Elio

Today we explore the teaser trailer for a new Disney/Pixar animated feature Elio. In a classic trailer rug-pull, it opens with a serious man’s voiceover reminiscent of science and nature documentaries. We see planets, satellites, and then zoom in to Major Olga Solis (voiced by America Ferrera) working the overnight shift at a space research centre. The high register sparse piano here is run through delay effects, as though the piano notes are bouncing off distant stars. This music gives a feeling of momentum, suspense, and imminent action. The music builds, as strings, percussion, and choir are added and the anticipation is warranted because the space station’s computer monitors are being overrun by glitchy yet seemingly playful messages from alien lifeforms instructing Solis to ‘Bring us your Leader.’ The music fades out but suddenly at 0.26, as Soli is reading the message aloud, she is interrupted by an incoming video call from her son Elio.

Solis can’t take the call right now, but Elio’s last words before he hangs up –“Okay. Bye. I love you” – are creepily repeated with glitches and distortion through the same computer monitors in the space centre that had just shown the message from the alien lifeforms. Not only can these aliens create glitchy screen art, they can also remix phone calls. Plenty of reason for Major Solis to be alarmed.

As if that weren’t already enough to kick off the plot, in the next sequence beginning at :43 and accompanied by triumphant ascending chords from the choir, Elio is beamed up into a spaceship which sends him through a portal into another galaxy.

Up to this point the trailer’s story has taken itself quite seriously, without any humour, and with more than a little threat of danger and interplanetary family separation. However, in case any of the parents with younger kids were thinking twice about whether their young ones could handle the intensity of this film, at 0:54 the trailer kicks into a lively instrumental version of Austin French’s toe-tapping song ‘Good Feeling’.

This mix of Austin French’s funk groove runs along in the background in the second half of this trailer, as Elio meets the assembled ambassadors of the United Advances Species of the Universe. The music editors had fun with this one, layering and looping the various elements of the original song, with the bass guitar and percussion grooving out under sections of dialogue (of which there is a lot in this trailer), and using accents from the horn section to segue between clips. There isn’t the usual official trailer build-up to a climax, but rather it ends on a bit of alien humour.

The use of a funky pop song here is reminiscent of the good things that Pharrell Williams’ song ‘Happy’ brought to Despicable Me 2 in 2013, or the way Justin Timberlake’s ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’ helped to light up the film Trolls in 2016.

Let’s hope that good things are also in store for Elio, on his intergalactic journey of discovery. We’ll find out in March 2024 if he makes it home in the end.

— Jack Hui Litster