore after the city-state's Info-communications Media ...

WALT DISNEY has been unable to obtain permission to show its new Pixar movie "Lightyear" in 14 Middle Eastern and Asian countries, a source said on Monday ...

"Lightyear", the Disney animated film, has been issued an NC16 rating in Singapore for its “overt homosexual depictions”, the Infocomm Media Development ...

A key principle was that the guidelines should be “sensitive to social norms and values that are generally acceptable to members of the public”. Ng added that some members were “uncomfortable” even after they were willing to consider giving it a lower rating, as it meant the movie could be shown unedited to a broad-based audience on free-to-air TV. IMDA said the NC16 rating for the animated movie was decided based on its film classification guidelines. It allows distributors to release different versions of the same film to “cater to different market segments”, IMDA said. The aim is to "provide consumers with choice" and open "Lightyear" to a younger audience, IMDA added. "Lightyear", the Disney animated film, has been issued an NC16 rating in Singapore for its “overt homosexual depictions”, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said on June 14.

The United Arab Emirates ban comes despite an announcement last year that the country would no longer censor movies.

Homosexuality, however, remains taboo in the country. In 2016, it established a Ministry of Tolerance. The UAE ban comes despite an announcement last year that the country would no longer censor movies. For years the UAE has cast itself as a modern, tolerant haven in an otherwise highly conservative region. According to entertainment news website Deadline Hollywood, " Lightyear" won't be playing in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt or Indonesia — the latter being the most populous Muslim country in the world with 274 million people. The movie features a same-sex relationship and brief kiss.

"Lightyear," which premieres on June 17 features the first-ever same-sex kiss to be featured in a Disney animated film, and it takes place between main ...

Same-sex relations are criminalized in the UAE, per the State Department. - "It’s tough to not be a little frustrated that it even has to be a topic of discussion," he said. - "The goal is that we can get to a point where it is the norm, and that this doesn’t have to be some uncharted waters, that eventually this is just the way it is," Evans toldVariety."That representation across the board is how we make films."

Disney's latest animation "Lightyear," which features a same-sex kiss, has been denied release in more than a dozen mainly Muslim countries, a source close ...

The company was initially silent on the measure. As a result, a total of 14 countries and territories where the company wanted to show "Lightyear" have not granted the film a release, AFP has learned. Disney is understood to have declined to make any cuts, offering the film "as is" in all markets.

The new Pixar movie recounts the adventures of Star Command's most famous Space Ranger before he was a toy.

An early section — a kind of extended prologue to the main action — recalls the celebrated montage in “Up” that compresses a long marriage into a few short minutes. If “Lightyear” lacks both the sublimity and the giddy inventiveness of the best “Toy Story” movies, that may be by design. A few soft-boiled Easter eggs pop up to connect “Lightyear” with various “Toy Story” episodes. He isn’t a toy, and he doesn’t sound like Tim Allen, who did the voice work in the four chapters of Pixar’s “Toy Story” cycle. More than one hard plastic Buzz Lightyear lived in my house for a long time, just like in Andy’s. To be part of the “Toy Story” universe is to be intimately acquainted with the metaphysics of the commodity form. This is that movie.” In other words, it’s the origin story not of a hero but of a piece of merchandise, one that started out fictional but long ago crossed the boundary into real life.

It isn't a prequel to “Toy Story,” exactly, but instead presents the movie that inspired Buzz Lightyear toys in the first place. It's a potentially clever bit ...

What’s compelling “Lightyear” is harder to say, but there is a bland, vaguely “Planes” feeling here that smacks of a straight-to-video spinoff. But “Lightyear,” helmed by “Finding Dory” co-director Angus MacLane (who made some of the “Toy Story” shorts and TV specials that have expanded the film series), arrives in theaters just as summer movies are reaching the stratosphere again. “Lightyear” isn’t ambitious or existential or likely to make you cry. So should “Lightyear” have been a feature film or a Pixar short? It isn’t a prequel to “Toy Story,” exactly, but instead presents the movie that inspired Buzz Lightyear toys in the first place. So begins “Lightyear,” a new Pixar release that takes a meta approach to the animation studio’s flagship franchise.