Chris Evans' Buzz and his robot cat go on a space mission in the Lightyear trailer

When Lightyear was announced back in 2020, Chris Evans’ description of the forthcoming film was a bit of a word salad. He explained that Lightyear isn’t about Buzz Lightyear the toy, but rather it’s about “the origin story of the human Buzz Lightyear that the toy is based on.” At the time, it made no sense. Buzz is already based on a real-life astronaut Buzz Aldrin, so what did he mean by “human Buzz Lightyear”?

The teaser released back in October cleared some of that up, showing that it’s actually a very meta movie that zeroes in and focuses on the astronaut Buzz Lightyear and his adventures in space. Now, we get to learn even more about the “real” Buzz in the first official trailer.

“A year of work for a four-minute flight. Isn’t that something?” says human Buzz, suited up for his space flight. In the trailer, we learn that Buzz has been stationed in a planet for a year, and now it’s time to go back home.

Unfortunately those plans don’t go too smoothly, as he encounters Emperor Zurg (whom he refers to as a “just a massive robot”) and his robot army. He also has a cute robotic cat companion named Sox (voiced by Peter Sohn), who’s apparently a cross between Captain Marvel’s Goose and C-3PO.

In case you’re still confused about how this movie fits into the Toy Story universe, director Angus MacLane attempts to clear that up in a statement, saying, “In Toy Story, there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore that world further. So my Lighytear pitch was, ‘What was the movie that Andy saw that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy?’ I wanted to see that movie. And now I’m lucky enough to get to make it.”

In addition to Evans and Sohn, the voice cast also includes Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, Taika Waititi, Uzo Aduba, Mary McDonald-Lewis, Efren Ramirez, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Josh Brolin.

Lightyear goes to infinity and beyond on June 17, 2022.