Arturo Hilario
El Observador
Deep in uncharted space, far from anything human beings have ever seen, lies a community of diverse extraterrestrial minds attempting to connect to other species and have a harmonious exchange of ideas and knowledge.
Meanwhile a human boy named Elio is stuck on earth, feeling lost and alone, dreaming of another possibility out in the cosmos. What happens when Elio get his chance to connect with the inhabitants beyond the stars?
Disney and Pixar’s Elio, out June 20 in theaters, is the story of Elio Solis (voice of Yonas Kibreab), an 11-year-old who feels like an alien on his own planet. He lives at a military base with his Aunt Olga Solis (voice of Zoe Saldaña), a commendable Major in the Air Force who was thrusted with the responsibility of parenthood following the loss of Elio’s parents years ago.
Elio is a peculiar kid obsessed with space and actually yearns to be abducted by aliens, to be able to find his comfort zone somewhere out in space.
“He’s an unusual kid who’s obsessed with getting abducted by aliens,” says director Domee Shi. “He feels like a lot of us feel sometimes—lonely, unwanted, like no one understands us. Elio feels like there’s nothing for him on Earth—he dreams of going to another world where he’s accepted for who he is.”
When an otherworldly message is transmitted and Elio is able to answer back, he is finally abducted and brought to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with alien representatives from galaxies far and away.
Adds director Madeline Sharafian, “He’s so bright and very driven, but he puts that energy into trying to contact aliens rather than reaching out to people around him. He’s even modified a ham radio to send signals to space, but what really gets the aliens’ attention is the Voyager satellite—it’s a real thing that’s still out there.”
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a behind the scenes look at the creation of Elio at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, where the Pixar filmmakers dove deep into the process of making their newest celestial creation.
From the early ideas into the script, then from artist sketches to the animations created within the animators’ computers, so much thought and detail is put into every thread, every light source, and every facial movement of the final product.
Speaking to filmmakers like aforementioned directors Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, as well as Lighting Art Director Ernesto Nemesio and Sets Supervisor David Luoh, granted access to the process of telling this Pixar tale set in space. And although Wall-E and Lightyear have taken audiences to the astros before, this newest adventure was a whole new experience to create and explore, and took looking closely at Earth objects and the human condition to find the heart and visual language of Elio.
In some ways, Pixar poses a potential answer to the question of loneliness with this film, containing revelations about what it means to belong and be loved, highlighted by a poignant and comedic journey of its main character Elio to find the power to connect to those around him, both in space and across the way.
A Latino Story in Space
Just like with most Pixar projects, the basis of the idea builds from a personal experience or story, and Elio was based on the childhood experiences of Pixar filmmaker Adrian Molina.
Co-director and writer of 2017’s Coco, Molina was originally set to direct Elio and his story and characters were already in motion when he was plucked during production to a ‘priority project’, which makes sense since recently Disney and Pixar have officially announced a Coco sequel, and a follow up to that hit does seem like a priority.
Despite switching projects, Molina’s contributions are still a core of Elio, even in the main character’s background and heritage.
Although this film isn’t focused on the exploration of culture like Pixar films such as Coco and Soul were, the namesake of Elio is Latino and there were steps taken to ensure those aspects of his life were as true to realism as possible.
When Elio’s wish to be abducted by aliens actually comes true, he meets an array of space inhabitants, including liquid supercomputer Ooooo and Glordon, the tender-hearted son of a fierce warlord ruler. Featuring the voices of Shirley Henderson, Yonas Kibreab and Remy Edgerly as as Ooooo, Elio and Glordon, respectively, Disney and Pixar’s Elio releases in theaters June 20, 2025. Photo Credit: © 2025 Disney / Pixar. All Rights Reserved.
Not only is the character of Elio a half Dominican and half Mexican, just like Molina, but he also lives with his aunt Olga on a military base, and Molina himself comes from a military family background too. Adding to this, Olga’s voice actress, recent Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña, is Dominican.
Sharafian says, “It was important to us to make sure that we kept checking with our — we have an internal cultural trust. A lot of people on our crew got to weigh in on small details. Like, when Elio was packing to be abducted to go to space, what kind of treats would he pack in his bag? He’s going to pack his favorite. So, we wanted to make sure that we got that right. We were very lucky to have people on the crew and people externally, as well, who helped us really make sure that we got that right so that you can see yourself a little bit more when you see the Solis’.”
Grounding Elio and his home life in reality helps in setting up the incredible circumstances that come later, as in seeing him successfully contact extraterrestrial life and being able to experience these otherworldly spaces firsthand, with Latino snacks at the ready.
Sci-Fi and the Question of Loneliness
Ultimately, after the change to directorial roles, Turning Red Director Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, director of the Pixar SparkShorts film Burrow, took over as the leadership that would guide Elio to its ultimate destination.
Shi is no stranger to creating something very personal, and says she was attracted to the project because of the depth of the story and the Sci-Fi angle of it.
“I was really excited about telling a Sci-Fi story where the aliens are actually friendly and welcoming and aspirational. I was just so moved by the idea of the Communiverse, this space UN utopia where a species of all different shapes and sizes could come and learn from each other and work together and live together. That just feels like such a cool and important idea to be promoting right now. And it also just felt like a really fun challenge because I’ve never done a Sci-Fi movie before, but I love Sci-Fi movies. I love Alien. I love John Carpenter movies. I love E.T. To get to play in that sandbox was just like, I couldn’t say no to that.”
