Disney Pixar's Turning Red

[Ben]

Looks like next Saturday now, as it’s gotten late again tonight. I should say that we didn’t even make it halfway yesterday, after a garden project popped up unexpectedly and tired us out, so we barely made it around twenty minutes in before it was clear we were never both going to sustain staying awake for an entire feature! So we'll start it again next weekend, and am looking more forward to it than I was, even if the general word is that it's just "good". But good is good, and it’s not "bad", right!?

[EricJ]

It's...good-not-bad, although, like Coco, the "good" is highly, highly subjective if you're pasting your own personal identification on it:

The YouTube reactors were all over it on day one, and flooded with gushing female fans saying "Oh, it's the most wonderful, real, personal, insightful analysis of mother-daughter relationships since Tangled! "
While I, OTOH, who had a childhood deprived of a mother-daughter relationship, could only look the movie objectively, and thought the mom was reduced to sitcom caricature of the Overprotective Mom, which, in the big, big climax, only became a big, big Caricature-Zilla.
Which, unfortunately, gave the big resolution where the two have to reconcile (spoiler: Mei gets to do what she wants after all) a slightly vindictive "I was right and you were wrong!" victory dance--literally--to it. And that's leaving aside the whole "Aunt mafia" gags about the relatives...To invoke the MST3K-ism, the climax is so gripping, because we CARE about the characters!

(Think that's why I keep flashing back to Pete Docter's rebellious-daughter story in "Inside Out":
Guys would never dream of putting their own mothers through the guff that "personal" mother-daughter stories do.)

[Ben]

Text hidden for spoilers.

[Daniel]

I absolutely loved it. Hilarious, adorable and heartwarming. A love letter to both Canada and the early 2000s. Love how they delved into Chinese-Western culture. The comic timing was brilliant, the editing, fourth wall breaks, the frenetic pace that really puts you in the character's state of mind, everything was spot on. It was also surprisingly risqué. It's amazing how they tiptoed the discussion of puberty but still made it clean enough for kids. Animation was gorgeous and felt so unique. Love the arc for Tyler

being a 4 Towner was a funny plot twist! And how they accepted him so easily.

It managed to tell the story of acceptance, changing of stereotypical thoughts of being perfect and ultimately staying true to yourself. I found it very relatable. One of my favorites.

[Ben]

Good stuff! Looking forward to our showing on Saturday, though Sing 2 and French Dispatch are currently waiting to be seen too…!

[Ben]

After the disappointment of Sing 2, we needed our next animated offering to be something more fun, and Turning Red, which we ran Monday night, was certainly that.

But, while vastly enjoyable, we did find it a very strange, schizophrenic film. Finally Pixar's love and influence from Studio Ghibli was on front and center display, except the central mysticism came from a Chinese background. And instead of being set in Tokyo — which in retrospect surely seems a natural — it is of course set in Canada, in Toronto to be exact, but where everyone either speaks with Asian or regular American accents; the softer lilt of natural Canadians was little to be heard.

Storywise, I liked how modern it was, in a very Mitchells Vs The Machines way, right down to the apparent new way of handling eyes on CG characters, especially in extreme moments, and often it did feel part of the 1980s college movie milieu that was wanting to be a part of - indeed, for anyone who remembers the original Michael Fox Teen Wolf, I did keep chuckling to myself that this was a thninly veiled "remake" that may as well been called Teen Bear.

Indeed, for anyone familiar with that film, the "reveal" with the Mom at the end won’t come as any kind of surprise, and I’d also already guessed the other aspect of that moment to come, which again plays into the Japanese influence (albeit a, er, Chinese-Canadian, um, version of…er…Japanese). Again, this really shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise, since one of the biggest head scratchers was why the pandas were so big — red pandas (which aren’t really pandas to begin with) are small little things that one can pick up like a dog.

