‘Iyanu' Creator Roye Okupe & Creative Team On 'Weaving The Emotional Journey' With Cultural Authenticity & Empathy
Animation has always been one of the best mediums for storytellers to reach young audiences, especially for a young Roye Okupe who says it was his 'first love'. After creating a successful graphic novel series, and a meeting with Lion Forge Entertainment facilitated by Impact X Capital's Erica Dupuis, Okupe managed to make his dream of creating an animated series come true.
Based on Okupe's graphic novel series Iyanu: Child of Wonder, the Cartoon Network series follows Iyanu, an orphaned teenager living on the outskirts of civilization who discovers she has divine powers and a destiny to save the ancient kingdom of Yorubaland. Okupe's dream was to infuse the culture he grew up with into the series, along with the help of some veterans of the animation industry – story editor Brandon Easton, writer Kerri Grant and supervising director Vincent Edwards.
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Although the first season has yet to have its finale, the series has already been renewed for a 10-episode second season as well as two feature-length films. The first animated film, The Age of Wonders, is set to release later this year. The season finale on Cartoon Network is on May 24th, and will be available to stream on Max the following day.
DEADLINE: Roye, what made you want to bring your graphic novel into the animated space?
ROYE OKUPE: I've always been a fan of animation since I was a kid. For me, animation was my first love, and I think it has obviously stayed that way. I grew up watching Ninja Turtles, Batman, X-Men… I can literally go on for hours and hours. I moved to the U.S. in 2002, and the closer I got to Hollywood, the more I felt the desire to create an animated show that was based on some of the things that I learned growing up about my history and my culture. I started off in the graphic novel because it was a lower barrier to entry, and then fell in love with the graphic novel medium. But for me, the motivation has always been to showcase Africans, specifically in this case, with the young Nigerian culture to a global audience. And I think there's no better medium than animation to do it.
There's something that Brandon always says, and ever since he told me this in the writer's room, I've always held onto it. 'The more specific you get, the more global and the more broadly acceptable your story becomes.' So, from day one, we wanted to lean into what made this show special culturally. For me, as someone who is a Yoruba person, it was the ultimate privilege. It was also a very, very delicate task to balance imputing culture into a story without, as Vincent would say, 'making people drink through a water hose' where they're just overwhelmed with so much new information. Finding the right balance of story comes first, but at the same time, let's not shy away from what makes this different, what makes this beautiful, what makes this authentic. I'm extremely proud of this because, as specific as we get with the culture, it's never done in a way where it excludes anybody who doesn't know anything about Yoruba culture or Nigerian culture.
DEADLINE: Kerri, Vincent and Brandon, as three people who have worked on different animated series, how do you go about making sure you're infusing this culture without singling it out?
KERRI GRANT: I think what Roye said earlier, we all kind of learn as writers really early on. That whole thing about the more specific you are, the more universal the story is… the reason for that is these are just kids. They're kids on a journey, on an epic coming-of-age journey that includes some pretty amazing fantasy and supernatural elements. But at the core of it, it's about telling this coming-of-age, fantasy, adventure, epic tale. That in itself as a foundation, makes it appealing and universal for anyone who loves good stories. I think what's different and cool about Iyanu is a lot of people aren't as familiar with Yoruba culture and the cultures within it, so it's exciting that people get to know these specifics about the culture, even the details from the costumes, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the differences in the parts of the land that they travel to and encounter… But ultimately, at the heart of it, it's about this girl who's coming into her powers, and it's a classic hero's journey.
BRANDON EASTON: What made it a lot easier also was that Roye was in the writer's room with us, as a writer and a producer. Every step of the way, if there was a question, he was there to answer it or to make it make more sense for us in a storytelling context. But most importantly, the doorway is always emotional accessibility with these types of stories. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about ancient fantasy Nigeria or you're talking about Iraqis or you're talking about things that don't exist, there is an emotional path that we all love as consumers of story content. We all want to walk the same emotional path, and I feel like Iyanu's is, 'Who am I? Why am I here?' I've never spent time in Nigeria, but there's things that are kind of universal that we can tap into, and Iyanu's journey is a very, very relatable one.
