Cargo Ship: XR shows signs of having a crush on Mira, although it's one-sided on his part. Then there was the episode where the team's ship, Fourty-Two, became sentient. Can you say Double Cargo Ship?
NOS-4-A2 is a vampire-themed robot and one of the most persistent, villainous threats the Space Rangers have ever faced. Created by Zurg to destroy Star Command, NOS-4-A2 begins viciously draining robots across the galaxy of their energy and life, leaving a trail of robotic corpses in his wake and claiming the lives of Savy's foster parents. NOS-4-A2 makes several different attempts to destroy the entirety of Star Command and its hundreds of Space Rangers, and even tries pettier routes such as transforming Ty Parsec into a Wirewolf to strike blows against Star Command. In his grandest, most horrible scheme, NOS-4-A2 overthrows Zurg and turns Ty into a Living Battery so as to transform all life in the galaxy into ravenous Wirewolves, enabling NOS-4-A2 to feed on any and all beings he so wishes, which the vampire kicks off by betraying and trying to murder his partner XL when the robot outlives his usefulness.
"The Lightyear Factor" & "Sunquake": Evil Buzz Lightyear is an alternate version of Buzz from a parallel universe who lacks his bold heroism. A gleefully evil conqueror who successfully destroyed Star Command and imprisoned every ranger there, Evil Buzz proceeded to wipe out millions across the galaxy—including Capital Planet and Tangea—and claim control of the universe he inhabited. Encountering a Zurg from another dimension, Evil Buzz partners with him upon being offered control of his universe. Imprisoning Buzz and destroying Star Command, Evil Buzz takes Team Lightyear captive to be killed. Partnering with Gravitina after his initial defeat, Evil Buzz, as revenge for Buzz "ruining" his home universe, plans to use Gravitina's powers to cause a series of sunquakes that will rain comets upon numerous populated planets, specifically targeting Capital Planet and Star Command just to spite Buzz. Despite forming a romantic relationship with Gravitina, Evil Buzz leaves her behind to die once their space station starts collapsing into the sun.
Expect to see comments hoping to see Mira, XR, and Booster in a Toy Story entry.
NOS-4-A2 has quite the fanbase, as well. There is TONS of fanart of him.
Fandom-Specific Plot: Having toys of Mira, Booster, and XR meet the cast of Toy Story, or transplanting the cast of Toy Story into the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command universe.
One of Zurg's lines in "Stranger Invasion" suddenly gets very disturbing after seeing Toy Story 3.
Zurg: And if I may remind you, no gianttrash compactor! When heroes fall in, they always have enough time to figure a way out! Make it an incinerator!
In "Eye of the Tempest," a mutated super villain wrecks a power station made up of two generating towers. The first one is damaged without much comment... But as the second comes down, Mira shouts, "Look out! The other tower!" amid falling rubble. Chilling in hindsight, as WTC North would do the same less than a year later.
And just to make things even funnier, Chris Evans, Captain America himself voices Buzz Lightyear in the movie, Lightyear.
After the United States Space Force was formed, one of its field commands' emblem calls itself Star Command.
Nicole Sullivan plays a character who’s mockingly referred to as "princess" by one of the villains, though technically she is. Two years later, she'd be on a show playing the villain that mockingly calls the hero "princess".
Zurg, a character partly based on the evil Emperor from Star Wars ridicules the idea of an Evil Plan involving kidnapping politicians because it’s far too obvious. Not half a decade later Revenge of the Sith began with an evil plot to kidnap a politician that has Palpatine as its mastermind.
Two years after the series ended, an episode of Futurama centered around the Robot Buddy becoming a couple with the team's ship after it became sentient. Only unlike XR and 42, the Planet Express ship becomes psychotically obsessed with Bender.
Iron Woobie: Ty. He's been rescued by Buzz 50+ times, and yet he still keeps on trying to do his job and never thinks about quitting.
Warp Darkmatter is Buzz Lightyear's Evil Counterpart, a suave, snarky mercenary who functions as the competent right-hand man to Evil Emperor Zurg. Having fooled Buzz and all of Star Command for years undercover as a Space Ranger, Warp uses his position to collect information before ultimately faking his own death and allying with Zurg "full-time." Becoming Agent Z, Warp successfully pulls off the theft of the Unimind, outwits and traps Buzz and his team at various times, and is such a successful freelance Bounty Hunter that he owns an entire moon paradise all to himself. Capable of honor and comradery even in villainy, Warp allies with Buzz more than once to combat greater threats and showcases a willingness to put his own neck on the line to save his allies while outsmarting worse villains than himself. Darkly hilarious and far more capable than most other villains in the series, Warp is always proud to boast that he's only evil for "more profit and more fun."
