Dir: Angus MacLane. Starring (voices): Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, James Brolin, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, Uzo Aduba. PG, 110 minutes.
“This isn’t Buzz Lightyear the toy,” Chris Evans tweeted in 2020. “This is the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on.” The actor had just been announced as the star of Pixar’s Lightyear – the voice of this new, human Buzz. And he’d clearly been instructed to send out a bit of executive-approved messaging for the film. But it was odd to see that brand of vacuous corporate-speak come from Pixar. This is the same animation studio that’s delivered decades of imaginative, heart-on-sleeve explorations into life, death and every tear-inducing emotion in between. Yet here they were, the makers of Up and Inside Out, trying to sell us on the idea that a spin-off of the Toy Story franchise wasn’t really a spin-off, but a crucial building block in the story of how a toy became a toy.
