Elemental: ANOTHER Box Office DISASTER for Pixar...
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2023
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I don't like most of the character designs, especially the water kids when they open their mouths.
Heh
Ember is a smash
Day 252 of asking you to read Twokinds
coming at you Fridays :)
Allegories for racism and discrimination always kind of fail when whatever they are using (elements, predators/prey) have tangible reasons to not work together or mix with each other
That's a pretty solid argument lmao your existence is a literally threat to me. I can't blame them too much lol
@@baronvonjo1929that’s not an inherent quality in humans though. We can work against our societal teachings to not harm each other and lift each other up.
It’s almost like thinly veiled allegories aren’t the best way to confront complex and controversial issues
At least in Zootopia, the point was that predators had long since found ways to not have to eat prey animals, so they weren't an inherent danger to them. Prey could still _believe_ they were due to prejudice, however.
In Elementals, fire can do serious damage and water can kill fire through contact. It's too far removed from actual racism to map onto it properly.
@@ReddwarfIVYeah I have to agree with that. I mean I doubt prey animal was attacked by predator is a common or nightly news headline.
Elements, well it's out there
The Elemental premise just feels like it was originally conceived as a short film. Could have been a great short.
very that. short story premise pasted onto a very 1:1 human storyline with ember’s family and culture
Totally agree! It seems like a short that was stretched out into a movie.
This is how I felt. The scope of everything felt really small for how big they tried to make it seem. Like they tried to portray to some epic film but everything felt so small and insignificant as a whole
That's true it does look like it should be one of those pixar shorts like Lava or something.
Omg I completely agree
For me, it was that the plot seemed generic. It seemed more like the kind of meta joke that another animated show would make to parody Pixar movies. Something like "Salt and pepper are best friends who live in the cupboard but their families don't approve of their friendship. Look what happens this Summer when things get spicy in... The Spice of life. Please give us an Oscar for this obvious metaphor about racial segregation, we even rendered realistic salt physics."
I would low-key watch 'Spice Of Life' out of spite 😂
I see your point but this is hilarious 🤣
I see it as an aligory for immigrants moving to another country where they aren’t accepted
I don't kno people would come hard for the Spice of Life as a ripoff of the Blue's Clues characters😂😂
Y'know.
Now that you describe it that way.
It does seem very cookie cutter ordinary themed that we've seen since the 90s.
On Zootopia: One element of the 'worldbuilding' that amazed me with the thought put into it was that the 'Arctic' zone was next to the 'Desert' zone: The heat pumped out of the Arctic zone was sent to the Desert zone to dry and heat it up 😀
They could have pumped the heat from the Arctic section to the desert section even if they were further apart. And if they were further apart, heat would have taken longer to transfer from the desert to the Arctic, reducing the rate at which heat needs to be pumped the other way and reducing energy consumption. On the other hand, if they had been further apart, the heat would have needed to be pumped further, increasing energy consumption.
I have no idea what would be more efficient.
@@me-myself-i787dont pumps over short distances require less energy, so it does make sense
Making one area cold by taking the heat from it and making another hot by using the same heat. It’s a smart way to have them both
So essentially, one giant refrigeration or air conditioning unit (Or millions of regular size ones) running between the two zones with the condenser on the desert side and the evaporator on the artic side.
@@aviaspotter32 The pumps would actually run themselves; the hot air in the desert zone rises and the cold air in the Arctic zone falls so the entire thing could go through giant underground vents with little to no need for mechanical pumping. The problem would be heat lost along the way as it leaks out of the pipes into the ground, so it would be more efficient to have the different environments closer together and separate them with a giant wall if they can build one big enough.
I don't think Disney is sabotaging Pixar but I think Disney's trying to make Pixar more like Disney
Disney is ruining a lot of stuff
Can you people please stop trying to pretending like Disney is The *ONLY* reason why Pixar is failing as a company.
That IS sabotage bro.
I think Toy Story 5 is ABSOLUTELY sabotage.
so........ they ARE sabotaging them.
should've made a story about a fire boy and a water girl solving various puzzles, missed opportunity
MHHH im having a deja vu here
Damn that's a blast to the past
The nostalgia…
take 5 minutes to play that nostalgic game please 🥲
Gigachad Mindset.
It's also sad how no matter how stunning the visuals of a film are, it doesn't matter if your story falls flat or is perceived as generic
This is normally what Pixar is famous for, is mark how brand and studio.
It's only fair, IMHO. No-one wants to waste several hours of their life and an entire fortune to simply look at a couple of pretty visuals at a movie theatre.
Tell that to the first Cameron's Avatar :)
@@volbla Cameron's first Avatar came out in 2009. Back then most people didn't know any better. And to be fair the movie was somewhat impressive for the time.
@selamandreykum5844 the other reason why it succeeded was bc it was based on a book called dances with wolves which not many people knew about, while elemental embodied the most played out and cliche traits of Pixar which almost everyone knows
Funnily enough, I thought that the city design made MORE sense given the story - it's perfectly safe for water, earth, and air elements. The fire elements haven't been around for more than a generation, and while the city wasn't designed for them, their section of town is still being adapted for them. The water is supposed to be shut off, and there's a lot of stone and metal work that can safely handle the heat. That said, public infrastructure hasn't fully adapted - it's hard to move a highway/train that's used by everyone else. Those sadly haven't always been built or maintained fairly to people of all ethnic groups either in real life, though. A lot of homes and businesses were demolished to make way for today's highways.
I was going to post that "You are SO CLOSE to getting the point with the water train" before I read this comment. Yeah, the point is that the city infrastructure was built before fire people arrived and there hasn't been the political will to change things. It's a metaphor for unequal systems. The individuals in the systems may not be unfair, but the system is built in such a way that it perpetuates unfairness.
For the romance part, I think Wall-E is absolutely a love story that happens around an environmental/consumerist/space adventure environment. Wall-E and Eva's relationship (along with that shoe) push the plot forward.
i was literally screaming WALLE at that part haha
And he literally showed footage from it when saying it like what??? I'm so confused. Wall.E is quite blatantly a romance story.
and the whole opening scene of UP is a love story which IMO is the best part of the movie
Directive? 🙂
@@Camilingue3 One could say he fell in love with Russell as a grandchild/his own child and so he started doing fatherly things (after all they couldn't have one, and Russell didn't have a father figure) at the end of the movie as well, but that is a different kind of love, similarly to Brave.
I feel there's something to be said about how two different marketing strategies for two different movies ultimately killed them both. Teenage Kraken showed off too much of its plot and the climax in the trailers, while Elemental shows too little of its actual story and focused on the cheap gags and love story b plot. Marketing can really make or break a movie man it's nuts
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts
@@p-__.........bet
@@normalcomic4768 It's a bot. Report it and be done with it.
@@normalcomic4768Someone speaks facts.
wait, Kraken already flopped too? damn...
This aged badly 💀
( In response to timestamp 13:00 ) In my opinion, the whole reason that Ember family left fireland actually makes a lot of sense. There are lots of reasons families immigrate but some of the most common reasons is because their home isn't safe or poverty. In cases of natural disasters, you get both, so it's really common to see people immigrating to other places because of natural disasters, especially if they live in natural disaster prone areas, which I'm not sure fireland was but it is possible. Also the fire town on the edge of element city seemed very reminiscent of Chinatown, lots of people who were forced to immigrate due to whatever reason settling in the only place they could afford and eventually the town gets filled with immigrants and is molded around their culture, it makes sense to me that firetown was created, its not because fire people couldn't live in element city, it's because they were never given a chance to try so they had to settle elsehere hence why firetown is essentially fireproof, they made it to fit them but i dont think its cause tye city wasn't safe for them.Also the only time we see fire being destructive is when ember loses her temper and even then we only ever see her being destructive, so the whole reason why they were rejected on their way to see the flower, probably really was just discrimination, I mean we even see ember in the museum later and she's completely fine.
It's a little of both. They weren't given a chance to settle in element city and it wasn't safe for them or the people there. That's because the city didn't accommodate fire people like they did the others. They had to build around the folks there to make sure everyone was comfortable but refused to do so for fire people so it became unsafe.
To me Ember being rejected for the flower *was* discrimination, but it was discrimination in the sense of you seeing a sign that says, "no disabled access" or such. It would cost time and money to make te exihibit equally hospitable to fire people so they just didn't.
@@yuukinoyuki9064 I saw it like this too
Once we see Ember on the train or something, where she accidently touches a ground folk, and burns his leaves down. So technically it's possible to just burn a plant down by touching it. I see what you mean, but I also think that yes, the city is dangerous in a sense that it doesn't accommodate fire people. And open flames let's say are dangerous even in the human world. Yes, a little candle rarely hurts anyone, but if you're not careful, it can cause accidents.
It’s a late comment but I finally watched it and also it’s about the subtle ignorance of the city. No one is jumping to fix the flood that is going to wipe out fire town. It hurts how real that is.
I found it weird how an important plot point was that Ember was afraid to touch Wade, even though Ember can touch paper with no ill effects.
