Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins

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

If you ever want a bit of a laugh while babysitting, this might be a good film to have with you. Kids will love it simply because it's got Buzz Lightyear, an amusing villain, and loads of aliens. Maybe it's just a sign of my immaturity, but I found quite a lot of the jokes in this movie very funny (and even the parts that aren't funny can be vaguely amusing in their corniness). The characters do a lot for the movie - Lightyear's unlikely friend and partner Warp Darkmatter has several funny lines, and XR's personality changes and sarcasm make him quite endearing. Even the villain, the Evil Emperor Zurg, has his likable moments.

While you won't miss any life-changing moments if you don't see this movie (and really, it pales in comparison to the Toy Story movies), it's a good choice if you've seen every other kids' movie too many times and want to watch something that'll amuse you too.

... 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".

I have to say I was delightfully surprised with the new Buzz Lightyear video. Not only is there enough action and quirky stunts to keep the kids entertained, but the writers took pity on parents as well by throwing in a LOT of inside jokes and great taglines for us to enjoy as well! The new characters are fun (Larry Miller as XR is just a riot) and we get to see a terrific cast of gifted voice talent having a blast with their characters.

The violence factor is minimal cartoon violence - more campy than anything else. One of the biggest surprises is to hear Patrick Warburton doing the voice of the Little Green Men - as well as the hilarious cameo by William Shatner "singing" the Space Ranger anthem!! That in itself is worth a viewing. Overall, I have to say this is well worth at LEAST a rental, if not a purchase, particularly if you have young ones in the house who love Buzz to infinity and beyond!

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.