MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Just watched Elemental, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some story issues in the middle, but I think it's quite worthy of the Pixar name.
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Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
We also just watched it on D+. It was great. Loved the animation. Even shed a tear or two lol.
I was expecting Ember to dig deeper into the fact that the City’s skyline was built on the backs of Fire people (glass buildings). Perhaps she learns that in the sequel at her internship.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
If they don't make another one, I can understand why, but I (and my kids) really enjoy the Dug Days shorts. They have all the elements of the salad days of Peak Pixar. I wish they could transfer some of that creative inspiration into their feature length films again. Pixar hasn't moved me as much as Carl's Date did since Coco.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Except Ed Asner is dead so it's a little hard for him to be in another.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
Yeah, kind of my point when I wrote "If they don't make another, I can understand why".
Prince-1
Well-Known Member
Not with AI.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
I watched Elemental last night. I just left the movie feeling empty. There isn't a lot originality in this movie. Boy/girl meet. Solve a problem. Fall in love. Girl gets scared and leaves. Boy gets her back. I've seen this movie done better elsewhere like Zootopia. It felt mediocre.
‘Elemental’ Morphs From Flop to Hit, Raising Questions Along the Way
The Pixar film struggled at the box office initially. It has now made $500 million, but not before prompting the studio to re-examine its release strategy.
By Brooks Barnes
Reporting from Los Angeles
Oct. 3, 2023Updated 2:45 p.m. ET
The headlines were murderous.
Pixar, once regarded by film critics and ticket buyers as a studio that could do no wrong, had misfired so immensely at the box office that its future as a cultural force was in doubt. Pixar’s creative spark had apparently blown out — poof.
“Elemental,” the movie in question, has since made those insta-obituaries look rather foolish.
An opposites-attract love story and parable about following your dreams, “Elemental” arrived to $29.6 million in domestic ticket sales in June — the worst opening in Pixar history, by a mile. Little by little, however, the $200 million film became a hit, collecting nearly $500 million worldwide. For the year to date, “Elemental” ranks No. 9 on the list of top-grossing films, ahead of Marvel’s latest “Ant-Man” sequel.
Moreover, “Elemental” has provided the Walt Disney Company, which owns Pixar, with one of the biggest streaming hits in its history. The movie arrived on Disney+ on Sept. 13 and had garnered 60 million views through Sunday, far surpassing results for Disney films like “The Little Mermaid” and “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3” for the same periods of availability, according to the company.
“I had no idea what ‘Elemental’ was about, but we decided to watch it as a family because I kept hearing good things,” said Rahela Nayebzadah, who lives in suburban Vancouver, Canada, and has two sons, ages 7 and 4. “The kids have been watching it nonstop ever since.”
Disney also expects to sell about 800,000 “Elemental” DVDs worldwide. About 1.7 million people will buy a digital copy through iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and other online stores.
Predictably, Pixar executives are doing cartwheels. But the “Elemental” turnaround does not vanquish questions about the studio as much as raise new ones.
In a postpandemic, streaming-oriented movie marketplace, is the box office ceiling for original animated films simply lower? Pixar originals used to reliably take in more than $500 million worldwide — sometimes a lot more, including “Coco,” which collected $1 billion in 2017, after adjusting for inflation, and “Inside Out,” which sold an inflation-adjusted $1.1 billion in 2015.
And if that is the case — if Disney+ has eaten into Pixar’s theatrical audience — will Pixar need to spend substantially less? “Elemental” cost roughly $200 million to make, not including marketing. To compare, NBCUniversal’s competing Illumination Animation spent half as much to make its most-recent original movie, “Sing,” in 2016.
Pixar will know more in March, when it releases “Elio,” an original comedic adventure about an 11-year-old boy who gets inadvertently beamed into space and mistaken as Earth’s galactic ambassador. (Pixar’s sibling studio, Walt Disney Animation, will also provide clues later this year, when its “Wish,” an original musical, arrives in theaters.)
“I hope we can continue to be able to have budgets that allow our artists to do the best work of their lives,” Pete Docter, Pixar’s chief creative officer, said in a Zoom interview. Hollywood as a whole needs to adjust its business models for the streaming era, he noted.