VINCENT EDWARDS: And to speak to the cultural authenticity aspect of it, in any story universe, you have to have a clearly realized vision of what that world looks like and what the people in it look and sound like. If you break your own rules, the audience disconnects because they don't feel like it's authentic to what you're trying to say you're doing. In terms of Iyanu, the cultural authenticity aspect of it was really granular and consistent throughout the production of the show. The look of food, the look of clothing, the look of props… all the different visual styles, even though it's a mythological fantasized world, it has to still feel like it's real and authentic to the point where if a bowl of rice doesn't look like what it's supposed to look like, Roye's like, 'Hey, that doesn't work.' This would be analogous to if we made a show about America and we had a hamburger with a purple bun. We would be like… What? So, all that stuff really combines to create an authentically realized world that supports all of the more thematic and character driven elements of the story.
DEADLINE: It's obviously a different culture, but this series reminds me of being exposed to a new culture as a kid when I first watched , and I think would have had a similar effect on me back then.
OKUPE: I always tell people, you have no idea how much influence entertainment has over the minds of children and adults. Actually, I think we're in an age where there's information all around us and everything is all mangled up, but when it comes entertainment… It's funny you mentioned Avatar, because I fell in love with New York by watching Spider-Man. So eventually when I came to the U.S. and I was able to experience it, it was a different kind of emotion because I've been so far away from it. And when I finally got here, it was this visceral feeling where it's like, 'Oh, wow, I'm actually in the same place as Peter Parker,' even though he is a fictional character. It goes back to the roots and the inspiration behind all this, to try to show what I saw growing up, what I heard about, what I ate, and some of the things I went through.
Obviously, like Brandon said, it's also weaving the emotional journey for each of these characters because, as much as we love the authentic parts of this story, it's icing on the cake to me. If you lose people with the character moments, all the other stuff becomes a flaw. But I think one of the big things we try to do with this show, one of the big themes, is empathy. And it was very important to intertwine empathy with everything that has to do with Iyanu. Her powers, her mission, her story, her journey… all of that is encompassed around empathy. Because I think we live in a time now where we as human beings could use a lot more of that. And it's important for children from a very young age to understand the power of empathy, even though it's a very difficult emotion to express.
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‘People Are Going To See Something They've Never Seen Before': How Pixar's Next Hit Film Was Made
Fans of laughing out loud one moment and crying into your popcorn bucket the next are in for a treat with Pixar's latest release. Elio is the newest offering from the award-winning animation studio, centring around a lonely boy who becomes obsessed with the idea of being abducted by aliens – and gets more than he bargained for when his dream comes true. As has come to be expected from the studio that gave us the likes of Inside Out, Coco and Toy Story 3, Elio dives into some pretty hefty themes, exploring everything from loneliness and grief to toxic masculinity, all with Pixar's signature sense of humour and adventure to keep younger viewers as gripped as everyone else in the cinema. In the lead-up to the film's release, we spoke to directors Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi about how sci-fi horror had a surprising influence on Elio, creating something people have 'never seen before' with their unique take on space and releasing an original film in the current sea of sequels and live-action remakes at Walt Disney Studios… Right at the beginning of the film, there's a key scene soundtracked by Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. Why was that song chosen, and how easy was it to get? Madeline Sharafian: That scene and that song were in the film from the beginning that Domee and I started. That montage of Elio going out to the beach every day, desperately trying to be abducted, was almost the way that we explored his character as we changed his motivations to wanting to be abducted by aliens. And I think the song was [Domee's] idea of just a way to showcase that he's stuck in this cycle, and he wants to get out. It was a great idea. Domee Shi: Yeah, I always loved that song, I always felt like David Byrne kind of gave off alien boy vibes as well. And the way that the song starts always sounded kind of synthy and celestial and spacey in some way. I felt like there was a connection between Byrne and Elio, and it felt like a cool needle drop choice to put in this montage where we're introduced to Elio's obsession with getting abducted, but being unable to, every single day that went by. MS: It helped a lot that Pete Docter and Jim Morris, our company leadership, really like that song. So I do think that kind of helped us hang onto it and get it for the final, and we're very grateful that we got to keep it. It adds so much to the scene. DS: There was one moment where we did try another song… MS: Oh god, yeah… DS: I was like, 'what about Beastie Boys' Intergalactic?'