"Star Crossed": Romac is a freelance bounty hunter and Mira’s ex-boyfriend who never quits a job until it’s finished. Originally a Grounder who rescued the princess Mira from muggers, the two formed a strong relationship until Mira’s father forbid them from seeing each other. Now a bounty hunter, Romac takes a job from Zurg to retrieve his escaped scientist Brain Pod 57, while getting him to pay more than intended. After capturing 57 and forming an alliance with him, the two easily knock Buzz Lightyear out and bring him back to Zurg. With his job complete, Romac accepts a payment from 57 to rescue him and Buzz, double-crossing Zurg in order to join back with Mira. Romac chooses to sacrifice himself to distract Zurg, informing him that despite the circumstances, he still lost. Easily escaping Zurg’s clutches, Romac makes 57 his new partner, while promising Mira that he’ll never give up in his pursuit to be by her side again.
One-Scene Wonder: Fop Doppler, Mira's would-be fiancé from "Mira's Wedding". He subverts Upper-Class Twit by showing he's a natural at Space Ranger Training, and puts it to good use during the climax when stopping a coup. (It turns out he was Crazy-Prepared and wore his ranger suit under his wedding outfit, scrapping for a fight.) Oh, and once the dust settles and Mira admits what he did was amazing, he's quite reasonable; he likes Mira as a friend but agrees with her that an Arranged Marriage seems unfair to both of them. XR manages to nullify the arrangements, and Mira considers Fop a good friend and Ranger.
Vindicated by History: Similar to the Tarzan, Hercules and Aladdin shows, the Star Command series never got much acclaim compared to the films it was based on and even Toy Story creator John Lasseter wasn’t fond of it. Come 2022 with the release and underperformance of Lightyear which was meant to be the true Buzz Lightyear spin-off, and now a lot more people are appreciative of the show for expanding Buzz’s lore in exciting and interesting ways while keeping Buzz’s personality from the Pixar films in contrast to the 2022 film, which is a grounded methodical story, jarring with the fun aspects that made Buzz so beloved and iconic in the first place.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A lot of people think Ty Parsec had a lot of potential, whether as Buzz Lightyear's 'rival', or as the Tragic Villain Wirewolf - which would certainly be a variation on all the Card-Carrying Villain types in the show. Instead, he's only in two episodes and they just say "The Curse of the Wirewolf is lifted". Even if everybody else turned by the ray gun was cured, since Ty was bitten by NOS-4-A2, he should still be a Wirewolf even if there was no way of him transforming into the beast - and destroying a whole moon by flying your hollow spaceship into it?
Probably due to the show's nature as a spinoff, something like this was likely never going to happen (along with the fact that John Lasseter isn’t fond of this show for some reason), but the show and its content is never referenced anywhere else in the Toy Story universe.
The episode "Super Nova" ends with Mira recovering from a fantastic addiction to energy. Her father lectures her that recovery isn't easy and that she'll likely be tempted to relapse every day for the rest of her life, except Mira's addiction isn't referenced elsewhere.
Ugly Cute: Villainess Gravitina is actually quite sexy, but has a very large head.
YMMV tropes for the video game:
Catharsis Factor: Getting to kick Warp's ass at the end of Flamar 2 is a lot of fun, considering what a backstabbing scumbag he is revealed to be in the pilot movie.
No Problem with Licensed Games: While not a masterpiece by any stretch, it is still a pretty fun and simple game with a big variety of weapons, powerups and vehicles, a nice soundtrack, some challenging side missions, pretty cel-shaded graphics and entertaining gameplay.
Spiritual Antithesis: To Toy Story 2. Although both games have you play as Buzz Lightyear and share the same game engine and developer, the gameplay in both games are radically different. Unlike Toy Story 2, where that game takes inspiration from Super Mario 64 and Spyro the Dragon, this game, on the other hand, has its gameplay heavily modeled after that of Crash Bandicoot.
Uncertain Audience: A common criticism of the game was its odd choice of genre mixing that put the game constantly at odds with itself. It's a run-and-gun collectathon platformer that is also a racing game, and since items in the level can be hidden quite well, looking for items and collecting what you might need can waste precious time, yet if you try to make it in a timely manner, you may miss out on a lot of things you need. The end result is a game that feels like it has a constant identity crisis and doesn't know who it's trying to appeal to.
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