Before I talk about Elemental, I want to talk about Peter Sohn’s "Partly Cloudy." This is a Pixar short film that screened in front of the studio’s theatrical release of Up in 2009. In a world where clouds make the cute little babies that are delivered by the storks, it focuses on the cloud that makes the babies for the scary and ugly creatures of the world. This is a lovely short that has a unique idea, great animation, a lot of fun gags, and a nice message about how the least glamorous work is still valuable and important. I highly recommend checking it out. I’m highlighting this short film because I want to emphasize that Peter Sohn is a talented man who can tell good stories. And the thing is, having seen Elemental, I could tell he had a really good story to share here. There’s just some… execution issues. *screaming*
*pop* And by god, this movie has been mismarketed badly. It got to the point where I started to really feel bad for it. Nobody in my friend circle was looking forward to it, I didn’t see a lot of interest in it. The movie just looked... weird... Clod: "And I smell GOOOOOD." Disney probably saw that too, and decided to release it at Cannes Film Festival to start building hype for it. (echoing fart-esque raspberry sound effect) And now it’s tracking to have an opening weekend below Good Dinosaur and Onward, the latter of which opened up just a week before COVID shutdowns started. But here’s the thing, the movie’s probably not what you think it is. From the trailers I thought this movie was primarily about a romance between a fire person and a water person. That ends up feeling only secondary though. Instead the movie is about Ember growing up as the child of immigrants, and realizing that subconsciously she feels like she’s indebted to them for sacrificing their lives to give her a better future. Sohn said that the story is based on his own experiences, and I could feel that. I can feel this was something that Sohn really wanted to say. I have to respect that. And you want to know the crazy thing? There was even a point where I did buy into the romance. I literally had a thing written out before seeing the movie about how this setting and concept wouldn’t support the idea of a romance - and I threw it away, because it actually did work… for a little bit. Because right at the point that I thought I’d have to eat my words and apologize for making fun of this movie relentlessly, what suddenly happens? The character work in this story, between the voice acting and the character animation and the writing, is genuinely great between Ember and her family and Wade. It's so great, that it manages to paper over a very mechanical plot. The inciting incident of the main story is that Wade writes a citation because their family shop isn’t built to code, and Ember tries to stop him, but he has a change of heart only after he realizes it would make her REALLY sad, not just a little sad, but OH NO it’s too late to keep it from being processed! So they go to a game of clouds playing cloudball to talk to a cloud who runs the department, and she will waive the citations but only if Ember finds the source of a water leak in the canals of the city that is apparently causing the pipes of Firetown to fill with water, but I don’t know how a few puddles cause flooded pipes? And then they have to use a hot air balloon to find out that the source of the leak that they couldn’t find was a gaping hole in the canal lock connecting to the ocean. I don’t know about you, but if I was looking for the source of water leaking into a canal… I would start by looking at where it connects to the ocean. To be fair the movie starts to get more character-driven and more engaging after the first act, although this water leak plot doesn’t really go away. There’s also again the Third Act Misunderstanding, like I mentioned before, and also they do that thing in the climax where OH NO! A main character died, how very sad and very permanent! Oh wait no they’re okay. Yeah I don’t like when movies do that. The cloud lady bureaucrat is, whatever, she’s fine I guess. She at least has a role in the story, unlike CLOD. Clod: "ClOoOoOoOoOoOd!" I don’t know why this annoying little twerp is in the movie except to offend me, personally. He appears three times, two of the times for maybe a few seconds maximum, and he has no role in the story except to show his stupid little armpit flower. Why did they highlight a clip starring him on their channel? Why does he have his own character poster!? He is not remotely relevant to this story! WHAT WAS THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT THINKING WITH THIS MOVIE?!
(voice growing increasingly distorted) It’s also worth noting that the setting is a little… weird. I mean, you look at other Pixar movies, you have Toy Story. Those films take place in a kid's bedroom, a pizza parlor arcade, a toy store, a daycare. These are natural areas for a toy to be in. Inside Out is a bit more abstract, but every character and setting and item you see all map onto some kind of mental concept. That feels natural. Elemental has the personifications of different elements living in... Element City? There's that extra step of contrivance that makes it feel more artificial, so to say. And I think a lot of people noticed it too. Even if kids and parents didn’t consciously look at this movie and say 'Wow, that setting doesn’t seem to match the story.' I believe it is an unconscious thing that they noticed. It just feels harder to connect to. The concept looks and feels like a parody of a Pixar movie. And I think that’s the biggest issue with Elemental, one of the most tragic issues I’ve seen in a movie recently. It feels like it’s stretching and straining to fit a Pixar formula, and in doing so it stifles what could have been a truly great story. If I can be honest, I’m worried about Pixar Animation. I don’t think it’s that radical to say that they’ve been struggling over the past few years. And a lot of that has been stuff out of their control. Onward got its theatrical run cut short. Then Soul went straight to streaming, which made sense, considering that pestilence afflicted the lands at that time. Then Luca went straight to streaming in June 2021… three months after Raya and the Last Dragon went to theaters. Okay, I guess Disney wanted to keep their options open. And at least Turning Red will hit theaters in 2022! Oh no wait they, uh, cut the theatrical push short and sent it to streaming too. Lightyear got to be the big return to the silver screen! (echoing fart-esque raspberry sound effect) A lot of people have been speculating about whether Bob Chapek’s decision to keep sending Pixar movies to Disney+ might have tainted the brand. I think that idea is very plausible. A lot of people are also speculating that John Lasster’s departure was a crippling creative loss. I think that idea is ludicrous. As if John Lasseter didn’t shepherd the studio into its Sequel Era. As if John Lasseter’s leadership at Skydance didn’t debut with a resounding dud. As if Pixar hasn’t proved themselves able to find a new direction with their stories. Over the past few years they’ve been able to tell interesting and personal stories with new artistic voices being lifted up. I liked Soul, I liked Luca, I liked Turning Red. But they were robbed of a chance to make a big splash at the theaters. A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Pixar cut seventy-five jobs. These included people like Angus MacClane, a member of the senior creative team who directed Lightyear, and Galyn Susman, a woman who had been there since 1995 - the woman who famously saved Toy Story 2 from being deleted due to her backups. Apparently this is just part of a general downsizing across the entire Walt Disney Company, but given the projections for Elemental I worry that Pixar could be put back under the chopping block. I do not want that to happen. Elemental finds Pixar at a crossroads. And to be honest, even if I feel mixed about it, I hope it succeeds. If this and Elio do poorly at the box office, but Inside Out 2 and Toy Story 5 are hits, I can’t imagine the kind of franchise exploitation that will be forced on the studio. And that would sadden me, because I believe that the studio has the talent they need to burn bright as they did twenty years ago. (tongue clicks, inhales) By the way Elemental opened with the short film Carl’s Date? Carl and Dug sit around the living room and tell lame jokes about Carl being nervous for an upcoming date, I did not like it, Hashtag Not My Carl Frederickson, goodbye. (outro music) [D.M.: This irks me, a movie pushing the outdated, literally ancient ideas of the "elements". These aren't the elements that make things up! They are embodiements of states of matter, earth (solid), water (liquid), air (gas), and fire (plasma)!]
