Turning Red is the latest animated film from Pixar. The film had been released last month. Turning Red’s director, Domee Shi, recently did an interview with The Washington Post. In the interview, she reveals that Nintendo played a part in influencing the film.
Shi talked about playing games like Pokemon, Zelda and Earthbound as a kid Shi even mentions that she would play Zelda and Pokemon games on handhelds, “like a lime green Game Boy Color and Nintendo DS Lite”, and hide them under her pillow so she could play past her bedtime. In fact, it’s not just her that got influenced by Nintendo. The film’s production designer, Rona Liu, also loves Nintendo. And the “chunky cute aesthetic” art style that Nintendo has used would have a major influence in the film’s work.
Shi said that she and Liu “just love that chunky cute aesthetic and that was definitely fostered by playing Nintendo games, like Pokémon, like ‘EarthBound. There’s just something so appealing about how they are able to stylize their world in such an appealing, chunky, cute kind of way. When we were looking at the looks development for our movie, we looked at Breath of the Wild and were like, ‘Wow, how are they able to make the world feel so beautiful and rich but are still able to simplify it?’”
Later in the interview, Shi admitted that “If someone told 13-year-old me who was drawing Pokémon or Sonic fan art for dollars and weird trinkets that she could do that for a living and make a million-dollar movie about that, I think she’d be amazed”.
As for today, Shi is still playing video games. In fact, she still enjoys Nintendo games. She’s played Super Mario Odyssey and Metroid Dread. She also plays games like Hollow Knight. And during the production of Turning Red, Shi got a PlayStation 4 Pro and, although she admits she was initially intimidated and “not a hardcore gamer”, she enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghost of Tsushima, The Witcher 3 and Death Stranding. With the film now out, she wants to play Elden Ring and try out Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
Too bad that move is cringe almost from start to finish. So it looks like the they didn’t quite take all the lessons from Nintendo that they could have.
Just my opinion. If you’re into the film, that’s OK.
What did you find cringy about it? Just curious, not here to debate.
I heard good things from a comedian mom who took her daughter to see it. I will check it out at some point, I’ll keep expectations low Bedtime Bear.
I thought it was a cute movie that was fun and it made me cry twice.
I have not watched the movie, but the red panda does make me wish The Pokemon Company would return to the chunky pokemon aesthetics.
Are implying that Bewear was not good enough for you? Gasp
Um, when did this site turn into another day on YouTube’s recommends section.
Where’s MY news article quoting about how I like Nintendo games and played my Game Boy in bed??
That’s Nintendo life job, also I think this article is all right even though I don’t like turning red, it’s just one article anyways and it’s not like those Nintendo life post where there like kid name Luigi dresses up and talks like Luigi.
Hey be nice to me 😭 jk
I still have yet to see this. Wouldn’t have been a problem if it got a theatrical release like it deserved to…
I also found out one of the voice actresses lives one town over from where I live, so, that’s really cool.
I remember Nintendo Life having an article a few months ago on the film where someone noted how the main girls’ color scheme was the same as Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi (I guess that may have been a deliberate decision on the TR staff’s part, which is actually kind of neat) and then replaced the girls with said Nintendo characters which was amusing.
The last Pixar film I watched was Luca which I enjoyed, I have yet to watch Turning Red but I’m planning to since I liked Domee Shi’s Bao.
I’d be offended if i were a Nintendo creative.