Sci-fi movie buffs will spot the homages to 2001 , Tremors , Alien , Interstellar and The Martian , but ticking off film references isn't enough to make Lightyear enjoyable for adults.
The marooned crew have been stuck for several decades (time moves quickly in the same vein as the ocean planet in Interstellar) and across that time, guided by generational growth, they come to see the planet as a new home.
With its classic science-fiction framework, “Lightyear” borrows from “The Twilight Zone,” “Star Trek,” Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and others.
Director Angus MacLane and his co-writer Jason Headley then pilfer a concept from Interstellar as Buzz deals with time dilation in his attempts to finish the mission as a Space Ranger should.
Now, we’ve had funny robot sidekicks for yonks; from Lost in Space , Buck Rogers and Star Wars all the way to Interstellar .
Sometimes playing like Starship Troopers 4 Kidz, and at other points like Interstellar crossed with Pixar’s own Up, Lightyear follows the title space ranger (voiced here not by Allen but Evans) as he struggles to find his way back to Earth after becoming marooned on an alien planet with thousands of other scientists during an expedition gone awry.