That paper part didn't make a lot of sense though
Haha I was thinking that I just assumed they had fire resident paper and wood
the only thing driving the movie is convenient leaps of logic
Wait actually? 🤨
I'm guessing it's like how paper lanterns work.
I've only seen a few trailers for Elemental, but personally I'm uninterested because it really does just seem like baby's first story plot. The four elements are quite literally the most basic building blocks you could go with, and on top of that it's the Romeo and Juliet "x can never interact with y" story that's also been told a million times. There's nothing about it that feels like I'm missing out if I don't see it. Maybe that's on the advertisers for not doing more to make it feel enticing, because it really isn't gripping from the outset at all.
Tbh, ever since the start of the 2010s, films between pixar and Disney has been interchangeable. I remember Disney does 2d animations and pixar do cgi animation.
@@shaynellmesadieu yup last Disney movie I remember was the farm one. After that it's a bler and I can't tell who made what anymore. There all bland whatever.
I agree. I would also add that all of what you mentioned aren’t necessarily bad or signs of a bad film. Just that there doesn’t really seem to be a story reason why it stands out from other films
💯👍🏿
For some reason the trailers don't actually show the real plot. The scene with the headphones isn't even in the movie. The plot is that wade is a building inspector and tickets her dad's store threatening to close it down after he gets flooded into her basement. But the ticket will get waved if she can find the source of the leak.
When you consider how long it takes to make an animated movie, Pixar's downfall can probably be directly attributed to the Disney acquisition. WALL-E and Up may have been released after the acquisition, but they were conceptualized before.
I have come from the future and I am here to say that somehow Elemental had one to the biggest box office come backs that I have seen as it is considered a sleeper hit and grew legs in the box office and will end up having over 400 million dollars in the box office which would mean to some reporting breaking even.
It's needs 500 million.
I come in the future. This movie is poop
@@superstuv1 Nah
I think you summed it up pretty well at the end. We're living in a world where Spiderverse and Puss in Boots exist to prove animation can be new and bold, and Pixar (and Disney, really) is stuck in the past and not innovating. I really hope they try something new. It'd be a damn shame to keep getting mid movies from Pixar.
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts
Wish will have different animation for Disney.
Ironically enough, Elemental was supposed to be technologically innovative as it's trying to push the graphics of water, fire, air, and ground to the next level. Unfortunately, a lot of people are getting tired of realism seen in other animated movies and that Spider-verse and Last Wish showed everyone that you can make a stylized animated movie without making it realistic. It's really poor timing as there's a gradual rise of stylized movies for the coming decade while the realistic looking movies are becoming less popular. Pixar is no longer the innovator seen during the 2000s and is now playing catch-up
W@keness is cancer.
I hope Disney fails tbh
I loved how small and self contained Lucca was. I adore that movie. Wish Pixar could go small instead of big with their concepts.
Cowards couldn't make it a gay love story... it just fell flat with the entire plot revolving around a f'ing Vespa. I thought it was going to be brave at first then they're just friends. Yuck.
Yeah Luca was cute with the design and the story was really good for how short it was compared to toy story.
Luca was like the Pixar version of a ghibli film. I wouldn`t mind if they did that again every now and then ❤
I think one of the issues is that they had big concepts and big stories with them
Now they have big concepts with very small stories in them and it only worked when they went small concept to match
The water and fire people was hard to make. Cut them some slack
This video didn’t age well
I think this is a case where Pixar had a good story but they didn't have the world thought out enough to complement the story
Yesh like bad timing after spiderverse childish advertising it really shocked me its a pretty good movie thats why it’s gaining more popularity people are gonna like it
@theboyinthedark6521 that has nothing to do with this comment
@@thedarklrd6714 🤓
honestly I thought the world was built well. I’ve never seen anyone really use the elements like they did in elemental with the glassmaking and using water to concentrate light into fire.
@@theboyinthedark6521 that's... still not an answer?
I watched Spirited Away with my best friend over the weekend. She doesn't really watch anime or anything like that, so I wasn't sure what she would think. She loved it. When she tried to explain why, she said, "I think it's because I had no idea what was going to happen. Movies these days you can predict exactly what's going to happen after the first five minutes."
I can see that. My husband was surprised I hadnt seen Sing 2 and it was not hard to see where it was going every step of the way.😅
Show her _Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal_ . She'll love it.
That's exactly why I stopped watching movies and TV shows. Everything is so predictable and formulaic. Nowadays I mostly just watch anime and stand up comedy, if anything.
The moment I heard "element cannot mix" and "why does anyone get to tell you what you can do"
I immediately knew this is gonna be a zootopia version 2
I was right....
This is a good point, and it takes me back 15-20 years ago to when tween me discovered anime through the same film and explained to my grandfather that the reason why I liked anime was because I found western animation too predictable. The good guy would always win. Anime was more grey.
The formula for films has definitely changed over the years so it’s interesting to me that though they have obviously tried to be more neutral (villains are less common) they’re still seen as overly predictable in the way they present their story.
My issue with Elemental is that the concept wasn't communicated properly. Up until release I just couldn't figure out what it was about. I got 'it's a romcom', but also 'it's about generational trauma', 'it's about racism', 'it's like Zootopia', a bunch of other things where it just seemed like the marketing was really undirected and it was trying to do too many things thematically.
Zootopia handled generational trauma very well, the was that they put the mouth guard on the fox 💔 like it was such a metaphor for racism
I didn't know anything past "it's a romcom" until last week! Learning about the movie's actual message was insane after reading dozens of joke tweets riffing on that single theme.
I mainly saw the ad with the slapstick moments, which really didn't entice me to watch the movie at all.
Nothing in the trailers made it look cool or interesting to me
@@Mel-qs8wx Zootopia wasn't about family trauma.
You might want to make an update video regarding Elemental's box office numbers, it's turning out to be the sleepiest of sleeper hits! It's already past the break even point and I think positive word of mouth really helped turn things around.
Foreal!
Looks like it made 496.4 million in the end
Am I the only one that absolutely LOVED Brave?? It seems so many people hate on it 😭
It's one of my favorite movies. Saber probably doesn't connect with it as much but I really saw myself in Merida and I love Scottish and Irish folklore.
I loved it too! 🖐🏻
I loved it
I think it's just pretty mid. Not BAD, but also not good... just something you kinda watch once, are like "ok" and just don't really remember much after.
Fergus: You’re muttering.
Elinor: I don’t mutter.
Fergus: Aye, you do. You mutter, lass, when something’s troubling you.
Elinor: I blame you. Stubbornness is entirely from yer side of the family.
Fergus: I take it the talk didn’t go too well.
Elinor: I don’t know what to do.
Fergus: Speak to her, dear.
Elinor: I do speak to her, she just doesn’t listen!
Fergus: Come on, now. Pretend I’m Merida. Speak to me. What would you say?
I think a major issue is all the movie releases happening all at once. Like Spiderverse 2, Elemental, Flash, Little Mermaid, and Transformers have all been released in the past few weeks, so people are being picky about which movie to go see because of prices being so high. It also doesn't help that Disney/Pixar are releasing their movies so close to one another, effectively self sabotaging themselves
Eh, summer blockbusters have always done that and it hasn't stopped others releasing in this same window from succeeding. I think people are just burnt out on the Pixar formula and the Disney "live action remake" formula. Even the girls I knew in college who were still singing Frozen songs in 2016 were starting to complain or skip releases around that time. They need a break from their formula for at least one major release just to let people miss it again
@@Chronoflation Usually, it isn't the same company dumping them all at the same time. But I will digress, I don't think they are cannibalizing each other because no one wants to watch any of them. But I will point out, Disney employees are also constantly getting n their own way. Things like one of the actors for their new show saying that people who don't like Captain Marvel are incels afraid of strong women, the new cartoon VA saying that it doesn't matter that the Spanish is improper because its a language of colonialism, or the writers for Marvel comics complaining how much comics have destroyed them, the negativity permeates through so much of the company. They are needlessly confrontational with the people who buy their stuff. Compare that with Illumination with Mario, they took a popular franchise and didn't fuck it up to own anyone.
@@Chronoflationthe problem is too disney doing it all. With different creative energies there would be freshness and distinction.
But there isnt,because disney dont has to try to take creative risks, because they own most of the rivals.
@@marocat4749 I think that may be part of the problem too. Disney has gotten so big that they had multiple flops and they’re still going. But the flops are films that actually would’ve been great if they spent a bit more time on the editing floor or the writers were able to go deeper.
During every economic downturn, people will go to the movies. Every economic downturn has increased profits for theatres because out of any activity outside of the house, going to the movies is still affordable. Out of the last eight recessions, ticket admission has gone up six times and admissions five times during them. We've proven that people PREFER the movies when there are hard times. Escapism is a strong pull, and Elemental offers 0% escapism. Mermaid isn't doing very hot either, as Disney is discovering that white people may actually *not* be the most racist people on the planet and again, offers very little due to everyone seeing the vastly superior TLM'89 when it came out.
