History WesternAnimation / Soul

''Soul'' is a 2020 animated film by Creator/{{Pixar}}. It is directed by Creator/PeteDocter (''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'', ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'') and Kemp Powers, (who was also one of the film's screenwriters) starring Creator/JamieFoxx, Creator/TinaFey, [[Music/TheRoots Questlove]], and Creator/PhyliciaRashad. The film released on Creator/DisneyPlus on December 25, 2020, making it Creator/{{Pixar}}'s first direct-to-digital film upon release (albeit strictly for [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic circumstantial reasons]]); a release on conventional home media and VOD platforms followed on March 23, 2021.

-->''[[TheStinger Oi! Page's over! Go home!]]''

** The Disney credit in the beginning has a rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" done like it's being played by the inexperienced band class Joe is teaching. As it segues through the Pixar credit, Joe announces that they should try another number before it cuts to the middle of one of his classes.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* TheGhost:

* CessationOfExistence: When souls reach the end of the conveyor in the Great Beyond, they vanish with a pop not unlike a bug zapper. Joe treats it like this trope, but it's never explained what's going on.

Not to be confused with the [[Literature/{{Soul}} book]]. ''Soul'' was supposed to be released in theaters with the Pixar Short ''WesternAnimation/{{Burrow}}'', but in the United States both films were released digitally. In some international markets they did play together in theaters.

* TheVoiceless: Despite Esther Chae being cast as Miho, a bassist in Williams' band, she doesn't actually utter a single word throughout the film.

* AsHimself: An odd example, in which Creator/JohnRatzenberger, Pixar's longtime "good luck charm", has [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/c/cf/JR_In_Soul.jpg a non-speaking cameo role in an animated feature]].

* AfterlifeAngst: This is how Joe makes it into the Great Before. Refusing to accept the fact that he's dead, he attempts to escape the conveyer belt to the Great Beyond, only to accidentally wind up in the Great Before. He then spends a decent amount of the film time trying to get back to his body from said area. Luckily, it turned out to only be a Near-Death Experience for him.

''Soul'' is a 2020 animated film by Creator/{{Pixar}}. It is directed by Creator/PeteDocter (''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'', ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'') and Kemp Powers, (who was also one of the film's screenwriters) starring Creator/JamieFoxx, Creator/TinaFey, [[Music/TheRoots Questlove]], Creator/PhyliciaRashad, and Creator/DaveedDiggs. The film released on Creator/DisneyPlus on December 25, 2020, making it Creator/{{Pixar}}'s first direct-to-digital film upon release (albeit strictly for [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic circumstantial reasons]]); a release on conventional home media and VOD platforms followed on March 23, 2021.

** The Jerrys with 22. They say that they want her to find her spark, but 22 resists every step of the way and causes trouble. She's the equivalent of a disobedient child that doesn't realize the consequences of her action; namely, she can't live or grow up. The Jerrys are so desperate that they rope in Joe to help her, mistaking him for a child psychologist.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Great Beyond is an enormous light that all dead souls enter. Doing so is accompanied by a puff of smoke and crackling sound, similar to a bug zapper. This tells Joe to avoid it at all costs.

* OldShame: In-Universe, Joe’s rap group. He tries to stop 22 from watching them perform when the two review Joe's memories.

* TheVoiceless: Despite Esther Chae being casted Miho, a bassist in Williams' band, she didn't actually utter a single word throughout the film.

