My Thoughts on Elemental (And an Update on the Lightyear Critique)

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I watched Elemental last week, so today I sat down to give you my brief review of the movie and an update on the status of my Lightyear critique!

Time Stamps:

00:00 – Intro
04:12 – Plot & Characters
07:43 – Animation & Cinematography
10:15 – Comedy
13:51 – The Criticisms Begin
15:20 – Wasted Potential
17:04 – The Final Act
22:25 – Ember and Wade’s Magical Embrace
25:10 – Conclusion
30:29 – Lightyear Critique Update & Other Upcoming Projects

Analysis Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsULwTqrDVA8HtEiYOWfrtYuZgNc_oCKo
Audio Commentaries: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsULwTqrDVA8UwAF4VBrwBsLVjCZk_IFQ

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Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to “LIKE” the video, leave a “COMMENT” if you enjoyed, and “SUBSCRIBE” to the channel for this and my other playthroughs, both current and upcoming!

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Would you like to suggest a future walkthrough? Leave a suggestion in the comments below and I might consider it!!

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32 thoughts on “My Thoughts on Elemental (And an Update on the Lightyear Critique)”

  1. As an Owl House fan myself, I personally can't wait for the 6 hour breakdown on why it's an amazing show (and getting some much needed recognition)

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  3. One thing i noticed about the movie is that the fire people kept saying "elements don't mix", even though water helps earth. They contradict themselfs and i think thats on purpose because the fire people can't interact w/ earth and water.

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  5. This is one of my favorite Pixar movies. It's easily in my top 10 and maybe even my top 5 of Pixar favorites. I've watched it twice and it was even better on the second watch. I think they did a great job realizing this world and I love the core struggle Ember faces of wanting to take over the family shop, but slowly realizing that's not what she wants to do. Instead of being hamfisted like other movies where the character would be vocal and defiant about "going their own way," Ember tries far more to throw her gift away for her family's sake. Instead, it's her family that gives her the encouragement that it's okay to go a different path.

    The marketing really didn't do this movie any favors, treating it like a generic love story. The romance aspect is more of a second subplot that gradually grows and develops throughout the movie. Since the story is so well paced, it felt very believable that they'd start to fall for one another. Through each other, they gained insight into each other's culture and appreciated something they had limited experience in.

    I also think this movie's visuals are some of the best in any Pixar movie. I don't usually praise a movie's visuals, but they're so captivating here.

    One last point on a criticism people have towards Elemental. I get why people say Elemental is a race allegory, but I think people are misreading it. It's more accurate to say that Elemental is about society not accomodating immigrants (like how most things are in English in the US despite how there are many Spanish speaking immigrants that don't understand English). The movie does a good job presenting this issue. Like in the real world, there's not a clear right and wrong here. We obviously can see the situation from the Fire elemental perspective, but the movie does a great job of showing why the other elementals might have these policies. Instead of presenting it as "other elementals are wrong and fire elementals are right," I think the movie instead uses Ember and Wade to show that both cultures have something valuable to share and gain. Because the society has so much to gain by being accomodating, it should be more accomodating to fire elementals. I think that's the real message of the movie.

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  6. I watched Elemental not too long ago, and personally, I think it was good. Not one of Pixar's strongest movies, as it did have some elements (hah!) that could have used more work, but definitely a b-tier. I liked Wade and Ember's chemistry throughout this film because I think they balance each other well. Wade clearly comes from a background where expressing yourself and being vulnerable is highly valued versus Ember's family where communication and emotional expression aren't as prevalent which we see in multiple instances like Bernie not sharing his and Cinder's immigration story with Ember for years.

    It's why I actually liked the crying game scene because it perfectly demonstrates Wade's environment while growing up. Wade's uncle bringing up his and Wade's mom's nanna's (that's a lot of possessives) death during a game shows how they are extremely comfortable being open around one another, discussing sad memories, and providing each other emotional support. It also helps explain why Wade would crash the retirement party after their break up. In this case, Ember didn't just need more time or wasn't ready to open up to her parents; she fully admitted that she was willing sacrifice all her desires, including Wade and glass-blowing which make her incredibly happy, to run her family store like her father thinks she wants. Had Wade not intervened, Ember absolutely would have stayed silent about how she truly felt and continue to lie to her family and herself. When Wade crashes the party, he knows what he's doing is not a good idea, but he's desperate and thinks it is worth the risk.

