Board 8 > Soul might have been the best-animated film I've ever seen

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've always preferred traditional to computer animation but damn I was really impressed with some of the stuff they pulled off here.

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I really like how another Disney animated film found a way to keep a black main character in the body of an animal for nearly half the movie again.

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Yeah I felt fantastic about it but now I'm seeing the BIPOC perspective. I don't know if it's widely felt, but a re-examination of the movie does make some of those things stand out.

It's still spectacular, and I can't help but wonder if some of the racial issues with the film disappear if a black woman is cast in Tina Fey's role?

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I've only seen a trailer for it. It certainly looked visually great. It is indeed rather amazing how far CGI's come when enough resources are pumped into it.

Idk how I'll care for the actual plot, but it is also the kind of movie I wouldn't watch much for plot either. As long as it meets basic movie expectations, it'll be alright.

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A lot of people are going to miss the hyphen in the topic title, I expect.

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-hotdogturtle-- posted...

A lot of people are going to miss the hyphen in the topic title, I expect.

oh def

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Just to clarify, are you talking about the technical aspects of it or the film itself? Legit can't tell from the topic title/opening post.

With that said I enjoyed it as a film, but I consider it an average Pixar film. I'll take something more recent like Coco any day of the week.

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-hotdogturtle-- posted...

A lot of people are going to miss the hyphen in the topic title, I expect.

>_>

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also I'd take something like Into The Spiderverse over Soul in terms of technical achievements

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I enjoyed it a good deal. Excellent animation and an especially good supporting cast; Dorothea and Terry were delightful! That having been said, Onward is not only my favorite Pixar film of the year, but my favorite Pixar period. It's transcendent.

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Also I know I'm flooding this topic with posts but did anyone find the Jerrys/Terry almost unsettling for a bit. Putting these weird 2D characters in looked strange and the only time I was impressed with it was when Terry was going through the file cabinets. Otherwise they just looked so out of place and I didn't buy them interacting with the world.

Maybe that was the point I dunno

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Terry/the Jerrys gave me Super Paper Mario vibes. Which I'm definitely cool with, personally, but that isn't for everyone.

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Terry in New York reminded me a lot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and other "cartoon characters in real life footage" stuff which admittedly is a pretty good indicator of how good the animation is.

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I thought this was definitely an upper tier pixar film.

I don't think most of the ending stuck the landing particularly well, so its probably a bit away from my favorite, but it was refreshing after the blandness that was Onward(Which followed the completely pointless Toy Story 4 for Pixar).

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-hotdogturtle-- posted...

A lot of people are going to miss the hyphen in the topic title, I expect.

yeah you can avoid ambiguity with something like "most well-animated"

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The animation for the afterlife segments was phenomenal. It is such an infuriatingly hilarious flex that Pixar has run out of "normal" things to impress people by animating and have just decided to do abstract 2D characters in a 3D animation. They're so good at this it actually makes me mad.

(still, I think I would personally take Spiderverse over it, just because I love that shit)

The rest of the movie I thought was pretty mid. This is a cynical take, but I was worried it would just be a worse hybrid of Inside Out and Coco and that's exactly what it was. There was a twist, sure, but the twist was bad (post #2 nails it). Ironically, this one lacks the soul those other two movies had. At best it was okay and at my most cynical it's blatant award baiting from Pixar.

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I enjoyed it, and yea I agree the animation was fantastic in it, but I do have some qualms with it. I honestly didn't care nearly as much about the soul world stuff as the real world stuff. They realized the real world so nicely that I really just wanted to stay there without all the soul shenanigans, only part that I got emotional at was the convo between Joe and his mom (although I'll admit 22 being bogged down by her feelings made me feel bad as well). And I guess that sort of ties into the "BIPOC character gets turned into something that's not themselves for the majority of the movie" although I expected it to be worse here so there's that at least. Give me a movie about just living in that neighborhood, I'd be immensely happy. Although at that point it might not be Pixar anymore, but they could try something new! They've been on this "take a sort of vague societal construct and personify it" kick lately, I kinda want something else. Which looks like Luca might be doing which is cool.