Super Mario? HELL YEAH LETS-A-GO! Spiderverse? WEB SLINGIN' WHOOOOO. Being told to get along together in a world that reflects the divisions of our modern society as we've become more and more fractured and it seems like we might not be able to come together and we are more like fire and water? Uh... pass...
Transformers? FUCK YEAH ROBOT EXPLOSIONS ANd oh hey it's already made it's money back second weekend and is now making a profit. Think we see a pattern?
I think a big part of Pixar's early success was their premises. _"What if our toys had a secret life and loved us as much as we loved them?"_ is a fantastic premise for a movie. _"What if there are actual monsters in our closets, but they're actually really nice people just trying to make a living working a blue collar job?"_ is equally captivating (if not moreso because of its absolute absurdity)
Elemental's premise of _"What if fire and water became friends"_ is a terrible premise - the sort of thing I'd expect from an Illumination picture at best, or a self-published children's book at worst.
I'm sure the movie is executed more than competently, but there's nothing to hook me into actually wanting to see it. And somebody should've pointed that out before they spent 200 million dollars on it.
"what if fire and water became friends'' is not a terrible premise. It's all in the execution.
The premise is good and it would work fantastically as a Pixar short not a full movie, since more of the elements dynamic were not mapped that well
@@SieMiezekatzeI quite agree! It would be great as a short, I feel like a lot of movies that are lackluster could be great for shorts
Yeah, I still think it's a better premise than Encanto. Encanto was probably a better movie overall, but it took me a long while to see it just because it had such a bare-bones premise
they LITERALLY stole it from Fireboy and Icegirl flash game, it's SO lazy and I can't believe they copied that and just said "switch them and make it a movie"
Well this didn’t age well…..
You might have to do an update with this video
The decline in pixar is probably executive manager meddling. One of the fascinating things i found about pixars early movies was how they were always willing to scrap an idea and start again from scratch to make something better. They would sometimes get pretty far before they decide "its just not that great." And start again.
Some guys would even use "pixar method" as a shorthand for coming up with stories saying "you come up with three different ideas, Scrap them, then do a fourth one. Everyone has already thought of the first three ideas, so make something creative and unique you do the fourth one and try it out.
I have a very hard time believing this movie was the fourth run-through of a draft.
Probably some higher up told pixar to push it through with this because they didn't want to waste money scrapping and starting over.
I know people say that Pixar is being Disneyfied, and all that, but from my angle, Disney feels like it was pixarfied under Lasseter, between the twist villains and the 3D CG, to the point that the main sticking distinguisher between the 2 is that one studio does the musicals.
Ok but what if people already did the 4th idea?
@emblemblade9245 They don't. That's why the early movies were so original and high concept. Most writers don't even try the 3rd idea.
Source: Former animator
"Probably some higher up told pixar to push it through with this because they didn't want to waste money scrapping and starting over." gee, given the state Disney is in, i wonder why? >_>
@@utubrGaming it wasn't a bad thing so no public backlash
I feel like there are 3 main reasons why Elemental is failing.
1: The timing. I remember Pixar saying that this was going to be their big comeback. I also remember thinking: "Ok, so you're releasing another film after a slew of films that were just OK. You were expecting this film to be the big moneymaker juggernaut? The same month of Spider-Verse, Rise of the Beast, and the same day as The Flash?!"
2. Disney+. Ever since Onward, ALL of Pixar's releases were Disney+ exclusive, at least for a little bit. I feel like families have gotten used to the idea of "Oh, a Pixar film is in theaters. I'll just wait for it to be on Disney+." It's a lot trickier to predict where Spider-Verse will be on streaming services and, to a lesser extent, The Super Mario Bros Movie, whereas, with Elemental, it's obvious where it will be.
3. The lack of marketing. Oh, I almost forgot, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is literally coming out a little over a week at the time of this, so i think that Disney is focusing on that film more than Elemental. Which makes them look even more pathetic: the fact that they're literally overlooking Pixar as just another asset and nothing else.
personally i dont like thier design, it's not ugly but... i don't know how to describe it, I just don't want to spend time with them
dial of destiny is DOA
I've been to the theaters twice recently to see Spiderverse and not once have I seen an Elemental trailer but twice Indiana Jones (probably because Elemental was coming out way sooner so they pulled any trailers for it but still it proves how much they're promoting the Indiana Jones film)
I’ve seen plenty of Elemental ads on UA-cam, maybe they’re trying to get me to go see it when I’m just not interested in it. It looks bland. At least Turning Red had an interesting premise.
It’s also because it’s woke as well can’t forget that.
Title aged poorly o.o
Bruh this film box office went from zero to hero
The problem with movies like Elemental and Onward, is that they want to tell a very personal and somewhat relatable story, but put it in a world they don't bother to develop beyond surface level. The worldbuilding is one of the things that disappoint me the most about both movies: it's basically our world, but with creatures it's not adapted to. I absolutely hated the fence scene in the Elemental trailer, especially when Wade lampshades it: pointing out that fences are useless in this world doesn't change the fact that there are fences in this world for no reason.
To add onto the idea of "very personal story'. The idea of that is absolutely fine, however you can't expect general audiences to necessarily care about such a specific story. Toy Story has non-human characters but has a broader more relatable story of friendship and getting older.
not to mention that this kind of personal stories heavily rely on the world they are set in. real life immigrant families struggles and racism are issues that rise from the setting and culture, so if you want to make an entirely new world out of scratch to tell a story with a moral like 'racism is bad' you need to have a world where you can believe racism exists
@@faeb.9618
And especially where you can believe racism is ultimately baseless: Zootopia’s racism metaphor mostly worked because predators and prey have long gone grown past their biological instincts, but you can believe some prey animals still have prejudice towards predators. In Elemental, there’s plenty of reasons for the elements to not like interacting with each other, especially fire and water.
This is actually one of the few things I liked about Strange World: it’s a completely different setting without any cultural resemblance to any of our societies, so there’s no homophobia. What doesn’t work there is the diversity: a small, self contained continent with a single biome has no reason to contain every single ethnicity. I know it’s for representation, but it makes the world feel artificial.
All very good points.
Though I’m not sure I noticed that with Onward? I’m mostly giving benefit of the doubt, but I really loved the core aspects of the movie and the follow-through
It's rather sad that the director had to choose between a really lame gag and worldbuilding, when Pixar used to be rather nifty about these kind of things, like the Abominable Snowman being a sort of retired Monsters Inc. Scarer that also provides a few gags on his own or that scene in Wall-E where the chubby captain stands up to the Also sprach Zarathustra score more famously known for 2001: A Space Odyssey, it fits on so many levels yet it's funny on it's own right, but that fence scene is just... dumb, not even Illumination's typical levels of dumb sillyness, just dumb.
Heck, Luca and Turning Red are quite good at this stuff so it's even more bizarre that Onward and Elemental felt like they gave up halfways through the concept.
I think the biggest problem is that they've got stories appropriate for short films that they're stretching out to feature film length. I think Elemental would be much better as a significantly shorter movie with a more condensed plot.
I highly disagree. After watching the movie, I genuinely think the pacing was perfectly fine, and shouldn't have been sped up to make a shorter film. I think the length is fine as it is.
I agree with you!
@@vernoxis6809see its a good movie just bad timing childish advertising alot of people are gonna like it thats why its now slowing gaining more and more popularity right now
There was no plot. The movie felt like 90% relationship development and 10% plot development. As a kid, I’m not sure why any of them would want to watch this movie a second time. Legit nothing takes place during the movie. It’s like a soap opera that’s more about relationships than the actual plot.
Oh there’s a flood/water mystery?: 2 minutes later the mystery is solved so now it’s time to get back to relationship talk
Oh there’s a mean cloud lady they have to convince?: 2 minutes later her team wins and she not only gives her a second chance but she’s helping water and fire date when she has 0 emotional attachment to them. So again no plot and more relationship development.
Those are just 2 examples.
@@vernoxis6809nah they completely right
oh how this has aged 🤭
Well this certainly aged like milk lmao
Yeah, my issue with the concept is the subtext: namely, that there are perfectly good reasons for THESE people to live segregated. It kind of undermines trying to apply the "we all can get along together" message intended for humans when the challenge isn't just "someone looks different or lives differently" and instead it's "coming into physical contact is death".
Yeah, I had a similar issue with Zootopia being an allegory for race - because in Zootopia (and Elemental) the different groups have inherent differences that justify discrimination/fear/inequality, while humans are all humans regardless of race.
Like, it makes SENSE in Zootopia for prey animals to be scared of predator animals, because predator animals literally have a biological drive and physical means to eat them. Water and Fire are also both inherently different and can cause real harm to each other in this universe, so segregation and discrimination is unfortunately understandable.
While some groups of humans may falsely claim, as they have in the past, that different races have different "inherent qualities" that therefore justifies racism, this just isn't true. We're all just people, and there isn't any legitimate reason for racism.
@Oozey67 Zootopia works better in this case since it's established in the movie that, despite what we may expect, predators don't actually prey on prey and are perfectly safe, but because of prejudice and predators having eaten prey in prehistoric times, they're discriminated against.
