Pixar’s latest project, Luca, saw the title character and his friend Alberto looking to buy a Vespa, but why were they so into this particular vehicle? Pixar continues to bring charming stories with characters that quickly win the audience over thanks to them having motivations and goals that viewers can easily identify with. The studio’s latest movie, Luca, is no exception, and at the center of the main characters’ journey and adventures is the Italian scooter Vespa.
Luca follows a teenage sea monster of the same name (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) who meets another young sea monster named Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). Luca’s new friend shows him how they change into humans when dry and revert to their sea monster form when wet, as well as some of the fun and interesting things that can be found on land. When his parents want to send him away, Luca runs away with Alberto to explore life on land, and they have one common goal: get a Vespa, and for that, they enter the Portorosso Cup Triathlon with their new friend Giulia (Emma Berman) so they can win money to buy their scooter.
The Vespa (which means "wasp" in Italian) is a very important element in Luca, as odd as it might seem to have two young sea monsters obsessing over a scooter. Luca first sees a poster of it at Alberto’s hiding place, advertising the scooter as the vehicle to freedom, but as they don’t have the resources to get one, they decide to try and make one, but that’s a lot easier said than done. After many trials and errors, upon arriving at Portorosso and seeing local bully Ercole (Saverio Raimondo) driving one, they decide to get their own, even if they can only afford an old one. This vehicle is a symbol of freedom for the two sea monsters, as they are both looking to break free from different yet similar situations, as both involve their families.
Getting a Vespa was Luca and Alberto’s ticket to get out of what was holding them back: Luca was being restricted by his family, working at their farm every day and threatened to be sent to the bottom of the ocean with his uncle Ugo, while Alberto needed to leave all memories of his father behind, who abandoned him before the events of the movie. A Vespa would allow them to travel and live the lives they want on land, and while they do get their (very old but still working) Vespa at the end, they realize they have already found what they wanted: Luca found his place outside the sea and prepared to leave to Genova to live and attend school with Giulia, while Alberto found a family in Giulia’s father, Massimo.
The Vespa is a symbol of freedom for Luca and Alberto, serving as their “wings” as they looked to explore the limits of the sky (as seen in the sequences where Luca sees himself flying above the ocean in a Vespa and the one where he and Alberto fly on their Vespa to the sky, with fishes as stars). Ultimately, the Vespa was nothing more than a symbol as it wasn’t what broke them free but what brought them to the people that showed them what they truly needed to get that freedom: Giulia and Massimo.