Pixar and Disney have spent a lot of time trying to understand the chilly initial response to “Elemental,” Mr. Docter said. For a start, he said, Disney had undercut Pixar as a big-screen force by using its films to build the Disney+ streaming service. Starting in late 2020, Disney debuted three Pixar films in a row online, bypassing theaters altogether. Those films were “Soul,” “Turning Red” and “Luca.”
“There has been an overall shift in viewing habits as a result of the pandemic, but it’s also specific to Disney+,” Mr. Docter said. “We’ve told people, ‘Hey, all of this is going to be available to you on Disney+!’”
Although not saying so directly, Mr. Docter also indicated that Pixar had perhaps drifted too far from its storytelling roots.
In recent years, Pixar has allowed filmmakers like Peter Sohn, who made “Elemental,” to explore stories that are more personal. (Mr. Sohn’s immigrant parents inspired his film.) Yet many of Pixar’s biggest original successes, including “Toy Story” in 1995 and “Monsters, Inc.” in 2001, have grown from more universal concepts — “ideas that we all carried around as kids,” as Mr. Docter put it.
What if my toys come to life when I leave the room? What if there are monsters in my closet?
“I always felt that ‘Elemental’ would speak to a lot of people, and I’m so happy it has,” said Mr. Docter, whose credits as a director include “Inside Out,” “Up” and “Monsters, Inc.” “But we have also taken another look at the projects we’re working on now. What are the kinds of films we want to be making? I really think I want to double down on what allowed us to speak to audiences to begin with.”
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I hadn't thought of that, but that's a great point.
But heck, if they are going to reincarnate Ed Asner via AI for new Pixar shorts, then someone needs to reincarnate the entire cast of the Mary Tyler Moore show and start creating new episodes. It would be fun to do a Mary Tyler Moore show set 20 years later in 1990's Minneapolis; Phyllis divorces Lars and becomes a cougar in the bar scene, Lou and SueAnn Nivens finally get together during retirement, Georgette becomes Ted's co-anchor, and Mary reigns supreme as the new WJM Station Director.
That's all off the top of my head... but suddenly AI might not be soo bad after all.
Haymarket
Well-Known Member
I thought I was the only one who noticed this: they're nuts about Disney, Marvel, and Pixar.
Theme parks are very popular there, as in Japan. Some people do go to Tokyo Disney Resort (it's a very short flight), but I think a Disney park (any type) would do (much) better in Korea than Hong Kong Disneyland has performed.
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gerarar
Premium Member
Finally saw this movie on my 10 hour flight to Switzerland (small vacay!).
I really liked it overall. Probably one of my favorite Pixar movies in recent years, probably since post-2020 and TS4. The story, characters, animation and colors, etc.! I resonated a lot with the immigrant story being in somewhat similar shoes.
Also loved Ember and her character arc! I found the whole water, wind, earth, and fire world-dynamic so interesting. By the end I wanted more!
Probably my one complaint was that there was a bit too much crying lol. And Wade was funny overall, but maybe they were trying a bit too hard with the comic relief? 3rd act also seemed a bit rushed when Ember and Wade fought then Wade all of a sudden shows up at the store ceremony.
I certainly regret not seeing this one in theaters. Too many other movies were just released at the same time that I opted for; Spiderverse, Transformers, GOTG3, Teenage Kraken, etc.
Would've loved this bright and colorful movie on the big screen! I see how word of mouth was so good on this now.
Certainly will have rewatches for this in the future.
8.5/10
I really liked it overall. Probably one of my favorite Pixar movies in recent years, probably since post-2020 and TS4. The story, characters, animation and colors, etc.! I resonated a lot with the immigrant story being in somewhat similar shoes.
Also loved Ember and her character arc! I found the whole water, wind, earth, and fire world-dynamic so interesting. By the end I wanted more!
Probably my one complaint was that there was a bit too much crying lol. And Wade was funny overall, but maybe they were trying a bit too hard with the comic relief? 3rd act also seemed a bit rushed when Ember and Wade fought then Wade all of a sudden shows up at the store ceremony.
I certainly regret not seeing this one in theaters. Too many other movies were just released at the same time that I opted for; Spiderverse, Transformers, GOTG3, Teenage Kraken, etc.
Would've loved this bright and colorful movie on the big screen! I see how word of mouth was so good on this now.
Certainly will have rewatches for this in the future.
8.5/10
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