. And then we tried that for a minute and we were like, 'no, I think we miss Talking Heads', and we went back to that. And also I feel like I haven't really seen [Once In A Lifetime] used a lot in media, in like TV or movies, whereas Intergalactic is used quite a lot. I love that song, though! But yeah… Something else people are going to pick up on is Elio's eyepatch. It really works as a plot device later in the film, but was that always going to be there, or were other ideas explored? MS: It was always an eyepatch, I'm pretty sure. I mean, the eyepatch was there in Adrian Molina's original version [Coco writer and director Adrian Molina originally conceived the idea of Elio to helm the film himself, but left the project halfway through to focus on Coco 2, at which point Madeline and Domee took over as lead directors]. When we took the story, we loved [the eyepatch], just as a way that it supports Elio's feeling of otherness, when he's on Earth, he feels even more out of place. And when he goes to space, all of a sudden, he looks like a dashing space sci-fi captain with this cape and his eyepatch, and the aliens love it, it's like '[you have] one eye, [I have] one eye, this is amazing'. All of a sudden it's accepted and loved. DS: Yeah, it's been great seeing the response to Elio's eyepatch online and with audience members that have come up to us and thanked us for including a kid with an eyepatch – it is something that kids do deal with, and it makes them feel othered. And it sucks! To have a sci-fi hero in a Pixar movie sporting one and looking cool I think is very empowering. Let's talk about the look of the film – sci-fi is a huge genre and even within the Disney and Pixar canon, we've been to space a few times. How did you decide what your version of space was going to look like, and what was going to set the Elio universe apart? MS: Pixar has done two sci-fi movies already [2008's Wall-E and 2022's Lightyear] and Harley Jessup, our production designer, really wanted to shoot for a version that we've never seen. So, he knew that the Communiverse needed to be this sort of beautiful almost Utopia, that there would be aliens from all over the universe gathering there, and almost designed it, one of his very first pieces of production art that I saw that I fell in love with, it was kind of glittering in the sky, almost like a disco ball – the way the lights shimmer on it were like a disco ball. We ended up taking that and putting it in the [finished film], we were like, 'we need to hang onto that'. So, it's bright, it's colourful, it's also softer and round, which I do think is very different from other sci-fi movies. And everything – even the technology – feels very organic, and kind of squishy and alive, which I think gives it a very unique identity. DS: Yeah, all of it points to Elio just truly feeling like he belongs there, and that he doesn't want to leave when he first arrives. And I also love that Harley challenged our character designer to design non-humanoid-looking aliens, and kind of look at deep-sea, underwater creatures for reference. We went with designs that you couldn't possibly do with humans in a costume, right? MS: Yeah, because live-action, especially some of the classics are a little bit limited by that. Like, the alien in Alien is a guy. Really awesome, though, but we were like, 'we're in an animation, we can do whatever we want, so let's make sure that our aliens are taking advantage of what we can do'. Some parts of the film are quite intense and surprisingly quite scary – especially for a Disney film. Was there much pushback because of that? DS: I mean, we were excited to explore other aspects of the sci-fi genre that maybe you don't usually see in a Disney and Pixar movie. We're both sci-fi horror fans, and I think there's a good balance between scary and fun – like a fun scary. There's a sweet spot that you can hit, and we tried to do that with all the scenes with Elio's clone, really pushing the clone's friendliness, but also upping the weirdness and the horror surrounding him, from Olga's point of view where she's slowly realising, 'am I living with a clone?'... MS: …which is a pretty crazy realisation for her! Especially since she starts off the movie as a sceptic of aliens, she doesn't really believe that they're out there, so to take her to becoming a believer… we almost talked about her B-story as in, 'she's in a totally different kind of movie', she is in a pod person movie, and I thought it was fun that we treated her sections almost like a different genre, a little bit. DS: And you know… we'll fine-tune the execution of it, just to make sure that the music isn't too crazy and the sound effects don't give you too much of a heart attack and we release the tension immediately with a joke or a gag or something. But I don't know – I remember being a kid and loving movies like A Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, where there is like a fun scare. I feel like the original Monsters Inc. taps