How PIXAR Writes LOVE... | Pixar Playbook No.1

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Welcome to the Pixar Playbook, my new series about identifying patterns and formulas in Pixar movies. The first topic of this first Pixar video is love.

[00:00:08]A really strong relationships of all kinds. Pixar is full of really strong relationships, really strong bonds between its characters. Sometimes it's love, sometimes it's family, oftentimes it's between people who literally just met each other, but they are so efficient at making relationships that feel deep and feel real. And I want to use the romance in the first 10 minutes of Up as the primary example here. And then from there we'll expand outwards and upwards. And my question is, how the heck does this scene do what it does? It is insane. This first sequence of Up is like the greatest love story ever told in 10 minutes ever. How is it so moving?

[00:00:42]How does it make us cry? How does it take us through this whole tragedy that leaves us with like end of movie level emotions when it is literally like 10 minutes long? The sequence is ridiculous. It's insane storytelling and especially considering the fact that on the surface this seems like pretty standard romance stuff. These are building blocks we've seen countless times. Opposites attract, childhood romance, unfulfilled dreams, tragedy, but no, it is so much more nuanced than that. And it has everything to do with a very specific method Pixar uses to craft strong relationships in all of their movies. And with Up, it starts with this idea of adventure. It is a very typical little kid thing to watch, but you look at what Carl is actually doing. Like take this scene.

[00:01:18]>> He hurdles Pipes Peak.

[00:01:22]He hurdles the Grand Canyon.

[00:01:25]He hurdles Mount Everest.

[00:01:30]He goes around Mount Everest. Yes, it is a super cute scene. It is there to be super cute. It's there to make us laugh.

[00:01:37]It's there to endear us to this kid. But what is it? What is the story doing here? So, just on the most basic level, Carl is jumping over a pebble, but not just for no reason. It's because he wants to climb a mountain and he can't.

[00:01:48]He can't do that much, but this little bit he can do. He wants to soar over the Grand Canyon. And again, he can't do that, but this little bit he can do. And next, Everest. Oh, he doesn't quite make it. And yes, this makes us laugh. It's super endearing. But again, what is it?

[00:02:01]It's that he can't. He wants to do more, but he can't. And then now compare this to Ellie.

[00:02:06]>> Beautiful day. Winds out of the east at 10 knots. Visibility unlimited. ENTER THE WEATHER IN THE LOG BOOK.

[00:02:14]>> So why is this what makes a kid like Carl fall in love? It's not just common interest. What is it that he sees that wows him? It's that Ellie can do more.

[00:02:22]She is way ahead of him in realizing the dreams that she has. You look at the contrast with how they're playing with Carl. His pretending is following the news reel in the most literal basic way.

[00:02:31]He is doing exactly what the voiceover says. But Ellie has a whole play airship basically with a house. It is all rigged up in this complex way. The house is decorated with all these little inspirational clippings that she's collected. She has a club with its own badges and she has a book with her own plans, what she wants to do with her life. And yes, it's all modeled after months, but it's with her own spin. And she has blank pages that she's ready and eager to fill herself. Adventure is out there and Ellie is going out there. She is doing stuff. Carl is watching. He is passive. There's a little bit he can do, but as far as doing stuff, >> welcome aboard.

[00:03:08]>> What's wrong? Can't you talk? That scene is really showing the core plight of Carl's personality. He really can't do stuff. He can't generate. He can't build on his own. He needs someone to help him. And so much in this whole sequence is pointing to this. The balloon, yes, it's a childhood thing. And yes, it's also reminiscent of the durable, but what is it? This balloon, it's a thing that you hold on to and it floats in the air. It pulls you upward a little. And for that matter, why up? Why not down? I know it's kind of a silly question, but I think it's legitimate and it's pretty straightforward. It's because up is limitless. It is the great unknown. It's freedom. It is the world. And that's why the initial adventure packaging of this first part of the story is so ingenious.

[00:03:44]Yes, adventure in this form with the hero that the kids are looking up to and the costumes and the playing pretend that is very childlike. It seems very surface level. It seems very basic. But you look at these kids' personalities.

[00:03:53]It's not just about kids going on pretend adventures. It's not about South America. It's not about lost species and science. Carl is this kid who is oriented inward. That's just who he is.

[00:04:02]His tendency left alone. The type of person he is. His constitution is conservative. And I don't mean politically. I mean literally conservative. He works with the very little he can reach on his own. And he cannot go further. He cannot do more.

[00:04:14]The most he can do is follow. And if he doesn't have anyone to follow, he becomes old man Carl. He becomes a shut in not just from adventure but from life as a whole. So Ellie in that context is what? She is not just opposite attract.

[00:04:28]Her love for adventure is not just childhood fun. Adventure for them as kids is code for living life. It's doing things. It's the world. That's why the whole sequence later on in this about having children. That feels right for these characters. They show Carl jumping the pebble, so to speak, with his timidly imagined single cloud baby. And then for Ellie, it's all the cloud babies. Carl can't imagine that. He can't do that. He wants it, but he needs her to generate it for him. Ellie is Carl's access point to the world, to what makes life fulfilling. And when she's gone, he loses that access. He becomes a shut in. And then when he regains it, it's only through her. It's only through his attempts to keep her alive in his life because that's what she is to him on a fundamental level.

