The early reviews for Pixar’s Elemental are in, and it’s not looking to be a success for the legendary studio. The movie is just barely scoring fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with 63% of critics rating it positively. However, the Metacritic score is a sad 56%. Pixar movies are among the most celebrated animated movies of all time. The studio has given us classics such as Toy Story, Wall-E, Inside Out, and Finding Nemo. However, Elemental’s apparent disappointment seems to be an ongoing trend with Pixar. The studio has had notable failures in recent years, particularly the box-office failure that was Lightyear. Is Pixar losing its touch, and is Elemental the final nail in the coffin?
Why Is Elemental a Failure for Pixar?
There’s a common theme among the reviews Pixar is receiving for Elemental. Jeff Nelson criticized the movie for following a “tired formula,” while Collider’s Therese Lacson called it “neither unique nor original.” Global Village Space called the movie “extremely safe,” saying, “It lacks the originality and thematic risk-taking that drove some of Pixar’s best work.” Critics seem to agree that Elemental is familiar and unoriginal. Creativity and unique storytelling are synonymous with Pixar, and it’s what makes their best films so spectacular. But according to its reviews, those central traits are lost in their latest film.
One doesn’t even have to watch Elemental for that tiredness of lack of originality to be evident. It was already clear in the trailers and TV spots for the movie. When this reviewer first saw an ad for this movie, the first thought that came to mind was, “So this is just Inside Out but with elements instead of emotions.” When marketing a new movie, you’re more likely to pique someone’s interest when the story seems compelling and unfamiliar. It’s not exactly good news when the viewer thinks, “Haven’t we seen this before?”
Unfortunately, we have seen too many movies like Elemental before, and many of them came from the same studio. And to make matters worse, it’s not the first movie to suggest Pixar may be running out of ideas.
Pixar Movies May Have Lost Some Originality
Consider the trends among Pixar movies. Elemental has elements with personalities, and Inside Out has emotions with personalities. The Toy Story series gave us sentient toys, and the Cars movies gave us sentient Cars. All these movies have a common trope: to give personalities to inanimate objects or aspects of nature for an interesting story. And while many of those movies were impressive, one can’t deny that it’s becoming increasingly expected from Pixar. It’s so predictable that Saturday Night Live was able to poke fun at it. In a sketch from October last year, Jack Harlow pitches an idea for a Pixar movie featuring luggage bags with personalities. And as silly as the sketch is, it seems like exactly the kind of film Pixar would make.
However, that’s not the only storyline that Pixar keeps rehashing. In his review of Elemental, Isaac Feldberg of RogerEbert.com points out Pixar’s recent efforts at “reprising its greatest hits with a parade of sequels.” Feldberg points particularly to Toy Story 4, The Incredibles 2, and Lightyear. He also calls out the movies Soul, Luca, and Turning Red, which all featured humans becoming animals. Feldberg calls this a “revealing trope for its prevalence in films about feeling different.”
What Feldberg’s pointing out isn’t looking to stop anytime soon. We’re already getting more sequels like Inside Out 2 and, no kidding, Toy Story 5. With all these sequels and rehashed stories being churned out by the studio, Pixar is running low on coming up with anything unique. And Elemental is just the latest example.
Elemental Reviews May Disappoint, But Pixar Will Go On Strong
All that said, to say that Elemental is a nail in the coffin for Pixar is a bit extreme. Yes, it’s given us a lot of sequels, and some of its recent films have recycled the stories of the studio’s past successes. However, the fact remains that a lot of those movies were still pretty darn great. Toy Story 4 may have felt unnecessary when announced, but it earned over $1 billion and won an Oscar. Soul, Luca, and Turning Red may have similarities, and all were released during Covid wasn’t helpful for their revenue. But all three were critical successes. And yes, movies like Up, Coco, and Ratatouille were strong for their originality. But other original ideas weren’t so great for the studio (e.g., Brave and The Good Dinosaur).
Moreover, if you think about it, some of Pixar’s greatest films weren’t as original as they seemed. Toy Story wasn’t the first movie to have sentient inanimate objects. Do you all remember The Brave Little Toaster? Before we got talking fish in Finding Nemo, we had The Little Mermaid, which itself was based on an 1800’s fairy tale. While Wall-E has many original elements, it borrows from 2001: A Space Odyssey. And in one of the more hilariously ironic examples, 1998’s A Bug’s Life was released just a month after DreamWorks released Antz. Pixar’s stories can be familiar, but that doesn’t necessarily make them less impressive.
With weak reviews and a low projection of $40 million on its opening weekend, Elemental is looking to be a disappointment for Pixar. However, the studio has had other failures, but it has always managed to bounce back. This one movie will not make the animation juggernaut go away.
And let’s be honest: we don’t want it to.