To infinity… and beyond! The computer-animation pioneers at Pixar have been looking to the stars ever since Buzz Lightyear landed in Andy’s bedroom all those years ago.
That one small step was just the beginning, paving the way for a succession of shorts and feature-length films that have been proud to wear their sci-fi credentials on their Space Ranger sleeves.
So with “Elio“, the studio’s latest journey to outer space, beaming into movie theaters around the world right now, we look back on Pixar’s previous adventures on the final frontier.
Toy Story saga (1995-present)
Buzz Lightyear may not be an actual flying toy but Star Command’s most famous Space Ranger has swallowed enough of the sci-fi Kool-Aid to believe he’s the real deal. Besides, telling those cute three-eyed aliens that the hallowed “Claw” is not their lord and master would probably violate some kind of prime directive.
“Toy Story 2” adds to Buzz’s space opera credentials, with riffs on “Star Wars” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and an encounter with the evil Emperor Zurg that reveals some Skywalker-esque heritage.
Buzz also headlined his own “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command” cartoon, though the 2D animation wasn’t made by Pixar.
Lifted (2006)
Pixar’s first encounter with actual aliens was this short, which accompanied “Ratatouille” into cinemas. Written and directed by Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom (“Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, “Jurassic Park”, “The Phantom Menace”), the dialogue-free “Lifted” tells the story of a botched alien abduction from the alien’s point of view.
It’s effectively an extra-terrestrial driving test, as a hapless pupil does their best to levitate a sleeping human test subject from their bed to the open hatch of a flying saucer. The stern instructor displays a remarkable amount of patience as the student bashes the unfortunate victim against every solid surface in sight — even alien beings capable of traversing the cosmos can have bad days at the office.
WALL-E (2008)
While “WALL-E” adheres to Pixar’s traditional family-friendly remit, it’s also an unflinchingly bleak portrayal of a planet Earth rendered inhospitable by rampant consumerism. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class) is the last of the robots clearing up the mess, but he leaves it all behind — including his cockroach BFF — when he falls in love with a sleek, futuristic robot named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).
With the exception of the couple’s beautiful zero-g dance, the space-set scenes can’t quite live up to the largely dialogue-free first act, in which the relentlessly optimistic WALL-E trundles his way through skyscrapers of trash. But this is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece the whole family can enjoy — and you know that R2-D2 would love it.
BURN-E (2008)
Neither a prequel nor a sequel, this short (released as a DVD/Blu-ray extra with “WALL-E”) runs parallel to the main film. The eponymous BURN-E (Basic Utility Repair Nano Engineer) is one of the vast legion of droids making life a little too easy for the increasingly sedentary residents of the Axiom starliner.
He’s called into action when a piece of space debris — dislodged from a planetary ring by WALL-E’s trailing hand — breaks a light fitting on the ship’s hull. Cue a succession of slapstick-heavy mishaps, as WALL-E’s well-documented heroics make BURN-E’s life hell. As a result, BURN-E may be the only entity in the known universe with a reason to dislike WALL-E.
“BURN-E” director Angus MacLane went on to helm “Lightyear” — more on that below.
La Luna (2011)
The short that joined “Brave” on the big screen isn’t going to win any prizes for its scientific rigour. It is, however, a very sweet fairy-tale from Enrico Casarosa, who’d go on to direct “Luca”.
In a plot that discards all traditional notions of scale, a kid named Bambino climbs a ladder to the Moon, and learns that its surface covered in hundreds of glowing stars — imagine a particularly luminescent breakfast cereal and you won’t be far off. Along with his father and grandfather, Bambino gets to work sweeping up the stars in a cute, but wildly inaccurate, explanation for the phases of the Moon.
Seriously, did anyone stop to think what might happen if the kid decides he wants to quit the family business?
Lightyear (2022)
The story of the fictional movie character who inspired a fictional cartoon that inspired the fictional child’s plaything that believed he was a Space Ranger in the original “Toy Story” — and subsequently inspired a real-life toy and movie — “Lightyear” is by some distance the most meta entry in the Pixar filmography. It also indulges in some “Interstellar”-esque entanglements with relativity, as Buzz’s mission to test a new hyperdrive forces him to watch his friends age before his eyes.
Unfortunately, those lofty first-act ambitions give way to something much more formulaic, as Buzz joins forces with the usual ragtag bunch of misfits to battle the evil Emperor Zurg. It’s a strange mishmash of high-concept sci-fi and kid-friendly banter, and doesn’t really succeed at either. Indeed, come the end credits, you never believe that this version of Buzz Lightyear would be idolised by an eight-year-old kid.
“Elio” is in cinemas from June 20. The Pixar back catalogue, including all the films mentioned above, is available on Disney+ in the US and UK.
