It's been several years since Disney produced a movie that centered on romance, but it appears this is changing with the upcoming Elemental. The Pixar film will have a theatrical release on July 16, 2023, and will follow an unlikely couple as they meet and, assumedly, fall in love. This is a surprising premise since Disney has worked hard to move away from the romantic themes that used to dominate their films. However, Elemental may be the perfect choice for coming back around to love stories.
The Elemental trailer reveals a world in which all the inhabitance are one of the four elements: fire, earth, water, and air. These beings are seen living in harmony in a bustling metropolis called Element City, which seems similar to the titular city in Zootopia in that everything accommodates the unique needs of each element type. Within this city, two characters are introduced, a water being named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) and a fire being named Ember (Leah Lewis). Given their contradictory elements, they seem unable to touch one another—which is unfortunate since they have clear and immediate chemistry.
Disney Was Right To Move Away From Love Stories
Clearly, Elemental will be a love story, which is a surprise since Disney has spent the last decade moving away from stories that centralize romance. This was an important move since the idealized romances portrayed in films like Cinderella and Snow White have been found to establish unrealistic expectations regarding real-world romance. Even movies like The Lion King, whose story wasn't primarily about finding love, always had to include a grand romantic moment. This not only sent a sometimes concerning message to young audiences but resulted in overly predictable stories.
This is why movies like Encanto and Moana were so important. The central character had other lessons to learn besides finding their prince charming. This started with Disney's Frozen, where Anna's "love at first sight" story was turned on its head by making Hans the bad guy. Sure, she still found love in Kristoff, but the movie's central theme was rooted in the power of familial love. By moving away from the typical Disney romance, the studio was able to explore more broad or complex themes.
Pixar’s Elemental Can Fix Disney’s Old Love Story Problems
Of course, romantic love is still an essential part of society, so it isn't fair for today's children's movies to pretend it doesn't exist. For that reason, it is equally vital for Disney to return to love stories as it was for it to move away from them. Now that the House of Mickey Mouse has established that it has broader stories to tell, Elemental can bring audiences back to the world of warm and fuzzy meet-cutes. Still, it must do so in a way that diverts Disney's old predictable formula—and Pixar is the perfect studio to make this happen.
Pixar has developed a reputation for telling stories that create beautiful and impactful parallels with the real world. Inside Out dove into the internal family systems of human psychology, while Zootopia explored the impacts of prejudice in society. These tales go much further than the topics that traditionally exist in children's animation. This makes them interesting for adults but also introduces young audiences to grander concepts. For this reason, the decision to put Pixar in charge of Disney's first central love story in years means that things will be done very differently.
How Pixar Can Improve Its Love Story Formula
Though Disney has always been rooted in love stories, Pixar movies weren't. There might have been the occasional romance in movies like Toy Story and A Bug's Life, but they were never at the story's center. Even films like Up and Wall-E, which have strong themes of romantic love, placed their focus elsewhere—Wall-E on humanity's impact on the environment and Up on the relationship between Carl and Russel. Therefore, Elemental will be the first real Pixar love story.
While it can be assumed that Elemental will bring Pixar's famous knack for social commentary, it can improve on its past formula by focusing on the romantic aspect of Ember and Wade's relationship. This will mean a careful balance since too much focus on love alone could mean deconstructing everything Disney has spent the last decade working toward. However, given Pixar's track record of creating truly impactful and surprising complex stories, there is every reason to believe that Elemental will do love right.