Lightyear

For Buzz Lightyear, being a space ranger isn’t just a job. Rather, he sees his personal meaning of life in it, he puts his heart and soul into it. But all of that comes crashing down when he, his partner Alisha, and the rest of the crew are stuck on a planet populated with aggressive tentacle monsters. Plagued by accusations of abandoning his crew, he puts all his hopes in an experimental mission, hoping to find the necessary propulsion that would allow them to get off-planet. It’s not easy, Buzz has to put up with a few failures. The mission is also associated with high personal costs, as he soon finds out: With every failed attempt, he loses more of his original life…

One could really feel sorry for the artists at Pixar Studios over the past two years. Onward only ran in cinemas for a very short time before the corona pandemic stalled all cultural life. The three following films Soul, Luca and Rotdidn’t even make it into the cinemas, but were immediately assigned to the in-house streaming service Disney+. That was nice for the subscribers, who got more in this way than the usual mediocre direct-to-video productions. It was still a pity not to be able to see the stunning pictures on the screen, as always. In terms of quality, the trio was superior to the majority of the animated films that have been shown in cinemas in the meantime, which is why the frustration of the teams is more than understandable, whose hard work was not really appreciated.

With Lightyear, the famous animation studio is returning to cinemas for the first time in years. With good reason: the main character Buzz Lightyear has been known to everyone since Toy Story, which gives hope for corresponding box office results. Four feature films were shot around the toys that came to life, and there were also short films. One of them is Toy Story of Terror! , a TV special produced in 2013. Angus MacLane, who directed it and wrote the screenplay, was also allowed to take over the artistic direction of the big spin-off. The idea behind this one is kind of original. In a sense, it’s a prequel to the main films, as this is supposed to be the film that made the boy Andy a fan – and therefore wanted the doll. As a result, the adventure gets slight meta bonds, it’s a kind of film within a film. And at the same time not.

• Lightyear