Lightyear har fået fine anmeldelser, men har tydeligvis ikke formået at præstere det som Pixar-film normalt formår, hverken kritisk eller økonomisk. Det kunne blandt andet skyldes det faktum at filmen tager udgangspunkt i en Toy Story-karakter, men i en film der ikke har noget som helst med det univers at gøre.
Det har ikke været helt let for instruktør Angus MacLane at navigere i, for filmen er både sin helt egen, samtidig med at den er unægteligt forbundet til nogle allerede eksisterende forventninger til Buzz Lightyear-karakteren. I et interview med GameSpot siger han:
"As a filmmaker you really have to think about what problems you want to solve. When we took on this project we ran into the problem of having to change a side character to a main character and that's a really hard thing. Having worked on [Finding Dory], that was just tremendously hard. But because Buzz's backstory was something I wanted to tell, and because I wanted to do a straightforward sci-fi action adventure, you know, like a nerd/geek film, that was the driver there. So that's what kept it going, even when we still hadn't figured it out. Because I knew what the movie would feel like when it was done. I really wouldn't recommend it. It's so, so hard."
Av, den var værre. Har du set den?