Turning Red Director Reveals The Pixar Movie's Video Game Inspirations
Turning Red director Domee Shi talks about her influences for the visual look of the Pixar movie, citing Nintendo games like Earthbound, Zelda, and Pokemon. Shi came to prominence for her Pixar short Bao, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2018, paving her way to becoming the first woman to direct a Pixar movie solo. She had said at the time that the films of Studio Ghibli were her main influence when making Bao.
Turning Red follows Mei, a 13-year-old Chinese-Candian girl who falls under a curse that turns her into a giant red panda every time she experiences embarrassment. Turning Redhas received critical acclaim with many citing the all-female creative team, animation, story, and cultural fidelity as strong points. The film saw high viewing figures from audiences with over 1.7 billion watch minutes in its first week of release, the highest ever for a Disney+ original.
Related: Turning Red's 4*Town Is Destined To End Tragically For Mei
In an interview with The Washington Post, Shi talks about the video games she played growing up influencing the film's design. She cites Earthbound and the older Pokemon games for their simplified yet memorable animation and character design. She also mentions more modern Nintendo titles like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, talking about how the world can convey so much beauty without becoming overwhelming. Read her quote below:
Both of us 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
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