Elio and Pixar’s Midlife Identity Crisis

You have probably heard that Elio isn’t doing so hot. With its opening lower than any other Pixar film in recent memory, it’s not looking good for the film in the long run, but it’s boring to judge a film’s quality solely by its box office. We’re here to discuss the bigger problem with Elio, and it’s not that it isn’t gonna make any money. Recently, via The Hollywood Reporter, there was an entire article about what went wrong with the production of this film: Pixar execs came down hard on the original draft and reworked the film, taking out all of the work and intimate identity that the artists and original director Adrian Molina set up. 

This heavy-handed studio interference shouldn’t be normal, and while there were always problems behind the scenes when disgraced animation legend John Lasseter was in charge, Pixar is at a turning point in what it wants to be as a studio. I want to pinpoint and discuss the situation at hand, focusing on their recent film offerings of the 2020s so far, their future, and what overall problem might be hindering the studio and its output. 

Like I said above, this debacle isn’t Pixar’s first rodeo of having production problems with their films. Everyone knows about the infamous production nightmare of making Toy Story 2, where they somehow lost a majority of their footage and assets. Miraculously, technical director Galyn Susman, had a backup of the entire film’s assets. Films like Ratatouille, Brave, and The Good Dinosaur went through multiple directors, story, cast, and production changes due to struggles of conflicts between the creatives and John Lasseter. The pandemic saw Pixar forced to shove films like Soul, Luca, and Turning Red onto Disney+, and Angus MacLane’s directorial effort Lightyear, which became Pixar’s first theatrical release “post-pandemic”, underperformed due to a weak story and confusion about its overall connection with the Toy Story franchise. Elemental didn’t start strong, but stood out due to strong word of mouth, making it a bigger success than expected, but still not to the degree of pre-pandemic releases. Inside Out 2 was the first major financial hit for Pixar in years, but was dogged by a disastrous story of layoffs, animators losing their bonuses that they would have gotten once the film hit a billion world wide sales, and it became one of the first times that we officially heard of Disney execs, and soon Pixar execs as well, ordering film creators to tone down any queer subtext or context in their upcoming releases. 

We now get to Elio, which, alongside the release of Pixar’s TV series Dream Productions and Win or Lose, was where the pot boiled over. Elio was supposed to be Adrian Molina’s directorial feature debut, with a story that symbolically represents growing up as a closeted gay kid in an alienating world. Instead, Pixar execs came down on the original, more ambitious production and had it retooled to be a much less interesting story and cinematic experience, with most of, if not all of, the queer text in the story removed from the final product. Multiple animators left the production after the major changes to a story that got retooled and sanded down so much that many folks in the Hollywood Reporter article said that instead of being this beautiful coming-of-age story, it became a story about nothing. 

It’s also obvious that, despite Pete Docter being a good director, he can’t seem to stand up for his creatives.

With an agenda of toning down queer elements due to a bunch of homophobic reactionaries freaking out over a simple kiss between two women in Lightyear (which was just a few seconds long, you utter wimps!), and a push for more “universal” stories than personal ones, as Pete Docter has announced, as well as more sequels like Toy Story 5 and Coco 2, something is amiss with Pixar. First off, when Docter says that there’s a focus on more universal stories, this claim is tested by how Elio turned out, which feels less like something similar to Soul and Turning Red, and feels more generic like Brave. Whether or not Docter remembers such a claim, a lot of Pixar’s best films are crucially based on personal stories and connections. 

Sure, you can argue that some of Pixar’s earlier films had more “universal” narratives, like Toy Story and The Incredibles, but they still contained personal stories. Two examples of films with personal stories are Luca, with its inspiration being the director’s friendships during the summer, and Domee Shi’s Turning Red, which has elements of Shi’s personal life being thrown into a story about a girl going through puberty in the most outlandish way possible, and the struggles she has bonding with her mom. 

