“Soul”, the latest work of Disney and Pixar, is exclusively available on “Disney Plus” from 5 pm, on December 25. Ahead of the release, it was revealed that the director Pete Docter received inspiration from a “profound quote” of a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and this is the most profound “life” theme in Pixar history.
It has been 25 years since the release of “Toy Story” that depicted the “toy world. Within these years, Disney and Pixar have released various emotional stories with a unique imagination world, including the “Monster Inc.” depicting the “Monster World”, “Finding Nemo” depicting the “Undersea World”, “Inside Out” depicting the “Inner Mind World”, and “Coco” depicting the “Afterlife”.
And the latest work “Soul” depicts the “Soul (Pre-birth) World” and Joe, the music teacher who dreams to be a jazz musician, wanders into the soul world interacting with “22”, who wanders around the soul world for a few hundred years without finding his purpose.
The director for this work is Pete Docter, who is necessary for Pixar’s “emotional work”. He is the one who created the idea of “Toy Story” (the pioneer of Pixar’s work), debuted as the director in “Monster Inc.”, shown off his script writingwritten and production ability in “Wall-E”, and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for “Up” and “Inside Out”, where he is the director.
When trying to depicting the profound theme of “What’s the most important thing in life”, director Pete Docter reveals that he got the inspiration from the quote of Albert Camus, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, saying “The literal meaning of human life is that you don’t have to kill yourself no matter what.”
Albert Camus is the person who is known for his thought on the irrational thing in the world and studies the historical descriptions centered on revolution.
He claimed that “there is no meaning in life” and supported the thought that humans can’t provide a satisfying meaning in life. However, there is no fault if there is no meaning in life, what’s important is to accept it and continue living.
Then the director Pete Docter, and others, study that idea in detailed and use it as a reference to depict the massive theme of this work, which is “Life”.
Director Pete Docter revealed, “For the purpose of this work, I had researched various philosophers, and the quote of Albert Camus has moved me the most. People have a tendency to expect that what happened outside will cause large changes. But most of psychologists said that ‘there is no such thing as outside’. My view on that is that there is still the inner. So I try to depict that in this movie.”
It seems that this work was created to have the children understand and enjoy it with a profound theme, and the producer Dana Murray commented about how this work can be enjoyed by a wide generation, “This movie is trying to inquiry on something big. The inquiry on the meaning of life is intended toward the adults, but my children, who had watched the movie, ask me questions about life. Then, I noticed that it was bad to be considerate even if they are still a child, so I believe that even children will be able to enjoy this work.”
“Soul” is exclusively available on “Disney Plus” from 5 pm, on December 25.
（C）2020 Disney/Pixar.
