Pixar’s Soul continued the studio’s tradition of creating its next film including an Easter egg teasing Luca from 2021.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Soul, now available on Disney +.
Pixar has a tradition of including Easter eggs in its films that make up the studio’s next film, such as when a toy version of Nemo from Looking for Nemo appeared in Boo’s room in Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 3 the villain Lots-o’-Huggin ‘Bear appeared in a child’s room in Above. The last film in the studio, Soul, is no exception, including an Easter egg for Luca from 2021.
O Luca The Easter egg appears at around 57:39 in Soul, at which point 22 accidentally entered Joe Gardner’s body while he was placed in the body of a therapy cat named Mr. Mittens. While the duo walks down a street in New York City, as part of Joe’s bigger plan to fix things and restore himself to his real body, the duo goes through a travel agency, which in itself looks a little strange ( especially for a film released in 2020). There is a poster in the window that says “Visit Portorosso”, a reference to Luca’s surname in the next Pixar film.
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Announced in July 2020, Luca it takes place in a picturesque coastal town on the Italian Riviera, where a boy named Luca Portorosso spends the summer venturing into every kind of adventure with his new best friend, Alberto. However, Alberto is really a sea monster from a world in the depths of the ocean and only looks human when on land. Episode 2 of the docuseries Inside Pixar at Disney + offered a preview of the shape of Alberto’s sea monster, which seems to have been inspired by the creature from the black lagoon and The shape of the waterAmphibious man from.
24th Pixar film, Luca was written by Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Soul co-writer Mike Jones. It also marks the debut in the direction of Enrico Casarosa, who acted as a storyboard artist in the Pixar film Ratatouille and Above before directing the 2011 Oscar-nominated short film the moon. Casarosa grew up on the Italian Riviera and described Luca as a “deeply personal story”, as well as a tale about the meaning of childhood friendships and how they “often define the course of who we want to be”, as the filmmaker put it.
Friendships, like that between Luca and Alberto, have been a central element of Pixar films since Woody first met Buzz Toys Story and have continued to appear in every film in the studio ever since, be it Mike and Sulley in Monsters Inc., Carl and Russell in Above, or even Joy and Sadness in Inside out. This remained the case with Soul, who pairs 22 with Joe on an adventure that leads them to learn more not only about themselves, but the very meaning of existence. It would have just been appropriate, then, Soul to tease Luca and his own story of surprising friends, even if it wasn’t a Pixar custom.
Directed by Enrico Casarosa and produced by Andrea Warren, Luca hits theaters in the United States on June 18, 2021.
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