Captain Buzz Lightyear - Star Command

In "Toy Story 2," Woody finds out that he came from the TV show "Woody's Roundup"; Buzz Lightyear did it the other way around and for real. The trouble is that "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" never really worked as a series, and this video feature doesn't really cut it - and that's without taking either of its truly great predecessors into consideration. If you do...

Essentially a feature-length pilot for the TV series*, "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins" opens with a Pixar-animated prologue wherein Andy's toys get ready to watch the very movie we're about to (the subsequent series also begins with Buzz, Woody, Slinky etc congregating in front of the TV); the point of this is never clear, especially since Woody's reference to how Buzz is drawn underlines how different the two ventures are. The story has Buzz and his partner Warp Darkmatter rescuing three Little Green Men from Emperor Zurg, but when Warp is killed in the fighting our hero swears he won't have any partners anymore; as fans of the show know he wound up with three of them anyway, and this relates how he got together with Mira, Booster and XR.

The movie's got its moments (like the throwaway gag where XR reads a Victoria's Circuit catalogue) and it's hardly boring, but I can't imagine many viewers who've seen more than, oh, five movies being surprised at the movie's biggest plot twist; and the wit and depth of the previous movies is sucked out, leaving little more than a standard comedy-action cartoon. True, it makes sense that a toy like Buzz would inspire a cash-in TV series in the world according to "Toy Story," but do we actually have to see it? Watchable but bland; however, you can't deny that "He-Man" et al never had end credit songs from William Shatner(!).

*Like several other Disney TV cartoons ("TaleSpin," "Chip'N'Dale Rescue Rangers"), the pilot was later edited down and shown on the series in several parts, in this case three. In that version (those versions?), Shatner's song and the prologue with the video are absent, and Tim Allen's voice is replaced by Patrick Warburton, who provided Buzz's voice on the series.

You can probably guess that I loved the two Pixar films, they were sophisticated, funny and imaginative. This is a decent feature length pilot to the equally decent TV series. Of course some of it is corny, with one or two lacklustre plot points and a rather scant length. But the animation is good, more the galactic backgrounds rather than the character animation. Also there is some good music with William Shatner providing the biggest surprise singing over the end credits, and an excellent voice cast especially Wayne Knight as Zurg. A vast majority of the jokes are hits than misses, the best coming from Booster and Warp, and the dialogue has its moments. The characters have nice personalities, Mira is lovely, while Buzz is a good hero and Zurg an amusing villain. Overall, uneven but a decent pilot to a decent series. 7/10 Bethany Cox

When I reviewed Lightyear, I found it to be bland and recommended the TV show, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Lo and behold, that film was not the first attempt to make a movie, as this movie exists.

Basically, this film can be considered a special edition of the first three episodes of the series, as this was actually released before the whole thing premiered. After a mission ends with the loss of his partner, Warp Darkmatter, Buzz swears to work alone, even going as far as to reject Commander Nebula, who makes Mira Nova, a space ranger from the planet Tangea, and even XR, a robot who can be reassembled, but when the LGM's Unimind is stolen, the robot is made silly and useless. However, he must team up with those three, as well as Booster, an alien who works as janitor for Star Command, to stop him from using it to control everyone and everything in the universe.

As a movie, this has a lot of things that would be removed for the show. For starters, Tim Allen voices Buzz in this version, while the show would replace his voicework with Patrick Warburton, who voices Buzz for the show, and the start has a special intro in the world of Toy Story. While it has some flaws (some characters are meh, while Buzz falls victim to spewing one-liners like good always winning), the story and action is perfect, and the voice actors all do a good job. This is a movie I would recommend more than the new Lightyear movie, as this does a lot of stuff better.

... but then, he's a big Toy Story fanatic anyway. Yes, this is essentially the pilot for a Disney "One Saturday Morning" cartoon offering, but it does help provide a bit more background as to the legend of Buzz Lightyear. If you're buying or renting a movie for a Toy Story fan, this will do just fine. I love Diedrich Bader as the voice of "Agent Z".

It begins with a standard S&R mission and in the end Buzz is involved in an adventure, where the whole galaxy is at stake, with him and his friends being the only ones left to stop evil emperor Zurg, who is the excellent villain here. At no time is the movie ever boring, the story is never hold up at any point for too long and while the overall plot is predictable (Buzz will defeat Zurg and save the galaxy), in between it often takes unexpected turns. The robot and Zurgs men add a great deal of comedy and the attentive viewer will notice some wonderfull allusions "That's not a spacecraft - it's obviously a weatherballoon"