Coco (2017) | Concept Art → Animation
coco
Coco (2017) dir. Lee Unkrich
You know what I love about this scene?
Miguel is right. The first time I watched it, I expected a later scene where Miguel was proven wrong or shown the error of his ways—one where it’s firmly established that adults might make rules that don’t make sense, but they have their reasons and it’s best to abide by their wishes.
But no. That doesn’t happen. Instead, we see that Imelda’s insistence on the music ban, and her refusal to reconsider, indirectly (or perhaps directly) land Miguel in even greater danger, as he wouldn’t have gone after de la Cruz were it not for Imelda insisting he give up music forever. The happy ending comes not when Miguel agrees to give up music to please his family, but when he defies the ban to save Héctor and restore Mama Coco’s memories.
I can’t tell you how many kid’s movies I’ve seen that would have taken “Family comes first” to mean “The adults’ wishes are paramount even if they’re unreasonable.” It would have been so easy to have Miguel simply go along with what Imelda wanted, but Pixar instead gave us a story where a child’s decision to contest an unfair rule is what eventually restores a broken family.
“You… POISONED me..”
just a reminder that houses back then were built with lead, arsenic, and all sorts of chemicals, and he wouldn’t need to carry around poison, he could have just taken plaster shavings or even hair grease -which was laced with arsenic, as was the soap, the medicines, and the makeup, all of which Ernesto would have used- and that’s all it would have taken.
people weren’t dumb back then. they were aware that these things were dangerous. they just thought they were less dangerous if you controlled the dosage (though awareness of danger became acuter later, the more science matured)
so this entire thing would be as easy as Ernesto taking a bar of soap out of his suitcase and flaking it into a shot glass.
that’s how little effort it took to kill Héctor.
Which is so viciously sad.
Hector appreciation post
#also super tempted to make my hector tag ‘forever 21’ somebody stop me
WAAAAIIIT a minute
@kaikamahine Hector was only TWENTY ONE when he died?! This is killing me all over again.
@sarah531 I KNOW, I KNOW, i’m right there with you. He was born in 1900 (source), married Imelda at seventeen, became a father at eighteen, got killed in 1921, and has been trying to cross the bridge for 96 years.
There’s a really good fan-made timeline here, if you’re curious!
Oh godddd DAMN YOU Lee Unkrich. I thought Hector was at least… maybe thirtyish? But he never even got a chance to LIVE before [spoiler] happened!
(thank you for that timeline! :D)