* AdultFear:
** Joe's mother discusses this when saying she doesn't want her son to become a full-time musician like his father. It would be one thing if she were younger, but she said that she brought in most of the bacon for the family with her seamstress job, and her fear is that when she dies, Joe won't have any way to support himself. Joe, asking 22 to speak for him, manages to convey that this may be his last chance to achieve his dreams and that he knows his mother cares about him, but he is an adult and able to take care of himself.
** The whole scene where Joe finally gets the gig of his dreams and is thrilled about it... only to have a nearly fatal accident. When he realizes that he is dead and that he was inches away from becoming a well-recognized jazz musician, his face is heartbreaking while seeing his life.
** The Jerrys have pre-adult fear with 22. They say that they want her to find her spark, but 22 resists every step of the way and causes trouble. She's the equivalent of a disobedient child that doesn't realize the consequences of her action; namely, she can't live or grow up. The Jerrys are so desperate that they rope in Joe to help her, mistaking him for a child psychologist.
** When Joe finally [[spoiler:plays with Dorothea Williams, he says that he should feel happy. This was his big dream. SO why is there a sense of ennui and anticlimax instead? Dorothea gently tells him that sometimes in life, when you get what you want, you realize that you were building it up as some grand goal to accomplish, like a fish not seeing the ocean while looking for it]].
** One Lost Soul is a hedge fund manager that obsessively focuses on making trades, staring at a computer screen with a miserable expression. Moonwind saves him and encourages him to find another purpose.

''Soul'' is a 2020 animated film by Creator/{{Pixar}}. It is directed by Creator/PeteDocter (''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'' & ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'') and Kemp Powers, (who was also one of the film's screenwriters) starring Creator/JamieFoxx, Creator/TinaFey, [[Music/TheRoots Questlove]], Creator/PhyliciaRashad, and Creator/DaveedDiggs. The film released on Creator/DisneyPlus on December 25, 2020, making it Creator/{{Pixar}}'s first direct-to-digital film upon release (albeit strictly for [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic circumstantial reasons]]); a release on conventional home media and VOD platforms followed on March 23, 2021.

The plot centers around Joe Gardner, a middle school music teacher in New York City who dreams of performing jazz music on stage. One of his past students invites him to audition for a legendary saxophonist, who is so impressed by his playing that she hires him for her quartet. However, after Gardner suffers an accident on the way home, his soul ends up separated from his body. While being transported to a place called the Great Beyond, he panics and falls into the You Seminar (formerly the Great Before), an ethereal plane of existence where souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Gardner must work with 22, a soul-in-training with a dim view on life after being trapped for years in the You Seminar, in order to return to Earth and get back into his body before it's too late.

* AsHimself: An odd example, in which Creator/JohnRatzenberger, Pixar's longtime "good luck charm", has [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/c/cf/JR_In_Soul.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20210101213800 a non-speaking cameo role in an animated feature]].

The plot centers around Joe Gardner, a middle school music teacher in New York City who dreams of performing jazz music on stage. One of his past students invites him to audition for a legendary saxophonist, who is so impressed by his playing that she hires him for her quartet. However, after Gardner suffers an accident on the way home, his soul ends up separated from his body. While being transported to a place called the Great Beyond, he panics and falls into the Great Before, an ethereal plane of existence where souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Gardner must work with 22, a soul-in-training with a dim view on life after being trapped for years in the Great Before, in order to return to Earth and get back into his body before it's too late.

* AfterlifeAngst: This is how Joe makes it into the Great Before. Refusing to accept the fact that he's dead, he attempts to escape, only to accidentally wind up in the Great Before. He then spends a decent amount of the film time trying to get back to his body from said area. Luckily, it turned out to only be a Near-Death Experience for him.

** [[CaptainObvious You can't exactly live the best moments of your life if you're dead]], so take care of yourself and keep yourself out of danger. Specifically, watch your steps. Don't walk and talk at the same time.
* AfterlifeAntechamber: When Joe dies, he ends up on a conveyor belt in a dark void that moves him slowly toward a bright light, which is described as the Great Beyond. Beneath the conveyor belt is an even trippier void that leads to the Great Before.

* AmbiguousEnding: It isn't clear if [[spoiler: Joe chose to join Dorothea's band or become a full-time teacher after getting his second chance at life [[TakeAThirdOption (assuming he did either of those things)]]. He only says that he is going to live]].
** This also applies to [[spoiler: 22. We don’t see where her soul ends up; just that she finally chooses to go to Earth.]]