@@speedslider3913 it's a better allegory than Elemental, but the fact that (as shown in the movie) predators can be made to access their prey drive involuntarily means the threat they've historically posed to prey animals could still be there so discrimination could still have some basis, even if it's not logical given that predator animals in the time Zootopia takes place aren't actually killing prey animals anymore (until forced into that state by the villain.)
Like, they are being unfairly discriminated against in the current day, but to discriminate against them in the past would've been justified. Meanwhile humans have never had a legitimate reason to discriminate against other humans solely on the basis of race.
But yeah I agree with you that it fits better than Elemental because like... The different elements are causing/able to cause each other harm in the modern day, even if unintentionally, just because of how they naturally exist as their elements, so it makes more sense to segregate/discriminate/treat each other differently
@@Oozey67If you really get into the weeds of human history you'll find a lot of reasons why discrimination was a thing between groups. We're inherently wired for ingroup/outgroup bias and tribalism cam take many forms, so to say there's never been a legitimate reason for discrimination goes against the entire history of our species. Race is only one piece of a larger whole but it's the most visually telling one.
Prejudice is such a huge concept that I think saying we've never had a legitimate reason for it just seems a bit reductive.
Well it's less than a hundred years ago that there were German Towns. Italian Town, plus more. There still a lot of Korean Towns and China Towns. It was a means of security, have commerce or promotion for products that would otherwise be hundreds miles away (such as tumeric, sake, mirin, korean pears) and have a bit of your family homeland. In a way like a lot of initially small groups the city you move to can be not so accommodating. It can feel a little dehumanizing with how some people may approach you as a very small minority in the area. There were a few places where a lot of residents did not address me by my name but what ethnicity they thought I was.
A lot of first generations or family still in homeland will still be very critical about someone's nationality or background too. The younger generation would generally be the ones to become further immerse into the nation their family moved to.
That's what I experienced as an Asian American.
One thing someone said about this thag I really agree on is that the backgrounds are WAY too complex for the models. Like the models are blobs with faces but the backgrounds are so incredibly beautiful and detailed, but it can just make it hard to differentiate at times
Funnily enough, the director of this also directed The Good Dinosaur, which had the exact same problem. The backgrounds were photorealistic, but the dinosaurs were so cartoony that they clashed like crazy.
Yes, it is true, the world itself seemed too complex yet lacked, and the characters lacked but had a complex story and personality. Both lacked what the other needed.
I honestly really enjoyed Elemental. It was a very fun sweet movie that's a nice break from everything. I get that people want something new and visually cool, but if I'm honest, I like the idea of just making nice simple movies that are slow paced and fun to watch. We don't need a Puss in Boots the last wish every other week. I'd prefer that to be more of a once a year thing. That's why I love Pixar so much. They make such good simple movies.
yes exactly! this movie is *extremely* fun and entertaining. it has to be one of my favourite movies rn despite the jank features it has ahah
"They make good simple movies" Look at most of their older material (or even Coco and Soul) and you would see that not having "simple" movies is why they're so highly regarded.
Wow a billion dollar company making “simple” movies, that’s really what you want? Mediocrity? Jesus Christ
@@lord.liberty I'm not saying I mind having awesome really amazing films. I'm just saying we should not hate simple movies because bigger movies have also been made.
@@yousaytomato0000 Yes. That is exactly what I want, actually. Simplicity does not mean mediocrity. I could probably name about a hundred simple movies that I love beyond belief.
Lmao every single Elemental video is aging like milk
Maybe if fire could become inactive or non-burning when outside their community, but it hurts them or is uncomfortable, there could be some kind of code switching or assimilation commentary where Ember is forced to change into an uncomfortable non-burning state in the city and can only burn and be herself at home. Then people not liking fire would be rooted in prejudice because despite her not burning all the time she’s still feared.
That is a good idea but how does the non-burning thing work?
@@Objectnimations well, she's literally called Ember - there could be heat inside, but she's have to cover up like with clay or something - assimilate as an earth element, but it would be stiff, uncomfortable and she would not be seen as one of them either way. On the nose, maybe, but works with the premise.
Honestly, I wanna go the other way with it: why not have it so the fire people look much more dangerous than they actually are? Like, a fire person touching even a water person wouldn’t hurt them, but if they tried hard enough, they could increase their temperature enough to do so? Maybe fire people burn differently from each other? And then apply that to each element: water couldn’t douse fire unless they actually tried, earth couldn’t extinguish fire, etc. At least then the metaphor highlights prejudice better bc there’s little reason for the elements to be separated from each other.
That said, your idea is also really good!
@@TheNwr1 just watch the movie.
You might get a happy surprise.
@@L3tsf4ilnot worth my time
On a side note: Zootopia seems to be more of an allegory for _prejudice,_ i.e. of judging something before knowing its true character. Prejudice can lead to discrimination, which is what the movie portrayed. I think this is why it frequently gets interchanged for specific issues like racism, sexism, etc., because all those have prejudice in common as the root of the problem. With Elementals, I think they were trying too hard to fit in specific allegories that aren't 100% compatible with the fantasy world they'd built. A mismatch like this can overshadow a movie's main characters, imo.
A lot of people say things like "Zootopia is a bad allegory because predators _do_ actually have the inherent potential for harm that prey animals don't" and I think what you're saying in regards to it being about prejudice rather than it being a specific allegory is a good way to think about it. Like, it's a prejudice that can't be directly correlated with something humans deal with, but it makes sense that it would exist in a world of various anthropomorphic mammal species.
I think one reason that it gets saddled with "being about racism" might have something to do with it being a Disney movie rather than like... a project by a furry creator where the audience is assumed to accept anthro-animal characters as something that doesn't require additional explanation. I also think that the original concept of the movie, where predators were more explicitly oppressed would've worked better but it was a bit dark and possibly "high-concept" for Disney. To put it simply, I think that the world wasn't "foreign enough" for people to stop looking for direct allegories, but I could be over-complicating things.
@@mastermarkus5307I think it works better in zootopia because the racism allegory can still work.
They show that there are other methods for carnivores to eat there.
Here, Fire and Water literally kill eachother by touching. It isn’t any kind of social structure separating them, it is like nature and biology. If anything the “racism bad” message gets lost where they literally can’t co-exist without hurting each other.
If anything this is a kink-shaming allegory
its leftist moral fables being forced into an average storyline for sure.
@@woodlefoof2 Elemental isn't really about racism though. There are bits of it here and there, but it's more of a minor theme in the background. It's main theme is immigration and the pressure and sense of obligation second generation immigrants have towards their families. It was about how many feel like they have to sacrifice their own happiness for their sake of their parents who had already sacrificed so much.
Overall, it's generally easier for a viewer to buy that different predators and prey coexist since they have human chracteristics rather than to buy that different elements that literally destroy each other coexist.
Then if you put prejudice/racial tension in the background it ends up feeling... forced? As an allegory I mean, since as Spark said, you can't really compare the fire can't get into a shop/museum scene with immigrants being denied access to shops
This did not age well. Guess that's what happens when someone hops on the unecessary hate wagon.
This aged poorly.
It's kind of sad actually because this movie broke new ground in computer animation. When this idea was first conceived they weren't sure it was possible to make the images and effects required! Sadly, despite the huge win for animation it was dragged down with a movie that may not even be bad but that no one, including myself, cares about.
I'm not sure about that. Piper, the short film was released in 2016. They had the ability to recreate incredibly realistic water and animals. Piper took 3 years to make, using the cutting edge technology they had at the time.
Piper, released in 2016, looks WAY better than Elementals.
Most animation enthusiasts have been sick of computer animation for a long time now. The only reason it's still the animation medium being used for 99% of theatrical films: parents with young kids make up the vast majority of ticket sales. This generation of kids grew up on Cocomelon. They're going to have low standards, so tickets will sell regardless.
ah as a 3d artist, i really wasn't 100% on board with the art style.. it felt kind of rough? Like, it's super interesting and innovative, but it didn't seem polished overall.. especially how clothing worked with the fire, it felt so unnatural and uncanny, as well as their facial expressions/features - it felt like it was a proxy. But overall, it was such a cute film and I command them for the experiments with new style
And that highlights one of the reasons why I’ve grown to despise most modern “animation”: because it’s turned into glorified tech demos. There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, but now studios have grown reliant on overly-flashy animation to get people in seats at the expense of actually telling compelling stories.
Wow I'm my opinion it's ugly
I think a significant part of why Elemental failed is due to it lacking a captivating premise and feeling a bit overplayed and cliche. Family issues? Racism allegory? Big city based on an abstract concept? All done elsewhere, recently, and much better in other Disney/Pixar movies like Turning Red and Zootopia. It's fine to reuse similar plot elements, Pixar does this well all the time, but for Elemental it hurts worse imo, since there's so much you can do with the idea of anthropomorphic elements, especially for worldbuilding, but they just don't try that hard beyond the beautiful animation, and I think many people could see this.
^^THIS^^
Like holy hell how many quirky-people-big-city-social-issues premises are we gonna get before we go insane???
