Elio

[Farerb]

Inside ‘Elio’s’ “Catastrophic” Path: America Ferrera’s Exit, Director Change and Erasure of Queer Themes
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 236301860/

[PatchofBlue]

I get mixed feelings reading all that.

This wasn't a bad product in the vein of "Snow White" or even "Wish." The movie just got a bad lot, and so there's no real catharsis or revelation to airing all its dirty laundry.

The part about the story "being about nothing" after the queer subtext was scrubbed ... I don't know. One of my notes was about the link between "boy=sad because his parents died" and "boy=sad enough to want to be abducted by aliens" feeling a little tenuous. So maybe there's something there.

But I also don't think that these things always follow a logical chain in real life. I can believe that losing your home would create all sorts of feelings of being displaced and lost. I guess that could have made more sense if Elio was actually coming to terms with being gay, but I maintain that the movie still makes sense without it. The movie wasn't missing anything structurally critical without that specific material.

Would the film have been a success if Adrian had told his story? That sounds more like wishful thinking. (And a little like tagline-speak.) The question of queer representation within Pixar sort of has its own island in my mind separate from the issues that are much more directly affecting Pixar's theatrical struggles. Both Disney/Pixar and journalists have their magnifying glass over the wrong leaf.

Anyways, Disney's 90s films were aggressively queer coded, and that was their financial high point. Try again.

[BloomHunter]

Anyways, Disney's 90s films were aggressively queer coded, and that was their financial high point. Try again.

Very true indeed.
They can still have that in this decade, they just haft to get their act together and not make it the focal point in the marketing & social media articles. Since this only feeds on the grifters & bigots. Just market the movie with it's Disney whimsical tone and then when people go watch it, let them figure it out themselves and not prejudge the movie in advance. I really don't see why this is so hard for them to accomplish. A good way to try not have your movie banned in some countries. Also a good way to not make a group of minority look bad, like they did with that Beauty & The Beast from 2017.

[carolinakid]

Could someone kindly explain to me how Disney’s ‘90s films were aggressively queer-coded or direct me as to how I could read about it?
I’ve never seen references to that and I’m pretty up on subtle queer content and subtext in popular culture (or so I thought).
Thanks!

[Sotiris]

Pixar fires back at fans, critics on social media after ‘Elio’ flops
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainme ... 401094.php

[Disney's Divinity]

Elio looks like it might be so-so, I don't really plan to see it until streaming. Didn't care for Elemental or Lightyear. Knew this would fail because of the sci-fi, so I'm happy the WDAS film that felt like an imitation of this was scrapped.

Love Domee Shi, so I'd like to think Hoppers won't be terrible and Gatto looks like it could be good, but I don't see either being a big hit. Gatto could be a hit if it was in a string of other hits, I just don't think it looks like the kind of thing even in the best case scenario being big enough to launch them to hit status again by itself. I still think they'd be better off folding PIXAR into WDAS at this point and keeping them as a department to work on the sequels to PIXAR IP, since WDAS has the longer history. TBH, I think that's why a lot of anti-WDAS commentary randomly started to spring up here, I think there must be PIXAR employees who don't like that idea at all. But I think they'd let employees crossover into WDAS for original projects, but it's not like even WDAS will be making that much original product the next half decade either anyway. They're relying on sequels while the studio(s) build themselves back up.

[PatchofBlue]

The Music of Elio with Composer Rob Simonsen
https://youtu.be/XOuV9vByy_w?si=hsqbs9yh8s7-gHIm

Could someone kindly explain to me how Disney’s ‘90s films were aggressively queer-coded or direct me as to how I could read about it?
I’ve never seen references to that and I’m pretty up on subtle queer content and subtext in popular culture (or so I thought).
Thanks!

You're familiar with the Howard Ashman situation, yes?