Like a lot of the film, it’s like not everything was really well thought out, either enough or properly, while the story was basically as cookie cutter as they come. That all said, it was brash and busy, but in a good way, and as I noted above from some limited moments I’d seen, the animation is sublime, with really nice, naturalistic movement that also felt caricatured and, well, animated when it needed to be.

I could have done with maybe a little less of Mei's friends, two of which didn’t really bring anything other that a slight weirdness that felt out of character, and didn’t understand why the Mom basically lost it in the finale when Mei still had full control, but just as in there not really being any surprises with this film, it was also a fun and breezy way of handling a tricky subject (though I could have done without the one curse that I thought I heard), even if it did ultimately confuse itself a bit in some of its choices.

[Randall]

Re: The voices - I'm not sure what you think Canucks should sound like (and of course it can vary, though not as much as with UK accents), but to me people from Toronto (and most of Canada, really) sound like a lot of Americans (say, those from the upper half of the country or the west coast). The characters in Turning Red didn't strike me as being "un-Canadian" at all. Besides, Sandra Oh (the mom) and the girl who played Priya are from Ontario, and many of the other characters had Chinese accents anyway.

[EricJ]

I could have done with maybe a little less of Mei's friends, two of which didn’t really bring anything other that a slight weirdness that felt out of character, and didn’t understand why the Mom basically lost it in the finale when Mei still had full control, but just as in there not really being any surprises with this film, it was also a fun and breezy way of handling a tricky subject (though I could have done without the one curse that I thought I heard), even if it did ultimately confuse itself a bit in some of its choices.

The friends could have been funny if they had some more personality quirks, or ANY personality quirk besides "We all love the same boy band!" The only one that sticks in the memory is the stock emo-cynical Indian girl, and even that's a well-mined girl-comedy cliche'.
And while the mom is basically made the movie's comic whipping-girl so that our heroine can show how Independent she becomes, what's unusual is that the dad is smart, competent, understanding, and the most realistic character in the movie, which you also don't often see in a girl's comedy.

As a Pixar movie, what ended up lost in the transition between the old-school Pixar stories of Toy Story, Cars, etc., and the new Pixar that lets animators personally show us pictures of their dear old grandmothers, is something even Onward had, let alone the classics: The patented Pixar "Not a Flying Toy moment"--The pivotal plot pathos moment where our main character realizes the one thing they'd believed all their life was wrong, and pursuing it at the expense of all else had caused the problem in the first place, and then their hearts grow three sizes on top of Mt. Crumpet in time to rally for the plot climax.
Obviously, it's the moment when Buzz realizes he's not a Space Ranger, and when Joy realizes Sadness is important too, and that Marlon really was too overprotective of Nemo, when Ian realizes he already got his "dad" moments with Barley, and that Mr. Incredible probably should have been nicer to that Syndrome kid years ago.
Here, the only thing that approaches an "emotional" moment is when Mei sees her mother's insecurities--But coming after a scene where Mei literally does a neener-neener dance to save her friends from Mom's Tantrum, to a scene of Mom saying "I was wrong, and pressured by my mother too!", it doesn't feel like a moment of "understanding", so much as an enemy being forced to grovel before the victor. Which also doesn't feel out of place with the whole "We won, we won!" tone of the ending.

Which, again, points out why old-school Pixar had such a cult: They let a LOT of people work on the story, and a lot of ideas contributed to something everybody liked. Here, we're getting Pixar movies where one animator works on a story that one animator would like, and either alienating or disinteresting the rest of the potential audience.

[Ben]

I'm not sure what you think Canucks should sound like, but to me people from Toronto (and most of Canada, really) sound like a lot of Americans (say, those from the upper half of the country or the west coast). The characters in Turning Red didn't strike me as being "un-Canadian" at all. Besides, Sandra Oh (the mom) and the girl who played Priya are from Ontario, and many of the other characters had Chinese accents anyway.