That's what I was thinking :P i mean they are ELEMENTAL BEINGS 😅 last thing I would imagine them in is a boring city setting. They couldnt do any fantasy adventure with this?
@@internetclown904 Or even just make the city more imaginative.
Like it's a city of living elements ... but they still take the bus, use doors, have metal fences that are clearly worthless. They point that last one out but ... so what you're city is still boring even if you make a joke about it being boring.
Zootopia isn't that recent now.....
I thought elemental was better than turning red
Elemental have a 93% audience score and 458.3 millions $ box office for a 151.4 millions $ budget. Why is it a Disaster ?
It was
You were wrong on this 😂
I was just shocked when you were talking about how Pixar has never done a love story, despite showing Wall-E on screen. At least for me, Wall-E and Eve's love story is a really obvious and important part of the film, seeing the lengths they are willing to go for each other. The ending especially is just beautiful in regards to their relationship. I will not stand for Wall-E and Eve love story erasure.
I think that was added after the script as a sort of “oopsie I forgot” to show that these are the examples of Pixar love stories.
@@okashiad6930 I would think that, but it is grouped with Bugs Life and Ratatouille, where the love stories are very small aspects of the films themselves. Meanwhile in Wall-E, the love story aspect is a huge part of the film, as Wall-E's desire for connection is established as romantic at the start, when he watches Hello Dolly. I've just been seeing quite a few people forget about Wall-E when they call Elemental "Pixar's first love story", even though it is a really important part of Wall-E.
@@Paul_Recall Yeah I thought it was to show that he was blanking on those movies and that they have indeed done love stories. I get what you mean by them being small aspects of the films, but in that case I'm gonna call Monsters Inc. a love story bc Mike and Celia. Your logic not mine.
There is this wonderful word called: Sarcasm, try googling it.
@@MalekitGJThere’s this thing called being polite. Google it.
I honestly cant imagine how they managed to render these characters and animate them.
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts
@@p-__what.
@@matthew.3 It's a bot. Report it.
It must've been torture
It required over 125,000 computers
A new movie: *exists*
Any channel that does movie stuff: This movie is a fail
Edit: Six likes is actually the lost i’ve ever gotten so thanks 🙏🏻
Well, a month later it will pass 400 million. Not the strongest numbers for Pixar, but when compared to the years box office, it did fairly well.
It still fell short of 500 million.
@@SOKT8keep crying lol
That half of the budget goes for the advertisement. I even remember when i see some elementals ads in KFC while i having lunch
And i see it everywhere
You also forgot to mention that the movie ended up surpassing Across the Spiderverse.
@@Stew91 welp but the budget is twice than the spider verse lmao 🤣
It's all goes into ton of gimmick ads
In my opinion, the better version of the Fire girl in love with a guy who can’t touch her is Finn & Fire Princess from Adventure Time. It was deep, emotional, complex, adult, and actually reached a realistic conclusion which was bittersweet. It was one of my favorite parts of AT. If I want to watch this type of story, I’ll just rewatch that.
One of my favourite things is when Finn cried and Fire princess says “oh, you’re a water elemental” which is just the cutest thing.
There's also the fire princess and sea prince movie from Sanrio (can't remember the exact title, sorry). Basically, the premise has been done to death. Unless they add something new to the premise and create strong, compelling characters for it, the premise won't escape the shadow or legacy of its predecessors.
@@happyplum2822 she really called her that because he cried like a little bum it had me dying💀
There's SeaPrince and Firechild to but that's more like a fairytale fantasy
Adventure time underrated
I'm realizing that part of what made Puss in Boots so good is that it explores emotion in a much more mature way. Characters, world, and plot are all just the delivery mechanisms for emotion. Elemental seems to explore love, which is a bit overplayed at this point. From what the trailers show, it's basically just a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.
Romantic love is definitely NOT overplayed over at Pixar. As someone who loved the film, that's probably one of the reasons it felt so fresh to me.
@@stillwatersrundeep001 I'll still have to check it out, but as a consumer I am not drawn to the romance aspect of it, even if Pixar specifically has not done a romance film. As a regular film troupe, it's in every other movie, so it's not something that would draw me to pay to see it in theaters.
@@stillwatersrundeep001 Have to side with OP here. Adding that to boot, I'm aromantic, pretty much repulsed by romantic love. We're not very common, but we're out here lol. It's a boring trope, I think what Spiderverse is doing is infinitely better.
How can you find it repulsive? Neutral sure, but repulsed? Like, does witnessing it make you experience negative emotions?
@@thilsiktonix Spoilers. But I was really hoping for a kind of metaphorical asexual relationship. Given that they couldn't touch. I was thinking that would be an interesting if they went down the "we don't need to touch to have a relationship" rout. But they didn't. As a romance coinsurer, I'm not disappointed, though. I like what they did. Though I would like to see that played out.
This video aged like expired milk
Who let him cook?
If fire and water don't mix, then how did water boy and lava girl work together and survive all these years?
Shark boy???
@@OkamiZoneAlso the flash game is called Water Boy and Fire Girl
Edit: i dumb
@@Jacob-Sophiait's fireboy and watergirl btw
Confusing shark boy with water boy. I'm fucking dying.
@@theeheisei welp
I honestly pity the director behind this movie because he seem like a nice guy and his parents passed away during development of Elemental so this film really means a lot to him. Too bad everything went wrong from the marketing to the reviews and now he has both “the good dinosaur” flop and “elemental” flop on his belt making me feel like he will be fire soon.
The marketers should be fired first but we know that won’t happen
I didn't realize The Good Dinosaur was received so badly. It wasn't my favorite, but I didn't hate it. But then I started playing it on Disney Plus (to do housechores) & my son walks in and starts yelling to turn it off! Wow... what am I missing? Why is this film so hated?
@@deenaprice1524😂😂😂😂
Sick copy paste comment
@@Sypitz I'll take that as a compliment
bro so many comments now aged so horribly here, the movie literally just surpassed Spiderverse internationally
Doesn't mean anything when it needs 500 million to break even.
@@SOKT8keep crying lmao
in my opinion, I think all the bad press for the movie on UA-cam caused everyone to go see it for themselves because in my opinion, I didn’t know about the movie because Pixar put ads out i never saw a ad. I knew about it because everyone was talking shit about it so I went to go watch it with friends. but just to put some cope in spider verse still made more globally.
@@SOKT8 Still repeating this bullshit?
@@jae8913 The trailer was horrible. Only gags about element people (why someone should care?) that didn't give a hint of what the movie was about. Of what were the stakes.
The opposite mistake than Dreamworks did with Ruby Gillman, where the trailer gave out the entire movie.
I think the movie tries to explain the "fire is literally destructive" aspect by pointing out that fire people can touch others without hurting them (save for burning people's clothes/hair/belongings, which is still an issue), and that the city could easily make more accommodations for fire people (like not having the train splash water on the ground below, or not making flammable buildings that automatically exclude them), but the city doesn't feel like doing it.
Who the fuck would rebuild an entire city just to accommodate a small minority of people?
At this point, let them build their own city.
Which is what the movie showed.
And somehow, it tried to present it as a bad thing.
When it’s truly just entirely logical.
I think having the water cut from firetown but still letting the water spewing train to run the way it does feels like a dick move lmao
I think these metaphors are always weird when the things being compared are really very different/dangerous like elements, predator/prey, androids.. When in real life, like saber said, it's all just humans. Being discriminated based on assumptions
The best way to do these metaphors (in my opinion) would be to choose one type of animal (for example cats) and make it so that one type of cat is oppressing the other because they both have different fur colors or because they are different species. You can still have the entire race thing implied without the viewer wondering if it wouldn't be better for both to be separate because in this case, the two different types of cats wouldn't necessarily be dangerous to each other if they live together.
Or fantasy creatures or aliens. Vreatures than could mix but also are different.
If anything it supports the underlying message of actual racists, that different races ARE fundamentally different creatures, all differences are hard-coded to your heritage, and assumptions based on race are therefore justified on some immutable reality. Kinda messed up.
It's the same problem when you have people with superpowers be a stand-in for discriminated minorities. It's kind of understandable why people might be concerned when you have beings that can walk through solid matter, teleport, shapeshift to look like anyone else, or simply control all metal in the nearby area allowing you to annihilate entire armies by yourself. Yeah most of them might just have small abilities like a long tongue or something dumb, but you never know when that one person in your neighborhood might suddenly blow up the entire place.
@@toddclawson3619
Or do something perverted or take advantage of the powerless and enslave them
I think the biggest issue is that this story has been told a million times, in more compelling ways. The passionate female character and the softer, less sure, male character. Some sort of natural born difference forcing them to stay apart. but eventually, it's going to be overcome in some way. If I know exactly what's going to happen in this story, then why watch it? I also think that Pixar was kind of banking on people being impressed with their visuals here. The character design is interesting and the physics of the water, fire, etc. are nice, but audiences in this day and age see cutting-edge visuals on a daily basis, it's not enough to carry it.
