Coco: How Pixar Made Skeletons Kid-Friendly With A Simple Trick

With a premise heavily revolving on the concept of Death, Disney Pixar's Coco may not be the easiest movie to sell to kids. The movie is rife with things like skeletons and ghosts, but director Lee Unkrich revealed a cool trick he did to make the skeletons seem kid-friendly—he gave them eyes.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Unkrich explained:

"You don't typically see skeletons with eyes, but it was important because without them they're just blank slates[.] It's cliché, but the eyes are the window to the soul, and I knew if I was going to have tender, soulful moments with these characters, I needed the audience to be able to look right into them."

With such a heavy emphasis on family, you bet that Coco was going to have a lot of emotional moments. You can expect nothing less from Pixar who wants us to have moments of catharsis in movies about talking fish and sentient cars.

When earlier previews for the film came out, a lot of comparisons were being made to 2014's The Book of Life, and early reviews still say that Coco definitely has a lot of similarities. The only saving grace is that it's a Pixar movie, and you can expect some truly emotional moments—elements that I thought were a bit bland in The Book of Life.

Here's the official synopsis:

Despite his family's baffling generations-old ban on music, Miguel (voice of newcomer Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voice of Benjamin Bratt). Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead following a mysterious chain of events. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector (voice of Gael García Bernal), and together, they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.

Coco hits theaters Nov. 22.

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