Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000) (V)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Tad Stones

Writers:

Mark McCorkle (writer) &
Robert Schooley (writer) ...

Release Date:

8 August 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Buzz Lightyear must battle Emperor Zurg with the help of three hopefuls who insist on being his partners.

Plot Keywords:

Alien | Partner | Buzz Lightyear | Battle | Robot

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Tim Allen	...	Buzz Lightyear (voice)
Nicole Sullivan	...	Mira Nova (voice)
Larry Miller	...	XR (voice)
Stephen Furst	...	Booster (voice)
Wayne Knight	...	Evil Emperor Zurg (voice)
Adam Carolla	...	Cmdr. Nebula (voice)
Diedrich Bader	...	Warp Darkmatter / Agent Z (voice)
Patrick Warburton	...	LGM's (Little Green Men) (voice)
Kevin Michael Richardson	...	Space Ranger (voice)
Charles Kimbrough	...	Brain Pod #29 (voice)
Cindy Warden	...	Technician / Computer (voice)
Frank Welker	...	Grubs / Self Destruct / Ranger #1 / Rhizomian Man / Cadet Flarn (voice)
Sean Hayes	...	Brain Pod #13 (voice) (as Sean P. Hayes)
Jennifer Bailey	...	Rhizomian Woman (voice)
Andrew Stanton	...	Hamm (voice)

Also Known As:

The Adventures of Buzz Lightyear (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:G | Germany:6 | UK:U

Company:

Walt Disney Pictures

Trivia:

The movie was later aired on TV as three series episodes. The episodes cut out the Toy Story part and replaced Tim Allen's voice with Patrick Warburton's as Buzz Lightyear

Quotes:

Warp Darkmatter: [to the LGM he just saved] Any reason you were looking to shake hands with a beast from 20,000 craters?

Movie Connections:

References "Star Trek" (1966)

Soundtrack:

To Infinity and Beyond

As far as hilarious, action-packed space adventures go, this isn't a patch on "Galaxy Quest."

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.