The new Pixar film, Soul, tells the story of Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a middle school music teacher who seems to be on the cusp of finally achieving his dreams when he gets a gig to perform with an acclaimed Jazz performer – only to promptly fall into a manhole. This sends Joe — who refuses to take the path into the true afterlife — on a metaphysical journey to “The Great Before,” the place where human souls are honed and find their path before going to Earth. As Joe desperately tries to return to his body, he meets the cynical 22 (voiced by Tina Fey), who isn’t impressed by anything she’s heard about life as a human and has done all she can to avoid ever leaving the Great Before.

Soul will be debuting Christmas Day on Disney+, one of the many films produced with a theaters in mind that had its release plans dramatically change thanks to Covid-19 (it will still play in theaters in countries without Disney+). Fandom spoke to the filmmakers about their emotional and notably trippy film and what makes Pixar so capable when it comes to incorporating themes and material you might not always expect in an animated family film.
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Soul is the latest Pixar film to deal with death in some form, on the heels of projects like Coco and Onward. Joked the film’s co-writer and director, Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Inside Out), “It’s because we’re all getting old.” He said that even while dealing with a dark or complicated subject matter, “There’s a lot of good opportunity for humor. It might be dark humor. but there’s a lot of funny stuff that can be grappled, and I think meaningful [stuff] too.”

He added, “Death is what makes life worthwhile and precious right? So, I think it’s something that we tend to think about. I felt like with this one, I don’t know how it comes off, but for us, our hope was that its fairly comedic even though it’s kind of off-putting and then he falls in a manhole and then he’s in this weird space and you’re like, ‘What’s going on?” in an unsettling, fun way.”

Writer and Co-director Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami) said he also felt it was important to note Soul is not actually about death though, explaining, “The movie was always about life. Yes, the man is faced with his death but you could argue that for Coco, we literally spend a lot of the movie in the afterlife. In Soul, the closest we get to the afterlife is that glowing ball we see in the distance and then he goes in the other direction.”

Producer Dana Murray added, “I have younger children and early on was like, ‘Oh my god, what’s this scene gonna do, when he is heading to the light? Are they gonna freak out?’ Not at all. They just kind of asked big questions about it but it wasn’t fear-based.”

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