See How Things Get Fiery In The First Look At Pixar’s New Movie
The upcoming Pixar movie Elemental features a world of beings made from water, fire, air, and earth.
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Disney-owned animation studio Pixar has released the teaser trailer for their new movie Elemental and has given us a glimpse into a world where people are made of fire, water, vapor, gasses, soil, and trees. The trailer documents the first meeting of the main characters, Ember and Wade. The first look at the movie was shown at Disney’s D23 expo in September.
The world Pixar shows in the Elemental trailer is one in which the inhabitants are beings made up purely of one element. As Ember boards what seems to be a train in a New York City setting, viewers are treated to a variety of these people, who are plants, trees, packs of soil, globs of water, clouds, and a fiery flame. The trailer is a short vignette that shows audiences a little about what life is like in this new world by showing us the very mundane setting of passengers on their daily commute.
Among the passengers in Pixar’s Elemental is a harried mother plant whose four seedlings start throwing a tantrum at once and a bald pile of soil that sprouts grassy hair when a human-shaped water glob sneezes on him. We also see a grassy man have a flower plucked from his armpit and a water lady putting on lipstick, only to get bumped and find the cosmetic floating inside her head. When Ember reaches down for the earphones she’s dropped, watery Wade drips on her by accident, and it stings.
This interaction leads to an introduction between the two that sets the plot in motion. Disney and Pixar have summarized Elemental as “an all-new, original feature film set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together. The story introduces Ember, a tough, quick-witted, and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a fun, sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade challenges her beliefs about the world they live in.”
When Disney and Pixar worked together before Elemental, the result is usually enchanting. The studio and its parent company have produced several beloved franchises, including Toy Story and Cars, which also give anthropomorphic life to inanimate objects in surprising ways. The setting of Cars was exactly like our world, except everything was car-themed, including mountains and famous sculptures.
The two studios have also created very popular stand-alone movies, including Wall-E, Ratatouille, and Inside Out. These also feature anthropomorphized characters, but Inside Out in particular gives this treatment to emotions as it explores growing up and facing change in a heartwarming examination of our thoughts and feelings. Pixar excels in telling stories that give humanity to non-human creatures and objects, as evidenced by how audiences fell in love with the titular robot in Wall-E, despite the character having few lines.
2022 saw the release of two new Pixar movies aside from the Elemental trailer. Turning Red has been praised for its positive messages about girls growing up and Lightyear also created a lot of “buzz” upon its release in theaters. Pixar is also producing a sequel to Inside Out that is slated for a 2024 release.
Leah Lewis plays the voice of Ember, and Wade is voiced by Mamoudou Athie but no other cast has been announced. It is directed by Peter Sohn with Denise Ream producing, reuniting the team that created 2015’s The Good Dinosaur for the studio. Pixar’s Elemental will be in theaters in June 2023.
