In the first full trailer for Pixar’s “Soul,” Tina Fey plays a soul in training awaiting her journey to Earth into a human body, but she’s reluctant to go. And with the way the coronavirus is spreading down here, we can’t blame her either.
Pixar’s story is actually far more wholesome than that, imagining an animated afterlife and even a before-life world where tiny blue wisps of spirits develop their personality traits and attributes before they’re born and then return when they’ve passed.
Jamie Foxx’s character has arrived in this soul world a bit early, and in one scene, Fey’s character wonders what’s so great about going back.
“Hey look, I already know everything about Earth, and I don’t want anything to do with it,” she tells Foxx. “You’re missing out on the joys of life, like pizza…I can’t smell! I can’t taste either?” Fey’s character then proceeds to slap Foxx around to prove he can’t feel either.
“Inside Out” and “Up” director Pete Docter directed “Soul” along with co-director Kemp Powers (“One Night in Miami”), and the film follows a middle-school band teacher who gets the gig of a lifetime, only to take a bad fall and travel from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks and interests before they go to Earth.
Foxx and Fey also star along with Phylicia Rashad, Angela Bassett, Ahmir Questlove Thompson and Daveed Diggs. Jon Batiste is providing original jazz music for the film, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross will compose the original score that drifts between the real and soul worlds.
This is Pixar’s second original film this year following the just-released “Onward.” “Soul” opens in theaters June 19. Watch the new trailer above.