Pixar: Soul

Streaming today on Disney Plus.

I think I need to watch it again, but first impressions are good. They really nailed NYC visually.

 

We will catch it later tonight.

 

As a jazz fanatic and Pixar fan, I'm looking forward this. I was born in NY and consider it home, so I'll appreciate the visuals. It has the same director as Up, which had a brilliant opening but the rest didn't resonate with me. Hope this one will hit the mark. I'll weigh in more substantively after I see it.

 

The soundtrack is pretty good, a mix of Jon Batiste and Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross. Looking forward to seeing the movie eventually.

 

I really wanted to see this in the theater.

 

The Reznor thing didn't make any sense to me when I first heard about it, but after seeing the film I get it. Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones (among others) were consultants.

 

We are really looking forward to this! Going to watch it later this afternoon.
dan c

 

I watched it, and you can't help but conclude it's great. I felt a bit shortchanged on the jazz performance, but I don't think it will give much away by saying that was really meant as an anti-climax and the real a-ha moment comes later. I just would have liked the love of jazz to be paid off more fully by focusing on the music, but I suppose that would miss the message of the film that life itself speaks to purpose. Thus the emphasis on the Reznor/Ross score.

 

Vickie and I just watched it, heartsick that we were cheated out of the opportunity to see it in a movie theater, preferably one of AMC's Dolby Cinema auditoriums. We have a decent enough projector, watching it in a pitch black room, but this film looks like it was designed for an extended dynamic range and a huge screen.

We also saw credits for a "stereo consultant," and even though I can't see 3D (I can see out of both eyes but I can't resolve forced stereo) Vickie would have gone to have seen it in 3D and enjoyed it. Animated films can be in genuine 3D all the way through.

It was a very moving film and I'm so glad that the trailer didn't spoil it, really only concentrating on the very beginning of the story.

 

I watched it tonight with my wife. We both really like it. Maybe a little deep for a Christmas night movie but it was good.

 

It was stunning, highly entertaining, incredibly deep and quite moving. Pete Doctor may be among the deepest thinking animators in history.

I agree about the disappointment of not seeing it first in a quality theater. Even in a darkened room with a fine OLED screen and good surround system, nothing quite compares to the immersive theater experience.

dan c

 

did post this previously on another thread-
Soul-Disney+. well done Pixar film with a lot going for it but I was left disappointed by the ending. also, some of the "characters" drawn in the film left me wanting as they looked so much more simplistic than others in the film and in other Pixar films. the sequences where the main character was shown in his life are gorgeous. nice jazz score and good voice work but could have been so much more.

 

We watched it Christmas evening, and my question is who is the target audience for this? This was all over the place. It had good moments but I would not give it more than an average rating. The last act wasn't needed at all; it could have been left out altogether. It reminded us of Return Of The King a little in that regard. Technically fantastic, as someone already mentioned the street scenes were very real-life looking. I'm not a Disney and/or Pixar guy so don't let me talk you out of watching it, but this was nothing special. Jon Batiste is a hell of a piano player though and seeing names like Roy Haynes in the credits is a very nice thing, so I'm glad this movie got made.

 

It's a crying shame that Pixar's first film with a Black lead character, family and community basically got "dumped to home video." I'm not Black, but I can appreciate the value of "seeing somebody like me" in the same way that Black Panther did.

One of the things I loved about this film is that he was a dedicated teacher, living to transfer his love of music to students and be inspired to greatness. (It's the complete opposite of that awful film Whiplash, which was a vicious slander against music education.)

 

Hmm, a couple problems with this. One of the reasons I liked the film so much is that it showed the soul has no color. Each soul, including Joe's, was depicted as pale blue or bluish white in the film. I rather liked this because the visuals showed just how irrelevant and superficial skin color is in the grand scheme of things like personality and character.

Your point is well taken but you project what "seeing somebody like me" could mean to black people. I don't think you should be making assumptions about that. Some may be ticked off at the elements of Joe that play into stereotypes. What I mean is that it's about the individual and despite all the press about Black Panther, it was not a defining moment or achievement in racial equality or anything like that.

The other problem with your interpretation is that Joe hated his teaching gig. He didn't see it as his purpose. He wasn't dedicated to it at all, and was ready to leave it. You got the sense that he was only doing it to please his mom--didn't you catch that? So, no, he was not at all a dedicated music teacher. He did it because he felt he had failed in what he really wanted to do. Yes, there is a nobility in that, but it didn't come across as you say.

 

Granted, but the souls that were going to "the great beyond" retained some elements of how they were when they died (presumably Joe was doomed to an afterlife of needing glasses, which is a bit disappointing.)

When Chadwick Boseman died, one of the most moving things was seeing all of the Black kids who finally had a superhero who looked like them, and lost him.

I had a Twitter exchange with a woman I follow, a movie reviewer who's also a devout Muslim, who was delighted at the street scenes of New York City, Tweeting out a screenshot when she saw a woman in a hajib.



It matters.

I saw that, but I also saw Joe being completely delighted with the girl playing trombone with real skill and fire. Part of the film was about how your spark isn't necessarily your purpose. And despite resisting being a teacher, he wound up teaching 22.

 

After you've seen the film you should go and watch Inside Pixar, it will shed some light on the creative process.

Having lived in and around NYC for over 25 years I was really impressed with how well the city is represented. The Village Vanguard being renamed as the Half Note was cool. They really got the look of the facade and some of the inside, it's much smaller and more triangular in real life. They also added a small lit marquee. I wish they had immortalized Lorraine Gordon though, that would've been awesome. I mean Pizza Rat had a cameo, why not Lorraine?!

 

Part of the message of the film is that this kind of thing is less than skin deep. Of all the things to think is noteworthy in this great movie--profound things--it saddens me that this self-serving identity game would be important to some.

Isn't that sort of the opposite of what a good teacher should do these days, when teachers are supposed to focus on the kids who need the most help rather than the gifted ones? It was easy to see the talent in the trombone player. The other kids needed a teacher to identify in them something to drive their inspiration.

Spoiler

Regarding spark vs purpose, I thought the message is that life itself is the purpose. I would say LIFE taught 22. Joe's attempts to take credit for 22 getting a taste for life were not convincing, and wasn't what earned him another chance at life. Rather, his selfless gifting of the Earth pass to 22 earned him another shot. His final realization was that enjoying life is the purpose.

 

It’s not like Disney/Pixar had much of a choice. WW84 also ended up on video streaming on the same day due to the current pandemic. Disney wanted to release it in cinemas like many other movie studios wanted to release their films. It’s a good movie and probably would have done well if it had gotten a regular release. Sadly, the current situation is what it is.

 

Just finished watching this! Incredibly moving and beautifully done. My Girlfriend and i loved it!

 

For some reason, I thought this was simply a short, since first hearing of it. Now that I know it's a full movie, I wish it could have waited for a theatrical release. Guess I'll wait for the Blu-ray.

 

Spectacular. A perfect antidote to WW84. Looking forward to a second viewing.

JohnK

 

Beautiful Reznor/Ross score under the closing credits.

 

The teaser trailer released last year features the song "Parting Ways" by Cody ChesnuTT. It also adds later dialogue into earlier scenes...

 

I thought their score worked well under the non NYC parts of the film.