Soul (Pete Docter, 12/25/2020 on Disney+) • Page 8

I’m in the same boat. I’ve watched the beginning of it a few times and it never hooked me in

 

coco a top five Pixar movie

I will not debate this

 

are you open for debates as to if "top five" is an understatement?

because honestly, if I had to pick a favorite... I think I have to go with Coco. It just does everything right.

 

Watched Ratatouille for the first time just recently and it was.... fine

 

I've never seen Ratatouille and have never felt compelled to other than me liking Patton Oswalt. I probably will eventually, though

 

it’s my number one but just for this talk I’ll let it be top 5 to others also.

 

Re watched Coco last night, and yeah it’s a triumph. It’s equally positive message, and yet absolutely devastating emotional moments are so good.

 

Coco and Inside Out are god tier Pixar and i won’t stand for any slander.

 

ratatouille is okay

 

It’s pretty ironic everyone is watching a movie called soul when it clearly shows they have no soul when they don’t put coco as a top 5 Pixar movie.

(this is a joke give me all the approval to fuel my ego)

 

I really loved this. Probably my favorite Pixar since TS3 ‍♂️

 

Ratatouille is the one that makes me tear up every time now

 

I will not stand for this Ratatouille slander. Honestly probably my favorite Pixar film though I will admit I haven't watched it in years.

 

At what part...?

 

I really enjoyed this. Not enough talk about how great the music was!

 

I finally sat down to watch this today. This was an absolutely gorgeous film - like it was mind blowing to me as I watched it sitting 5 feet from Toy Story on VHS sitting up on my shelf to think how far these types of movies have come. I did have some "issues" with the messaging the of the movie though.

The first half of the movie kind of poses the debate between choosing to follow your passion vs. taking the "responsible" route, which is emphasized by Joe not being excited about getting the full time teaching gig and the conversations he has with his mother. Rather than exploring how that can truly be a challenge, especially for those in the arts, the movie sort of hits us with a curveball of "enjoy life as it is", which feels a little unearned. Joe clearly enjoyed things in life - he's the one who pointed out how great pizza was to 22 for example. Even his "flashbacks" show that he had great, enjoyable moments throughout his life.

I think perhaps if we got a story where Joe was on his way to become a lost soul because of a focus on only finding happiness in one thing (becoming a professional jazz musician) that was growing stronger as he aged and his fear of not achieving his goal was growing, that would have maybe made the final message of the film hit a little harder for me. Otherwise, I kind of thought the theme here was a little off considering that in many cases to be successful in any given field, a person does have to sacrifice quite a bit to reach their goals and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think the movie could've benefited from trying to emphasize the balance of having a big goal while still taking time to smell the roses, so to speak, rather than to just be content with whatever life gives you.

I might be overthinking it or nitpicking a bit but just wanted to throw that out there. Keep in mind, I also posted on the site that I enjoyed WW84 so I should probably go schedule a CAT scan since apparently my opinions are 180 degrees off of everyone else's and there's probably something going on in my head haha.

EDIT: I apologize for the giant block of black - just didn't want to spoil specific points of the movie so soon after release.

 

Holy fuck this was gorgeous. The lighting in this CGI movie was insane. Absolutely loved it.

 

I fucking loved this movie but I think these are totally valid points

 

Agreed, @Alba makes some great points. I feel like that makes it a little harder to work in the death factor since the “lost soul” and “great beyond” worlds seem to be entirely separate things, but maybe that just goes to show how scattered this actually was

 

I was thinking about this movie more this morning and realized it’s sort of just an animated version of Mr Hollands Opus.

 

gonna do this over the weekend

 

Well said. I definitely felt this way to a certain extent. I was a little confused with the "spark" thing and what the overall takeaway was supposed to be there. "Balance" of living in the moment vs. being consumed with something that drives/motivates you, as you mentioned, would have been a clearer message, but that didn't seem to be completely what they were going for.

One example is the whole "state of flow/lost soul" thing. At first, it's treated as a good thing and he impresses the band by vibing out and getting in the zone (thanks to his passion and dedication), but then it's flipped and painted as a bad thing because he's not really connecting to his surroundings or the people around him. So....I didn't really know what to think of that.

I loved the movie, but the messages were almost a little confusing at times, like they were trying to do too much. As a lifelong musician, I felt like it was trying to tell me not to care too much about my passion or to make too many sacrifices... which I do not think was their intention at all.

 

Yeah it almost seemed to say "settle for your mediocre life because if you put effort towards something you have a passion for, you'll be unhappy" and I'm not sure how I feel about that lol

 

I definitely got more of a “don’t become so lost in one singular goal that you forget to register your existence outside of achieving it” kinda vibe

 

Yeah, I think that's the main takeaway they want you to leave with, but I just don't know if they really nailed the execution of the message there. I don't know. I'm nitpicking, but that idea gets awfully close to suggesting that your dreams and passions aren't really that important in the grand scheme of things which is...a weird idea to try to convey positively, I guess.