When I first saw the trailers for Pixar's Coco I was skeptical. A young Mexican boy travels to the Land of the Dead on some spiritual journey? Then I had heard that the characters family hated music and mariachis. To me, it sounded like it was Pixar trying to copy The Book of Life.
Since then, however, I have seen Coco and while there are some similarities, they are very different movies.
The Book of Life
La Muerte and Xibalba are bored during a Day of the Dead festival and place a bet on two boys. La Muerte chooses Manolo to marry Maria while Xibalba chooses Manolo's friend Joaquin. Xibalba cheats and gives Joaquin the Medal of Everlasting Life to protect him from any sort of danger. Growing up an orphan, Joaquin lost his father who fought Chacal, the Bandit King. His father was seen as a hero to the town and aspired to be just like him.
On the other side, Manolo loved to play music and wanted desperately to be a musician. His father had other plans. "Music is not work fit for a Sanchez!" and pushed Manolo to be a bull fighter. Manolo hated the idea of having to kill the bull and is never able to do so.
During a bull fight, Manolo protests to killing the bull, much to the dismay of everyone watching, except Maria who thought it was very brave of him. Seeing as Manolo was winning over Maria, Xibalba kills him so she'd be forced to Marry Joaquin and win his bet. Seeking help from La Muerte in the Land of the Remembered, Manolo finds his family and ancestors who lead him to La Muerte. However, it turns out she has lost her kingdom to Xibalba from the bet and must journey to the Land of the Forgotten; this is where people go to fade away when nobody left alive remembers them. Here he finally confronts La Muerte and tells her his plight.
Manolo is given one chance to come back to life after Xibalba's cheating surfaced; Manolo had to defeat every bull his family had ever killed over the ages and through the generations. Instead of using brute strength, Manolo opens his heart and sings to the bulls instead, soothing their souls and letting them be put to rest.
Manolo is sent back to the land of the living and helps Joaquin and Maria fight off Chacal and his bandits who are searching for the Medal of Everlasting Life. When Chacal is bested, he threatens to blow up the whole town. Finally understanding what it means to be a hero, Joaquin secretly places the medal on Manolo's back to make sure he survives and potentially sacrifice himself.
At the last moment, however, Manolo pushes Joaquin out of the way and covers Chacal and himself in a giant bell, engulfing the explosion. Manolo survives with help from the medal and gets to marry Maria while Xibalba and La Muerte decide to ignore the original bet.
Coco
Miguel feels a calling to music, but his family abhors it. Coco's father had abandoned their family to pursue a musical career and never returned home. Instead of sulking, Coco's mother Imelda opened a shoe making business and taught her daughter, and then through the generations. Miguel didn't want to work with shoes, he felt such a calling to music and he adored the town's local hero, Ernesto de la Cruz. He was the greatest musician in the world. Many of his songs spoke to him on a spiritual level.
After breaking the frame of an old photo of his great-great grandmother and great grandmother, Miguel notices the body of a man holding a special guitar; the same guitar held in the tomb for Ernesto. Wanting to prove himself, Miguel sneaks away in the evening of the Day of the Dead to take the guitar and play in the plaza to show he is a true musician. However strumming the guitar leads him to the spirit world where he can see and interact with those being remembered during the Day of the Dead.
Miguel soon meets up with his family who will only offer their blessing for him to go back if he stops pursuing music. Miguel breaks the promise and flees from his family and stumbles into Hector, a lonely soul who only wants to visit his girl but nobody has put up his picture. The two agree to work together; if Miguel can reach Ernesto, he can offer Miguel his blessing to go back and be able to put Hector's photo en su ofrenda for the night so he can return.
As the two make their way through the land, they bond as close friends and Hector even convinces Miguel to play in a contest to try and win an audience with de la Cruz. While he performed very well, his family was close on his heels and fled before a victor was announced. Finding out he had other family to help, Hector feels betrayed and leaves Miguel to make his own way to de la Cruz's home.
