Lightyear

Giving fans a long-awaited look into the iconic character before he became a popular toy, the Buzz Lightyear origin story was the first Pixar movie in years to ...

Before you get comfy watching Lightyear, you can watch the Beyond Infinity: Buzz and the Journey to Lightyear documentary, which details the creative journey it took to bring Lightyear to the big screen. We know you're ready to fill your nostalgic heart with this intergalactic tale, so we have all the details on when, where and how you can watch Lightyear — along with how you can stream the first four Toy Story movies and more. Disney+ subscriptions cost $8/month or you can get the Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ bundle for $14/month. Even more picture will be visible in select scenes, so you'll be able to experience the full scale and scope of the picture. You can now watch the prequel spin-off of the iconic Toy Story films at home. Lightyear takes place before the first Toy Story movie and shows how Andy became obsessed with everyone's favorite space ranger.

Lightyear” was the first Pixar movie in two years to make it to theaters. A month and a half later, it finally hits the streaming platform Disney+.

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We open in UNCHARTED SPACE, where Buzz Lightyear (voice of Chris Evans) of Star Command (should've been Space Force) is star-trekking his way to an alien planet ...

(Where have I heard that one before?) So Lightyear, being a Pixar product, and fodder from the Toy Story universe, surely is a deep examination of culture shock, psychological displacement and the theoretical trauma one might experience from time travel, right? But Incredibles 2 did this type of thing far better, with its assemblage of grippingly memorable action setpieces far outpacing Lightyear’s modest diversions, which offer more than its share of instances of stretching for something just out of reach, always with the stretching for something just out of reach. Our psyches would be runny scrambled eggs, but we are not Buzz Lightyear. He forges ahead, testing and testing the thing over and over again in a montage, until his best friend Alisha (Uzo Aduba) has gotten older and had a child and a grandchild and died. Good thing he has a robot cat named Sox (Peter Sohn) to help him, and to help Disney load up Wal Mart toy aisles. This is what happens when you have the Right Stuff, scads of it even, but not enough of the Right Stuff to meet your unrealistic standards. This puts him in test-pilot mode, just like Earth’s greatest heroes, Neil Armstrong and Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Buzz will use every resource at his disposal to fix the hyperdrive and get these fine folks unmarooned, and sacrifice his every waking moment, and every bit of his personality, and surely his sex life too, in order to do that. Buzz also has a small conglomeration of decidedly non-intrepid ragtag squad of comic-relief misfits backing him up: Alisha’s less-than-a-rookie granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer), ex-con Darby (Dale Soules) and cowardly goofus Mo (Taika Waititi). Will their TEAMWORK save the day? With a computer voice counting down to his doom, he grease-pencils the math on his spaceship’s cockpit glass and comes up with a solution to a terrifying predicament and survives. I mean, his intrepidity is off the charts. Which leads us to Lightyear, a narrative within a narrative, being the movie within the Toy Story universe that inspired the manufacture (birth?) of the toy who pals around with Woody and the gang. With one possible exception: Toy Story 4, which brainboggled us mightily with the introduction of Forky, a character who exponentially ramped up the franchise’s signature existentialist ponderings. The Gist: Again, this is a fictional universe within a fictional universe, but outside of an opening title card explaining as much, there is no reference whatsoever to the fictional universe with Woody and Forky in it.

"Lightyear," now streaming on Disney+, isn't quite Pixar at its most emotionally potent. But there's enough emotional potency and clever plotting to make ...

Evans makes a passable attempt at mimicking the distinctive cadence Tim Allen gave the toy Buzz in the "Toy Story" trilogy, but the depth and emotionality Evans brings to the character more than make up for any shortcomings in the imitation department. Winnie’s fascination with the macabre — she’s heard about rivers of blood, and piles of bones from all the babies the Boxtrolls are said to eat — becomes both a funny running gag and a canny bit of characterization in this refreshing, underrated film. The platform gives fans of entertainment, news and sports an easy way to discover new content that is available completely free. Starring Evans as the titular space ranger, "Lightyear" is (as the film’s opening text tells us) meant to be the film that Andy, the resident toy-owner of "Toy Story," saw before the events of the first film – in other words, the movie that inspired him to ask his parents for a Buzz Lightyear toy for his birthday. There’s real emotional maturity to the character arc "Lightyear" develops for Buzz; once again, Pixar calls on its uncanny ability to wring tears from an audience regardless of the subject matter. The result is a surprisingly complicated time-travel story that explores grief, self-love and the importance of knowing when to ask for help. "Did they eat your family, and did they let you watch?" Taika Waititi and Dale Soules round out the rag-tag bunch as Mo and Darby, a cowardly, accident-prone trainee and an aging ex-con respectively, who act as the film’s comic relief. It’s not the most kid-friendly of character arcs, but it’s certainly a compelling approach. When he comes to the tragic realization that every attempt to get back to light-speed results in a four-year time jump, Buzz finds himself aligning with an unlikely group of heroes (including the granddaughter of his best friend) to crack the secret to hyper-speed, destroy the terrifying Zurg ship and find a way to return home once and for all. "Lightyear," the latest film from the animation powerhouses at Pixar, must have seemed like a sure thing to Disney executives. It has been republished in light of the film's premiere on Disney+.

A deleted scene from act one of Lightyear involving the introduction of Izzy Morrison reveals the secret origin of 'To infinity and beyond!'

Even though the context would have changed, it would have made sense to include similar lines in a scene that eventually made it into the film. The scene, which is the original introduction of Izzy Hawthorne as a child, was cut to tighten up the pacing of the film and is presented in a variety of storyboards, with audio from Evans' performance playing over them. A deleted scene from Lightyear reveals the cut origin story of the catchphrase "To infinity and beyond!"