into that a little bit, too. Elio is coming out at an interesting time for Walt Disney Studios, where there area lot of films coming up that are either sequels, live-action remakes and other ideas based on existing IP, so it's great to see an original story coming from the studio, too. Is that something that's important to you both as filmmakers? MS: Yeah! DS: Definitely. MS: And it's important to Pixar, too, I think. Even though we release our own sequels [Inside Out 2 was the biggest film of 2024, with follow-ups to Toy Story, Coco and The Incredibles currently in the works at the studio], we do talk a lot about how important originality is to us, just as a filmmaking culture, we have a lot of originals coming [Pixar's next release, Hoppers, is slated for 2026, followed by Gatto in 2027] and I would say, whether they're sequels or originals, we hold ourselves to the same standard for both. And our main goal is just to make incredible movies, and amazing stories. I love originals – but Toy Story 3 is one of my favourite movies that Pixar has ever made! So, as long as we're holding that standard of storytelling, hopefully we can make any kind of movie great. But it is exciting to have an original coming out. I think we're the only original [Disney film] coming out this summer, which is so wild [the studio also has sequels to Freaky Friday and Tron coming later in 2025, with live-action remakes of Snow White and Lilo & Stitch having also been released earlier in the year, while Marvel projects have included Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts* (which featured a main cast of existing characters) and the new reboot of The Fantastic Four]. I hope people enjoy [Elio] and they're going to see something they've never seen before – and that's really exciting, and worth seeing in a theatre. Elio is in cinemas now. Watch the trailer for yourself below: Lilo & Stitch Remake Director Addresses Backlash Over The New Film's Changed Ending 'Sobbing, Screaming, Traumatised': Frozen's Josh Gad Opens Up About Olaf's Axed Death Scene Snow White Remake Faces Yet More Criticism Over CGI Characters
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15 Richest Fictional Characters — How Much Would They Be Worth in Real Life?
You don't have to be real to be rich, and in today's tumultuous economy, living in fantasy is a lot less likely to lead to disappointment. For You: Try This: These 15 super-wealthy fictional characters from film, TV, books and games hold a wide variety of occupations ranging from superheroes to crime lords, but they all have one thing in common — a net worth in the billions. Occupation: King of Wakanda Estimated net worth: $90 trillion Character from: Marvel comics Marvel comic book character T'Challa reigns over the fictional African country of Wakanda, which is home to nearly all the world's reserves of Vibranium — a super-strong metal that, according to the comics, is the main component of Captain America's shield. This premium metal comes with a precious price tag, coming in at $10,000 per gram. No wonder everyone shares the sentiment 'Wakanda forever,' as it is home to 10,000 tons of Vibranium, putting the royal family's net worth in the trillions. Some estimates have Black Panther's personal wealth at just $500 billion, but either way, he's doing all right. Occupation: Mine and mill owner Estimated net worth: $65.4 billion Character from: 'Donald Duck' comics Penny-pinching Uncle Scrooge McDuck came from humble beginnings before amassing his fortune. McDuck's first job was shining shoes before he left his native Glasgow to dig for gold in the Klondike. After pulling himself up by his shiny bootstraps, he eventually started founding mines and mills that helped him build his billion-dollar fortune, which he was rare to share. McDuck famously stored his fortune in a giant money bin filled with gold coins, which not only helped out his tax situation, but also served as his daily cardio where he could swim laps. Consider This: Occupation: Plunderer Estimated net worth: $54.1 billion Character from: 'The Hobbit' Being a pillaging dragon has proved fruitful for Smaug, who appears in 'The Hobbit' book and movies. According to the novel, Smaug sleeps on a pile of gold and silver, has diamonds and other precious stones encrusted in his belly, and also owns the Arkenstone of Thrain, a giant diamond 'worth more than a river of gold in itself.' Basically, he's giving really, really rich vibes. Occupation: Business owner and inventor Net worth: $43.4 billion Character from: 'Iron Man' Marvel's Tony Stark inherited much of his wealth after his parents were killed in a car crash (which was actually an assassination), leaving him to run the successful firm Stark Industries. Though he wasn't a natural businessman, the company has been profitable thanks to the leadership of Virginia 'Pepper' Potts. However, much of Stark's net worth comes from his valuable inventions, investments and properties, including his Iron Man suits (worth $7 billion), Stark Tower, his J.A.R.V.I.S. computer program (worth $10 million), mansion (worth $25 million) and luxury cars. Occupation: Defense contractor Net worth: $36.2 billion Character from: 'Annie' Oliver 'Daddy' Warbucks is the owner of Warbucks Industries and a successful defense contractor, but