Elemental Director Peter Sohn Talks The Cultural Influences of Pixar's Latest Film
In just a month, Pixar's Elemental will welcome audiences to Element City, a diverse city where the elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air live together. In the film, each of the elements bring their own vibrant cultures to their parts of the city much the way different cultures bring their own vibrancy to neighborhoods in real life. For director Peter Sohn, it was important to incorporate not only aspects of his own life, but also create culture that was specific for the characters within the film's rich and expansive world.
"When I first started pitching it, there were things of my own life that I would make fun of in terms of like, oh, I love spicy food. Wouldn't it be funny if Fire food was really spicy, that kind of thing," Sohn said during an early press day attended by ComicBook.com. "Once people started asking, 'Oh, are they Asian?' It was like, no, they're not meant to be Asian. Or 'is Air meant to be this culture?' Quickly I realized that no, these have to be universal. My biggest goal was to try to take the element itself and pull from there to make the culture."
He went on to explain that they started to find ways to ground the cultures and then extrapolate so that they could express the values of the culture, but not point to anything specific. In the process, each element developed its own unique culture and norms.
"If you go too far, it could become alien so you do have little grounding ways to do that. Something that was really interesting was disruption, meaning you think there is a piece of a culture that you think that is mixed with a Fire element on top, but then the next one should take you into another place where it's giving you other values of cultures that we know, but without it pointing to anything. More than anything it was just saying, 'Oh, they're Fire people. They eat wood. No Earth people eat wood in this way. How can we exploit that? What kind of plates would they have?'"
Everything you need to know about Elemental.
According to Disney and Pixar, Elemental is 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.
In addition to Athie and Lewis, the film stars Ronnie del Carmen as Ember's soon-to-be retired dad, Bernie; Shila Ommi as Ember's love-seeking mom, Cinder; Wendi McLendon-Covey as Wade's stormy and Air-Ball-loving boss, Gale; Catherine O'Hara as Wade's welcoming mom, Brook; Mason Wertheimer as Ember's admiring earth neighbor, Clod; and Joe Pera as an overgrown city bureaucrat, Fern. The film is directed by Sohn, produced by Denise Ream and executive produced by Pete Doctor. The film features a screenplay by John Hobert and Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh with story by Sohn, Hobert and Likkel and Hsueh. The film also has an original score by Thomas Newman. An all-new short, Carl's Date, will screen in front of Elemental in theaters.
Elemental opens in theaters on June 16th. Tickets for the film are on sale now.