It makes perfect sense that Pixar would produce and release a movie like LIGHTYEAR. The film is expressly rooted in classic science-fiction, just like the company itself. After all, if you look at Pixar from a distance, the idea of a company using computers to create some of the most human characters we’ve ever met is almost like science fiction itself.
Pixar has more science-fiction history in its films than maybe you’ve even realized. Obviously, a movie like WALL-E is expressly science fiction. But if you look at science fiction as something that sees the impact of technology, then it isn’t difficult to call the TOY STORY movies science fiction, if you squint. And honestly, we’re not even ready to dive into the existential quandary that is the CARS series.
Back Up, Toy Story Is a Sci-Fi Movie?
Let’s talk about what science fiction is. You can look at a whole bouquet of sci-fi themes like time travel, space travel, robots, and artificial intelligence. What you really get down to is that science fiction is speculative storytelling about how human lives and society are changed by things that humans build. Sci-fi is all about technology and what it does to us — or how it reveals our true natures.
(If you want to get really hard-core about it, most alien invasion movies are monster movies because they don’t really have anything to do with the technology that we create. ALIEN is a monster movie in space. PROMETHEUS and ALIEN: COVENANT are very seriously sci-fi movies.)
And so TOY STORY is about toys that we build and which change the lives of the people who own them. Furthermore, the toys are aware that they are doing so. Sure, you can be nitpicky and note that the toys weren't built specifically to be alive, and we don't even really know why they're alive — it's a metaphor more than anything. So if you want to reject the TOY STORY movies as science fiction, that's fine. But, at the same time if you wanted to make a long detailed argument of the toy story movies are definitely science fiction, we are listening.
This Is Where We Talk About Wall-E, Right?
We can talk about WALL-E now. It is Pixar's most openly science fiction story to date, which in some ways makes it the least interesting title to discuss here. There's no question that WALL-E is sci-fi. That said, we would argue that the most obvious aspects of the movie — robots that develop feelings — are the least interesting sci-fi aspects.
What makes WALL-E hardcore sci-fi in the tradition of great '60s and '70s novels and movies that inspired it is the vision of humanity as a species that has been all but destroyed by technology we created to make our lives easier and more convenient. The message is not subtle, but neither were movies like SOYLENT GREEN and LOGAN'S RUN, both of which influenced WALL-E. And like those two '70s sci-fi thrillers, Pixar's sci-fi opus is powerful.
The Science of Awe
More interesting is the work that went into INSIDE OUT and SOUL. Both movies visualize aspects of humanity that are intangible by nature: feelings, and the soul. Pixar's sci-fi influences show up in big ways in both of these movies. You might assume the "interior" parts of those movies would be based on metaphysical ideas. But Pixar turned to consultants with a variety of backgrounds, including the scientific. In an article about his work for Pixar, scientist Dacher Keltner wrote, "Studies find that after watching awe-inspiring nature videos or recalling an experience of the emotion, our sense of time and space shift, and senses, like color and sound, often blend." Sounds like the end of 2001, doesn't it?
The simple truth is that while the characters in SOUL and INSIDE OUT are aspects of humanity, the way we see them is steeped in our dreams of everything that lies beyond Earth. At a certain point, the infinite reach of space and the depths that lie within us begin to look very similar. The ideas are not science fiction, but the images which help us see them are, and that's one of the smartest ideas Pixar ever had.
LIGHTYEAR opens on June 17.
All images courtesy of Disney and Pixar.