

This time around, Chris Evans provides the voice of Buzz, a hotshot space ranger who maroons his crew on a forbidding and faraway planet and must perform a series of hyperspeed test runs to determine whether their makeshift fuel source will help everyone escape. The new prequel "Lightyear" opens with a crawl that informs us that the movie we're watching is, in fact, that movie that inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy. That version of Buzz has appeared in all four of the "Toy Story" movies, which establish early on that the Buzz toy was based on a character in a science fiction movie. Buzz is the toy who had to learn that he was a toy and not, in fact, an actual space ranger locked in conflict with the evil Emperor Zurg. THOMPSON: So for more than 25 years, we've known Buzz Lightyear as an action figure voiced by Tim Allen. Also joining us is writer and film critic Laura Sirikul. THOMPSON: It is a pleasure to have you here. He's the host of the film and television review podcast "Leaving The Theater." Hello, Ronald.

I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about "Lightyear" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. Now the character is getting a Pixar prequel, an origin story starring Chris Evans as the original Buzz Lightyear who started it all. THOMPSON: If you've seen any of the "Toy Story" movies, you know about Buzz Lightyear, the heroic space ranger immortalized in a line of action figures.

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