"Lightyear," the latest film from the animation powerhouses at Pixar, must have seemed like a sure thing to Disney executives. It's got Chris Evans, still ...

Evans makes a passable attempt at mimicking the distinctive cadence Tim Allen gave the toy Buzz in the "Toy Story" trilogy, but the depth and emotionality Evans brings to the character more than make up for any shortcomings in the imitation department. Winnie’s fascination with the macabre — she’s heard about rivers of blood, and piles of bones from all the babies the Boxtrolls are said to eat — becomes both a funny running gag and a canny bit of characterization in this refreshing, underrated film. The platform gives fans of entertainment, news and sports an easy way to discover new content that is available completely free. Starring Evans as the titular space ranger, "Lightyear" is (as the film’s opening text tells us) meant to be the film that Andy, the resident toy-owner of "Toy Story," saw before the events of the first film – in other words, the movie that inspired him to ask his parents for a Buzz Lightyear toy for his birthday. There’s real emotional maturity to the character arc "Lightyear" develops for Buzz; once again, Pixar calls on its uncanny ability to wring tears from an audience regardless of the subject matter. The result is a surprisingly complicated time-travel story that explores grief, self-love and the importance of knowing when to ask for help. "Did they eat your family, and did they let you watch?" Taika Waititi and Dale Soules round out the rag-tag bunch as Mo and Darby, a cowardly, accident-prone trainee and an aging ex-con respectively, who act as the film’s comic relief. It’s not the most kid-friendly of character arcs, but it’s certainly a compelling approach. When he comes to the tragic realization that every attempt to get back to light-speed results in a four-year time jump, Buzz finds himself aligning with an unlikely group of heroes (including the granddaughter of his best friend) to crack the secret to hyper-speed, destroy the terrifying Zurg ship and find a way to return home once and for all. "Lightyear," the latest film from the animation powerhouses at Pixar, must have seemed like a sure thing to Disney executives. It has been republished in light of the film's premiere on Disney+.

Lightyear follows many of Pixar's traditions, especially when it comes to Easter eggs and nods to other Pixar movies, including one teasing the studio's ...

Pixar has been hiding an Easter egg teasing its following movie in almost every one of its projects since Monsters Inc, with Cars being the only exception so far and Inside Out not getting one in the movie before due to changes in Pixar’s release schedule. Lightyear’s Elemental Easter egg is very easy to miss, as it’s on-screen briefly and it’s blocked by one of the characters. Buzz and company then try to find a way back home, but these attempts lead him to jump many years into the future, where he meets a new crew and comes across the evil Emperor Zurg (James Brolin), who hides a big secret.

The Pixar animated feature "Lightyear," focuses on the adventures of Buzz Lightyear, the character who became beloved by "Toy Story" fans.

Each time Buzz returns to the planet of T’Kani Prime, his friends have grown older and are settled into life on what had been a hostile planet. Angus MacLane, who directed “Lightyear,” grew up in the Portland area, graduating from Beaverton High School in 1993. People he had known grew older, and other little things changed, which he noticed, even if people in Portland didn’t. In a June interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, MacLane said some of the inspiration for the “Lightyear” storyline grew out of MacLane’s trips back home to Portland after he had moved to California. • To stream “Lightyear,” sign up for Disney Plus ($7.99 a month, or $79.99 a year). Another option is the Disney Plus bundle, which includes access to Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus ($13.99 a month). After its June release marked the first time since the start of the pandemic that a Pixar animated feature had opened in movie theaters, “Lightyear” is now available to stream at home, on Disney Plus. The film is an origin story for Buzz Lightyear, the character “Toy Story” fans know and love.

"Lightyear," the latest film from the animation powerhouses at Pixar, must have seemed like a sure thing to Disney executives. It's got Chris Evans, still ...

Evans makes a passable attempt at mimicking the distinctive cadence Tim Allen gave the toy Buzz in the "Toy Story" trilogy, but the depth and emotionality Evans brings to the character more than make up for any shortcomings in the imitation department. Winnie’s fascination with the macabre — she’s heard about rivers of blood, and piles of bones from all the babies the Boxtrolls are said to eat — becomes both a funny running gag and a canny bit of characterization in this refreshing, underrated film. The platform gives fans of entertainment, news and sports an easy way to discover new content that is available completely free. Starring Evans as the titular space ranger, "Lightyear" is (as the film’s opening text tells us) meant to be the film that Andy, the resident toy-owner of "Toy Story," saw before the events of the first film – in other words, the movie that inspired him to ask his parents for a Buzz Lightyear toy for his birthday. There’s real emotional maturity to the character arc "Lightyear" develops for Buzz; once again, Pixar calls on its uncanny ability to wring tears from an audience regardless of the subject matter. The result is a surprisingly complicated time-travel story that explores grief, self-love and the importance of knowing when to ask for help. "Did they eat your family, and did they let you watch?" Taika Waititi and Dale Soules round out the rag-tag bunch as Mo and Darby, a cowardly, accident-prone trainee and an aging ex-con respectively, who act as the film’s comic relief. It’s not the most kid-friendly of character arcs, but it’s certainly a compelling approach. When he comes to the tragic realization that every attempt to get back to light-speed results in a four-year time jump, Buzz finds himself aligning with an unlikely group of heroes (including the granddaughter of his best friend) to crack the secret to hyper-speed, destroy the terrifying Zurg ship and find a way to return home once and for all. "Lightyear," the latest film from the animation powerhouses at Pixar, must have seemed like a sure thing to Disney executives. It has been republished in light of the film's premiere on Disney+.