Peter Sohn, director and creator of Pixar’s Elemental, is proud to tell a story of cross-cultural difference and acceptance in a universal way. He draws on his own Asian American experience to build a narrative that speaks to audiences from a variety of backgrounds. Cold Tea Collective got the chance to discuss the inspiration and story behind the upcoming film with Sohn himself.
The real-life inspiration to Elemental
Set to release in June 2023, Elemental takes place in a city inhabited by the four main elements of nature. The movie follows the unlikely friendship between Wade, an easygoing water element, and Ember, a spunky fire element. The story is based on Sohn’s relationship with his wife.
A legendary animator whose work spans household names like Up, The Incredibles, The Good Dinosaur, and Ratatouille, Sohn says that doodling fire and water characters side-by-side reminded him of his relationship with his wife, and their culture clashes.
“I started digging into those personal experiences of trying to get my parents to accept me marrying someone that wasn’t Korean,” Sohn says. “I jokingly say that my grandmother’s dying words literally were ‘marry Korean.’”
See also: Serendipity: How the stars aligned for the American Born Chinese adaptation
Examining cultural differences in a universal way
Cultural and generational differences between immigrant parents and their children also served as inspiration for the movie, for both Sohn and his fellow team members.
“We started bringing other members of the crew that also shared in those [cultural and generation clashes], and it became this rich sort of place for us to create this world of opposites attracting.”
Sohn took his personal experience and made it universal by setting the story in Element City, a metropolis filled with water, air, fire, and earth residents. The four elements, quite intentionally, do not correspond to…
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