Water and Fire Game in Elemental Animation

Before we talk about Elemental, we 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. And the thing is, having seen Elemental, we could tell he had a really good story to share here. There are just some execution issues. this movie has been mis marketed badly.

It got to the point where we started to really feel bad for it. Nobody was looking forward to it. The movie just looked weird. Disney probably saw that too, and decided to release it at Cannes Film Festival to start building hype for it. But here’s the thing, the movie’s probably not what you think it is. From the trailers 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 we could feel that. we can feel this was something that Sohn really wanted to say. 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!

They go to a game of clouds playing cloud ball 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 Fire town 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. 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.

 Cloudy woman 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! It’s also worth noting that the setting is a little weird. 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 that setting doesn’t seem to match the story. 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. that’s the biggest issue with Elemental, one of the most tragic issues we’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.

We 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, we guess Disney wanted to keep their options open. And at least Turning Red will hit theaters in 2022! cut the theatrical push short and sent it to streaming too. Lightyear got to be the big return to the silver screen! 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. that idea is very plausible.

A lot of people are also speculating that John Laster’s departure was a crippling creative loss. that idea is ludicrous. As if John Lasseter didn’t shepherd the studio into its Sequel Era. As if John Lasseter’s leadership at Sky dance 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. we liked Soul, we liked Luca, we 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 McClane, 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 we worry that Pixar could be put back under the chopping block. we do not want that to happen. Elemental finds Pixar at a crossroads. And to be honest, even if we feel mixed about it, we hope it succeeds. If this and Elio do poorly at the box office, but Inside Out 2 and Toy Story 5 are hits, we can’t imagine the kind of franchise exploitation that will be forced on the studio.