It’s no secret that when Pixar makes a movie, the Oscar-winning animation studio goes all in on creating entire new worlds from scratch. We’ve already seen them bring toys to life, made us believe anyone can cook (including a rat) and have imagined what emotions look like. Next up, in Elemental, the studio is playing with fire… literally. And as CinemaBlend learned when we visited Pixar earlier this year, this time an original language was created for the movie.
When I attended a press visit over at Pixar in Emeryville, California back in March, the studio gave us an in-depth look at the making of the upcoming Disney movie. Among the things we learned about Elemental, is the fact that a fire language was created for it. In writer/director Peter Sohn’s words:
We had a language made as well from David Peterson, who did Game of Thrones. And, they have this amazing, brilliant team trying to take fire, like the fireplace sound effects, you know, that stuff, and then try to make a language out of it… When we first started adding fire sound effects to the characters, it just didn't sound like a performance. And so they came up with this language again, based on what we knew from fire.
Release Date: June 16, 2023
Directed By: Peter Sohn
Written By: John Hoberg, Kat Likkel, Brenda Hsueh & Peter Sohn
Starring: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie Del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara, Mason Wertheimer, Joe Pera
Runtime: 93 minutes
Yes, that’s right. The man behind the Dothraki language you may have seen in HBO’s Game of Thrones or other fictional languages from shows like The Witcher, Shadow and Bone and the language of the Dark Elves in Thor: The Dark World was part of the making of Elemental. As Peter Sohn shared, the filmmakers originally had its fire characters speaking in some scenes with ambient fire crackling noises, but later decided to have Peterson make an original language instead.
The new Pixar movie takes place in a land called Element City where beings who are either fire, water, earth or air cohabitate together. The story centers on a fire family, who are inspired by Peter Sohn’s own Korean immigrant story, who come to Element City and establish a shop called “The Fireplace.” In Element City, the fire people are the underdogs of the land and live away from the other elements. Sohn spoke more to his influences for Elemental, saying this:
When I first started pitching it, there were things of my own life that I would make fun of in terms of like, ‘oh, I love spicy food. Wouldn't it be funny if fire food was really spicy?’ You know, that kind of thing. And, all that kind of fun, like once people start asking like, ‘oh, are they Asian?’ It's like, no, no, they're, they're not meant to be Asian. Is air meant to be this culture? And, quickly I would realize like, no, no, no, these have to be universal. And my, my biggest goal was to try to take the element itself and pull from there to make the culture. Obviously, if you go too far, it could become alien. And so you do have little grounding ways to do that.
CinemaBlend’s own Jessica Rawden saw the first 20 minutes of Elemental in 3D at CinemaCon and gave it four out of five five emojis. Check out the latest trailer for Elemental, which teases a budding romance:
Elemental will see its main character Ember unexpectedly meet a water person named Wade, where sparks will fly, inspired by Peter Sohn’s own interracial relationship with his wife. But will water and fire really be able to mix? We’ll find out when the latest Pixar movie hits theaters on June 16.