Which is why so many American productions shoot in Toronto, and why many comedians and actors from the region have made it big in America. As such, I don’t think they voices were "un-Canadian", but maybe they’re not Canadian enough!? I don’t want to lean into stereotypes, but if you’re going to set a story in a country, have a character or two that sounds like what an international audience would expect them to sound like in there, to make it feel different to everything else. Or is this just another example of how the world and various cultures are just getting homogenised and blended together? Also, I’ve been watching Oh for years (from Tuscan Sun and Sideways to Killing Eve) and here she doesn’t sound anything like her "natural" voice in anything else I’ve heard her in (like, Eve, which is currently wrapping up). Ironically, she was definitely leaning into a little bit of ethnic stereotyping on Red…but it still wasn’t Canadian!

The friends could have been funny if they had some more personality quirks, or ANY personality quirk besides "We all love the same boy band!" The only one that sticks in the memory is the stock emo-cynical Indian girl, and even that's a well-mined girl-comedy cliche.

One thing I did like was the girls' relationship to each other, which seemed pretty solid (yes, even if their one defining nature was that they all loved the same band). But even this was thrown up in the air by the totally unbalancing inclusion of Abby, who was supposed to be half…Korean I think, but again brought a ton of Japanese influences to the film and was just nuts sometimes, or at least went nuts in the extreme for comic effect rather than because she was a "real" person.

And while the mom is basically made the movie's comic whipping-girl so that our heroine can show how Independent she becomes, what's unusual is that the dad is smart, competent, understanding, and the most realistic character in the movie, which you also don't often see in a girl's comedy.

Or, the Stanley Tucci dad or father figure character in literally every "girl comedy" (Prada, Burlesque, Easy A)…

As a Pixar movie, what ended up lost in the transition between the old-school Pixar stories of Toy Story, Cars, etc., and the new Pixar that lets animators personally show us pictures of their dear old grandmothers, is something even Onward had, let alone the classics: The patented Pixar "Not a Flying Toy moment"

Which Turning Red even smashed us over the head with by literally having a Buzz Lightyear wham-bam commercial in there, again that I thought felt a little stale, but only because I remember it first time around.

The pivotal plot pathos moment where our main character realizes the one thing they'd believed all their life was wrong, and pursuing it at the expense of all else had caused the problem in the first place, and then their hearts grow three sizes on top of Mt. Crumpet in time to rally for the plot climax.

Although, to be fair, this is almost literally every "hero's journey" animated feature that’s ever been made. Pixar, and lately Disney, just like to use that sledgehammer to crack that little nut open, as opposed to letting this be more subtle in times gone by. We used to have arcs, now we just have turning points, or "wake up moments"…

Which, again, points out why old-school Pixar had such a cult: They let a LOT of people work on the story, and a lot of ideas contributed to something everybody liked. Here, we're getting Pixar movies where one animator works on a story that one animator would like, and either alienating or disinteresting the rest of the potential audience.

This is the result of a filmmaker driven focus, although films, and animated films in particular, are still products of a team of collaborators and, quite often, circumstances. But, yes, these stories are more and more about nostalgia for a lot of these writers, which is where I think we are at as a species, since the world is so crap and we find out that more and more things are basically pointless as we grow older, that we all yearn to return to our Rosebud moments and re-live the past, and maybe even return to it to try and have another go.

That’s not possible, of course, but sharing these tales spreads a little of that nostalgia and can make us all feel a little cosy inside for a while. So, of course, yes, these things are going to be super-personal, to the point where some people may be put off by the (usually incorrect) notion that something may not be for them because they can’t identify with it, but then these films *are* also made for wider audiences, and must resonate with as many of them as possible, hence why they must appeal as much as they can be personal.

Sometimes this works on more levels and you get a Luca, a very similar film to Teen Bear…sorry…Turning Red, but one that felt more authentic — especially again to those wider, international, audiences — because it had such a different kind of setting than we usually see in contemporary animated film, even one such as Turning Red, which was so near contemporary that I often had to remind myself that we were supposed to be back in the early 2000s, from which not a drastically amount of things have really changed and which anachronisms are easier to slot in (by the end, we really may as well just have been watching 2022 instead of 2002).

