How does Lightyear end? Lightyear, the eagerly anticipated Toy Story spin-off, has finally landed in theatres. Part science fiction movie, part action movie, Lightyear, unsurprisingly, focuses on the one and only Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) after he accidentally maroons his crew on an alien world called Tikana Prime. Desperate to make up for his mistake, Buzz works diligently to “complete the mission” and get his people home.
Unfortunately, his experiments with a fuel capable of getting them off the barren rock they now call home see Buzz travel at relativistic speeds. This means that while Buzz is flying his experimental ships up in space, time is moving quicker below on Tikana Prime, and before long, everyone Buzz knows has passed away, including his best friend Commander Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba).
Even worse for Buzz, the new generation, those who grew up on the planet, have never known anything other than this strange new world and want to stop his experiments. Throwing caution to the wind, Buzz hijacks a ship – against the orders of the new Commander Burnside and goes on one last trip, inadvertently travelling decades into the future when Tikana Prime is under attack. Warning, spoilers to follow.
Lightyear ending explained
Soon after his successful hyperspace flight, Buzz and his robot cat Sox (who went with him on the journey) land back on the planet and find mysterious robots attacking the base, which is covered by a laser shield. Unsure what to do, he lands in a nearby glade and attempts to work out what’s happening.
Before he can get his bearings, though, he’s grabbed by Izzy Hawthorne, who reveals herself to be Alisha’s granddaughter, explaining to the former Space Ranger that he’s travelled a decade into the future.
Unbeknownst to Buzz and Izzy, as they talk, one of the robots walks up to Buzz’s ship and teleports it to the vast spaceship in orbit, where a mysterious purple robot takes an interest in it. As Buzz and Izzy hide from the robot, Izzy explains that a being known as Zurg is attacking Tikana Prime for unknown reasons. Luckily, she has a plan.
Taking Buzz to a nearby outpost, she introduces Buzz to her squad, Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi) and Darby Steel (Dale Soules) and explains her grand plan. They’re going to blow up Zurg’s ship, which will deactivate all the robots and allow those trapped in the base to escape using the fuel Buzz used to make his hyperspeed flight.
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Just as they start to load the ship, one of Zurg’s robots attacks, and as Izzy’s team attempts to bring it down, it becomes clear they’re not the experienced Space Rangers Buzz thought they were. While they’re able to stop the rampaging robot, the ship they were planning to use to attack Zurg is destroyed.
Left with no other option, the crew decide to take a trip to another nearby outpost and steal another ship; however, along the way, they’re attacked by Zurg, who tries to capture Buzz rather than kill him.
After escaping the violet villain, Buzz, Izzy and the gang manage to commandeer another ship (After fending off some vicious alien bugs), impressing Buzz along the way, but before they can make it to Zurg’s ship, Izzy freaks out – revealing to Buzz that she’s afraid of space. In the ensuing chaos, Zurg manages to capture Buzz.
Alone on Zurg’s ship, the evil emperor reveals to Buzz that he is Buzz from an alternate timeline who’s mastered time travel and come back to put right what once went wrong. Zurg plans on using Buzz’s experimental fuel to travel back in time and stop his past self from marooning them on the alien world.
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Buzz at first goes along with the plan until he realises that rewriting the timeline will erase Izzy and his new friends. Meanwhile, Izzy, Mo, Darby, and Sox manage to get on board Zurg’s ship and help Buzz deal with Zurg and his robot army, destroying the villain’s ship in the process.
As Buzz, Izzy, and the gang escape the starship, Zurg launches one final attack, but Buzz detonates the hyperspace fuel, seemingly killing his time-travelling doppelganger. When the rag-tag team of Space Ranger lands back on Tikana Prime, Buzz is arrested but released and allowed to form a new Galactic Ranger corps.
Lightyear post-credit scenes explained
Lightyear has three post-credit scenes. The first two are just gags, while the third is more serious. One shows Burnside relaxing in his office with the laser shield protecting the Tikana Prime settlement from an angry bug alien.
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The second, meanwhile, has the robot that explained the theory of relativistic speeds to Buzz, droning on to nobody about physics no one could possibly understand. The final, however, shows that Zurg may have survived the explosion and will be back to menace Buzz and his friends.
If you loved Lightyear, check out our list of the best Toy Story characters, or if you have a craving for more sci-fi, we have a list of the best alien movies.