you know, with a heart of gold. Even though Warbucks has donated much of his earnings to philanthropic causes at the urging of his adopted daughter Annie, the Iraq conflict caused a boom in his net worth, bringing it to $36.2 billion, so not such a hard-knock life after all. Occupation: Business owner Net worth: $31.3 billion Character from: 'Batman' The comic book hero better known as Batman, Bruce Wayne inherited his fortune when his parents were gunned down in front of him when he was only a kid. Wayne came to own Wayne Enterprises, which was worth $27.4 million at the time according to a Batman comic released in 1974, and grew its value significantly. The Dark Knight knows his way around a royal sum of money. Occupation: Shrimp sales/Investor Net worth: $27 billion Character from: 'Forrest Gump' Forrest Gump's business partner, Lieutenant Dan, had the foresight to invest profits from their shrimp boating sales into 'some kind of fruit company' — which turned out to be the very profitable Apple Inc. Gump is estimated to have put $100,000 (at the time 3% ownership) into the company when it went public in 1980, which at the $22 stock price would have given him about 4,545 shares. Occupation: Rich kid Net worth: $23.9 billion Character from: 'Richie Rich' Richie Rich is the only child of two incredibly wealthy parents who gave him everything he could ever want. Sadly, Rich's parents were killed in a plane crash orchestrated by the head of a rival company. Though this is usually the recipe to raise a nightmare human, he seems to spend his substantial fortune in stride. Occupation: Power plant owner Net worth: $10.4 billion Character from: 'The Simpsons' Mr. Burns owns and operates the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on 'The Simpsons' and sometimes resorts to unsavory means to ensure profits, which is super rare for someone with his wealth or in his position of power (*sarcasm). While his business practices are (literally) shady, his financial outlook is 'excellent.' Occupation: Businessman Net worth: $10.1 billion Character from: DC Comics DC Comic villain and Superman archenemy Lex Luthor built his financial empire through business savvy, intelligence — and backstabbing and murder. What a relief, he's a fictional character. Luthor is the founder of LexCorp, a multinational conglomerate that has acquired many smaller businesses, including airlines, communications companies and banks. Occupation: Candy maker Net worth: $8.4 billion Character from: 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' Willy Wonka is the owner of the greatest chocolate factory in the world, and though the factory was temporarily shuttered, Wonka managed to profitably reopen it after a lengthy hiatus. It helps not to focus on Wonka's engaging in some unethical business practices, namely his use of Oompa Loompas — who some posit were slaves — to manufacture his products, as this is just a rich guy in a children's story. Occupation: Crime lord Net worth: $8.4 billion Character from: 'Star Wars' Jabba the Hutt of 'Star Wars' fame gained his fortune through a life of crime. As a gangster and crime lord, Jabba secured wealth for his planet Tatooine by controlling piracy, slavery and the trafficking of illegal goods. Described as 'the wealthiest gangster in a hundred worlds,' Jabba lives in a palace and keeps a flesh-eating monster for entertainment. Occupation: Media baron Net worth: $5.8 billion Character from: 'Citizen Kane' The star of Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' used the inheritance from his family's gold mine to purchase the newspaper The New York Inquirer. Although the paper wasn't making money initially, Kane relied on yellow journalism, sensationalism and poaching talent from other papers to grow his into a successful business. A modern Kane likely would have expanded his holdings to include radio, television and movie studios. Occupation: Archaeologist Net worth: $1.3 billion Character from: 'Tomb Raider' franchise Lady Lara Croft is the Countess of Abbington and owns the Croft Estates, which include three separate manor houses. Croft inherited a fortune from her parents after their separate untimely deaths. Although she has family money, Croft has followed in her father's footsteps and works in the archaeology field — though many detractors question her methods. She has even been accused of stealing treasure from the sites she discovers, which is how she got the nickname 'Tomb Raider.' Occupation: Real estate investor Net worth: $1.2 billion Character from: Monopoly Mr. Monopoly, formerly known as Rich Uncle Pennybags, has several profitable real estate holdings in the Atlantic City, New Jersey area. You can tell the board game mascot has money by his fancy suit and top hat, which he is never seen without. He should also be paid, or at least get residual checks, for being the first mascot of capitalism. Gabrielle Olya contributed to the reporting for this article. More From GOBankingRates Mark Cuban Warns of 'Red Rural Recession' -- 4 States That Could Get Hit Hard 10 Genius Things Warren Buffett Says To Do With Your Money 8 Common Mistakes Retirees Make With Their Social Security Checks This article originally appeared on 15 Richest Fictional Characters — How Much Would They Be Worth in Real Life?
