Lightyear

by Jason Headley and Angus MacLane, directed by Angus MacLane

• Release: 15 June 2022
• Format: Animated Feature Film
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Audience: Families
• Content: Definite Time Travel
• Original Language: English

Time dilation is quite simple. As you approached hyperspeed, your time slowed relative to our own, so during your mission, you aged only minutes, while the rest of us have aged years. Simply put, the faster you fly—

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

• Unspecified Future Year

Timeline Models

• Branching Timelines: Although not explicitly mentioned as taking place in a new, branched-off timeline, the writers seem to want to set that up. So old Buzz lived in a timeline where he was arrested on his final (and successful) test of the hyperfuel; then 50 years later, he returned to a time shortly before his arrest. The arrival of Buzz (a.k.a. Zurg) and his attack robots branched off a new timeline where the movie takes place.

Themes

• Relativistic Time Dilation: multiple occurrences
• Self-Defeating Acts: If Buzz were successful in stopping the original accident, then he would never have turned into the person he did turn into, and he would never have come back to stop the accident. The self-defeating act never actually takes place, though (he does not stop the accident), and even if it did, we believe that the story is supposed to be taking place in a branched-off timeline, so everything is jake.
• Self-Visitation: Buzz, meet Zurg; Zurg, meet Buzz.

Real-World Tags

• Robots

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

1. From unspecified location, fifty years in the future ⋙ to in orbit around T’kani Prime, the time of the movie. Note: Buzz’s near-lightspeed travel subjects him to significant time dilation, but old Buzz’s travel from the future is the only actual time travel in the movie.