The moment was so shocking, so absurd, so bold that the film’s director Daniel Chong was sure he had to cut it. It was a Disney movie after all. In fact, he even came up with a simpler, less shocking version, fully expecting he would have to change it. But this did not happen. (For minor spoilers hopper Below.)
The moment in question, which I chose to vaguely reference in my review, is when the Insect Queen, voiced by none other than Meryl Freaking Streep, is flying past our main character, Mabel. Mabel, a human in a beaver’s body, senses the Queen flying past her and immediately, instinctively, catches her between her arms. It’s violent, it’s sudden, and it’s hilarious. It is also an important moment in the film as the Queen’s death sets up the role of her son Titus, voiced by Dave Franco.
Speaking to Slashfilm, Chong explained that although he liked the scene, he was ready to let it go. “I remember after our first screening or second screening… we were like, ‘You know what? There’s probably no chance we’ll ever get away [with] Are doing this. So we should change it now so that we don’t get this note and have trouble later,” Chong said. “And so we put it back again for the next screening, and we had the Moth Queen die on her own, and then there was a scene where Mabel and [the mammal king] “George felt as if they had killed him, but they didn’t.”
It works for the story but doesn’t have that much impact. Entrance of Pixar head and director Pete Docter up, inside out, And monsters Inc., Also Andrew Stanton, Director Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and upcoming toy story 5.
“Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton were very angry with us,” Chong said. “They were like, ‘Why did you change it?!’ And we were like, ‘Well, we thought, because it’s Disney, we thought…’ And they were like, ‘No! Put him back in.’ And we said, ‘Okay, but promise to make sure we don’t have to change it.’ And they were like, ‘We’ll fight for this.’ So those people were on the ship. We were the ones second-guessing ourselves.”
Whether audiences will enjoy this moment as much as I, Doc, and Stanton did, we’ll find out after the film’s opening weekend. But it’s amazing to see that they realized that this moment is a perfect example of what makes hopper Very special. It is in theaters now.
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