Credit: Inside the MagicPeter Sohn has learned his lesson.
Which lesson you may ask? Well, many of them in fact, and they’re all going into the melting pot for Pixar’s next big feature film, Elemental.
Elemental will tell the story of two creatures made of opposite elements – fire and water – who meet and fall in love. Many Pixar fans have criticized this as simply yet another movie where Pixar asks, “What if [blank] had feelings?”
To answer that question, Peter Sohn explained that this movie will not only draw on themes, not of opposing personalities, like in films such as Inside Out or Soul, but on opposing cultures; specifically, on what happens when two people from very different cultures fall in love.
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Sohn has some experience with this himself, as he explained to Variety:
Yes, it’s the burden of culture and passing the torch of carrying a piece of heritage inside of you and trying to decide what to do with that heritage. I have kids that come from different, mixed cultures. I’m Korean and my wife is half-Italian, part- German and part-English. The feeling of it can sometimes be like a burden. I wonder if I am I breaking the chain in my life because I’m not pushing the Korean language and culture.
Sohn’s own struggles with this issue will be mirrored by Ember, the fire character in the film, as she struggles with “trying to understand her life in a place that was not her parents’ home.”
It is for this exact reason, Sohn said, that Elemental will be a deeper, more memorable film than his last one at Pixar.
‘Elemental’ Will Be Better Than ‘The Good Dinosaur’ Because It’s Personal To Peter Sohn
Many Pixar fans out there are wondering, after The Good Dinosaur – which did far worse in reception than any other Pixar film to date – if Peter Sohn even even has the chops to make the kind of tearjerking, heartwarming movie that Pixar has come to represent.
To those critics: Fear not, because it looks like Sohn is way ahead of you.
Working [at Pixar] as long as I have, you learn a lesson early on about what it means to stay vulnerable in a creative work…this art form that we love deserves that vulnerability and openness and everything I can give to it.
Related: Disney Finally Promotes Pixar’s Controversial ‘Elemental’, to Debut Early at Disney Park
Sohn stated that, when he got offered the chance to head up another Pixar film, his first priority was to make sure that this one was one he could connect to on a personal level.
With the previous film, The Good Dinosaur, as a director, it wasn’t as personal for me and, though I’m very proud of the film, the reaction was lower, and people did not have the best view of it. So, in starting this film, it was just feeling lucky and the privilege to make another movie and really trying to put all that I had into it.
So it looks like staunch Pixar fans are just going to have to wait and see on this one, because it sounds like Peter Sohn is more than ready to come back to Disney’s Blue Carpet with wisdom and experience on his side.
Are you looking forward to seeing Pixar’s new movie Elemental coming out on June 16? Chime in down in the comments below.