[The Disneynerd]

Yeah Ashman really had many lyrics and pitched themes that can be interpreted as queer, but theres also strong queercoding through the 90s Sidekicks and the Deja Villains who are giving drag (Scar, Ursula, Jafar, and then theres Gaston being an insecure closeted bottom (Gastons backstory being that when he was a boy he told his father that he is in love with a guy, which made his father despise and punish him for being different and telling him no one would ever love a guy with such an unusual outragous mentality, leading to his exile by his family and Gastons growing hatred torwards people and creatures deemed as odd and different, while years later starting a new life in a provincial town presenting himself as extremely masculine to avoid suspicion while acting as the perfect guy that could get any girl except Belle, with her rejection threatening his fragile masculinity and his anger only growing when he realizes she loved a literal Beast which confirmed that unusual love was always an option for him...omg we could make this into a beautiful prequel Disney hire me uwu)
The vague queerness worked perfectly in the 90s movies as it wasnt too in your face and always an act of interpreation.

Pixar fires back at fans, critics on social media after ‘Elio’ flops
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainme ... 401094.php

Just because People want Original IPs doesnt automatically mean that they have to support every Original movie, especially the ones that look too bland and like a nothing Burger. Based on the Footage, Elio looked slightly interesting enough for me, but didnt motivate me enough to go watch it in theatres, especially as all cinemas here show it on really small screens (thanks to Stitch, Dragons and M.I of course). I can definetly wait a few months to watch it on D+. Another thing they did wrong with Elio was the stupid bean mouth Design (which came 10 years too late btw) which they were doing for TV Shows like Gravity Falls or SvtfoE, which i liked for its uniqueness back then but overdoing that simple art style, especially for theatrical releases back to back since Luca looks really lazy.
The Gatto one looks extremely charming tho so far and something that seems like in the veins of Up or Ratatouille story-wise that just SCREAMS Pixar.

I think unfortunately Streaming is the new "start up" for big upcoming IPs, just look at Encanto, Moana, Spiderverse and the new Kpop Demon Hunters. They grow a HUGE streaming audience and therefore just builds hype and anticipatation for sequels that are guranteed successes for theatrical releases (thats why Moana2 was so huge and Frozen 3 might be even doing 2 Billion$ with its growing streaming audience from the past 6 years). I doubt that Kpop would have been as big if it has been released theatrically (as it looked really silly based on the title alone) but not having to buy a Ticket it was easy to convince myself to watch it and while its flawed, i do really appreciate that movie with its unique concepts, something that seems to be missing in Elio and basically every other Disney release The past few years. Everyones talking about it online, but i doubt that will be the case for Elio when it hits streaming...

[carolinakid]

Thank you, Disneynerd.
I knew about Scar and Ursula. I guess I thought “queer coding” of the ‘90s films meant more than that.
Thanks again!

[PatchofBlue]

I'd agree that people probably feel a little too put-upon with these things and being told by studios that they have some ethical responsibility to see their movies.

Where I start to run into resistance is ...

We've been here a couple of times now, even just in recent memory. People are consistently airing their frustration that there's nothing to see but sequels and remakes, but they are even more consistently choosing to decline seeing anything else. Maybe ELIO wasn't enough to get them to come out to theaters. Maybe Mickey 17 wasn't enough to get them to come out to theaters. Maybe Horizon wasn't enough ... Maybe The Fall Guy ... There are always reasons after the fact why they just couldn't muster up enough excitement to go out, eventually they all just start to sound very "My mom said no ..." And at some point it's just like ... what exactly is everyone waiting for?

It's also interesting to me that the best attended theater showing I've been to this calendar year was this week seeing the new Jurassic World movie, a reboot of a trilogy that wasn't received very well at all. (This coming from one of like four people who actually genuinely enjoyed the movies.) And it's looking to earn a respectable gross across the summer. It's hard for me to put too much stock into the lines about original movies somehow not being good enough to grab their attention when people don't give a second thought about seeing a new spin-off that they're not even excited for. (The Disney remakes are another prominent example of this. Snow White ended up being very unique in its trajectory as the rare remake to actually make enough people mad that they just chose not to see it, and I feel like we can parse out a few specific factors speculating why.)

Audiences have consistently shown that they don't even need to like a movie to be willing to see it. Is it too much to ask that they do that for vulnerable markets once in a while?

[Sotiris]

There have been original films that have been successful at the box office, so far. Sinners and F1. There may be more by the end of the year. Studios just need to become better at making original films that 1) have broad appeal 2) are marketed effectively.