* ArtShift: Scenes set on Earth are rendered realistically, mainly in earth-tones and lit warmly. The Great Before has simplified, more cartoony designs and a rich palette of saturated pastel colors. The realm between Earth and the Great Before is rendered in CelShaded black and white.

** When it's time, human souls ascend to the Great Beyond, with some taking a detour to the Great Before to mentor young souls.

* CensorshipBySpelling: Subverted when, in the Great Before, Joe asks if he's in "H-E-Double Hockey Sticks". All the new souls around him [[EuphemismBuster begin saying "Hell" over and over]].
* CerebusCallBack: When 22 reveals that she's gone through hundreds if not ''thousands'' of mentor figures in the Great Before, we are shown a montage of her annoying several of them and them declaring 22 a lost cause. [[spoiler:Later on, in Lost Soul state, 22's insecurities and belief that she really ''is'' a lost cause and doesn't deserve to have a life on Earth are represented by ghostly visages of the same mentor figures (now including Joe himself) calling 22 hopeless, which she actually tries to weaponise against Joe.]]

* ClingyMacguffin: New souls have a badge on their chest that tracks the traits and attributes they acquire over their development. Until it's completed and becomes an Earth Pass, it can't be removed from them for very long, always appearing back on their body in short order, and destroying it creates an identical one just as quickly.

* CueCardPause: A flashback to 22 annoying Muhammad Ali has the latter announcing "You are the greatest ... pain in the [[GoshdangItToHeck butt]].

* EnfantTerrible: When explaining how souls acquire their personality traits in the Great Before, a new soul is shown that has megalomaniacal, [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] and [[OpportunisticBastard opportunistic bastard]] traits, with Jerry [[BlackComedy laughing it off as Earth's problem]].

** Moonwind states that [[spoiler: while his passion was ''Videogame/{{Tetris}}'', his main occupation is helping Lost Souls in "The Zone". This foreshadows that a passion & a purpose are not always the same thing]].
** Joe is warned that souls become "lost" if they become obsessed with something. When [[spoiler: 22 enters a DespairEventHorizon when she loses her chance to return to earth, she becomes a Lost Soul herself during the movie's climax, obsessed with her self-perception as a failure.]]

** A bit of a [[FreezeFrameBonus blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment]], but after Jerry explains how new souls go to Earth by finding their "spark", he can then be heard rhetorically asking "And what ''is'' this spark?" before Joe gets too distracted by his own ImagineSpot to hear the answer. [[spoiler: Without that crucial piece of information, Joe assumes the "spark" is one's passion/purpose in life, but it’s later revealed that the "spark" is really just the desire to live.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: In their house, 22 has a wall of all of the name-tags from her previous mentors, which shows a wide range of {{Historical Domain Character}}s. Look closely and you'll also find Creator/JoeRanft, who was an animator and writer for Pixar until he died in 2005. You'll also find a name-tag for Creator/JackKirby.

** When Joe is told about the Earth Portal, he hurries and jumps into it, only to be flung back to the Great Before. [[spoiler: This is also a bit of foreshadowing to Joe narrow focus as he didn't wait to hear when Jerry stated you can only use it when you have an Earth Pass.]]
** [[spoiler:Joe manages to get hurled back to Earth with the help of the mystics, but he messed up the procedure with his own hastiness. As his vision clears he thinks it worked, but then he notices his own unconscious body, sees his paw hands, and realizes his soul got sucked into ''the therapy cat'', while 22 ended up in his body.]]

** 22 spent millennia in the Great Before not wanting to go to Earth and being completely apathetic towards all of its possible experiences. [[spoiler:After accidentally being forced to spend a day on Earth in Joe's body she finds she loves it and doesn't want to go back.]]

