Fire and water are incompatible – almost everyone thinks so. Almost, except for Disney and Pixar.
The animated movie Elemental is the 27th film by Pixar Animation Studios. It was the film that pinned hopes on and with which the future of Disney and Pixar was linked. The film was created for seven years and completed during the pandemic. It is one of the most expensive animated films: the budget of the film is estimated to be $200 million, and marketing costs are $100 million. At the time of its release, Elemental was named the most original film created during the pandemic.
What is the movie “Elemental” about?
A characteristic feature of Disney and Pixar films is the desire to reveal important meanings through vivid images and an interesting story. “Elemental” is a two-layered story in which the creators have shown two themes: the path to a dream and the combination of opposites. The main characters of the movie are Teplynka and Plyn. Teplynka was born into a fire family who moved from the Fireland to the City of Elements. She has a hot-tempered and passionate personality. Plyn is a water man, sociable, openly demonstrates his emotions and goes with the flow. Their friendship, and later love, seems impossible. For can the waterboy withstand the power of Teplynka’s flame? Another storyline is the search for the path to oneself. Teplynka has to take over the management of the family store when her father goes on vacation. But the girl wants something else. And it is this other thing that helps her find Plyn.
It seems that the stories of love between two different personalities and the search for self are as old as our world. But in this animated film, they take on a new color and literalness that reinforce these themes and bring them to a new level. By the way, this is the first movie since Cars that doesn’t feature people.
Thanks to bright colors, music, and an interesting story, the animated film will appeal to both children and adults. An emotional and aesthetic explosion is guaranteed.
His own story as inspiration
According to director Peter Sohn, the inspiration for Elemental came from his family’s story. “My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and opened a popular grocery store in the Bronx. We were among the many families who set out for a new country with hopes and dreams-all of us mixed together in one big salad bowl of cultures, languages, and beautiful little neighborhoods. That’s what brought me to Elemental.”
The inspiration for the romantic component of the film came from the films Amelie, Moonstruck, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Fire and flame: how the characters were created
To recreate the City of Elements, the creators spent many hours on YouTube POV tours of Venice and Amsterdam. As conceived, the City of Elements was originally a water place, then representatives of the earth element appeared here, then air, and the last to arrive were firemen. Why did they do it this way?
The creators wondered what the best city they could create would be to support Teplynka’s journey of self-discovery. In which city would it be the most difficult for the firemen to live? In a city made of water with various canals, which would not make life easier for the main character at all.
A characteristic feature of the animation is the incredible images of the characters, the detailed details, and beautiful cityscapes. To create such beauty, Pixar had to upgrade and buy more computers. For this movie, more than 151,000 cores were used in three large rooms of the Pixar campus. For comparison, the first Toy Story (1995) was created on 294 cores. This is an incredible amount of computing power.
This movie also helped to create artificial intelligence. The flame that envelops the heroine is a mirror of her personality. And AI was used to create these flashes, this incredibly realistic performance.
From failure to triumph
This movie with great potential was recognized as one of the most underrated. How did it happen? Elemental was first shown on the big screen at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 27, 2023. The reviews on social media were mostly good, but for critics, it became one of the studio’s worst films. Producer Pete Docter was surprised by the negative reviews and believed that critics’ tendency to compare the film not only to other works but also to the company’s own successes led to “some pretty nasty reviews that overshadowed the film’s merits.”
In the US, the film was released on June 16 and did not garner the box office that was expected. It seemed like a failure, but the movie was kept in theaters. And it was just in time. Vacations had begun, and the main target audience began to actively attend screenings. The audience liked the movie, and word of mouth helped the film get a second birth at the box office.
But in South Korea, the film became almost immediately popular. The director, as we said, has South Korean roots. Moreover, Korean culture influenced the style of animation, which was noticed by the country’s attentive viewers.
Experts believe that the reason for the failure of the premiere weeks is poor marketing: unimpressive trailers and unsuccessful attempts to turn cartoon characters into memes (although Teplynka became a heroine of many fans thanks to her striking image). However, thanks to parents and children, the movie received the recognition it deserved.
This is, in fact, a phenomenal result – to go from failure to success.
“Elemental” is perhaps one of the most touching Pixar stories, which reveals the themes of migration, family values, friendship, love, understanding, and finding yourself in a dream. The characters are well-developed, and they won’t disappear from your memory when the credits roll. The animated film has once again confirmed that the Pixar team is not just creating cartoons, but drawing an artistic and deep universe for each story.