[PatchofBlue]

There are exceptions, for sure, and for that, we can be grateful.

But I think it's also essential to keep in mind that the threshold for "success" is different for franchise films versus non-franchise films. Sinners opened to 48 M domestic (63 M worldwide), which was a very successful opening, but that would have been an underwhelming debut for something like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which had an opening weekend of 110 M domestic (145 M worldwide). I'm using these two as points of comparison that because they both had a similar budget of around 100 M.

Flickers like Sinners are sometimes used to argue that non-franchise properties still have equal opportunity as franchise outings, and that other movies would have success if they just, I don't know, tried harder, but I don't personally think that's the case.

All those movies I mentioned were movies I saw in the theater--all movies that flopped--and the only one I had less than optimal feelings for was The Fall Guy. This is funny to me because lots of people I have talked to in the time since who discovered the movie on streaming have asked me if I've seen it and told me how hilarious it is. It's become very clear to that that's one movie that absolutely had the potential for a following if it had been given a chance by people who only go to theaters for things like DUNE Part 2. And if I sat here a while, I could probably find a few other examples of that in the last five or so years.

I'd agree that marketing is a big deal, maybe now more than ever, but that's also a hard thing for me personally to get behind too much because I feel like we all ought to aspire to be more than just datapoints for executives to mine and exploit. We'd all be better if we were a little more curious in what stories we decided to consume. That's where storytelling really does what it was always supposed to and creates opportunities for genuine catharsis, even revelation. Approaching this game like audiences have some kind of secret password that studios must guess before they will deign to see a certain movie in theaters--especially when they have proven they have a much lower barrier of entry for movies they don't even like--it may be "necessary" by this point, but ...

It's really like the world's worst wager: who's going to change their ways first, a handful of billionaires, or the entire working class?

[UmbrellaFish]

I saw Elio today. It’s mid tier Pixar. Frustratingly competently made, so it’s not even an interesting disaster. So paint-by-numbers that no one’s soul got even a little bit trapped in the frame. Good enough to babysit the kids when it comes to Disney+, not good enough to recommend to your friends so they catch it first in theaters. Ultimately, a blackhole for wasted talent.

That’s a very dramatic way to say “It’s average,” I admit, but I also just read the Hollywood Reporter article (I held off until watching the movie), and I’m feeling especially pessimistic about the future of WDAS and Pixar now, too.

[BloomHunter]

One could really tell the moments they tried to tone down the undertones, but despite their efforts it was obviously still present in small fragments. I can assure had they not been so freaky, then Molina's Elio would have hugged a crying Glordon instead of saying "Why didn't you say something?" This doesn't line well with the Elio we saw from the beginning of the movie. It seems to me that most of the butchering happened in the 2nd act of the story compared to the 1st act. Every time they tried to make Elio more normal, he was boring, and a bit distant. At first I thought he was gonna be more similar to Lilo, but then he started to act a bit like Taran's 180 personality change from The Black Cauldron. This was definitely meddling coming from the executives.

One thing for sure, I wouldn't mind to have seen Molina's take on the character.
At least that would have remained consistent.

[Farerb]

I took my nephews to watch the film, they enjoyed it, I thought it was generic and the "conflict" and the way they solved it were contrived. I don't really have much to say about it, I don't think I'll revisit this one.

[Patricier21]

Elio looks like it might be so-so, I don't really plan to see it until streaming. Didn't care for Elemental or Lightyear. Knew this would fail because of the sci-fi, so I'm happy the WDAS film that felt like an imitation of this was scrapped.

Love Domee Shi, so I'd like to think Hoppers won't be terrible and Gatto looks like it could be good, but I don't see either being a big hit. Gatto could be a hit if it was in a string of other hits, I just don't think it looks like the kind of thing even in the best case scenario being big enough to launch them to hit status again by itself. I still think they'd be better off folding PIXAR into WDAS at this point and keeping them as a department to work on the sequels to PIXAR IP, since WDAS has the longer history. TBH, I think that's why a lot of anti-WDAS commentary randomly started to spring up here, I think there must be PIXAR employees who don't like that idea at all. But I think they'd let employees crossover into WDAS for original projects, but it's not like even WDAS will be making that much original product the next half decade either anyway. They're relying on sequels while the studio(s) build themselves back up.

