It's not exactly news to say that 2020 has been something of a dumpster fire of a year. We're pretty much all ready for it to be over. Under normal circumstances, when reality just becomes too damn annoying to deal with, many of us might escape into fictional stories that are much more interesting, but the great irony of 2020 is that everything that has made it a mess has also prevented the release of many of the stories that would make us all feel better, and now that's been given its best example yet thanks to the new trailer for Pixar's Soul.
Pixar has always had a talent for hitting where we live and the new Soul trailer does just that. It's bright and beautiful and touching. It's just the sort of thing that I could use right about now, which makes the fact that the movie has been delayed to November that much more frustrating. Check out the inspiring new footage below.
The new Soul footage focuses entirely on Jamie Foxx's Joe. He's the human middle school band teacher and aspiring professional musician who, we know from other trailers, will end up dying and becoming a disembodied soul. But we don't see any of those souls here. Instead, this is just about Joe inspiring all of us to embrace the life we have and to do something beautiful and creative with it.
Unfortunately, we'll have to wait for November to get this inspiring story in font of our eyes. Assuming, of course, that things are actually back to something resembling normal by then. Pixar was originally going to release Soul on June 19, we actually would have seen this movie by now if 2020 had any decency. Instead, Disney Animation's Raya and the Last Dragon was pushed into 2021 and Soul has taken over the traditional Disney Thanksgiving weekend release.
This trailer does at least imply that we'll get to spend a fair amount of time with Joe in Soul. It's been unclear previously just how much time the film will spend with Joe as a human versus being a soul. Based on previous trailers, and the title, the implication has been that what we see here will be a small part of the total film, likely bookends to a larger story, but there's something about Joe the man I find much more appealing than the rest of the movie, at least so far.
Soul looks like it will be just as good a movie in November as it did in June, and odds are that the way things are going, we're still going to need the shot of positivity and beauty that Soul promises to be in November. In fact, we'll probably need it that much more.
