THB #171: Lightyear, briefly

Lightyear.

Beautifully made, full of Pixar-y characters and gags, story that is very complex, but also, somehow, so simple a 5-year-old can follow it.

But wait… that’s not very Pixar. Not story complexity… they do emotional complexity. Hmmm…

The movie opens with an explanation that it is the movie that kids watched that made them want to buy the toy version of Buzz Lightyear.

Hmmm… don’t think about this too much. I will hurt your head.

The film is built on what would have seemed to be a heroic effort by Buzz to get his ship and its team of geniuses back home. But he fails. He fails in the way movies want us to see as heroic.

Coincidentally, Buzz’s failure quite specifically reflects Maverick’s big flying hurdle in that live-action sequel that is eventually overcome for the finale. Weird.

So Buzz and his misshapen team of underdogs end up spending most of the movie trying to overcome his failure.

Wait. Is this really a movie that children watched and chose the Buzz toy to make a mainstay……