Visit The Great Before in this exclusive image from Pixar’s Soul

By Matt Maytum
published

The animated film hits Disney Plus in December

(Image credit: Pixar/Disney)

Soul has the kind of brain-scrambling, heart-swelling premise that only Pixar seems capable of.

The ambitious idea tells the story of a middle-school band teacher, Joe (Jamie Foxx), whose life suddenly seems to be on the upswing until a fatal accident finds him in ‘The Great Before’, the place where souls are raised and gain their personalities before they go to Earth. Desperate to return to his life in New York City, Joe teams with cynical soul 22 (Tiny Fey), in an effort to escape.

It sounds complex and challenging, but director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc, Up, Inside Out) and Kemp Powers absolutely deliver: read our five-star review of Soul from the London Film Festival for evidence.

Below, we’ve got an exclusive new look at Soul, from the new issue of our sister publication, Total Film magazine. It features Joe (in Soul form) and 22 in The Great Before, revisiting the pivotal moments in Joe’s life. Check it out below:

Joe and 22 in Pixar's Soul

(Image credit: Disney/Pixar)

If you think that Soul might be a companion piece to Docter’s Inside Out (both feature detailed inner worlds, and a big concepts rendered into cute characters), think again.

“We were definitely conscious of the similarities at the beginning, and actually tried to push against that, because one thing we’re not so fond of doing is repeating ourselves,” Docter tells Total Film in their new issue. “But I do feel like Inside Out was the film that prepared me for this one because it was so complex, and there was so much that really stretched my brain.”

For much more from Docter and his Soul filmmakers, check out the new issue of Total Film, which hits shelves real and digital on Friday October 16. Soul will debut on Disney Plus on  December 25.

Check out the new covers of Total Film below: the one on the right is one its way to subscribers right now.

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(Image credit: Total Film)
Matt Maytum
Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.