Animation brings impossible, fantastical worlds to life in a way that live-action just can’t replicate. Pixar is particularly masterful at creating how these worlds look and function, be it the monster society Monsters, Inc. or the inside of a 13-year-old’s mind Inside out. But there’s a delicate balance to keeping a world rooted in reality while incorporating more fantastical elements – and Elementarythe latest movie from Pixar, steps over that line.
It’s not the studio’s first film to do this. There’s another Pixar movie with mind-boggling world-building that distracts from the very heart of the story, to the point where the big questions about how everything works are all people talk about years later. Elementary is the new cars.
[Ed. note: This post contains minor spoilers for Elemental.]
Image: Pixar
The core of Elementary is about cross-cultural relationships and the pressures of being a second-generation immigrant who meets parental expectations while trying to figure out what you actually want out of life. The characters and their relationships are vivid and fully fleshed out. visual, Elementary is included Inside out in how damn cool it looks. But every tender, heartfelt moment in Elementary immediately raises a million world-shaping questions. While fantasy films certainly don’t need to address every wrinkle in their surroundings, there comes a point where the cool aesthetic and wacky elements erode a story’s core.
cars actually does this slightly better than Elementary, if only because the story itself is not very deep. What costs cars in the long run is that it has seemingly set in us world. It just happens to be a version of our world populated by cars for some reason, so it has a car popeunexplained baby cars, and car dinosaurs. One is also possible car version of the Second World War. These details, seemingly designed to root the world in something familiar, only make the whole story weirder if you think about it too long.
Elementary has the luxury of being in a fantasy world that doesn’t conflict with humanity’s automotive achievements, so it’s not beholden to internet theories about whether certain historical events happened in the real world. But there are still a lot of big questions undermining the movie’s emotional beats.
Image: Pixar
The most frustrating one revolves around the romance between firefighter Ember and water man Wade. The story hammers home the fact that elements don’t go together, especially in relationships. Ember struggles to get around Element City without getting splashed with water (which extinguishes part of her flame and could potentially be fatal), or accidentally set people or their belongings on fire. When Ember and Wade connect, it is established very early on that they cannot touch each other. Wade could extinguish Ember, or Ember could vaporize Wade.
But she’s been seen holding a paper brochure—which she later casually burns with her hands when she no longer needs it—and regularly tackles cardboard boxes without setting them on fire. The big emotional moment when she and Wade Doing holding hands is moving and touching…but she’s touched so many other things up to that point with no problem that it all feels a bit empty towards the end.
Image: Pixar
Ember and Wade’s physical interaction is the most crucial example of the kind of contradictions that abound in the film. Are the Earth people (which usually grow trees or bushes) offended that the Fire people regularly eat wood? The people of Water and Air can essentially scatter their parts and reappear, but why doesn’t it work that way for the people of Fire and Earth? Why are inter-elemental relationships so taboo when it seems that air, earth and water go together just fine? Why would Ember’s parents leave Fireland after one bad storm to go to an even more hostile city that revolves around water? I hate poking holes in a fun, goofy setting, but when the film’s emotional foundation centers on some of these inconsistencies, the story’s curious and inviting world-building actually puts a damper on what could be a very exciting film. are.
As a resident of Polygon cars apologist, I want to acknowledge that none of this is necessarily a bad thing. Over time, perhaps these world-shaping questions will turn into fun quirks about the movie, just like all the silly questions about cars have now become an essential part of the viewing experience. The best part of any new Cars story is figuring out what weird world-building element will be added to the canon next. Elementaryhowever, may take more time to get to that level of “Sure, why the hell not?” It’s a deeper, more nuanced story than the Cars franchise ever was, so the flaws in logic burn harder.
Elementary is in theaters now.