    As a character who believes in the importance of emotional honesty and support amongst family, Wade has been trying throughout the entire movie to convince Ember to try to talk with her parents about what she wants out of life, but Ember refused every single time. And now, she's doing the exact thing that will make her life miserable: taking over the shop. This is Wade's final chance to not only save their relationship, but also Ember's happiness. It is his last ditch effort to help Ember open up about her feelings and a grand show of his commitment to her. He is not willing to give up and let Ember throw the life she wants away. Unfortunately, it kind of back fires and results in the emotional flood gates bursting which is symbolized by the 3rd act flood climax.

    These are just some of my reasons why I think the movie is better than a lot of people are giving it credit for.

    Reply

  12. i rewatched your top list of the worst games, you mention about working on the fnaf security breach video. what ever happened to it? did you cancelled it?

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  14. Glad to hear from you again.😌

    I don’t mind your Indiana Jones: Dial of Destiny review being the first thing to come to your channel next.

    I also don’t mind any of your other videos that aren’t your big Lightyear video yet either. Your content is just really fun to listen to as pure entertainment and background noise for a while vibe I can have to myself.☺️

    I’m still holding out for your reviewing series to have some more variety in it though, and I don’t mind whatever else you may review.

    I personally would really love to see a full video series breaking down Stranger Things season 3, since I still personally feel that’s still the weakest season of the whole show, you could consider that as one your future projects after you finish your other current stuff.😉

    Also, holding out for your TS3 video and Pixar ranking video. Hope your having a great summer, take care. ☀️😏😎😌🙂

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  15. 4:05 Part of me, just for a moment, expected, and was disappointed that the next 40 minutes wasn't you explaining why Mario was chosen to be the background.
    "I think it speaks for itself given the subject matter. If you don't know, this level features a duality between ice and fire. As you play the level, etc, etc…" 40 minutes later "so unless you're an idiot, you'll know why this level makes sense. Thank you to all my sponsors on Patreon. The Lightyer review is coming never, go fuck yourselves."

    Reply

  16. Fire and water are in a few movies. Sharkboy and Lavagirl, Childrens of the rain, Fire girl and water boy the game, here too. Why there's nothing about Air and Earth? I would love to see a film about thoses elements. Just imagine the air people as talking tornadoes, pegasus made of clouds and griffins made of wind sounds fun! They could live on a giant floating island, the earth tribe can be half-rhinos and half-lizards living in a giant cave full of crystals and weird plants. It's more interresting than seeing cloud people playing basketball in the air 🙂

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  18. My issues with Elemental can be summed up as following:

    1) The extreme feeling of "been there done that". I don't know if this is just general pixar fatigue after Lightyear and Turning Red were such trash fires or being tired of this genre of storytelling in a more general sense, but there you go.

    and

    2) The world makes NO SENSE. I know this one in particular will vary from person to person, but I just can't stop thinking about how badly the world fits the morals they're trying to convey. It really takes me out of the movie.

    I'm sure if I sat here for another hour or so I could think of more broad issues I have, but I just don't care about the movie enough. Which is probably damning enough on its own.

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  26. I didn’t feel like watching this film today, I need to wait until it’s on Disney +, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE EMBERS UNATURALLY HORRORABLE WOBBLY JELLY FACE 10X ON THE BIG SCREEN.

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  29. My friend, who I would consider to be a fairly critical movie critic and intellectual person, was literally in tears by the end of the movie. He even didn’t want to see it in the first place, neither did I tbh, we had just watched asteroid city and my little sister made us go to elemental. We knew it had been ragged on, and it lost a bunch of money, so we were pissed and pessimistic. But it was actually pretty good. Great review man! Love your content so much!

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