In Disney and Pixar’s film Elemental, fire element Ember has lived by the rule that elements cannot mix. But she meets water element Wade and forms a connection with him. So, is Pixar’s Elemental a romance?
The answer is yes, Pixar’s Elemental is a romance and love story. But the movie is not centered on romance alone; the film also deals with relationships with family, culture, and diversity.
Is Pixar’s Elemental a Romance Explained
In the trailer for Elemental, we see that the residents in Element City have their own elements – either air, earth, water, or fire. Fire element Ember Lumen meets with water element Wade Ripple and forms a connection with him.
Ember has never left Fire Town because “elements don’t mix” and her dad would boil Wade alive. However, she decides to step out of her comfort zone and explore the world outside Fire Town.
While the two of them are very different elements and can’t even touch each other, they become closer and fall in love. So, Pixar's Elemental is a romance with kind of the “opposites attract” story.
"The film is about our differences that bring us together, but it is a love story,” said director Peter Sohn at a press event held in Singapore.
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Cultural Influences, Diversity, and Family in Pixar’s Elemental Explained
Additionally, apart from romance, the film also deals with culture and diversity. Speaking with Variety, Sohn said:
“I married someone that wasn’t Korean, and there was a lot of culture clash with that in my world. And that brought to me to this idea of finding opposites. And the question of what if fire fell in love with water came. As an animator, what could be a fun world to play with… so the fire and water is one thing. But then tying that to culture clash, was part of that metaphor. And then in that world, all of a sudden this idea of sacrifice, and understanding what our parents had given started to make the soup of what this film is.”
Sohn also said in another press event held in California that while romance is a big part of the movie, it was also a triangle because “it was that part of my connection that I had with trying to marry someone that was outside my culture.”
Notably, from the trailer, we can see a father-daughter relationship between Ember and her father, Bernie. We can see that Bernie does not really like non-fire elements, and he even feeds Wade very hot food.
Talking about the different themes in Elemental, Sohn explained:
“It’s not just a boy meeting a girl or girl meeting a boy, it was also a father and a daughter and what that relationship was. The initial concept was to try to make something universal; that we could have part of that connection with these two, fire and water, but then also understanding the family dynamic, and that cultural part of this, and to make the film larger. There are other themes in this that I hope you guys also get out of it that make the film much bigger.”
Clearly, we can expect to be entertained by the film and learn many lessons along the way.
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When Does Elemental Come Out?
Elemental comes out in theaters on June 16, 2023. Additionally, since Elemental is a Pixar film, it is also expected to be released on Disney+ soon after the movie comes out in theaters.
Watch the trailer for Elemental below:
Elemental’s synopsis, as provided along with the trailer:
Check out a brand-new trailer for Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental,” an all-new original feature film that transports moviegoers to an extraordinary place called Element City, where a host of elements live and work. The trailer showcases each element—air, earth, water and fire—and what sets them apart according to Ember, a quick-witted and fiery woman who’s always stayed close to home in Firetown. In “Elemental,” which opens in theaters on June 16, she finally ventures out of her comfort zone to explore this spectacular world born from the imaginations of Pixar’s filmmakers and specifically crafted for the big-screen experience. Element City is inspired by big cities around the globe and embraces theorized contributions from each elemental community—from giant pine-tree-like buildings and waterfall skyscrapers to a tornado-shaped arena called Cyclone Stadium.
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