Why Does Elio Have An Eye Patch? I Asked The Pixar Animators, And I'm Living For Their Reasoning

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2 days ago

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When it comes to the 2025 movies coming out this summer, Pixar fans can look forward to a new original entry from the animation studio with the release of Elio. As we start counting down the days to see it in less than a month, we have to talk about what we learned about the feature that is following Inside Out 2's massive commercial success when we were invited to Emeryville, California, to get to know the project at the very place it was crafted. Specifically, we need to discuss Elio and his already trademark eyepatch.
In Elio, we'll follow an 11-year-old boy who's gotten really into space and aliens following the untimely death of his parents. So much so, he actually longs to leave Earth and be abducted by them in hopes of living a less lonely existence. In the 20 minutes of footage I saw, I learned Elio has recently started living with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) on a military base when he makes contact with real aliens and gets his wish.
If you look at the trailers closely, you may notice, like I did, that Elio has an eyepatch in some scenes and doesn't in other ones. So when I sat down with the animation supervisors, I asked them why that is. Here's what Jude Brownbill had to say:
Well, you didn't get to see how he got his eye patch [in the footage], but he gets an eye patch. That's all we can say. It was a bit of a challenge 'cause we were like, does he have to spend the rest of the movie with his eye patch on? It does provide a very useful way of knowing that it's Elio. So it was really kind of like a handy identifier for him. And in the end, it wasn't causing too much trouble. It one less eye for us to animate.
What's up with all the secrets about Elio's eyepatch? Brownbill, who was also the animation supervisor for Soul, shared that it was actually a nice little thing for her department because it was one less eye to animate, and it makes the character more unique.
During our visit to Pixar, the studio showed us a chunk of the movie, but we saw pieces throughout the film rather than the first 20 minutes. That makes me think there's something pertinent they want to keep hush-hush until general audiences see the film.
The first clip we watched was the very beginning of the movie, which churned out a lot of big emotions regarding Elio's state of mind and relationship with his aunt following his parents' death.
Elio and Olga are both having lunch at a space museum, but Elio is crouched on the floor of the booth, isolating himself from the world. He then wanders off to an exhibit where he first gets exposed to his love of space travel and the stars. He lies down on the floor quietly in awe as projections float around the walls, and that's it. He's in love.
In the later scenes, I saw where Elio is up in space and hanging out in something called the Communiverse, which is a massive floating community in space full of leaders from different species of aliens. He's got the eyepatch on, and I'm so intrigued. I bet it's something silly like him hitting his eye on something while he's abducted, but I guess we'll have to wait.
Animation supervisor Travis Hathaway also said this about the topic in our interview:
For a film about a kid who has kind of dreams of being a space captain pirate or whatever it's kind of really on theme. So, we were surprised at how well it was woven into the movie by the end, I should say.
I do wonder how much Elio will be like my favorite pirate movies, including the very underrated Disney movie Treasure Planet. We'll have the mystery solved once the latest Pixar movie hits theaters on June 20. I hope it becomes one of the best Pixar movies, because I love the studio so much.