Well if you don’t want that to happen, then please go out and support it in theatres and spread the word etc. You may very well find it worth while either way

[Patricier21]

For anyone interested in the original version of Elio, this Reddit thread features comments from someone who saw the original test screening prior to the overhaul.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixar/comme...d_about_elios/

I saw the screening 2 years ago and yes, Elio was interested in Fashion.

However every scene where it was involved was not animated at the time and not important to the storyline, meaning the writers were unsure about it. It mostly involved him being environmentally conscious at the beach and 'saving' sea life from trash by making it into other things, like his clothes. The environmental message was thematically echoed later as the very sea-life looking aliens wanted to save Earth with their advanced knowledge.

it was basically an entirely different movie focusing on Elio wanting to live his own life but struggling with his military family expectations. His mother was busy but loving and had a different character arc entirely.

Elio himself was nervous and artistically inclined, but determined to be the perfect child, but had to learn to do it his own way. This plot was parallel to the alien warlord and his son working through the same issue. Both parents and children learn to reach a middle ground.

The clone was a major character who wanted to be a real boy out of envy of Elio's life, having friends and a loving mother.

The themes and characters were entirely different. I'd say it was closer to "Sometimes parents really do know best and they do things out of love, but they shouldn't control their children's lives all the time. Both sides must make sacrifices and find common ground."

In the original Elio was not obsessed with aliens, but his mother is. She works to prove it. Elio screws up too many times, and his mother yells at him and sends him to military camp, and he feels like he is unloved. Elio gets bullied at military camp and abducted by aliens, and mistaken for the leader of earth.

A clone is sent to camp in his place. Elio spends his time in space trying to send proof of alien life to his mother to make her proud and eventually grows to understand her love for him, and starts missing her, eventually returning to earth with the alien child he befriended and proof of alien life.

The greatest change was the sub plot about this clone. In the first version the Clone is a much more important character and sort-of the villain. The clone takes Elio's place on earth and shows courage around the bullies who learn to respect him. He was told to become popular and make his mother proud. He does so, becoming the the best at the camp, using his alien clone powers to cheat, and Elio's mother is summoned to an award ceremony for him at the end of the semester. The clone realizes he wants Elio's life instead of being an alien clone monster. It ends with a battle at the summer camp where the clone is defeated and Elio returning to his old life.

The movie came off as the clone learning what love and friendship is and not wanting to lose it, and Elio eventually understands what his mother is going through being a single parent. The ending was more of a tear jerker because the clone gives up out of love for Elio's mother. The clone did appreciate the sacrifice of the single mother and felt Elio was ungrateful for the amazing life he had.

Here's a bit more. The slug aliens (I dont recall their species name) were a sort of fake-out villain that paralleled Elio's situation with his mother. That plot was showing that a parent will do anything and sacrifice anything for their child, which makes Elio feel guilty. The real 'Villain' is the clone, although it's hard to say any of them is a true villain.

So in the Storyboard version: The movie starts with Elio cleaning a beach and making trash into art and clothes. No voiceover. After the abduction the real Elio is tested for potential inclusion into the comuniverse. In the process he stops a potential invasion by Grigon by impressing him, and gets a spear though his chest in a moment of dark humor (he gets better).

Elio wants to call his mother, but is unable because he is out of signal range. He decides to get the knowledge of the universe for his mother to prove that aliens exist and make her proud of him.

Later Elio has his mind probed by the sea slug alien who almost discovers he is a child and not the Leader of Earth. He uses his fashion knowledge to impress the aliens and distract them from the fact he is a fake.

While he is snooping and trying to call his mother he meets an alien kid who is the son of of the warlord. And befriends him as they are both kids and can freely share secrets with each other. They share similar parental issues where the parents want them to be something different than what they are. They both want to be artists. The alien kid is nervous about following his father's footsteps being in a battle suit. It is a clear military parallel with Elio's mother.

