Growing up with early Pixar movies was such a treasure during my upbringing, and I’m happy to see the next generation of kids have another great era of original movies from the studio to look forward to. Although Pixar Animation Studios’ biggest commercial success in recent years was definitely last year’s Inside Out 2, I also like that they’ve also stayed true to their roots by making a host of new characters and plot lines through Elemental, Turning Red, Luca and now the upcoming release of Elio. And, after getting to see 25 minutes of Elio at the animation studio, I have hope it’s going to be another solid feature for the whole family.
Earlier this month, Pixar invited CinemaBlend to its campus in Emeryville, California, alongside other journalists to see twenty-five minutes of the feature and learn more about the making of the movie straight from the filmmakers. Now it’s finally time to share my experience of seeing some of the film!
I Saw The Elio Opening Sequence, And It Had Me Emotional From The Jump
We were shown 25 minutes of the movie in four separate sections. The first segment was the very beginning of Elio, which opens on our main character, an 11-year-old boy with the titular name who has recently lost both his parents, sitting under the table of a dining establishment at a museum. His Aunt Olga, voiced by Zoe Saldaña, is asking him what sort of space-themed lunch he’d like to eat, but he just remains under the table gripping his legs in his hands. In his self-isolation, Elio ends up wandering into a space exhibit where a projection show plays on the ceiling as he lays on the ground in awe.
It’s a gorgeous sequence that only features limited dialogue through the exhibit’s narration about the beauty of space, but pulled me into Elio, and the emotional core it’ll be exploring. Sure, a lot of Disney characters (and famous heroes in media) are orphans, but I’m interested in how this movie is exploring how escapism can be part of the grieving process. I thought to myself: “Yeah… as usual Pixar is going to emotionally wreck me.”
That brings me to the next segment of Elio I got to see, which is the first time the boy makes contact with aliens. As the filmmakers filled in the gaps to us about, after Elio has a near-spiritual experience at the space museum, he starts getting super into the subject, and makes every effort to his ability to be abducted by extra terrestrials. When I asked the directors what alien media they think Elio has consumed the next day during our exclusive interviews, co-director Madeline Sharafian said this:
He’s such an alien fanatic. I’m convinced he watched all the classics. He’s definitely watched E.T. a cajillion times, Close Encounters – maybe even more so because that’s the movie where spoilers, the main character gets to go to space at the end of the movie.
I didn’t get to see how Elio is able to meet aliens, only that he is successful in his mission and ends up at a place called the Communiverse, which is really visually beautiful, and really sold me on checking out Elio in theaters rather than with my Disney+ subscription first. What I was surprised about is how Elio isn’t abducted by one species but this floating environment that is full of leaders from across the universe that come together to exchange ideas. They are looking for more interesting minds when they come across Elio, but there’s one funny miscommunication in play – they think he’s the leader of Earth, which he is definitely not.
When I realized that Elio was going to fake being the leader of Earth in order to keep his wish to be abducted fulfilled, I only got more excited for the movie. Then in the third clip, I was introduced to a cute little alien named Glordon, who is the son of a threatening alien leader named Lord Grigon. (You’ve probably seen him in the trailer, but the filmmakers told me they were inspired by puppies, an axolotl and a silk worm when making the cute character sans eyes). Anyway, I watched a scene where Elio and Glordon start to become friends as they wander all over the Communiverse together. During a heartfelt conversation they have with each other, Elio admits that he feels like the only people who “wanted” him are gone (his parents), before Glordon quips that he seems “fine” to him.
This scene really hit for me, because it helped me realize further that Elio is going to explore belonging and isolation through its hero entering a new world away from his own. This cute little kid thinks a world outside his own will make him feel more connected, but what happens when the Pixar movie explores this further? I love when the animation studio uses its gorgeous animation team to delve into deep subjects. While kids in the audience might be bopping along to its surface plotline, me and the other adults in the room are going to be emotional over the relatable feeling like no one understands you, because let’s be honest, we’ve all felt this way before.
The final section of the footage we watched seemed to be later in the film where we learn the Communiverse will make a clone of Elio at some point so Earth doesn’t know he’s left. I don’t know how or why, but Elio ends up reuniting with Aunt Olga after getting FOMO over seeing her with his clone and missing his life on Earth. In an emotional scene, Elio thinks he hasn’t been missed at all, but Olga tells him “I missed everything about you.” It put the nail in the coffin for me. I need to see this movie, and cry all the tears. I think it’s going to be a special movie that reminds us why connection is so important for us humans.
I’m so curious about the gaps I missed and the “epic finale” they teased during the screening. We’ll all get to see the full film when Elio hits theaters this June 20. I hope fans like me go out and support original movies like this, because the studio has announced a lot of sequels like Coco 2 after this one.