Again, this isn’t all to take away from what is a fun, enjoyable film with some nice touches. But it does also emphasise how melted down everything has and is becoming, and how these stories are all basically variations on the same thing. When something strives to be a little different, and so intentionally so, it would be cool if it "dropped the other shoe" and really went for it with more clarity and originality.

[Daniel]

This is the result of a filmmaker driven focus, although films, and animated films in particular, are still products of a team of collaborators and, quite often, circumstances.

Common knowledge, really. Would you believe we've both said as much in the past?

..But even this was thrown up in the air by the totally unbalancing inclusion of Abby, who was supposed to be half…Korean I think

Correct. I loved Abby, though. Pure chaos, cuteness and energy! I thought her expressions and personality were amazing. Definitely noticed her more on a rewatch. I also liked the group dynamic. They're all so different yet so close.

[Daniel]

Turning Red will be released on physical media May 3rd. Bonus content:

Audio Commentary: View the film with audio commentary by director Domee Shi, producer Lindsey Collins, and director of photography Mahyar Abousaeedi.
Life of a Shot: Domee Shi and members of the crew describe the many-layered process and artistry involved in creating the hilarious Red Peony scene – from observing red pandas in a zoo to creating a storyboard to finalizing the animation and background lighting.
Build Your Own Boy Band: Step backstage to learn how 4*TOWN came to animated life. From creating each band member’s persona to writing and producing the songs to fine-tuning the details of their stadium performance, the filmmakers reveal how they designed the ultimate boy band.
Ani-Mei-Tion: Because Mei’s heightened emotionality is central to the story, it was important that her look and movement reflect that energy. Learn how Domee Shi led the animation team to incorporate hints of expressive anime to create Mei’s lovable, dynamic character.

Deleted Scenes:
*Introduction: Director Domee Shi introduces scenes not included in the final version of Turning Red.
Intro Meilin: In this alternate opening, Ming and young Mei have their portrait taken in a studio…but Ming has her own specific vision for the photo.
*Taming The Panda: Under her mother’s guidance, Mei learns techniques to control her ability to magically turn into a red panda...to varying degrees of success.
*The Debate: Mei runs for class president against frenemy Tyler, and the speeches get a little out of hand.
Fei And Christina Hang: Mei (formerly Fei) shares a banana split while having a heart-to-heart with Aunt Christina.
4*TOWN Dilemma: Mei scores tickets to her dream concert, but her strict mother won’t let her out of the house. What will she do?
*Roping In Leo: Pleading with Leo for help with getting out of trouble, Mei learns a couple of his closely guarded secrets.
*Easter Egg: Robutton Deleted Scene: An alternate ending in which Mei, finding herself sitting next to her 4*TOWN dream-idol Robaire on a flight to California, has some feelings.

A look at the covers/exclusives:

4K and Blu-ray:


Best Buy:


Target:


Walmart:


Disney Movie Club:


Cute pin! Very tempted for the Target exclusive, but will probably stick with the regular Blu for the red case. Yay for audio commentary! Alternate ending sounds cool.

[Ben]

So is the regular 4K three discs too? Any clues on what the three discs split is? Can just make out two Blus and the 4K, but there doesn’t seem to be enough supplements to warrant a second extras disc…

Hoping the regular 4K also comes with the red case, a la Cruella!

[Daniel]

Yep, supposedly three disc too. Looks like it's divided as follows:

Disc 1: 4K, Ultra HD
Disc 2: Blu-ray
Disc 3: Bonus Disc

Does seem to be a bit of a waste. Still, I'm just glad the commentary is back after being absent on Luca.

[Daniel]

Bonus features, including audio commentary, have now been added to Disney+. Sweet!

[gaastra]

Turning red, luca and soul heading to theatres at last.