Anytime that Pixar puts out films that have more general thematic story beats, they tend to be the studio’s weakest output. That’s not to say that these films have nothing going on in them; for example, Lightyear is all about learning to cherish the loved ones you have and not to let work and unchecked ambition disconnect you from the ones you love. But you can still say that they are the same story beats encountered in their previous films. Even Jeffrey Katzenberg, at one point, knew that a film had to have a heart to its story, which we saw was one of the driving forces behind A Goofy Movie from the Not Just a Goof documentary. Incredibles 2 still has its fans, but there is a reason why folks loved the short that was in front of it, Bao, more than the actual theatrical feature. 

Whether or not Docter remembers such a claim, a lot of Pixar’s best films are crucially based on personal stories and connections

The story is always going to matter with any film made, and when you come out of a film like Elio saying, “I’ve seen this story done with more heart elsewhere,” then you know something is up. Sure, every film production is unique, and most animators working in studios are not competing against each other like this was the Nintendo vs Sega 90s feud. Sometimes you get a troubled production and end up with something like Emperor’s New Groove, but that isn’t always the case. There was maybe a time when a Pixar film could have had a more universal story, like a father worrying about taking care of their kid, like in Finding Nemo, but what helped those films was that they had strong writing behind them. The point is, the director’s vision for the story is important, and when you take that away because of asinine politically-driven reasons, then you lose what makes movies distinct. 

It’s also obvious that, despite Pete Docter being a good director, he can’t seem to stand up for his creatives. Win or Lose was infamously retooled to take out an entire trans storyline, even though this storyline remains in subtext. I say this because it’s very clear that Pixar wants to be more than just another animation studio that Disney owns. Disney doesn’t want to invest in anything new or original that could be challenging and compelling, and anything new or ambitious by Pixar seems to end up on the work table to get sanded down. 

Now that studios like DreamWorks and Sony Pictures Animation are putting out creative and ambitious films alongside crowd pleasers and pushing the world of CGI animation to new levels that get them not only money and awards, but public trust in their products, Pixar is at a point where it wants to grow, but can’t when Disney and Pixar execs are asking you make your films safer and with less personality. Granted, it’s funny that a bunch of grown men can’t handle two women kissing in an animated film, since they probably happily watch a ton of media that has them do just that, but far be it from me to call out that hypocritical nonsense from a bunch of emotionally stunted fools.

At the end of the day, this isn’t just a thing with Pixar being the “worst” studio ever. Even with all these fumbles and focus on sequels on the horizon, Daniel Chong, the creator of We Bare Bears and director of the upcoming Pixar original film, Hoppers, stated that some of the supposed rumors of meddling with the film’s focus on environmentalism were not true, and Enrico Casarosa’s film for 2027 Gatto looks very promising with a reported painted art style being used. 

What needs to happen, though, to gain back folks’ trust is simple. Let the directors and creatives you pay, or in this case, pay to not be in The Animation Guild (long story short, one of the conditions made for Disney to buy Pixar was that Pixar couldn’t be part of the union), cook. Let them tell their stories. Do not listen to a small vocal evil minority who don’t want you to succeed in the first place, because their arguments come from a deep-rooted source of hatred for others. Being generic simply won’t cut it with Pixar anymore, and even though it won’t happen, Pixar might need to think about getting out of Disney’s grasp. It won’t happen because Disney will do everything in its power to keep. 

The fact is that there is a real case of Pixar somewhat losing their identity of who they are. It’s also okay to simply admit that Pixar, throughout its ups and downs, is an old studio that simply wasn’t going to always be 100% hitting home runs. It sucks to think that, because when Pixar is amazing, they are wonderful at crafting experiences that speak and have spoken to many people. The most important takeaway is that something is going on with Pixar, and they are having their version of an identity crisis and conflict of interest with the parent company. Hopefully, they can pick themselves back up, the execs who are meddling with the production pipeline can back off, and they can regain their trust with audience goers. Due to all of these executive decisions made from high up the ladder, it has cost both Disney and Pixar money, awards, respect among their creatives, and most importantly, the public trust in their art. If other studios are making better and more exciting projects, then why should I go to a company that isn’t willing to step it up?