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Aecioo posted...

Also I know I'm flooding this topic with posts but did anyone find the Jerrys/Terry almost unsettling for a bit. Putting these weird 2D characters in looked strange and the only time I was impressed with it was when Terry was going through the file cabinets. Otherwise they just looked so out of place and I didn't buy them interacting with the world.

Maybe that was the point I dunno

I feel like that was definitely the point.

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https://twitter.com/Danny8bit/status/1342916162342903809?s=19

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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

And I guess that sort of ties into the "BIPOC character gets turned into something that's not themselves for the majority of the movie" although I expected it to be worse here so there's that at least.

I actually have to wonder, does the fact that Joe's human body was on screen for a lot longer than in most other such cases make it better, or does the fact that he was voiced by Tina Fey for a large chunk of that time make it worse?

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I was worried it would just be a worse hybrid of Inside Out and Coco and that's exactly what it was

I had the exact same thought. This felt like a mostly uninspired movie that borrowed from other more interesting movies.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

https://twitter.com/Danny8bit/status/1342916162342903809?s=19

This was my first thought when I saw that scene lol.


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SwiftyDC posted...

This was my first thought when I saw that scene lol.

Yeah, same

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Everyone had to have had that thought.

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Underleveled posted...

I actually have to wonder, does the fact that Joe's human body was on screen for a lot longer than in most other such cases make it better, or does the fact that he was voiced by Tina Fey for a large chunk of that time make it worse?

It's largely neutral because they handled this specific element in a way that makes sense and knew when to drop the gimmick when it was Important, but it's still bad.

My honest opinion is that people at Pixar took this really tired animated movie trope and went "ok we can do this but actually good tho" and attempted that, but really...it's just a bad concept. Now that Pixar has tried and failed I don't think it can be salvaged into something interesting at this point.

Like again the best thing I can say about it is that they animated the joke extremely well, and that still didn't make it funny enough

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My niece got bored halfway through it. Jazz is a hard sell for a four year old.

Characters look bland / look like Casper's family.

Movie was awesome and not for kids.

20 seconds before it ended I still didnt know for sure how it was going to end, which is really important for how I feel about a movie. As opposed to say, Star Wars IX where I knew how it was going to end 20 seconds into the movie.

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Uglyface2 posted...

My niece got bored halfway through it. Jazz is a hard sell for a four year old.

I think for sure this is akin to Up in that a 3 or 4 year old is not going to like it very much and you may as well just throw on Toy Story for them.

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masterplum posted...

Movie was awesome and not for kids.

20 seconds before it ended I still didnt know for sure how it was going to end, which is really important for how I feel about a movie. As opposed to say, Star Wars IX where I knew how it was going to end 20 seconds into the movie.

Same for me with Titanic

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You know, this was a really bad year to attempt a gag of having no taste or smell.

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just watched this as the last movie of 2020 and damn - i really enjoyed it. had almost no idea what to expect. absolutely loved everything up til like the final few scenes.
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Just watched it and absolutely adored it. Trent Reznor also killed it.

When he played the piano, with the personal items as inspiration; Damn. His flashbacks hit really close to home.

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SeabassDebeste posted...

just watched this as the last movie of 2020 and damn - i really enjoyed it. had almost no idea what to expect. absolutely loved everything up til like the final few scenes.

Did you not like the end then?

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I thought it was good, but I wonder if you rate it so highly as it seems like an animated movie more tailored to adults than kids and you are then the intended audience moreso.

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redrocket posted...

Did you not like the end then?

i thought the final scene or two was pretty lacking, unfortunately. that said, that part is more of a coda. i enjoyed the ending of the story.

how bout you?
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I liked the whole movie quite a bit.

I guess I could see one potential complaint about the ending

that maybe Joes sacrifice should have stuck.

Im fine with it as is though.

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Can we all agree that the soundtrack was phenomenal?

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it was pretty good.

i'd rank the pete docter movies as follows: inside out > monsters, inc. > soul > up

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