Sharafian says that the overall message that is weaved in the film had to do with a question that came from beloved American astronomer Carl Sagan.
“I think our North Star that we were following was this question of, ‘Are we alone?’ I think when we stumbled on this interview with Carl Sagan that he had done way back when, hearing that evocative question really pulled us in. At the beginning of the film, you might feel one way about the answer to that question. Elio’s loneliness centers around how he feels about how that question would be answered, and then watching the movie changed not just his perspective, but your perspective on the question of, ‘Are we alone?’ So loneliness and how to overcome it was something that we were always searching for.”
The Communiverse and the Visual Language of Elio
Splitting its locations between outer space and an Air Force base, the creatives at Pixar were tasked with developing a colorful, diverse location where multiple alien species converge and call home while also creating contrasting symmetrical, hard, Brutalist military structures at the edge of the woods in the Northern California coast.
Building a community of different extraterrestrial biome discs and their inhabitants in a knowledge center required filmmakers to look deep into our own world to find forms that would become the unknown and alien environments of Elio.
Taking examples from lava lamps, microscopic creatures from Earth, and textiles like yarn, Pixar took common everyday items and turned them into the alien. Harley Jessup, Production Designer for films such as Ratatouille and Coco, returned to visualize the look of the film.
“He was really inspired by macro photography and just really trying to create this look of space that we haven’t seen yet in any movie, but also trying to keep it grounded in, some rules in macro photography. Like, just the organic shapes and the translucency,” says Shi.
It also just felt like a really fun challenge because I’ve never done a Sci-Fi movie before, but I love Sci-Fi movies. I love Alien. I love John Carpenter movies. I love E.T. To get to play in that sandbox was just like, I couldn’t say no to that.
-Domee Shi, Director
The contrast of fluid shapes and more organic structures of the Communiverse creates a great division between Elio’s two environments in the film, giving a new look to deep space, while giving audiences something familiar in Elio within that world and at home on the military base. It also reflects Elio’s quirkiness and how he feels detached to his home environment.
“The contrast is fun—the Communiverse is all curves and translucent surfaces,” says Jessup. “We were inspired by macro photography and we found that by just looking through the microscope, we’d be transported to an astonishing world very different from what audiences have come to expect. We were inspired by everything from tiny mushrooms and fungus to crystals and microscopic sea creatures. We really wanted to create a fresh take on space.”
Beyond creating the basic building blocks of what the Communiverse concept would look like, it was up to Lighting Art Director Ernesto Nemesio and Sets Supervisor David Luoh to finalize these spaces and add the illumination to make it as best as technically possible.
Ernesto Nemesio adds, “in the Communiverse, we also try to use color to really try to make it relatable in a sense, that there’s a lot of biomes where one disc is a colder disc, the other disc is the aquatic disc. We’re using color and elements to create something that’s relatable and realistic. So we’re hoping that when you see the movie, you feel that there is a lot of diversity. It’s not all homogenous. It’s not all just one type of plant or one type of style or language that we’re using. But we’re trying to play with a lot of different visual languages, a lot of different shapes, a lot of different colors, a lot of different opacities and thicknesses, just so that you do feel that sense of diversity in the community.”
With all of these layers of technical detail and attention to the creation of both the Communiverse and the military base on Earth that make up the locations of Elio, Pixar filmmaker David Luoh wouldn’t mind if at first you don’t even notice the details and instead get immersed in the story. “What I hope people take away from it is a connection to Elio’s story. I hope that all the work that me and my team put into the film exists there to support, to enhance, to really help the viewer feel Elio’s journey and how he is responding to his grief and his loneliness and the journey that he’s on with Olga and Glordon, especially. And if they pick up on little details, like some complex shading or an interesting form that we can incorporate into the set, that’s just frosting on top.”
Weird Tunes That fit
Although Pixar has a remarkable track record of delivering both powerful musical scores and catchy original songs like, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and more recently, Turning Red’s “Nobody Like U”, they sometimes choose licensed music that fits a scene perfectly.
For Elio, the filmmakers found a captivating song in the 1981 New Wave classic “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads. It is set to a comedic but enchanting moment in the film which shows us the extent of Elio’s fascination and desperation with trying to contact beings from outer space.
Curious about its inclusion, I asked the filmmakers how they came to choosing the song.
Shi says, “I’ve always loved that song, and I always felt like David Byrne was a little bit of an alien himself. I feel like Elio would connect with that song, would connect with the artist himself, and just this feeling like every day is the same thing. And it’s an unusual song, I feel like I haven’t heard it in a movie.”
Sharafian adds, “Yeah! And it’s that feeling that ‘every day is the same, and I’m not where I’m supposed to be.’ It’s kinda perfect for that character. When we initially place [music] in the movie, we never know if it’s just going to be a placeholder, if it will make it to the final. But It just resonated with everybody who saw that sequence, and even all the way up from our top leadership, people were like, ‘That song works.’ So, we’re very lucky we got to keep it in the film.”
So, Are We Alone?
And after all the years of research, work and exploring this world within Elio, are the filmmakers any closer to an answer for the question of whether we are alone in this universe?
Shi hopes the answer audiences come away with is, “that we’re not alone in this universe. That the solution to our loneliness is to connect with the people around us, but it has to come from within us. We have to reach out. We have to not give up. We have to do our best to try to connect with people, even if they are not the same species as us, or they don’t look like us or sound like us. That we’re all worthy of that love and connection in the universe.”
Elio is exclusively in theaters June 20, 2025.
