Pixar unveils first trailer for ‘deep’ new animated film, ‘Soul’

'Soul' stars Jaime Foxx, Phylicia Rashad, Questlove and Daveed Diggs.

The trailer for Pixar’s philosophically deep, new animated film, 'Soul' will have us all questioning who we are and how we got here.

Dawn Onley

Nov 7, 2019

Pixar's new film, “Soul” introduces Joe Gardner, a middle-school band teacher whose true passion is playing jazz. (Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios)

Can a cartoon make you question your very existence? Judging by the trailer, Pixar’s new animated film, Soul, will have us asking some deep, mind-blowing questions about this thing we call life.

For instance, what were you born to do? What sets you apart from others? Soul, which stars Jamie Foxx and Tiny Fey, probes these questions and more, according to EW.

Foxx plays Joe Gardner, a middle school teacher in New York whose true passion is jazz music. No sooner does he land his dream gig, he has an accident and the next thing you know, he is falling down a sewer grate and his soul is landing at “You Seminar,” a workshop in the great beyond where souls are created and given personalities before they are sent to connect with their human bodies.

Pete Docter, who wrote Up, Inside Out, and Monster’s Inc., is directing Soul.

“I think Joe is having that crisis that all artists have,” said co-director Kemp Powers in a statement. “He’s increasingly feeling like his lifelong dream of being a jazz musician is not going to pan out and he’s asking himself ‘Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?’ Joe personifies those questions.”

According to EW, as Joe tries to get his soul back to his own body, he meets up with 22, Fey’s character, a soul who hates humans, yet is willing to help Joe complete his mission. Other characters in the film include Phylicia Rashad, The Roots’ Questlove and Daveed Diggs.

“We went in a completely different direction than any of the other films that Pete’s done,” said Powers to EW. “It’s hard to contain our enthusiasm over how much people are going to be surprised by what they see.”

“There are children and life experiences and food and all these other things in the world that you can’t say are less important than animation. I would maybe have said that at certain times in my life,” said Docter.

“It’s an exploration of, where should your focus be? What are the things that, at the end of the day, are really going to be the important things that you look back on and go, ‘I spent a worthy amount of my limited time on earth worrying or focused on that’?”

The trailer for Soul was unveiled Thursday on Good Morning America, which got a number of people excited to go out and see the film. Only problem is we’ll have to wait until June 19, 2020 when it is scheduled to hit theaters.

At least judging by the promo, it appears to be worth the wait. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think.