What’s it about?
Young astronaut Buzz Lightyear is the member of a spaceship crew who are stranded on a planet 4.2 million light years from Earth. His repeated attempts to return home backfire, but he perseveres with help from his feline robot companion Sox and others. However, with the dastardly Zurg and his army on the horizon, will Buzz succeed? In the Toy Story universe, this is the film Andy watched that made him want to have his own space-age toy.
Lightyear
Every cinephile loves a good hero – someone to admire, someone to root for. Heroes overcome insurmountable obstacles to save the day. And the best heroes – the ones who live on long after their films hit the big screen – are, at heart, human. They have flaws and fears – they’re utterly relatable, even as they soar to greatness.
Buzz Lightyear is such a hero – in fact, he’s the kind of big-screen phenomenon that inspired a successful line of toys. That’s what filmmakers pictured when creating the character for Pixar Animation Studios’ 1995 feature film Toy Story. That story placed Buzz Lightyear – the toy in this case – centre stage as the brand-new, highly sought-after action figure that gives vintage pull-string Sheriff Woody a run for his money as Andy’s favourite. Fast forward 21 years, and director Angus MacLane found himself asking: What movie inspired Andy to beg for a fancy toy with lasers, karate-chop action and aerodynamic space wings? ‘Lightyear is the movie that Andy, his friends and probably most of the rest of the world saw,’ says MacLane. ‘I wanted to make something that felt true to those fun, big-budget popcorn films.’
A sci-fi action-adventure and the definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear, Lightyear follows the legendary Space Ranger on an intergalactic adventure. ‘I did a lot of research, breaking down the nature of genre thrillers,’ says MacLane. ‘I knew Buzz would have to face a big problem, and I liked the sci-fi element of time dilation. There’s a rich history of character-out-of-time heroics: Captain America, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, to name a few.
‘They say you can’t live in the past, but what if you could?’ continues MacLane. ‘We all wonder what it would be like to go back in time, but instead we’re jumping forward in time. That’s the truth I wanted to build for Lightyear – nostalgia for the past while rapidly jumping into the future.’
Production notes
LIGHTYEAR
Directed by: Angus MacLane
©: Disney Enterprises Inc., Pixar
Production Company: Pixar Animation Studios
Executive Producers: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
Produced by: Galyn Susman
Post-production Supervisor: Dana Mulligan
Script Supervisor: Laura Holshouser
Casting by: Kevin Reher, Natalie Lyon
Story & Script Coordinator: Rebecca Banks
Screenplay by: Jason Headley, Angus MacLane
Story by: Angus MacLane, Matthew Aldrich, Jason Headley
Story Supervisor: Dean Kelly
Directors of Photography: Jeremy Lasky, Ian Megibben
Visual Effects Supervisor: Jane Yen
Animation Supervisor: David Devan
Directing Animators: Travis Hathaway, Tsung-yin Hsieh, Tim Pixton
Effects Supervisor: Bill Watral
Lighting Supervisor: Maxwell Bickley
Edited by: Anthony J. Greenberg
Production Designer: Tim Evatt
Character Art Director: Matt Nolte
Character Designers: Grant Alexander, Dean Heezen
Sets Art Directors: Greg Peltz, Garrett Taylor
Set Designers: Randy Berrett, Nelson ‘Rey’ Bohol, Jay Shuster
Music by: Michael Giacchino
Sound Designer: Ren Klyce
Production Sound Mixers: Paul McGrath, Vince Caro
Voice Cast
Chris Evans (Buzz Lightyear)
Keke Palmer (Izzy Hawthorne)
Peter Sohn (SOX)
Taika Waititi (Maurice Morrison, ‘Mo’)
Dale Soules (Darby Steel)
James Brolin (Zurg)
Uzo Aduba (Alisha Hawthorne)
Mary McDonald-Lewis (I.V.A.N. – Internal Voice-Activated Navigator)
Isiah Whitlock Jr (Commander Burnside)
Angus MacLane (ERIC/DERIC & Zyclops)
Bill Hader (Featheringhamstan)
Efren Ramirez (Airman Díaz)
Keira Hairston (young Izzy)
USA 2022©
96 mins
FAMILIES
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Tue 2 Aug 13:30; Sat 6 Aug 12:10; Wed 10 Aug 13:30; Tue 30 Aug 13:30
Alice in Wonderland
Wed 3 Aug 13:30; Tue 9 Aug 13:30; Thu 11 Aug 13:30; Sat 20 Aug 12:00; Thu 25 Aug 13:30
Lightyear
Fri 5 Aug 13:30; Sun 14 Aug 12:00 (Funday); Thu 18 Aug 13:30; Mon 22 Aug 13:30; Mon 29 Aug 12:15
Family Preview: Where Is Anne Frank
Sun 7 Aug 11:30
Storytelling with Lighting: Filmmaking Workshop
8-11 Aug 10:30-16:30
Funday Workshop: Lightyear
Sun 14 Aug 10:30 Foyer
Special Effects Makeup and Moviemaking
15-19 Aug 10:30-16:30
Places and Stories Moviemaking
22-26 Aug 10:30-16:30
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Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email