Miguel reache's the palace and finally gets to meet his hero. After taking with de la Cruz, Miguel realizes that he is not the super star he had thought. De la Cruz had a partner that he poisoned and stole music from to reach his fame. As it turns out, that poor soul was Hector, the same person who was originally helping Miguel, his real great-great grandfather. De la Cruz had taken Hector's photo from Miguel, and Hector's time is running out as Coco is the only person alive who still remembers him and she is slowly forgetting.
After talking with his family and explaining the situation, they attack de la Cruz and retrieve the photo while ousting de la Cruz for the horrible person he was. Just as his original death, he was crushed by a giant bell as Miguel's family gave him their blessing to return home.
Back in the real world, Miguel plays a song written by Hector for his daughter Coco, Remember Me. She sings along and finds the old torn portion of the original photo to piece back together, allowing Hector to keep being remembered and visit the next year with the rest of the family.
How Are They Similar?
It's obvious some similarities will pop up. Here is what I've noticed:
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Mexico and the Day of the Dead. That's the big plot point and time crunch, that most of the movie takes place during a very short celebration that allows for people to remember their ancestors.
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A young man who strives to play music. Both Manolo and Miguel love music but their families are against it. Manolo's father wants him to follow in the family's tradition of bullfighting while Miguel's family wants him to follow in the family business of shoe making.
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The bell. This is an odd one, but it was something I noticed. Chacal was killed by his own explosion inside a giant bell while Ernesto de la Cruz was crushed by a giant bell, twice.
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The twins. In The Book of Life Manolo has two cousins who died fighting in "The War," while in Coco Miguel has two great-uncles who are also twins. Maybe I'm grasping at straws with this one, but it's something I noticed.
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Mom calls the shots. Manolo travels through most of the film with his dead mother and grandfather. His mother is the one who calls the shots, even right out slapping Xibalba. When Miguel was asking for a family blessing, only his great-great grandmother, Mama Imelda, would offer it to him on her conditions. She was the one leading the search for him through the film too and played the biggest role out of deceased family members (barring Hector).
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The message. Both films teach us that family is very important, and they help shape us as we grow. Manolo wanted to break way from tradition and carve his own path the same way Miguel did. Neither one wanted to be forced into their family's business but instead used music to help themselves stand out as someone different.
How are they Different?
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Where they got help. While Manolo traveled with his mother and grandfather, most (if not all) of the trials he faced were for him, and him alone. He made it through the labyrinth, he was judged by the guardian, he fought the bulls. He proved to his family that he was capable. Miguel, on the other hand, needed a lot of help. Dante, his spirit guide, tried pushing him in the right direction, but otherwise Hector helped him through a lot, at least giving him inspiration to perform, and getting to Ernesto's palace.
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The main villain. The Book of Life is a little more simple in this regard by giving us Chacal, who attacked the town and seeks to reclaim his medal. For Coco there really isn't a villain until act 3 when we find out the truth of de la Cruz.
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Telling the story. The story of Manolo is told with wooden figures by a museum guide as a fable of many ages ago. We find out at the end that the museum guide and security guard are actually La Muerte and Xibalba in disguise. As for Coco, it is simply as an adventure that we happen to observe.
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The music. Okay, yes, The Book of Life had some awkward modern musical numbers thrown in like Creep, and I Will Wait For You while Coco was able to come up with original scores to help add more life to the film.
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The journey. Manolo's time in the Land of the Remembered was more of a fantasy adventure going through traps, mazes and distant lands. Miguel's travels were a bit more tame, but he got to meet a lot more people along the way (Frida Kahlo!).
What does it mean?
While I may be biased because I loved The Book of Life, Coco was a whole other thing by itself. Each film elicits different feelings. I cried during the last 30 minutes of Coco (might have been longer) and I really felt along with the characters. Coco is much more of a spiritual journey than The Book of Life. Manolo's adventure was more of well, an adventure. It had some touching moments too, but its impact wasn't as strong as Coco's.
If you have the chance to see either film, I highly recommend them. These are just my thoughts and opinions, so don't take them as fact, but I'd like to know what other people think as well. Thanks for the read!
Submitted December 07, 2017 at 11:12AM by neoslith http://ift.tt/2nDj2RI