To infinity and beyond. What started as a quick character sketch in the beloved Toy Story franchise has officially been fleshed out in Pixar’s latest feature film. Two years after announcing that Lightyear would tell the real Buzz Lightyear’s origin story, we have the final trailer and know a little more about who Buzz Lightyear is.
As with the action figure we’ve all grown to love, Buzz Lightyear—a legendary Space Ranger whose real-life heroics inspired the toy we grew to love in the Toy Story franchise—is a self-serious goofball who narrates his actions into his mission log. “Narrating helps me focus,” he insists.
Beyond learning more about Buzz’s personality (voiced in this version by the ever-charming Chris Evans), the trailer gives us a good look at what makes Buzz the hero who inspired all those action figures.
“I’m gonna grant you four minutes to be off-planet, but then you come right back to us,” Commander Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) tells Buzz before sending him on a flight to test out Star Command’s new hyperlaunch technology. Instead, after passing out and subsequently returning to Earth, he comes back to a Star Command that won’t respond to his calls—and discovers he’s been gone for 62 years, seven months, and five days—not four minutes.
What follows is an action-adventure story that will introduce us to Evil Emperor Zurg (a hyper-villainous, recurring antagonist in the Toy Story franchise), a planet overrun by robot-aliens, and a scrappy team of Space Rangers—including Commander Hawthorne’s granddaughter—doing their best to beat the bad guys. An aesthetic and tonal departure from the beloved Toy Story franchise, Lightyear promises to be a gorgeous sci-fi flick with plenty of pathos.
The film has been the center of controversy after Disney reportedly removed a same-sex kiss between Commander Hawthorne and her same-sex partner. After LGBTQ employees levied accusations of censorship, Disney has reportedly reinstated the kiss.
Lightyear, which is as yet unrated, hits theaters on June 17, 2022.
