Pixar confirmed the return of a studio tradition not seen since The Incredibles 1 in 2004. The renowned animation studio is mere days away from releasing its 29th feature-length film, Elio, telling the story of a young boy who is abducted by aliens and finds community amongst his space-faring captors. While the Wall-E studios have been steeped in tradition over the years, with the Toy Story Pizza Planet truck popping up in every film among other Easter eggs, one thing it did leave behind in the mid-2000s was its hilarious animated blooper reels. That is, until now.
Pixar's Elio will bring back the studio's iconic trend of outtake reels after 21 years. For the studio's first five feature-length films (from Toy Story to The Incredibles), each movie ended with a series of animated bloopers that riffed on comedies of the time that would often include these mistakes or hiccups as the credits rolled.
The Elio outtakes reel was first posted online by Discussing Film. It shows various guffaws from the movie, including a light rig falling in front of one of its central aliens, characters asking for their lines, and protagonist Elio winking at the camera.
Fans last saw one of the blooper reels in 2004's Incredibles; however, those were only included on that film's special two-disc collectors DVD. The last time the bloopers ran during the credits (as had been tradition to that point) was in 2001's Monsters Inc.
It is unclear why the studio stopped including them after that film. Some have speculated that the trend fell out of fashion at Pixar as, unlike with live-action bloopers, these outtakes were written, directed, and animated by the studio's staff, adding work to their already jam-packed production schedules.
Watch the Elio blooper reel here:
Elio comes to theaters on Friday, June 20. The new Pixar movie comes from a trio of directors, Domee Shi, Madeline Sharafian, and Adrian Molina, and marks one of the few original movies on the studio's slate of the last couple of years.
Starring Yonas Kibreab as Elio Solis, the latest animated adventure from the Toy Story studio tells the tale of a young boy who aliens mistakenly take after being confused for the intergalactic ambassador to Earth.
How Far Will The Return of Pixar's Outtakes Go?
It is exciting to see Pixar return to its roots and debut another one of its classic blooper reels with the release of Elio, but the fact that it exists is only half of what fans have been wanting since Monsters Inc. in 2001.
The big question now becomes, where will the outtakes live when the movie actually hits the big screen? In previous iterations, these reels have lived at the end of the film, rolling during the credits, but it is unclear what the plan will be for this latest batch of giggle-inducing snafus.
There is a chance Elio's outtakes could just live online for now, giving fans something to watch after they come out of the theater before being made into a special feature on the movie's physical release.
However, they could also pop up at the end of the film as they always have for the studio, which would be an exhilarating return to form for longtime fans of the studio.
