Timothy Glaraton
How soon before a movie actually comes out can you say it’s going to be your favorite of the year? Disney-Pixar dropped another trailer yesterday for the fast-approaching Lightyear, and every little bit of new footage I see from this film just makes me more and more excited to see it. The first two trailers were heavily focused on establishing Lightyear‘s aesthetic—vintage sci-fi by way of Pixar—but this one actually gives us a major piece of the film’s plot and introduces us to some of the supporting cast.
We’d already known from the first trailer that Buzz was the test pilot for Star Command’s first hyperspeed flight after he and his crew had been marooned on an unknown planet for a year. This new trailer shows us the outcome of that flight: Buzz finds himself stranded, not on some unknown planet, but more than fifty years in the future. Yes, Lightyear is going to include time travel as well.
When he lands, he’s rescued by a seemingly familiar face—Izzy Hawthorne, granddaughter of his friend Commander Hawthorne. Turns out, she’s one of the last members left of the colony, along with Darby, a Macgyveresque munitions expert, and Morrison, an in-over-his-head type voiced by an ever delightful Taika Waititi. The three of them are trapped on the planet by an alien spaceship, and it just so happens they’re in need of a pilot for their plan to destroy it. Of course, easier said than done, and the trailer ends in another flurry of action shots that give us a better look at the bigger, badder Zurg that Lightyear and crew will have to contend with—now complete with his signature triple barreled ion cannon.
Between the two trailers we’ve gotten, we now have a pretty solid picture of what to expect when Lightyear hits theaters: Pixar’s take on an old school sci-fi epic, with shades of Forbidden Planet and Lost In Space and combined with the studio’s trademark sense of humor and heart. If the trailers we’ve gotten so far are any indication, Lightyear looks to be another triumph for Disney-Pixar—and a likely frontrunner for my favorite film of 2022.
