Pixar’s First ‘SOUL’ Trailer Asks What You Want to be Known For

Pixar took a big risk with Pete Docter’s Inside Out, a movie that explored how human emotions worked. Portraying our outlook on life as an effect of little creatures like Fear, Joy, Anger, and Disgust operating control panels somewhere in the human brain, the conceptual animated feature didn’t feel reigned in by tradition or normal narrative boundaries. Soul looks to follow in the bold footsteps of Inside Out, dealing within the metaphysical in a similar way to Inside Out and from this first peak, looks to be asking similarly bold questions about human existence.

[READ MORE: Our exclusive interview with Pete Docter from ‘Inside Out‘]

“What do you want to be known for on Earth?” asks Joe Gardner, a jazz band teacher voiced by Jaimee Fox, before falling into a New York manhole and being transported into some interdimensional soul realm. The first trailer is grounded, until it’s not, and left me with lots of questions. Take a look at the mysterious first look below:

I love when animation fully takes advantage of the opportunity of the medium and Soul seems to be ripe for capturing things that live action cannot. And if the artwork that Disney showed off at this year’s D23 is any indication of what Soul will look like once it leaves Earth proper, we’re in for a big treat. When Pixar is operating at their nuttiest, they are usually also at their best and Soul seems like it could be one of their biggest, weirdest swings yet. I’m all onboard. A bit more information below:

Directed by two-time Academy Award®-winner Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers and produced by Academy Award®-nominee Dana Murray, Disney and Pixar’s “Soul” opens in theaters on June 19, 2020. According to Docter, the idea for the story is 23 years in the making. “It started with my son—he’s 23 now—but the instant he was born, he already had a personality,” says Docter. “Where did that come from? I thought your personality developed through your interaction with the world. And yet, it was pretty clear that we’re all born with a very unique, specific sense of who we are.”

“Soul” introduces Joe Gardner, a middle-school band teacher whose true passion is playing jazz. “I think Joe is having that crisis that all artists have,” says Powers. “He’s increasingly feeling like his lifelong dream of being a jazz musician is not going to pan out and he’s asking himself ‘Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?’ Joe personifies those questions.”

In the film, just when Joe thinks his dream might be in reach, a single unexpected step sends him to a fantastical place where he’s is forced to think again about what it truly means to have soul. That’s where he meets and ultimately teams up with 22, a soul who doesn’t think life on Earth is all it’s cracked up to be. Jamie Foxx lends his voice to Joe, while Tina Fey voices 22. “The comedy comes naturally,” says Murray. “But the subtle emotion that reveals the truth to the characters is really something special.”

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