Elemental (2023)
A Pixar original story by Peter Sohn.
Intro (“Across The Ocean”). Fire elements Bernie and Cinder Lumen immigrate to Element City from Fire Land after a great storm destroys their shop. Upon arriving in Element City however, they face discrimination from the other elements Water, Earth, and Air. After the birth of their daughter Ember, they set up their Blue Flame which represents their traditions and start their own convenience store called the Fireplace in Firetown.
Several years later, Bernie intends to retire and give Ember the store once she can control her fiery temper. One day, when Bernie allows Ember to run the shop on her own, she becomes overwhelmed by the customers and rushes to the basement. Her fiery outburst breaks a water pipe, flooding the basement and summoning Wade Ripple, a water element and city inspector, who notes the faulty plumbing and reluctantly goes to City Hall and sends the violation report to the processing department run by earth element Fern Grouchwood, and his air element employer, Gale Cumulus, who will have the Fireplace shut down.
Wade brings Ember to Cyclone Stadium where Gale is watching her favorite airball team, the Windbreakers play in the playoffs against the Cropdusters. Ember attempts to convince Gale to reconsider the shutdown of her father's store. Wade mentions to Ember that he was investigating a leak in the city's canals before ending up at the Fireplace, and offers to Gale that he and Ember can track the source of the leak from the store. Gale tells them that if they can track and seal the leak by Friday, then the violations will be forgiven. Ember teaches Wade about a firish word called Tìshók, which means to embrace the light while it burns since it won’t always last forever.
While searching the canals, Wade and Ember discover a hole in a dam that allows wave runoff from ships to flood the city's plumbing, so they close the hole with sandbags. Wade and Ember spend time together in the city and learn more about each other, including a visit to Mineral Lake (“Steal the Show”). The sandbags eventually fail, so Ember creates a sturdier seal with her glassmaking ability. Ember visits Wade's family at a luxury apartment, where she uses her fire to fix a broken glass pitcher, impressing Wade's mother Brook, who recommends her for a glassmaking internship. While playing "the Crying Game", Wade makes Ember cry by admitting he has feelings for her. Gale calls Wade and approves Ember's glass seal, thus saving the Fireplace from closure. Ember then realizes she does not want to take over the store.
Bernie announces his intention to retire and hand the Fireplace to Ember. He also reveals that when he left Fire Land, he gave his father the Bà Ksô (the big bow) which is the highest form of respect but his father did not give him the bow back and did not give him his blessings. The next evening, Wade takes Ember to Garden Central Station to see a Vivisteria tree and it’s flowers which are the only flower that can thrive in any movement, which she was denied seeing in childhood. With the station now flooded, Gale provides Ember with an air bubble for safety while Wade pushes her underwater through the station and Ember is able to see the Vivisteria flowers (“Vivisteria”). Afterward, Wade and Ember realize that they are able to touch without harming each other and share a dance, but Ember remembers her duty to the Fireplace and her family's prejudice against water elements, and breaks up with Wade. While Ember is about the take over the Fireplace during a party, Wade appears and declares his love for her, while also accidentally revealing that she caused the broken pipe. Ember rejects Wade, though Cinder senses genuine affection. Disappointed, Bernie refuses to give Ember the store and renounces his retirement.
Soon after, the new seal on the dam breaks and Firetown floods. After saving the Blue Flame, Ember and Wade become trapped in a room in the Fireplace, causing Wade to evaporate from the enclosed heat. After the flood recedes, a grief-stricken Ember confesses to Bernie that she does not want to run the Fireplace and expresses her love for Wade. Realizing Wade has seeped into the stone ceiling, Ember plays the Crying Game to get him to drip back into his normal form. Ember and Wade embrace and share a kiss.
Months later, Wade and Ember, now a couple, leave Element City so Ember can study glassmaking and travel the world together.
TRIVIA
The idea for this story comes from the periodic table and how it looks like apartment complexes. The concept was what if the elements were characters.
Visual Style
To create the characters, the designers had to reimagine everything they knew about making human characters and studied the actual elements of fire, water, etc. to develop the character’s and how they would move.
For Ember and fire characters, there is a very fluid motion and fire is very spiky which is reflected in the character design.
An emotion system was developed that allowed animators to control the speed of the fire and which allowed Ember to have these different curated looks. They also used a mitten geometry to combine her fingers to go into a simplistic form when needed.
For Wade and water characters, they are very round with no sharp edges. Water reflects light and the environment. Wade’s head has a water droplet shape.
Element City was inspired by New York City but also big cities that are based on canal systems like Venice and Amsterdam. Since the city itself was founded by Water elements, a canal system serves as the central mode of transportation—aptly called the Wetro—though each element has introduced their own methods of moving about the city over the years. The idea for Firetown was that the first wave of immigrants were Earth people to that part of Element City so those buildings were built based on that but then they left and the next wave of immigrants were from Fire Land so they adapted the Earth buildings to be more fire-like. The Firetown buildings are based on the Korean cooking pot, the gamasot pot.