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‘Elio' Review: Pixar's Space Opera Adventure Needs More Time on Earth
Watching Elio, the title character of Pixar's latest film, it's difficult not to draw comparisons to another child hero underneath the Disney umbrella. Introduced as a shy child reeling from an unspecified accident that took his parents' life, the 11-year-old bursts out of his shell upon an encounter with an installation speculating of life beyond the stars and emerges as a hyperactive, alien-obsessed weirdo who runs around wearing a cape and metal colander helmet, speaks in a made-up language he calls 'Elio-ese,' and drives his Air Force aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) crazy. From the tragic backstory to the misfit behavior to the tense relationship with his guardian, Elio might as well be the male version of Lilo from Disney's similarly sci-fi themed 'Lilo & Stitch' — it doesn't help that plenty of people went to go see the remake just last month. More from IndieWire Danny Boyle Says He Couldn't Make 'Slumdog Millionaire' Today, and He'd Want 'a Young Indian Filmmaker' Instead David S. Goyer Says Warner Bros. Execs Were Upset It Takes an Hour to See Christian Bale in the Batsuit in 'Batman Begins' The crucial difference? In the original 2002 animated film that introduced her, Lilo won the hearts of viewers because she was such a specific, sharply written weirdo. She was rough around the edges, bratty and mean, and with eccentricities — a love of Elvis Presley, a belief that a fish on her nearby beach can control the weather — that were singular to her and her alone. Elio is a teddy bear in comparison: he's too instantly sympathetic to ever get properly annoyed at, and his obsession with aliens feels more banal and less personal, a way of acting out after the death of his parents rather than a real passion inside himself. He's easy to like, a sweet kid voiced winningly by spirited child actor Yonas Kibreab. But, like the movie that bears his name, he's a bit too forgettable to fall in love with. Any Pixar film that's been released since roughly the mid-2010s invites a perhaps unfair game of comparison, measuring how it stacks up to the studio's golden period of the 2000s, when every other film they produced was an instant classic. 'Elio' certainly is a fair sight better than much of the company's latest output, which has geared more toward regurgitating old ideas or sputtering around in shallow storylines. And yet watching it feels a slight bit depressing at the same time, a reminder that where Pixar's films once led the animation industry, taking out there concepts like rats that want to cook and robots that want to find love and bringing exquisite heart to them, they now feel imitative instead of innovative. If there were ever a version of 'Elio' that had the spark of an old Pixar classic, it got shuffled out of existence by a turbulent production process that saw original director Adrian Molina, who previously helmed the company's Oscar-winner 'Coco,' replaced by the duo of Domee Shi — whose hilarious 'Turning Red' remains the best Pixar film of the 2020s by a significant margin — and Madeline Sharafian, known for directing the short 'Burrow.' Molina based the film's original story concept heavily on his own life, and the directorial transition occurred right around Pixar head Pete Docter admitting the studio would be pivoting away from 'personal stories' driven by directors to films with universal mass appeal. Certain elements of the script directly based on Molina's life, such as Elio's mother working for the military, got rewritten entirely. The directorial change-up feels readily apparent throughout 'Elio's' 90-minute running time. That's not necessarily due to plot holes or pacing — the film clips along its standard beats at a steady pace, only lagging during one spaceship ride near the end that comes across as pure filler — but the overall feeling that it's only dipping its toes into the emotional and creative depths of this story. Elio's desire to be abducted by aliens, a reaction to his miserable loneliness on Earth, leads him to send a message via a satellite at his aunt's base to the stars pleading for extraterrestrials to come abduct him. The message gets received not just by a spacecraft but by the Communiverse, a roaming planet-like spaceship holding an