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This week on The Land Before Prime, Tom from The Variety Show dives into Pixar’s latest intergalactic outing, Elio. From dead parents to space politics, clones to slug-buddies, Tom breaks down the highs, the lows, and everything glowing in between.
But the real question is… can he fit it all into just five minutes?
The Land Before Prime is your home for quick-fire reviews of cinema and DVD releases — because not everything has to be streamed, and not everything has to take an hour. Join us in celebrating stories from the land before Prime.
Music
First Call by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100862
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
Hear the Noise (Sting) – John Deley and the 41 Players.
Operator Error (Sting) – Gunnar Olsen.
Social Media
You can find more about The Land Before Prime at https://channel84.co.uk.
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The Rough Script (Changes were made as I read it)
Released June 25 to cinemas here in the UK, Elio is Pixar’s 28th film on the big screen. Featuring familiar voices of Zoe Saldana (Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek, Avatar), Brad Garrett (Finding Nemo, Everybody loves Raymond, A bug’s life), Shirley Henderson (Harry Potter, Trainspotting, Wild Child), Kate Mulgrew (Orange is the New Black, Star Trek Voyager), Remy Edgerly (Seal Team, Sing 2) we are also joined by new comer Yonas Kibreab as Elio.
Now for the story:
This is Disney, so obviously we open with a dead parent. Elio’s an awkward, space-obsessed 11-year-old who lives with his aunt Olga — a military bigwig working in satellites and space junk. That’ll be important later.
Elio dreams of alien abduction (as you do), and while tricking a local teen into letting him play with a HAM radio, he sparks a fight. Aunt Olga responds by sending him to a self-improvement camp — classic punishment.
But just before camp, Elio witnesses some real alien contact at Olga’s base. Naturally, no one believes the guy who sees it, so Elio sneaks in and answers the call himself. Bad idea? Actually, great idea.
Camp goes terribly. Elio gets bullied in that classic Disney “maybe too dark for kids” kind of way. Fleeing to the beach, he expects a beating — and instead gets abducted. Boom: welcome to the Communiverse, a galaxy-wide council of aliens who immediately assume Elio is Earth’s ambassador. They even send a clone back to Earth to cover for him.
Things are looking up until Lord Grigon — big, angry villain energy — crashes the party. He wants in. There’s a moral coming, I promise.
Elio, being the ambassador (kinda), tries to reason with Grigon… and gets thrown in space jail. But hey, he escapes, finds a squishy slug-alien named Glordon, who — plot twist! — is Grigon’s son and totally not into the evil thing. Didn’t see that coming, right?
Elio fakes Glordon’s death using a clone, buys peace, and everyone’s happy — for about five minutes.
Back on Earth, Olga notices that clone-Elio is suddenly emotionally stable and well-adjusted. Yeah, right. The Communiverse clues her in, and Grigon realizes he’s been duped. Rage ensues.
Elio gets booted back to Earth by the alien council (after they read his mind and go, “Wait… he’s 11?!”). But seeing his clone, Olga, and the happy little fake family makes him realise: maybe this is where he belongs.
He returns to the Communiverse one last time to rescue Glordon and stop Grigon. Cue emotional reunion, dad lets go of his space rage, and Elio turns down the ambassador job. Turns out empathy beats intellect, age, and brute force.
Elio heads back to Earth, confident, happy, and finally feeling like he fits in.
Credits roll.
Post-credits: Glordon space-radios Elio for a chat — and Pixar teases the next movie.
Like Luca and Turning Red, Elio is animated with that slightly odd, cartoonish looking character design. Personally, I prefer the look of Toy Story, Inside Out but it still has a charm about it. The colour and design of the aliens is fantastic albeit fairly standard, it would have been nice to see some truly wild designs.
The story is unbelievably easy to guess, with most people knowing what the conclusion will be within the first few minutes. It’s rather Saccharine rather than sweet. I would also suggest that the speed at which the film runs, makes the emotional change and growth seem lacking.
Unlike previous Pixar films, I found this to have far less adult inclusive jokes and be far more palatable to kids only. A real shame as the beauty if films like Toy Story was that it could be enjoyed by all ages for different reasons.
The story is a let down if I’m honest. It’s nothing we haven’t seen a million times before from all the film studios including Pixar. There was nothing new, nothing truly awe inspiring. Consider we’ve had Elementals, another story about someone not wanting to be who they are but coming to terms with it. Lightyear too, a good film spoiled by it’s pretty unremarkable story arc.
I didn’t get numb bum which is always a good thing although the film does only come in at 1 hour 38 minutes.
Ratings wise, I’d give it a 6 out of 10. You might feel this is overly harsh for a Childs film but when you consider Inside Out 2 was one of Pixar’s last releases, Elio felt very underwhelming.
Part of this show is to remind you of older films that still exist and in this case, why not show your kids the Disney classic – Explorers. A little cheesy but a great, fun, sci-fi outing.
STOP THE CLOCK!