[00:05:08]She is his access point to everything.

[00:05:11]And this pattern should look very familiar because this access point to the world idea is at the core of all of Pixar's strongest relationships. You take Wall-E and Eve. Wall-E is earthbound. He is isolated in a lonely post-apocalyptic world that is cut off from humanity. And so then Eve is literally his access point to the human world and to the restoration of the world. That's in the plot sense, but also in the character sense. It's his access point to the human connection that he yearns for. That is the world to him. And everything about who and what both of them are is representative of this. Wall-E is grounded. Eve can fly.

[00:05:44]Wall-E is old technology. Eve is cutting edge. She's where humanity is at now.

[00:05:48]Wall-ally is left behind with the trash.

[00:05:50]Eve is crucially integrated into civilization's current day efforts. She is important. She matters. And the other way too for Eve, Wall-E and his plant are literally the access point back to the world for all of humanity, which is Eve's fundamental purpose in life. Her whole existence is organic and stale until Wally introduces her to real humanity. Not what's on the axiom, but real humanity. What makes life worth living, which nothing in her world does except for him. You look at Ratatouille, this example is not romance. It's two partners who develop a strong friendship. But it's the same structure.

[00:06:19]Remy and Linguini both cannot access this world of high cuisine that they both dream of so desperately. That is what makes life worth living for them.

[00:06:27]They both have these inherent barriers.

[00:06:28]Remy's a rat and the queenie can't cook.

[00:06:30]And they need the other person to overcome that barrier. Without them, they cannot access that world. We also see the structure in Finding Nemo. Why does the movie need to start off with the tragedy of the barracuda killing all of Marlin's family? It's because they need to show that Marlin's life was complete and was whole once upon a time.

[00:06:46]And now it's not just that Nemo is his son and he loves him. Nemo is his sole connection to that perfect life. Not just his other children, but his wife, too. through Nemo's name. He is Marlin's last remaining connection to Coral as well. And that is enough for him. Marlin can live his perfect life in that way.

[00:07:00]But then when he loses Nemo, he loses access to his entire world, to everything that we saw made life feel whole for him. Toy Story 1 explores this in a different way. For Woody, what makes life worth living is being Andy's favorite, being loved by Andy. And the reason why Buzz is a problem is that he is a barrier to that. The Incredibles is a fascinating example of this. What makes Bob's life worth living is being a superhero. And that make or break value finds expression in his relationships.

[00:07:22]He marries a superhero because of that.

[00:07:24]And then when world events come in and disrupt her from being able to give him that access, Bob doesn't just seek out being a hero, he seeks out relationships. It's framed in terms of his escapade with Frozone and his cheating, quote unquote, with Mirage.

[00:07:36]It's no accident that both these are portrayed as undermining his marriage.

[00:07:39]And then the resolution isn't just about Bob's family being complete again. It's about regaining access to that world as a superhero, to the life he is so passionate about. In Soul and in Koko, we have characters who are cut off from the world because they are dead. And they literally need access to the world through their counterpart. And Hector is Miguel's access point to music. And Joe is 22's access point to helping her discover purpose, discover what makes life worth living, what the world is for her. Inside Out, I think it's very straightforward how these characters whole lives and whole reasons for being are about living life through Rei. And that is why, >> but we still love our girl.

[00:08:09]>> So this pattern is all over Pixar's relationships, and it's a powerful template for you to use in your own writing, too. There is a lot you can do with personality compatibility and shared goals. But to break through to another level of importance, it just has to be about more than that. It has to even be more than just regular emotional needs. To make bonds that feel truly powerful, that feel fundamental. It has to encompass the character's whole life in some way. And Pixar does this with its what makes life worth living values, with its barriers and its challenges to that, and with its access points to the world. Subscribe. Huge huge announcement. We will be doing community fan meetups this summer. And in part to organize that, I'm kicking off the Schne newsletter, the newsletter. You can sign up for that using this link that will be in the description in the pin comment.

[00:08:51]This newsletter will be about channel news and other fun channel related stuff, media recommendations, and content plans. But yes, if you're interested in that or if you're just a fan of the channel or want to stay connected with me moving forward. Go ahead and sign up for that. If you like this video, June will be Pixar month. We will have Pixar videos twice weekly, Wednesday and Sunday. Videos that will be dissecting Pixar as if it's its own genre and extracting methodology so you can better understand the stories that you love. And if you're a writer, you can make your stories feel more Pixar-like. So stay tuned for that.

[00:09:17]Subscribe if you haven't already. Share the video around to other Pixar fans and tell them to follow along. And on that note, thank you to all the patrons who helped me develop the ideas for this video. Ben, Offy, Terrell, Kamaya, Jade, Ilith, Josh, David, Dom, Daniel, and others. Could not have made this video without the group analysis Patreon call that we did a while back. And on that note, huge thank you to all patrons. In other news, Mary versus the Mountain Band is our community project will be entering its production phase. I will be doing a live stream next Sunday, June 7th, at 400 p.m. Eastern. We will be going over plans and what production phase will mean. I'll be doing a call for some volunteers and we'll do some other fun stuff. So, hope to see all of you there. Thank you to everyone who submitted so far. We've gotten so many submissions, lots to talk about. But that's all I got for now. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for watching.

[00:09:55]I held back so much on the Toy Story part of this video.