There have been a lot of amazing visuals recently like Spiderverse (both the first and second) and Puss in Boots that are beautiful films with a unique style. Their contrast to a typical "animated film" is what made their visuals stand out. I know that in the technical sense Elemental is a visually great film, but its style is not distinct enough from what we usually see to use that as a compelling reason to watch the movie.
Personally I think the characters, especially the water guy look kind of ugly. I get that they’re trying new styles but I feel like they needed to make more revisions to the designs.
@@senorramen8047 Pixar films feel like they have polished their style to a mirror shine, but have stopped evolving it - it feels like management is unwilling to let artists or animators experiment on anything other than the shorts.
Yup it feels like a movie/story you have seen/read many, many times already. Boy and girl are different/come from different walks of life and somehow, they fall in love/find a way to connect with each (and here is the real inspirational part!) in spite of their differences! So, it is easy to understand the very muted response to Elemental.
Manic pixie dream girl plot for sure
"Better than Luca or Soul"
*H A R D* disagree. *HARD*
damn, this aged like milk.
Studio Ghibli is easily the match for Pixar's streak of quality in the 2000s
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts.
@@p-__saber fart from the nft cartoon
@@p-__Is this the Nutshack? Please tell me It's the Nutshack
Both are going through their rocky stage right now
I think Pixar is trying to copy them, at least visually in some areas like backgrounds and character designs. Too bad they can't replicate the quiet whimsy.
Going back to the criticism of “People have a genuine fear of fire people”, Zootopia arguably had that issue too with the POC adjacent people being the predators
I personally think Zootopia handles it a bit better, though. The prey feared the predators because of their own biases and the belief that the predators would suddenly snap and that they were inherently more dangerous, even though nothing about how the predators behaved suggested that. With this movie, a fire person could kill an earth person by just standing within an arm's length of them.
@@blueflare3848 Agree.
Also: How do they fuck?
@@blueflare3848 "Beastars" did it better. That anime made the dangers feel very organic. The predators DID have instincts they had to fight to control, but so did the prey. Their society had a veneer of civility barely covering the serious problems at its core, which had no easy answers. And the end of the anime didn't give any easy answer either. The issues remained, as in reality such issues always do. "Zootopia" had a problem which was literally manufactured: a magical drug which made preds go nuts permanently. But there's a big flaw in it: the PREY species are NEVER EXPOSED TO THE NIGHTHOWLERS THEMSELVES. Therefore, we're left to wonder if the predators DO have something inherently different about them! If we saw some prey go 'feral', perhaps Bellwether herself, then we could properly have the framing of the fallacy that 'X people are lesser than Y people because Z', because we would have been SHOWN that the prey are just as weak to this drug as the predators. But we never see that. So the predator species remain as the only ones to turn into crazy animals when hit by a Nighthowler, thus they are stuck with a stereotype!
@@Alondro77 I mean, aside from the reason Judy even knew about the Nighthowlers is because they were a known problem in the countryside that caused anyone who ate them to become feral and violent, including prey animals like rabbits. There was a whole scene about her being reminded of an incident involving exactly that happening, that caused her to realize the issue was Nighthowlers in the first place.
@@Alondro77no wait didn’t Judy’s dad say her uncle ate the flower and that made him go crazy and violent? And that was why she realized the plant was the problem? So it affects prey animals to become violent too
My issue with Elemental is how basic it is plot wise, like it’s not bad but it’s just so basic that it takes away the fun of the concept.
It’s animated very well and I love that we’re seeing their simulation technology being showcased.
For a Pixar movie it’s one of the most bare bones stories they have.
Actually, the movie made a big comeback and became a sleeper hit. You know what they say: Go woke, make $500 million.
The plot should have been just a court case where the fire people want better accommodations, but the water people don’t know what to provide and the two protagonists find ways that water and fire can mix and they find some way for water and fire to still interact without hurting each other.
Pixar was known for making realistic and immersive 3d animation and for a while that was the status quo
but things like the Lego Movie, Spider Verse, and Mitchells vs the Machines have started this trend with animation being more stylized and unique, take a look at puss in boots 2, and TMNT mutant mayhem.
what I mean to say is that back then, everyone was catching up to Pixar, but nowadays, Pixar needs to catch up to everyone else
I agree; Disney and Pixar have been using basically the same animation style for a decade or more. The visuals in a Disney or Pixar production barely even register with me anymore; they can still be pretty, but I can't remember the last one I saw where the animation actually surprised or impressed me. I'm much, MUCH more interested in unique or stylized visuals that break from the Disney and Pixar tradition
My only issue with the new stylized animation is that they all use the Spiderverse frame skip animation. It looks great but if every animated movie uses it going forward like Mutant Mayhem and The Last Wish, it’s going to take the magic out of that style because it will be overdone. I’d love to see animation be as experimental as Spiderverse was but in a unique way. A style that each studio can call their own. The Last Wish used it very nicely where they kept the low frame rate specifically in action sequences. That was a nice touch that made the action feel dynamic while the more dialogue heavy scenes were smooth.
@@sassyghost_8 Agreed, what I absolutely do NOT want is for everyone to just switch to using one new style. That's one thing I love about anime, honestly. There are so, so many diverse visual styles for people to explore. Many work for me, many don't, but that's beauty of having that variety, cuz other people will have completely different tastes than me
The thing with Pixar is that since their beginning, and I'm talking when they they were part of Lucasfilm, a really technical oriented company that always pushed the boundaries for graphics, especially considering Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs were among their founders. It just so happens that they also have plenty of talented storytellers in their company.
People are questioning how a movie like Elemental has a $200 million dollar budget when movies like Super Mario Bros. and Across the Spider-Verse look incredible, especially in the case of Spider, and were made with half the budget. In the first place, Illumination has most of their animation outsourced in France, while Sony's animation is obviously stylized. Elemental looks great on a technical and visual level, but I don't if the mainstream audience can tell the difference, just like a considerable amount of video game players don't mind a couple of bugs or performance issues. I'm sure if I show clips from Mario, Spider-Verse and Elemental to a crowd of children and ask them which looks more visually interesting, I'm sure the majority will probably choose Mario. As a kid I watched plenty of shows which had bad special effects or were poorly animated because I was more interested in the story or characters, that doesn't mean the shows were good or bad, but kids tend to gravitate to the familiar and I would say Disney/Pixar did a bad job at marketing this movie at kids
Disney and pixar do things make us Disney fans happy
I think the fire analogy works better if you see it as feeling like you destroy everything just by being there and everyone treating you as though you'll burn it all down, while at the same time other people around you and the systems in place (water train) feel extremely dangerous to you.
Do Not turn into Mr. Enter, addressing non-existent plot points in a Pixar movie, like setting 'Turning Red' in 2002. At least the risks of mixing Fire and Water are a legitimate flaw inherent in the concept of 'Elemental.'
@@optiquemusic6204 there can be metaphor in film
I think it would be more interesting if the ELEMENTS are from the periodic tables instead of the water, fire, air snd earth
And there is alot to tell when it comes because instead of "elements don't mix" but "element do mix but there is consequences"
So it would be like fusion from Steven universe or dragon ball but with periodic table and the main antagonist either be uranium or plutonium
Bit late, but also there is the flaw of some elements can’t mix for risk of danger (H2O + sodium = BOOM) but also like you said how when some mix they do mix but the results are dangerous like plutonium or uranium being radioactive
Honestly, for me it’s something about the character models. Specifically the mouths. It just sends my mind directly to the uncanny valley.
Yeah, idk if I'm old or what, but they're way ugly. I think it's the juxtaposition of hyper realistic element effects to the stylized faces
I agree, it's not really nice to look at
They feel like a knock off of Osmosis Jones! 😂
@@CSReed Oh! Good point! Nice catch.
Yeah, I don’t really like the character designs from Luca, turning red, and so on. Although even though I haven’t seen it, I think I’ll give elemental a pass because the character designs ain’t human
Like what other people said, I think this movie could've worked better as a short film.
I think it'd be quite interesting if Pixar/Disney made shorter, more well thought off stories and all included it in one hour long compilation; kinda like Fantasia but without the music.
If they could get four shorts that had some broad theme in common, that absolutely could work.
yes, it 100% could have worked better as a short film. The simple love story between two elements that can hurt each other is the only thing that made the movie good.
Yes complementary stories would be hreat, they could even intersect.
Especially with that concepts.
Or have jumping inbetween characters and their stories. Ex9loring how various people live and explore rassism
Through works way better with animals. Hell even monster.
I mean, isn't the premise is literally that short comic from years ago?
It ended with both dying but reunited as they turned into smoke from their ashes
@@snailthelostcow63 i donk kn8w that but it sounds good
I think a LOT of this could have been improved if they'd used species or people that embodied the elements, but weren't literally entirely made of them. Maybe somehow in the middle of this and benders in Avatar? Using the ways actual elements mix (or don't) as some parallel to discrimination falls reeeaaally flat in a lot of cases.
