So What’s Going on in the ‘Lightyear’ Ending … And Beyond?

Lightyear brings us the story of Buzz Lightyear and, within the Toy Story universe, is the movie that helped to inspire the toy we ended up seeing throughout the Toy Story franchise. So this is what was Andy’s favorite movie, and with it comes a whole lot of lore for the character in an oddly necessary way. Voiced by Chris Evans (deal with it), Buzz Lightyear himself gets a movie (written and directed by Angus MacLane) that is a beautiful look at failure, friendship, and our favorite member of Star Command.

Spoilers ahead!

But much like the Marvel side of Disney things, Lightyear had quite a few end-credits scenes that set up the future for Buzz, and while we don’t know whether or not we’re getting another movie in the franchise, the three end-credits scenes do give us a bit more information about other characters throughout the film, as well as whether or not we might see Buzz again.

So where did Lightyear leave us off? Once Buzz and his team seemingly defeat Zurg and his ship self-destructs, the team has to make their journey back to the planet together. So we, as the audience, think that Zurg has been completely defeated, and Buzz has made himself a new team.

First post-credits scene

In the first end credit scene, we see Commander Burnside (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) sitting at his desk, and he’s enjoying his time when one of the bugs that we’ve seen cause problems for Buzz and his team flies into the force field, much to Burnside’s glee.

It’s a brief little look into Burnside outside of the angry man we meet throughout the movie and how happy he seems to be now that their bigger problems are seemingly over, and they can exist on this planet without worrying about the attack from Zurg any longer thanks to Buzz, Izzy, Mo, Darby, and of course the hero we all deserve, Sox.

Second scene

Now, this may be my favorite because we get to see D.E.R.I.C. again. D.E.R.I.C. is a robot who is giving plans to the team when they all just abandon him and do things their own way, and what this scene shows is that D.E.R.I.C. is still giving them the plan when everything is said and done, and he just keeps on talking and not realizing that absolutely everyone has abandoned him. Do I want justice for D.E.R.I.C.? Obviously, I love him.

But this is a fun little scene to remind us that, yes, D.E.R.I.C. was still just talking through the plan all on his own while Buzz, Izzy, Mo, and the rest of the team just went on to figure it out for themselves without the help (or plan) that D.E.R.I.C. was giving them.

Third scene

Now, arguably the most important scene is the third one, where we see Zurg power back on and give us just that little bit of a taste of the idea that we haven’t seen the last of him—which isn’t that surprising given what we know about Emperor Zurg from the Toy Story movies and how the brief explanation of their relationship in Lightyear almost isn’t enough for us to still be talking about him by the time that Andy gets his own Buzz Lightyear toy.

So, having the hint that there was more to Zurg and Buzz’s story? So incredibly smart because now I am patiently (okay, not that patiently) waiting for the announcement that Lightyear 2: Zurg’s Revenge will be coming out sooner rather than later.

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Lightyear is in theaters today!

(featured image: Pixar)