Things Only Adults Notice In Lightyear

Buzz Lightyear is a workaholic — in a real, scientific, medically diagnosable kind of way. Per Healthline, symptoms of work addiction include "putting in long hours at the office, even when not needed," "being obsessed with work-related success," "having intense fear of failure at work," "using work as a way to avoid relationships," and "working to cope with feelings of guilt or depression," among others. As it happens, all those signifiers fit Buzz Lightyear to a T.

Even before the Turnip gets stranded, Buzz shows numerous instances of work obsession. He's a by-the-book operator who doesn't like working with rookies, and he holds himself to the highest possible standard. It's hinted later that this behavior may stem from a larger inferiority complex. Buzz reveals that he wasn't especially good at boot camp, and that he almost quit after his first week. Despite achieving great success in Star Command since then, he's no less hard on himself.

Things only become magnified after the Turnip becomes stranded — an accident for which Buzz exclusively blames himself. He's so fixated on fixing what he sees as his mistake that he willingly lets go of his friends, relationships, and life as a whole in order to undergo the repeated hyperspeed tests. "Lightyear" keeps a pretty upbeat tone for the majority of its runtime, but older viewers will surely clock that Buzz is in a pretty bad place for a lot of the story. Fortunately, he eventually finds a way out.

Buzz Lightyear may work for Star Command, but that doesn't mean that they're the good guys. On the contrary, Star Command acts as a direct antagonist before Zurg shows up on the scene. When Buzz returns home from a test flight to find that Alisha has passed away, he quickly realizes that the new command structure is no longer interested in hyperspeed experiments. Star Command even tries to decommission Sox (Peter Sohn), which Buzz refuses to allow. He ultimately ends up stealing a spaceship and undergoing another test flight in complete disobedience to the organization's orders. By the time he gets back, Zurg has taken over.

Because the Zurg storyline then takes center stage, "Lightyear" doesn't have too much time to spend on the state of Star Command. That's a shame, because there seem to be some major problems rooted within the institution. Commander Burnside (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) displays an almost ignorant level of disregard for the space program, preferring to hide behind his beloved laser shield for protection. He's just about ready to lock Buzz up for his dissenting opinions, and he'd probably go through with it if Buzz didn't defeat Zurg.

Ultimately, "Lightyear" doesn't spend much time ruminating on the incompetence of Star Command, which makes the whole subplot easy to forget. But for more discerning viewers, there's still a clear message — it's the people you trust, not the institutions they serve, who you should put your faith in.

Slowly but surely, Pixar has expanded its films' LGBTQ+ representation in recent years, and "Lightyear" continues that trend with an onscreen kiss between Commander Hawthorne and her wife. It's a fleeting moment — one you'd probably miss if you blinked at the wrong time, and which could be seen as yet another instance of queer representation being relegated to the sidelines. Yet in the greater context of modern animated family films, it's still a notable step.

Arguably more important than the kiss itself, however, is how Alisha and her family are portrayed overall. She's not shown as an exception to some rule, but rather as a kind of gold standard for what a healthy family life can look like. Buzz's obsession with work keeps him from finding that kind of joy, which puts him in stark contrast to Alisha's work-life balance. This decision is especially significant because it centers a queer marriage as the normal standard to aspire to, not some kind of "alternative lifestyle." It makes queerness foundational, rather than making it ancillary.

This is equally true in regards to Izzy, Alisha's granddaughter who ends up helping Buzz defeat Zurg. LGBTQ+ grandparents aren't the most common characters in big-budget movies, and it's meaningful to see all the ins and outs of Alisha's relationship with Izzy. Though the kiss itself is brief, "Lightyear" has a much more extensive message about queer representation. Queer spouses are normal, queer parents are normal, and queer grandparents, you guessed it, are normal too.

While not explicitly an environmentalist narrative, "Lightyear" nevertheless has some eco-undertones sprinkled across its 105 minutes. However, these themes are also a bit confusing in their presentation, making the film's actual environmental stance somewhat muddled.

For starters, the environment is presented as an antagonist for most of "Lightyear." The alien planet that Star Command crashes on is pretty inhospitable for human occupation, and it takes the crew of the Turnip a number of years to figure out how to manage. Even when things get better, there isn't any real coexistence with the planet's natural ecosystem. Commander Burnside's solution, which is seen in effect at the end of "Lightyear," is to build a massive laser shield around the entire colony. It's not a very nuanced plan, and Burnside isn't presented as a particularly shrewd leader, but the laser shield is the only real solution that the movie seems to offer.

How are we, as viewers, to read this? Buzz Lightyear, the film's lead protagonist, scoffs at the whole laser shield idea and works tirelessly to get humanity back into space. But that goal is also presented as a bit obsessive. So what's the message? That humans should look to their own environment before trying to escape into space? That modern (or rather, futuristic) society must be kept separate from the natural world? "Lightyear" touches on a lot of these topics, but it never seems quite sure of what it wants to say.

Zurg, aka Evil Buzz Lightyear, wants one thing — to travel back in time to before the Turnip ever crashed, thereby undoing what he sees as his greatest mistake. At first blush, it sounds like a nice idea — a chance to undo a tragedy and restore humanity to its place among the stars. But in reality, Zurg's motivations are far more self-serving. He wants to retroactively change his legacy, making himself a hero in the eyes of history rather than a failure. But as shown in Buzz's arc, most people don't view him as a failure. Even Burnside is impressed upon finally meeting Buzz and says that he looked up to him as a kid. But Zurg isn't interested in what actually happened in the past. He's only interested in his own twisted, warped perception of it.

Zurg's quest is no longer about guilt or fixing his mistakes — it's about claiming power and control. When Buzz objects to the idea of turning back the clock, Zurg starts to view him as a threat. "So many new ideas," he laments as Buzz tries to stop him. Clearly, Zurg isn't interested in new ideas. He's only interested in a specific version of the past where he's the one on top.

The allegory here isn't too complicated — Zurg thinks he's making space great again, but he's only destroying lives. In the modern age we live in, it's a storyline that may ring far heavier for the adults in the audience.

Being a Pixar movie, "Lightyear" ends on a happy note: With the help of Mo, Darby, and Izzy, Buzz defeats Zurg and returns to the colony safe and sound. Commander Burnside is so impressed that he asks Buzz to lead the new iteration of the Space Ranger Corps. But if you're watching the movie with discerning eyes, you'll notice that the real heroes of the story are Sox and Alisha Hawthorne.

First, let's talk about Sox. Not only does he provide Buzz with unceasing emotional support — something that he desperately needs and surely wouldn't succeed without — but he's also the one who figures out how to create a new, functional crystallic fusion core. He saves Buzz from capture multiple times, fixes the ships when they break down, and does countless other things to ensure that the mission succeeds. Sox does more than almost anyone else in the movie, and he deserves a huge portion of the credit.

That brings us to Alisha Hawthorne. An accomplished Space Ranger in her own right and the matriarch of a proud family, Alisha is impressive in myriad ways. But her most significant contribution to the actual mission in "Lightyear" is when she gifts Sox to Buzz. Of course, at the time, she's only thinking of the emotional support, but Sox quickly proves himself to be capable of a lot more. Turns out, pets really do save lives.