Avatar the last Airbender.
well that aged well
It's stiill not a success
@FS86961 bro out here desperately defending the hate wagon
At this point, Pixar should have a Short era or mini-movies, really test the waters and receive feedback from their audience. Sure it'd be without much risk, but it may be worth it. They save money and their reputation, and the audiences get to hype a movie
yeah I'd love to see them release a bunch of shorts on youtube or disney plus, maybe even set up some sort of campaign where ppl get to vote for a short to get developed into a full film
Maybe even an anthology movie that's just a bunch of shorts stitched together in a creative way, like with what Disney did with Fantasia or Fun and Fancy Free back in the old days.
Sadly I feel like the problem is not elemental itself, Rather the hot waters Disney dragged Pixar into. From China and asian country’s losing hope in the new mulan and avoiding the little mermaid, To their failing hotels, To even everyone dissing on turning red and strange world. Its not a positive time, The media is biased and so are the people.
It would be cool to see shorts films heck maybe it could be a way to get experimental
that'd be really cute! it seems like it'd be pretty effective too
Zootopia's allegory was flawed because of the inherent physical differences between something like a mouse and a lion, but i think they did an okay job hand-waving it as the animals not actually having natural instincts, at no point does Judy seem like she'd be unsafe talking to Nick because Nick very clearly doesn't have any instinct or urge to hunt.
But i guess someone saw that criticism and said "hold my beer" because you can't even hand-wave this set-up
Yeah, like, predators and prey were super nervous around each other because of the history those types of animals had with each other
In elemental you can’t really get rid of that stigma because, yeah, if a fire person and a water person were too close, the fire person could easily die on accident. There’s no fixing that whatsoever, really
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts
@@Apple-Pie- Worse yet, high enough temperatures can evaporate water and Ember has been shown melting steel fences in barely a second. We’re talking what should be a *mutual kill.*
I think these kind of stories with non human beings work better if you don’t make it a direct allegory. It’s better to view it as how it would function in its own world instead of trying to make direct comparisons with real life.
@@ShadowPirateX oh my god I just realized how easy it would be to be a murderer in their world, with no trace of them being left
Do they have proper DNA? How different are they from each other
3 weeks later, Elemental has a worldwide box office which is a few million dollars higher than the budget. When you take into account the marketing budget, it's probably lost money.
it's well over $100m over the budget, and the movie has yet to debut in Japan. In the end is going to gross around $400m, and THEN to promote the Disney+ Platform.
Kind of surprised to hear that Fire Land is supposed to be Korea, I thought it seemed like Morocco. Anyway, I personally loved the film, might be my new favorite. The visuals were really creative, they really worked in a lot of sight gags and worldbuilding with the elements and the fact they made a film with this premise at all is an impressive feat given how notoriously difficult water and fire are to animate. It was rather emotionally intelligent, the main plot that is Ember was unhappy with the direction her life was taking in ways she couldn't admit to herself and needed Wade's alternate approach to life to help her realize and have the courage to do anything about it, and realizing it was realistically not at all a linear progression. The main conflict of the movie broke formula in an interesting way- it was never actually resolved, the worst case scenario happened and everyone just kind of... moved on with their lives in spite of it because that isn't what the movie was really about, it was just a catalyst to get the plot moving. The film was actually grounded in its message despite the fantastical setting. The romantic chemistry and progression are very competently done, better than I've seen in most movies that are more explicitly supposed to be romances.
Also, Wade's actions towards the end of the film raise an interesting and bold sociological question. The nature of respecting boundaries is a major recurring sociological talking point, and the modern era's ability to enforce those boundaries through blocking contacts and such is a major double-edged sword in a way modern society doesn't give enough credit to. Is there such thing as boundaries that _shouldn't_ be respected, that are justified if not _right_ to cross? That's a bold question to even ask in the modern era, and this film has the balls to address it. Also, the movie had a clever trope break where the interruption of the big event by the love interest _wasn't_ a declaration of love, it was encouragement for Ember to veer off from the direction she didn't want to go, not for his sake but for her own and not in a "better with me" kind of way like a lesser film would be.
Im not reading this man😅
That's a cool take.
@@GoldenboyCivil basicly this movie was better than most romance oritated story and it address boundires with people and how they broke the trope of interrupting a important event just to say "I love you". also that this was a good movie :), their is more but just read it to get the full just of it as it is a well ariculated comment on elemental.
Filmmakers today, especially Pixar, need to start understanding that even if you aren't trying to make a franchise, worldbuilding may still be a key aspect of your work. With proper worldbuilding, people will care more about your unique setting and, in turn, the stories of its inhabitants.
That makes the Zootopia comparisons more apt. They didn't have a franchise in mind when making it, but wow what an elaborate and cohesive world they had.
@@benjaminrobinson3842 hell, even the mini series was great
this is true, the overall concept wasn't too bad, it just seemed like the world it was taking place in was lacking
I think that what makes a lot of Pixar's earlier works so compelling isn't just that they're about non-human characters with human emotions, but that they're about non-human characters with human emotions AND non-human problems, but told in very human ways. A lot of earlier Pixar movies ask, "What's a problem that [x thing] would have? How do we tell a story about that but still have it emotionally resonate with audiences?", whereas a movie like Elemental asks, "What if immigrant experience but with fire and water?" The latter is a lot less interesting.
I liked the movie, I loved the character designs and everything (I agree that the world really wasn't mixed elemental friendly, like THEY KNEW there is a leak with water going into fire town and they didn't look really hard into fixing it). However the "romance" felt too quick (kinda wrong too, and I don't mean because it was water/fire. They pretty much instantly fell for each other and I felt like this was Embers first real interaction with someone her age like that. I did not like Wade being all "no but I gotta show you something" and him just showing up at the end and declaring in front of everyone how they "touched" and everything. (also, Wade literally said "I really like it when your light does this" at the two instances where her light was pretty, BUT WHEN SHE WAS SO DISTRESSED. I duno... Wade is this rich boy who got her out of this "this isn't what you want to do" and I have mixed feelings about that. stunning visuals tho' and some really good jokes!
This aged like milk 😂
I think the “*blank* but with emotions” sentiment works more here because the elements are just people. In Nemo the fish have emotions but they’re still fish. In A Bugs Life the bugs have emotions but they’re still bugs. In Elemental the elements are just people with some extra qualities that keep them from mixing.
Kinda feel more like kid trying to explain to you Avatar (the good one) and Zootopia but know both from someone telling them and also mixing them together.
Personally I don't care if the plot is generic as long as it's wholesome, has true meaning to the story then it's great for me. I heard that it's doing good in the box office lately.🤷
And now Elemental has had a strong box office comeback.
I think it's important not to overlook that this is a social drama with a heavy focus on romance which probably doesn't have a lot of instant appeal to a younger audience, but has a setting that's a little too carefree and whimsical for an older audience. I kept trying to figure out who they were trying to market to when I would watch the trailer and I just couldn't pinpoint a time in my life when I would have been excited over this movie.
Villains that are evil for the sake of being evil need to be brought back. Having a villainless movie hits closer to home with a lot of people (gasp what if [family member] or you were the villain the whole time and how do you fix that), but you can only beat that horse for so long before interest wanes. In my opinion, villains appeal to a lot more people because they provoke strong emotion. Think Death from PiB, how he was a red herring for the real villain, Jack Horner. Not everything has to hit close to home, sometimes movies can just be over-the-top action, impossible high fantasy, etc.
Idk but they marketed really damn well for me because I’m nearly an adult but I felt really attracted to the setting even before I knew there was romance. And the romance just absolutely made it all the much better for me because Pixar doesn’t do that often
@@aireyverseThat’s exactly how I felt! People are harping too much on this movie(is that the way of saying it?), I think it’s just a cute, simple film!
@@aireyverseI was in the same mindset. I guess the core audience is young adults who grew up loving animation and Pixar lol. Movie was so good ❤️
A point that wasn’t brought up regarding Pixar’s recent box office performance is these movies’ target audience is children and movie tickets and refreshments are _expensive._ A lot of families would rather wait a few months and get the dvd for $15 than spend $80+ for a family of five.
Polls have shown that most families expect the movie to be on Disney+
Management recognizes the problem
@@Raya-ir4tmwell that movie is also marketed to older teens/adults who like Spiderman, he's been a timeless character but this is something that doesn't have a history to it unlike spiderman
as a mom of 3 kids this is completely true. we really only go to the movies when we have gift cards because for my family of 5 it can very easily approach $100 dollars. it’s just way too expensive anymore. we pay for disney+ so we’ll just wait until it gets put onto that to watch this one. 🤷🏻♀️
@@zelduhhhhhthat why 4 person per family is ideal one
two child is more than ideal enough, more lucky if you've 1 boy 1 girl ratio
Yea, the farm days are over. There is no need to have 7 kids as a retirement plan anymore. I can't stand the families that still do this.
Weird take but personally I was more interested in the movie when they only showed the very first teaser with all the different elements on the train.
When the actual trailers came out and I heard all the element related puns and lines like "Elements don't mix" or "Why does anyone get to tell you what you can do in your life" my interest deflated.
