The latest film in the Toy Story franchise, and the first theatrically released spin-off in the series, is here. Toy Story became a classic of cinema as it beat all the preconceived negative thoughts and feelings many audience members had about animated movies with its first three films, even getting nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture for the third outing (animated titles typically tend to remain confined to their own categories, bar a few exceptions). In recent years, especially after the rising success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney has attempted to broaden the Toy Story franchise, first with a fourth film. Now, 2022’s Lightyear is the next installment.
Unlike the previous outings, which followed toys exclusively, Lightyear is the movie that the action figure that Buzz was based off of. In essence, Lightyear is a movie within a movie, as toy Buzz‘s human owner, Andy, went to see this flick in his childhood years. From this, it’s clear that Lightyear has an abundance of references and connections to the broader Toy Story franchise, but these are ultimately not enough to compensate for a weak story and a lack of a concrete reason for its mere existence.
As stated, Lightyear was made as a result of Disney’s desire to mine preexisting franchises to produce more content. The abundance of Marvel shows on Disney+, for example, in the last year alone, is a clear sign of the studio’s parent company’s goals and enacting of their plans. To a lesser extent, the same can be said of Star Wars, with The Mandalorian season three, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars Visions season 2, Andor, and Ahsoka all coming within the next year or so, and those shows are joined by the recently concluded Obi-Wan Kenobi. The important thing to note is that most, if not all, of these stories within the Marvel and Star Wars franchises further add to the property, and are tales that are genuinely worth telling.
However, the Toy Story franchise has not been afforded the same luxury in recent years. Toy Story 4 was serviceable, but ultimately lacked the emotion of the previous three films. More glaringly, the fourth outing dampened upon the extremely emotional, beautiful ending of Toy Story 3 by giving audiences a sequel that simply shouldn’t exist. The future adventures of Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang would be better left to the imagination of the audience, thus furthering the poetic ending they once had.
Lightyear was, on the surface, a more promising film in that it wouldn’t interfere with the near perfection that is the original Toy Story trilogy. Rather, it would serve as an interesting and unique tale that was connected to those movies, but had complete storytelling freedom to go wherever the writers at Pixar deemed fit. Unfortunately, though, Lightyear doesn’t live up to its promise. The movie has many Toy Story connections, the most obvious being the title character of Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans). Lightyear is a young astronaut who is on a long and tiring journey while dealing with the threat of Zurg, another character from the Toy Story movies. The list of these connections go on and on, but they can only lift the movie up so much.
The reason Lightyear doesn't impress is ultimately down to its weak story, and that it lacks a reason to exist, much like Toy Story 4. The story simply isn’t compelling, and although the space setting is meant to invoke Star Wars and the instant popularity of that franchise, it seems hard to believe that it’s this movie that inspired the in-universe fascination with and love for Buzz. Of course, these are kids' movies at the end of the day, but the fact remains that Lightyear falls flat — kids can still tell when a movie's story isn't the best.
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This isn’t to say that Lightyear doesn’t have some good elements, as it is visually interesting and includes some much-needed LGBTQ+ representation (although arguably not enough). Still, these good elements and the Toy Story connections aren’t enough to save it from mediocrity, and it seems that this is the consensus for audiences that went to see the movie. The amount of fans that actually turned up in the film’s opening few days disappointed the parent studio, as it looks set to fail to make a profit. That, along with Lightyear’s predictably large budget, means that Disney might just begin to rethink their approach for movies in this franchise. Given the inherent weaknesses in the story, this might just be the best course of action if a high quality future for the franchise is to be secured.