Eventually it is revealed that Elio is not the leader of Earth and is just a child. The warlord father is enraged he got fooled by Elio, and wants to break the peace of the collective. Gordon never went to Earth and just confronts his father in a moment of bravery after Elio leaves.

Now that the secret is out Elio is sent back to earth. All of his phone messages suddenly get sent to his mother, who realizes what is happening. The clone goes nuts after this when he realizes he's going to have to leave. the clone feels he is a perfect son and is upset 'their' mother chooses the real child over the perfect child. There is a final battle. The aliens show up and fix things after.

It is implied Elio still messages his new friends afterwards.

[The Disneynerd]

For anyone interested in the original version of Elio, this Reddit thread features comments from someone who saw the original test screening prior to the overhaul.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixar/comme...d_about_elios/

Thank u for the quote! The way this sounds 10x more fleshed out and personal than the sloppy vagueness the final version became (yeah i got bored and watched the movie on Tiktok lol). None of the characters were interesting enough and the stakes werent quite there, but this earlier version just gets all the points and the characters real motives, especially the nice detail of Elio doing a "girly" hobby with his love for fashion which explains his status as an outsider so much!!! (Instead of him being fascinated by Space, which is not such a stretch regarding boy hobbies and interests.) If the Fashion aspect was the ONLY plot device that made Elio "gay" why the hell didnt they go through with this??? When the executives said they wanted Elio to be less gay, i thought he was gonna have a crush on a boy or something, but him liking fashion was already too much ig?... Not to mention that they made the clone an interesting fleshed out character that developed his own wants and dreams instead of just being a shallow clone without his own mind. They had a promising hit right there. What a shame...

What makes me even more furious is that we're talking about a Pixar movie, which always pushed storytelling and its characters compared to other animation Studios, and out of all of them, they play it extremely safe right now. Im so happy i didnt go and support Flopio in theatres as they would get the message that "extremely safe and conpressed movies are what makes the real money". They gotta do something personal and interesting again (with a good Script) and they shouldnt worry about its success.

[reee9948]

For anyone interested in the original version of Elio, this Reddit thread features comments from someone who saw the original test screening prior to the overhaul.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixar/comme...d_about_elios/

Thank u for the quote! The way this sounds 10x more fleshed out and personal than the sloppy vagueness the final version became (yeah i got bored and watched the movie on Tiktok lol). None of the characters were interesting enough and the stakes werent quite there, but this earlier version just gets all the points and the characters real motives, especially the nice detail of Elio doing a "girly" hobby with his love for fashion which explains his status as an outsider so much!!! (Instead of him being fascinated by Space, which is not such a stretch regarding boy hobbies and interests.) If the Fashion aspect was the ONLY plot device that made Elio "gay" why the hell didnt they go through with this??? When the executives said they wanted Elio to be less gay, i thought he was gonna have a crush on a boy or something, but him liking fashion was already too much ig?... Not to mention that they made the clone an interesting fleshed out character that developed his own wants and dreams instead of just being a shallow clone without his own mind. They had a promising hit right there. What a shame...

What makes me even more furious is that we're talking about a Pixar movie, which always pushed storytelling and its characters compared to other animation Studios, and out of all of them, they play it extremely safe right now. Im so happy i didnt go and support Flopio in theatres as they would get the message that "extremely safe and conpressed movies are what makes the real money". They gotta do something personal and interesting again (with a good Script) and they shouldnt worry about its success.

I'm confused, was he actually going to be gay or did the executive saw that Elio had feminine hobby and was like 'That's gay,' and demanded the writers to erase that aspect of him? So much for Disney being so diverse and being inclusive. Liking feminine stuff and having hobbies that is perceived as feminine doesn't make you gay, just like being a tomboy doesn't make a lesbian. They could've use this movie to break stereotypes, but once again Disney just proves that they only speak where the money is.

[carolinakid]

My friend saw it yesterday and she texted me that it was good and she enjoyed it.
But I have to say she’s a 71 year old straight female with limited gaydar.
I must ask her how many were in the theater on a Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend...

Update: She said the theater was practically empty...