I was initially hoping Elemental would be a very quiet personal story about 2 polar oppisite Characters trying to figure out if a relationship could even work and figuring out creative ways to maybe pull it of in the end (think similar vibes to the first half of wall-e when he and eve first met and how that relationship played out)
But from what the trailer showed I was convinced I wouldn't get that in elemental. And that it would be yet another Disney movie about the parents wanting something for the child but the child wanting to do their own thing then hijinks ensue but in the end they come to a resolution. Which I'm just not very interested in. And because of that I haven't watched it.
That’s…that’s kinda of exactly what happens…
I mean, of course they have the parents being like “elements can’t mix,” but I think it’s honestly just her parents. And that’s hardly the main part of the movie! It’s a mix of both Ember figuring out herself and Ember and Wade seeing if their relationship could work.
You can’t judge something you haven’t watched *shrug*
I think I should probably elaborate. I'm not judging whether the film itself is bad or good. Like you said "don't judge what you haven't seen". Honestly the movie might be really good, I wouldn't know since I haven't seen it and I try reserve judgement on things until I can speek from experience.
My Issue is moreso that the marketing for the movie didn't do a good job in convincing me that what I thought was interesting about the premisse would actually be explored in depth.
After the first teaser I thought the movie would mostly be just the 2 of them with barely anyone else getting much screen time and them trying to figure out if a relationship could physically work out without one of them just ... you know dying?
I was hoping for a more quiet and reserved atmosphere with a lot of heart and the comedy coming from weird attempts to try and make physical interactions work. Something similar in tone to the romance between Wall-e and EVE like I mentioned before.
But then the trailers were loud, had a lot of bad element puns that put me off and were pushing the family interactions to the point the I was under the impression "generational difference in values" would take precedence over the romance. Sooo I kinda just lost interest.
Even though I love going to see a movie on the big screen it's also always a pretty big hassle for me. Meaning unless something REALLY catches my attention I'm probably not gonna see it. So my judgement is reserved for the marketing and the fact that said marketing didn't do a good job in convincing me to go see it in theaters.
@@theavatarofinsanity OOOH Yes okay, I get what you mean. That is pretty reasonable. And honestly, I’d probably watch it after it’s out of theaters on your own time, and if it’s cheaper. It is still a cute movie imo!
@@bluejaysymphony8374 I probably will at some point 🙂
ELEMENTAL BOX OFFICE
1st wknd: 44M
2nd wknd: 121M (+77M)
3rd wknd: 186M (+65M)
4th wknd: 251M (+65M)
5th wknd: 311M (+60M)
6th wknd: 356M (+45M)
7th wknd: 395M (+39M)
8th wknd: 423M (+28M)
9th wknd: 443M (+20M)
10th wknd: 458M (+15M)
11th wknd: 468M (+11M)
12th wknd: 475M+
WORLDWIDE FINISH: 480M-510M
The race allegory really doesn't work in this because fundamentally these elements are different on a molecular level. In Elemental, a fire person could literally be extinguished if they so much as *hugged* a water elemental. There is no possible coexistence due to how volatile the elements react with each other. The world building feels very surface level. And it creates these really weird situations when it comes to stigma between elements. Cause I swear I remember terms like "fireball" and "cloudpuff" being thrown around and like...are those supposed to be *racial slurs?* And the racism isn't even really consistent cause like for example the dad's biases against water people just get thrown out out of nowhere. Like, poof, his racism is now gone cause reasons.
If the movie was more focused on like, the privilege the water people have in comparison to the other elements, maybe it could work a little better. As water is an incredibly prevalent element, it could be said that they built the city and their transit around them with little care about how they affect the other elements biomes. They're "shallow" so to speak. Then people like fire elementals would have completely recognizable grievances as they are living in a world that is systemically built not to accommodate them and could actively bring them harm. And the other elements both are benefited and harmed by their structuring as well.
And it's not like there aren't plenty of ways to show conflict between the regions of elemental beings. Like earth people not wanting fire people near their dry grass plains or forests cause of fire damage. Or Air people not wanting fire or earth to mess with their air purity with smoke and pollen. You get the idea. Then while the racism still wouldn't be perfect, it would make more sense to why everyone is tense when others get into their zones, and why everyone is so divided. Idk those are my thoughts on it at least.
Yeah this would work a lot better
My farts are better than Saberspark’s farts
I don't know if you saw the movie, but this part "In Elemental, a fire person could literally be extinguished if they so much as hugged a water elemental," This is not true. They show in the movie that they actually CAN touch and hug and do all that stuff and they're completely fine, and it was just them thinking that they can't. The allegory still is very touch and go, but I wanted to correct that part.
The issue is that racism parallels in fiction are pretty nonsensical when you introduce actual powers into the mix.
For example in Marvel people should logivally fear mutants, not because their just different but because some could literally recreate hiroshima with their mind or be born with psychic powers capable of sending multiple humans into cardiac arrest at a moments notice. A black, asian, white, or latino can't do anything like that irl.
Or when medieval fantasy series use orcs or elves against humans despite the fact that elves will actively outlive humans by centuries and that orcs are all "blood for the blood gods" in some series.
This is why Legend of Korra dropped the ball so hard in it's first season because the writers fluked on the issue of non benders being oppressed by benders because it turns out that yes an earthbender would be worth hundreds of construction workers and could sink buildings if they've been having a bad day and suddenly lash out.
And yet the entire movement just derails and died when Amon is revealed to be a bender.
Tldr "Wow you mean to tell me the character/species with powers that are almost tailor made to be good at killing or maiming people is looked down upon?" Imagine my shock!
Could not have said it better myself.
I think Elemental flopped for primarily for 2 reasons:
1. The underlying themes and plot of social/racial divisions being worked through and bridged via a romantic relationship is well tread ground in and of itself it just isn't novel. Its not repellent by any means it just doesn't make one go "Ooo interesting" so much as "Oh they're doing that again, okay."
2. The gimmick of these Elemental beings and the world they inhabit just isn't intuitive in a way that immediately makes you start imagining the possibilities and how they can play with them instead kind of leaves with a directionless blank slate beyond fire people can burn plant people, water people can put out fire people.
Between those to things I think people kind of shrugged the film off.
There are also another two factors:
1.- Super Mario Bros
2.- Spider-Verse
Also I think the characters just look... off. Idk if I'm alone in this but I find them creepy-looking.
I think a part of it too is just while elements are universal themes, its a super abstract thing to anthropomorphise.
@@pepepecaspicapapas4726and rise of the beasts.
I think the premise is repellent. Race analogies are a dime a dozen. No interest in watching more
Who else is here after elemental just crossed 300 million.
363m, and yet to debut in Japan, where it will easily gross further 40m.
Me: *looks at Box Office mojo and sees that Elemental is VERY close to breaking $400 million* Wanna rethink that…?
That's not the break even point. It needs 500 million
@@SOKT8keep coping lmao I love seeing how many you have replied to, insecurity at its finest.
It's really sad, because Elemental was pursuing a unique animation style (and from what I heard, it was extremely expensive to animate the characters)
I think the problem with Pixar is that they are pushing too hard on the technical part, it once work decades ago which helped in the success of Toy Story and Avatar, but in 2023, these kind of technology isn't uncommon now, they are pushing too hard on that one aspect, that caused them spending a lot of money, while (on my opinion) didn't put enough of effort on the story itself and the logic problems of their world building, and even worse, Elemental was released in the same period of Spiderverse, that (on my opinion) while also working hard on the technical part, but manage to write a better story and plus, giving a unique visual to appreciate (like, how much art style can we find from that ONE movie itself)
@@ziyuan1989this movie was hard to make pls cut them some slack
@@rosies69 I appreciate the work of the animators, just that I hope they can improve from the writting aspect a bit more
The animation style looks nice, but the story seems extremely boring. Uninspired. Predictable. You ALREADY know how the conflict in the story will go down just by the fact that the main characters are clashing elements. It's somehow reminiscent of Zootopia, but less firm in terms of its worldbuilding and it looks like it has a similar rewatchability value as Trolls.
P.S: unrelated, but Soul (2020) didn't get the attention it deserved.
Art is a vessel for the story. The art can be amazing but if the story is flat. The only appeal is the visuals. That's gonna be a tough watch.
Another thing that irks me with exploring bigotry in films like these is.... we as humans, there is literally nothing different to an extent biologically that would give us a good reason to hate one another, just like you said, we are assholes. but fire, we can pull up a bunch of excuses to put fire in their own corner.
However, a lot of the bigotry in the world is based on fear. Those other guys are just more violent, underhanded, sneaky and/or manipulative... While the logic and reason for the fear is bad and fake. The actual Fear people have is real. People who are afraid often do/say things that in turn make others afraid of them this perhaps doing things that validate their fears. For the most part the fire people in this world are actually more volnerable than destructive. However their destructive aspects are highlighted.
@@toddfraser3353yeah but Asian people don’t burn things or black people wouldn’t kill someone by hugging
@@toddfraser3353although then again movie spoilers
There’s still time to delete this
This video aged like milk
@@joehuman4 Fr
They have actually made somehow nearly 400 million.