* InstantlyProvenWrong: Right when 22 proclaims that they don't have to worry about time at the Great Before, Counselor Jerry B appears remarking that mentoring time is up.

* ItIsNotYourTime: This is said by Terry to Paul after they [[spoiler: accidentally pulls him into the afterlife believing him to be Joe (whose body she didn't know at the time was occupied by 22). Terry returns him to Earth assuring him that his time hasn't come yet, though his time might come pretty soon if he doesn't stop eating unhealthy foods]].

* NakedPeopleAreFunny: In a throwaway gag near the beginning, one of the souls heading up into the Great Beyond exclaims how she's not wearing pants ([[BilingualBonus in Korean]]) and tries to cover herself up.
* NatureVersusNurture: Downplayed. While the film presents souls gaining their personality traits in the Great Before (thereby skewing towards Nature), they gain their interests by experiencing them firsthand. And as proven by Dez, hopes and dreams aren't everything and can be shaped by life experiences.
* NearDeathExperience: His time in the Great Before allows him to look back on his life.

* NonStandardCharacterDesign: In contrast to the rest of the cast, the Jerrys ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Terry]]) are 2D-animated and look like living cubist paintings.
** Also, 22 has another design than the rest of the unborn souls.

* OhCrap

* OldShame: In-Universe, Joe’s rap group.

* OurSoulsAreDifferent: Souls in the Great Before are small, blue ghost-like creatures. Before being incarnated in newborn people, they undergo formal training in how to lead their lives and develop interests and personalities. Souls headed to the Great Beyond, meanwhile, are small caricatures of who they were on Earth. So are the mentors, who consist primarily of historical figures with good reputations.
** There’s also a third category: [[spoiler: The Lost Souls. They are the souls of the living, who are trapped in The Zone because of their obsessions and turned into dark hulking creatures, while their body listlessly move through life.]]

%%* PrecisionFStrike: See the OhCrap example.
* PyroManiac: When Joe tries to teach 22 firefighting, the latter adores the flames rather than the act of fighting them.
* RaceAgainstTheClock: Joe has to make it back by 6 pm to secure his dream job.
* RedundancyDepartmentOfRedundancy: When Terry announces to the two prime Jerrys that she's going after Joe, they both, in turn, tell her to do it quickly and quietly.

** [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pizza-rat Pizza Rat]] makes an appearance!

* TheStinger

* YouAreNumberSix: All of the new souls in the Great Before are referred to only by their number, such as 22. The numbers are actually implied to represent in which order they came into being.

* TheFreelanceShameSquad: When Joe bows down to pick up his hat, the seat of his pants rips open and a crowd of people behind him start laughing. Not least because of the GoofyPrintUnderwear showing underneath.

* ItIsPronouncedTroPay: In a bit of throwaway dialogue, Joe and 22 debate the correct pronunciation of "gyro", 22 pronouncing it the "proper" Greek way ("yee-ro"), while Joe insists on the butchered pronunciation common to Americans such as himself ("jai-ro"), even insisting that his pronunciation is correct ''because'' the word is Greek. Cue this argument between Archimedes and 22 with the latter misinterpreting it as other words:
-->'''Archimedes:''' Yee-ro!
-->'''22:''' Yo-yo?
-->'''Archimedes:''' Yee-ro!
-->'''22:''' YOLO?
-->'''Archimedes:''' Yee-ro!
-->'''22:''' Sergio?
-->'''Archimedes:''' YEE-RO!!!

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Played with; the movie is partially set in New York, and 22 in Joe's body doesn't attract nearly as much attention as you think he should walking around in only a pizza-stained hospital gown, talking openly to a cat. When he meets someone who recognizes him however, like Dorothea and her band, they immediately take pause and [[RealityEnsues respond accordingly]] to his bizarre appearance. Moonwind is also a resident, and when 22 and Joe in his aforementioned getup talks to him, his boss shoos them away because she's already got one weirdo, and his job is drawing customers.