Pixar’s Lightyear Is an Underwhelming Anachronism

The strangest thing about Lightyear is the initial premise. This isn’t just a sci-fi spinoff for the toy character whose presence disrupted the social life of a little boy’s toy collection in the first Toy Story oh-so-many decades ago. Instead, it’s presented as the movie that Andy, the little boy from the Toy Story films, watched in 1995 that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy in the first place. In a title card that plays at the start of the film, the movie specifies that this is Andy’s favorite film in 1995. 

There are two problems with this. The first is that it doesn’t play anything like a movie from the 1990s. It’s jokey and hectically paced, with quippy supporting characters and some pro forma lesson-learning about what it means to grow up and accept failure. And it includes some ingrained cultural assumptions that, while handled gracefully, would almost certainly not have appeared in a popular 1990s kid-friendly movie, particularly when it comes to same-sex marriage. 

So while it’s better than many movies targeted at kids, it’s lower-tier by Pixar’s lofty standards. It’s a movie that settles for kid-friendly competence rather than reaching for the stars. 

But that brings me to the next problem with the premise: This is a kids movie. Yes, it’s a sci-fi-tinged picture, with some robot action and an ostensibly dangerous planet, but the tone is light and snarky, without any real sense of danger or darkness. Kids might like this sort of thing, especially younger ones. But it’s hard to believe that a boy like Andy would pick this, of all movies, as his favorite film, even for a brief period of time. 

It’s too generic, too cute, and most of all, it doesn’t feel in any way like a gateway into adult ideas and feelings. And kids like Andy—a creative dreamer who’d had some hard times in his life and partially retre