Luca Animation Review

The original version of Pixar's Luca was going to be very different, from a huge monster movie ending, to a quest for magical tokens, and a missing John Rosenberger cameo. Spoilers ahead, of course, so take care. Before Pixar's filmmakers landed on the beautiful bittersweet ending for Luca we see in the final film, the movie's finale was originally going to be more of a giant monster battle.

This particular story leaned much more heavily than the final film into the division between humans and seas monsters, setting them up as two diametrically opposed factions or worlds, which director Enrico Caseros compared in an interview with Slash Film to the divide between the Capulets and Montagues in Romeo & Juliet.

 Although in the final film the townspeople of Porto Rosso are still fearful of sea monsters with a reward being set up after a recent sighting of one, it sounds like in the earlier version this confrontation between the two worlds was going to be even more intense, with the original plan being for Alberto to transform into a kraken, an enormous mythical sea monster that looks like a humungous octopus or squid, with Luca then standing up to defend and protect his friend.

However, as Caseros told Cinema Blend a conversation, he had with his own real-life best friend ended up inspiring him to completely retool the film's finale. That movie-changing chat was all about their own friendship and how good friends help each other grow but eventually that often takes them down very different paths in life, leading to bittersweet goodbyes.

For Caseros, that's something he's experienced several times in his own life, having left his home in Italy for America to pursue his dreams of animation and filmmaking. And when he and his team put those ideas together, storyboarded them, and added composer Dan Romer's score, they were hit by just how emotional it was. So, the film dropped its colossal kraken and, as Caseros told Slash Film, focused instead on "a kid's world and stakes and goals, with this kind of slightly strange and silly idea: "We're going to ride into the sunset with a Vespa!"

Curiously enough, in the final film there is actually an easter egg to a giant sea monster movie though, via the poster for the Disney adaption of Jules Vernes' "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", which features an attack by a giant squid. And there's also an illustration of a giant kraken-like creature wrapping its tentacles around a boat on one of the fishermen's maps. Over the years, Krakens have popped up in quite a few well-known movies including The Clash of The Titans, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which is funny as the protagonists of both that movie and Luca are monsters and both films are set during the summer holidays!

In fact, the kraken plays a key part in the ending of the third Hotel Transylvania movie, and given that film came out in 2018 while Luca was still in development at Pixar, I wonder if it might have also influenced the decision to change Luca’s finale. When Caseros first came up with the idea for the movie, Luca and Alberto were not the only young sea monsters who featured in the story; there was actually a group of them, giving the film what the director has called a Stand by Me vibe, referring to the 1980s coming-of-age classic.

 In fact, one of those additional sea monster friends was called Ciccio, a name you'll probably recognize from the final film as his original role was completely rewritten to make him one of bully boy Ercole's human side-kicks instead. And there's a lot of lovely concept art by Chris Sasaki which shows the original trio of Luca, Alberto and Ciccio getting up to various hijinks in both their sea monster and human forms.

 Judging by Ciccio's build in the final film, it looks like this character here was the sea monster version of him. It's interesting that sea monster Ciccio had crab claws for arms and carried around a shell on his back, like a hermit crab. And a remnant of this original idea made its way into Luca's surname "Pagurid" which means hermit crab in Italian.

As for Giulia, it seems a human girl was part of the group of male sea monster friends even in early versions of the story; however, the filmmakers did experiment with when exactly to reveal the truth to her that her new pals were not actually human. You can see in the Art of Luca book that at one point she learned about them earlier as she goes swimming with them in their sea monster form.

 And in another scene, she's with all three original sea creature friends and they have their tails showing as they sit down for dinner with Massimo. In the end, Caseros and his team decided that prolonging that reveal till later in the film "added more tension and drama", as producer Andrea Warren told website io9. In what would have been another major change to the story, originally the kids went on a much bigger quest that involved magical tokens and their intention was to become completely human.

The final film certainly has shades of The Little Mermaid with Alberto collecting items from the human world and Luca being forbidden from going to the surface, but it sounds like this original plot point would have made the film feel even more like Pixar's The Little Merman. Likewise, Luca's original storyline where the young sea monsters set out to become fully-fledged human boys also has a ring about it of the Italian children's novel Pinocchio, which was adapted into a movie by Disney.

And there are several easter eggs to the wooden marionette who desperately wanted to become a real human boy in the finished Pixar film. However, Caseros says that storyline got too complicated and he preferred a "more lyrical take on things". So, he decided to strip everything back to what he realized should be the heart of the film: the friendship between Luca and Alberto, and he made those two children the center of the story.

Further work was still needed on the characters because, as Luca's a bit introverted and very quiet, Caseros found that in some earlier versions of the script, it was difficult for the audience to understand him. So, subconsciously inspired by his love of Fellini's film 8½ and its dream sequences, for the final film Caseros decided to take us literally inside Luca's head by showing us his daydreams.

Another thing that evolved during development was where the sea monsters lived. Originally, they were "hiding in plain sight" in their own town on an island, as you can see in this concept art here from the Art of Luca book. And another piece of concept art shows how the monster island was shaped like an octopus. However, Caseros and his team decided they only needed one town, so they "just let the sea monsters be well-hidden" instead.

They did still keep the idea of an island though, but just as the location of Alberto's tower, and there may be another trace of the original concept in the way that one of the fishermen is afraid to go there. "Do we really need to fish near the island?" "You worry too much." "I don't know. What if the old stories are true?" Some other interesting alternatives that were considered for the monster world are these illustrations of an underwater town that is similar in look to the human town and which appears to be situated almost directly underneath Porto Rosso.

Again, there appears to be a remnant of this original idea on the back of the playing card that Luca finds which has the picture of a town in the top half which is reflected in the lower half. There was also an alternative to Alberto's tower for his collection of human objects in the form of a secret hideout inside an upside-down semi-submerged shipwreck. The entrance was via the water with a dry area in the hull above where Alberto stored his hoists and whatsits.

And it looks like the boat was located in a cave, again giving it a bit of a Little Mermaid vibe. A regular Pixar feature that didn't make it into the final movie is a cameo by John Rosenberger. Before Soul, the Cheers actor had voiced at least one character in every Pixar film. In Soul, Rosenberger didn't voice any character; however, the movie's co-director Kemp Powers said that a tribute to him was made via a non-speaking character who appears briefly in the subway.

As for Luca, Caseros confirmed that Rosenberger is not in the film and said on Twitter that he hoped to start a new tradition of having The Good Dinosaur director Peter Sohn voice a character in each new Pixar movie. In Luca, Sohn is the voice of Ciccio. "Well, my head kind of hurts..." "Not you, Ciccio!" I'm curious as to whether Rosenberger has now retired from Pixar films for good or if his absence from Soul and Luca is related to the pandemic as both films were completed during that time.