international committee of representatives from across several galaxies. Getting whisked away into this fantastically technicolor world is a dream come true for Elio, enough that he's willing to go along with it when the committee reveals their misread that he's the leader of Earth. To secure his place in their ranks, he bravely/insanely plunges himself into solving a diplomatic crisis between the alliance and Lord Grigon (a suitably hammy Brad Garrett), the 'blood emperor' of a warlike race of alien worms from the planet Hylurg, who seeks revenge on the ambassadors for rejecting his bid to join them. All of this looks fantastic — while on Earth, Elio suffers a bit from that squishy, rounded animation style that's recently become more or less Pixar's house look. In space, the movie experiments more, adding splashes of 2D graphic animation and gorgeous technicolor around the stately white spaces Elio inhabits. The alien designs are suitably weird and inspired, from the mind-reading floating flatworm Questa (Jameela Jamil) to the rock monster Tegmen (Matthias Schweighöfer). One can detect sci-fi inspirations from 'E.T.' to 'Star Wars' all over the film's DNA, and in its funniest and most memorable moments it takes cues from sci-fi horror of all things, including the introduction to Grigon's son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), which has a whiff of both H. R. Giger in the character design and Ridley Scott in the blocking. But, as fun and creative as some of the individual parts of this spaceship are — from the chibi supercomputer sprite that gives Elio the ability to communicate with other aliens to the cloning goo he uses to explain away his absence on Earth — on a whole, the Communiverse is never as wondrous as you want it to be. None of the ambassadors get enough individuality for us to actually care about them, and their actual goals as an organization are too vague to grasp. Grigon is amusing as a warlord who, at heart, is really a beleaguered dad — he reminds one of Bowser in the Mario games more than any past Pixar character — but his softness is telegraphed a bit too early for him to ever be a convincing threat, even to children. This wondrous world up in the stars too frequently feels more like an amusement park for Elio to run and geek around in than a living, breathing universe. The real problem, though, might be the material that's earth-bound. 'Elio' draws clear parallels between Grigun's issues relating to Gideon and Elio's disconnect from his aunt Olga, and his desire for alien approval comes from a deeply wounded sense of pain that he no longer belongs on Earth after the passing of his parents. There's some great raw material here, and yet onscreen it never gets to compelling territory. Elio and Olga are simply too generic, stock types that can be found in plenty of modern animated films, for their friction to ever build into something as compelling as, say, Marlin and Nemo's strained father-son relationship. It doesn't help that Saldaña, whose character is meant to be the story's heart, sounds like she's phoning it in a bit in the voiceover booth. There's no specificity to Elio's circumstances on Earth — his trauma from his parents' deaths gets mostly brushed over, the isolation he feels from his peers is represented via a stock bully, even the town he lives in is a generic suburbia — which makes his yearning to escape to the stars ring hollow. So, by the time Rob Simonsen's rather generic score begins to overdo the bombast and the film gears up for an emotional decision from Elio about where he belongs that it has to take more than a few logical leaps to arrive at, the pathos falls a tiny bit flat. It's difficult not to wonder what 'Elio' could have been like, had the original concept from Molina made it onscreen, and whether or not the more 'personal' version of this story had the sharp edges and specificity needed to elevate the film from a cute kids' film to something more meaningful. 'Elio' isn't a bad time at the theaters — it's pretty to look at, charming enough, and frequently funny. But by shying away from investing in where its main character is coming from, the movie makes his galactic adventures feel a bit weightless. Disney will release 'Elio' in theaters on Friday, June 20. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. 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