We Actually Really Liked Elio
I had a professor who encouraged us to do research before writing essays - he said that reading a 50-year-old novel and not looking up existing discussions is a bit like coming to a party late and not knowing what anyone is talking about.
I'm curious what he would say now, in the age of ChatGPT, but I digress.
We couldn't get tickets to Superman, so we decided to give Elio a shot. We were both impressed - maybe even blown away - prompting me to check big YouTube channels to see why so many people didn't like it.
The consensus overall seemed to be
-It's really not bad, just not what you would expect from Pixar
-Existing Pixar/Disney movies did it better
-It was safe and forgettable
So...let me try to take a different angle I haven't seen many people discuss.
The similarities with Lilo and Stitch are obvious. I've also seen the movie compared to Big Hero Six and even The Incredibles. It's about family. There's this child who doesn't really fit in, and he wants to be somewhere else, and there's this mother figure just barely able to keep it all together.
And I would say...sure...
Elio is a movie about curiosity and exploration. Early on, without spoiling too much, there's this scene of Elio meeting two other young HAM radio enthusiasts. There's this military base itself that's implied to be restricted by bureaucracy, but within its ranks is an enthusiastic scientist whose role...again, without spoiling too much...gets expanded later on. There's a scene reminiscent of The Martian that hints at the notion of multiple countries collaborating, a reminder that science does not have to exist for the benefit of any individual country, but for the benefit of all mankind. Predictably, a lot of "social media critics" seem to focus more on the other aspects of the movie, and you'll only see this kind of thing mentioned if you go on obscure Subreddits like the amateur radio page.
Other criticisms I've heard on YouTube
-The secondary characters are forgettable
I won't push back on the tertiary characters. The robot. The alien other than the mind-reading one. The various other planet leaders who are part of a peaceful and somehow hyperadvanced civilization, but are completely blindsided by a kind of obvious threat.
I heard a particularly critical reviewer (possum) point out that Grigon was just a minor comic relief character, but then they went through production hell, rewrote much of the script, and recast him as the villain.
But the other characters? Solid. The relationship between the two "outcast children" was particularly sweet. I even liked the clone, who kind of subverted my personal expectation that Elio would come into conflict with his "normal shadow," while Glordon accidentally created some "evil shadow" designed to perfectly fit his father's expectations to the point that he became a kind of Avengers level threat.
-This has all been done before
Has it? Lilo and Stitch, I'd argue (non-controversially), has a lot more to do with the culture of Hawaii than space exploration. The Incredibles plays with the idea of being special (and how our world treats people who are special), Big Hero 6 is a coming-of-age story about loss and the dark path to revenge, and Buzz Lightyear...
...well, I haven't watched that one. Maybe that's about exploration.
So Elio, someone who doesn't feel loved and doesn't seem to belong, goes somewhere else and they create a "perfect" clone of him. The "perfect" clone isn't even remotely interested in space, he does chores, he behaves well, he relates. To the real Elio, this is a short-lived nightmare. He really, truly doesn't belong and is replaceable.
Only he's not. Neither is his friend. His mother figure recognizes that this is not him and misses the real him, much like Glordon's father.
Then he collaborates with the same people he had come into conflict with. He accepts who he is, idiosyncrasies (if I'm using the word correctly) and all. He wanted to give up everything and disappear, a kind of futurama-like-protagonist with a desire to get away from everything. But like in Futurama, we as an audience begin to recognize that he DOES have a place, to the point that those around him will go to considerable lengths to reunite once again.
"She gave up being an astronaut for me."
To which Glordon, without a moment's hesitation, responds:
"Wow, she must really love you!"
