Pixar Should’ve Killed Off Joe.

Soul is the latest Pixar film to (unsurprisingly) strike a cord by tackling one of their biggest themes to date; life and death.

A simple premise (an aspiring musician dies and must return to the living to perform in his big break), the film tackles a nuance dilemma; the difference between what you enjoy and what your purpose in life is.

Whether it's Woody's acceptance that life changes Toy Story, Mike's acceptance he lacks talent in Monster's University, or Carl's acceptance to life as it comes in Up, Pixar show characters facing down their tragic flaws; their underlying internal issue they mistake for a strength. Soul's Joe Garner is no different.

Joe is an aspiring Jazz pianist who makes a living as a music teacher. While passionate about music, Joe only sees teaching as a day job. On the same day he gets offered a full position as a music teacher, Joe lands the opportunity he's been waiting for; professional pianist for a legendary singer. In a case of cruel irony, Joe dies, escapes ascending to "the Great Beyond", and meets "22" a new soul he must help find her "spark" (the thing they're good at) to go to Earth. Chaos ensues; twists, turns, revelation, climax, and epilogue. Joe asks what 22's spark was, phrasing it as a "purpose", only to be laughed at for confusing a spark and a purpose.

"A spark isn't a soul's purpose. Oh, you mentors and your passions. Your purposes. Your meaning of life. So basic." - Jerry (Richard Ayoade)

Joe, having got 22 to willingly go to Earth, accepts his death and is about to go to the Great Beyond until he's stopped and offered to return to Earth, as gratitude for helping 22. Joe accepts and the film ends, cutting as Joe simply walks outside his house with a look that implies a new sense of enjoyment and lust for life.

So… what's wrong with that?

While the story is enjoyable, I can't help but have a problem; Joe should have stayed dead.

In the context of the story, Joe does die, but escaping the Great Beyond, even if it's to the the Great Before (the place souls are born), results in his body ending up in a coma in the hospital. However, within the Great Before, passed souls can be recalled to act as mentors. 22 even had some of the greatest minds as her mentor (Plato, Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, Carl Jung). Within the world of the story, death isn't as infinite as one would believe.

Where all other mentors failed, Joe succeeded in getting 22 to find her spark and leave for Earth. Joe even accepts his death. Yet he's called back and given another shot at life.

This seems like a wasted opportunity. Joe is shown throughout the film to have a real knack for teaching and expression, whether it's instilling a love of music in his students (to the point where one of them grows up to be a professional drummer), debating his overbearing mother, and even getting 22 her spark.

He spends (technically 22 does in places) the last day of his life rekindling and touching so many lives; his barber, his best student, his mother, his band. In death, he shared more of his life than in any other time of his life. It sends the message that you can do so much good if you treat everyday like it's your last.

When Joe's sent back, the movie just ends. While the implication is he lives his life more fulfilled, it's only an implication, one that's even undone a bit when you don't see the theme of the story played out.

Joe could teach full time and play Jazz at nights. Joe could be more three-dimensional and well rounded, less single-mindedly focused on Jazz. Joe could even, in a nice book-ending, go on to teach the human 22 (maybe make a joke by naming her Gwen Tito). All of this could happen.

But "could" is not canon. Part of crafting a story is making a decision. Cutting out at the end, while leaving it open for the audience to imagine, is more of a structural decision than implication. Deciding not to show something is more part of a story than what you could show.

So… what would you do?

Kill him. Let him go on to the Great Beyond. Show all the character's he touched hearing the news, realising the last happy moments they had with him were their last. Let them mourn. Let them remember him as he was; a man who touched so many lives. Maybe even through in a nice touch where they rename the school's music room after him.

Then bring him back.

Plato is definitely dead. Lincoln is definitely death (a certain angry actor made sure of that). Jung is definitely dead. But we see all these and many more come back to the Great Beyond. And all of them failed to help 22. But Joe doesn't. And they just let him go? They have someone with a flair for helping and teaching others, and they just send him back. They do all this work to track him down just to wrap it all up in the end like nothing happened. And then you don't show how this decision affects the ending?

The Mentor alternative ending, while heavy for even a Pixar film, would fit better with the themes of the story; live in the present, don't obsess over things being perfect, sometimes life takes you in surprising directions.

When you're making decisions in the construction of the story, you have to ask what is the purpose this serves in the story. Whether it be character development, exposition, motivation, stakes, or even tone, everything in a story must further the story in some regard.

Joe's death would do that. It develops his character to the point where he would be willing to accept this new position as a mentor. It builds on his already evident skill as a teacher. It heightens his actions toward other characters and gives them a higher level of meaning. It even solves a major dilemma for his character.

Throughout the film, Joe wants to make it as a Jazz pianist. When he finally does, he finds it anti-climatic, as it doesn't bring him the meaning he thought it would. By being his one big break, something he sought for his whole life since childhood, his death reframes it not as a disappointment but rather as the completion of a lifelong obsession, allowing him to move on, both figuratively and literally.

Dying would give Joe the thing even Jazz couldn't; a purpose.

And, more importantly, it would drive the message home to us, the audience; live.