Soul, Luca and Turning Red have all largely been buried on Disney+, but why? As always, we’ve had some thoughts.
Pixar has long been at the forefront of American mainstream animation. The studio ushered in the era of CG animation with its debut feature Toy Story, intelligently explored darker themes of loss in Up, and helped all of us make sense of the messy emotions in our heads with Inside Out. Not to mention, its trophy cabinet must be buckling under the weight of all of its awards.
Of course, not all of its films have been hits. Lightyear, a Toy Story spin-off, missed the mark, and the Cars franchise remains, well, ordinary. Still, Pixar has always been at its best when focusing on original films, and at a point where blockbusters were dominated by sequels and franchises, Pixar was putting often breathtakingly original movies through the Hollywood system.
But that era feels like it’s passing. The audience appetite for those original films are dwindling. And it feels that something is being lost.
There are three original films that have largely faded from the public consciousness: Soul (2020), Luca (2021) and Turning Red (2022) were all released directly to Disney+, and despite all being excellent films, didn’t find their audience. Even in spite of an eventual cinema re-release.
At first, it’s easy to blame Disney and Pixar for releasing them directly onto streaming in the first place, though the pandemic absolutely played a part in that decision. With so much choice available, good films tend to get lost in the depths of streaming services within days of their release. The quality of those films can vary hugely, and it’s fair to say we approach straight-to-streaming films with a certain apprehensiveness. We’ve been burned too badly with forgettable films like The Gray Man or The Open House.
But Soul? Like it or not, it’s bold, adventurous filmmaking. Pete Docter, the co-director Soul alongside Kemp Powers, also agrees that his film didn’t quite get the attention it deserved.
“Very few people talk about Soul because it didn’t have the big theatrical impact. There’s something indisputable about that,” Docter told Indiewire in a recent interview. It’s true; films that get a cinema run tend to be more part of the public conversation. They’re events.
Soul tells the story of Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) who falls down a manhole on his way to a potentially life-changing audition. Joe’s soul is on its way to the afterlife, but Joe has no intention of dying and sets on a journey to get back into his body. It’s a pretty unique story with a lot of ideas that might still be foreign to smaller children, like the permanence of death. It’s not the first time Pixar has tackled such big themes, but Soul truly felt like the start of something new from the animators.
In his interview, Docter also mentioned that the studio didn’t have a choice with Soul, which was scheduled for release right in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdowns. The world hadn’t dealt with such a pandemic so there was no knowing when – or if – things would go back to normal. The logical thing to do was to release Soul to streaming and hope for the best.
“It was such a joy to work on, and I felt disappointed that it came out and it got dropped into the ocean,” Docter admitted. Soul did go on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film, deservedly so.
But originals are a hard sell for audiences now.
“If you talk to people and say, ‘What do you want?’ They say, ‘I want new, original stuff.’ And then they go see sequels. That’s the economic reality,” Docter admitted.
It wasn’t just Soul that suffered from being dumped on Disney+. 2021’s Luca and 2022’s Turning Red were also unceremoniously released without much fanfare. Like Soul, both received an overwhelmingly positive response from critics, who praised the bold new directions the stories went to.
Luca, which found a sea monster becoming friends with a human boy, was largely seen as a metaphor for queerness, and the film’s lessons of acceptance and diversity resonated with many. Perhaps they would have resonated with an even bigger audience if the film was granted a theatrical release.
Read more: Pixar, Win Or Lose, and bashing trans people
Turning Red, meanwhile, focused on Asian American pre-teen Mei who finds herself transforming into a red panda when she’s upset (hmm, we wonder what other major changes happen to young girls at that age…). Director Domee Shi treats puberty as something initially frightening but ultimately beautiful – the beginning of something new and exciting.
Soul featured Pixar’s first Black lead and, to top it off, it featured a heavily jazz-influenced soundtrack. It’s hard not to see the similarities between Luca, Soul and Turning Red’s themes. Perhaps these films would have been released in cinemas pre-2020, but it’s hard not to wonder if Pixar would have made them before that.
Pixar has regularly taken risks with its themes, but these are still somewhat controversial subjects in popular culture. And to be fair,Inside Out 2 had stuff to stay. Yet it was also Pixar to a degree replaying some hits, not at its storytelling cutting edge, and being rewarded with its biggest ever hit.
There is an argument that films would be more in the public consciousness if we were more open to streaming. The films in this case are still freely out there. They can still be supported.
But still, a bold Pixar era went before the eyes of the world, and for the first time where that company was concerned, it felt like the world was a lot less interested than it was.
Toy Story 5 is now in production.
