Soul Ending Explained: Pixar's Meaning Of Life Revealed (2024)

Pixar's Soul comes to an emotional conclusion after a harrowing journey between dimensions, so it's no surprise some viewers came away from the film with a few lingering questions. The film imagines a "Great Before," where souls find their "spark" before joining the mortal coil and being born as babies on Earth. With such heady concepts and profound themes as the purpose of life, Soul requires some thinking before all facets of its ending fully take shape.

In Soul, down-on-his-luck jazz musician/middle school band teacher Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) finally gets what he hopes will be his big break in the competitive professional scene of New York City jazz, but just before he can seal the deal, he dies, sending him to the Great Before. Despite the fact that Soul seems like Pixar's "first adult movie", as with most Pixar movies, Soul explores existential ideas close to its surface, taking in mortality, the meaning of life, and what life without purpose truly means. Those questions have been a major part of Pixar's pantheon all the way back to Toy Story, but here's how Soul tackles it.

What 22's Spark Is In Soul & Meaning Of The Maple Leaf Seed

One of the biggest mysteries throughout Soul is what 22's spark is, something that isn't explicitly revealed at the end of the film. However, the movie heavily implies that 22's spark is simply an appreciation for living, with her being excited by all the little things on Earth that Joe overlooked in his life. This theme of appreciating life is reinforced when the maple leaf seed lands in Joe's hand at the end of the film. In this moment, Joe takes notice of the leaf and appreciates it, showing his new perspective on life and the joy that he now finds in the little things thanks to 22.

How Joe's Life On Earth Will Be Different

Although Soul ends with Joe being brought back to life, his life on Earth will be much different after his time in the afterlife. Joe has found a newfound appreciation for life, something that he picked up from spending time with 22. Joe realizes that he will not be fulfilled by making big career moves or by being accepted, with Joe presumably using the rest of his life to instead focus on what makes him and those around him happy.

What Happens To 22 After Soul's Ending

One of the biggest questions at the end of Soul is what happens to 22, as she is unseen after she leaves Joe. After giving 22 the maple seed she collected, 22 is prepared to go to Earth, with Joe accompanying her on her journey. After she departs. 22 is most likely living a life on Earth, with her hopefully being fulfilled and happy due to what she learned from Joe before starting her life.

How Is The Cat Still Alive In Soul?

Another major Soul plot hole has to do with how the cat survived, as it would have had no soul after Joe left the cat's body. However, the cat is seen alive again after Joe departs, which is incredibly confusing to some audiences. It could be that another soul jumped into the cat's body right as Joe left. It could also have to do with animal souls working differently from human souls, as animal souls aren't really explained in the film.

How Does Joe Get Back to the You Seminar?

With all this dimension-hopping, audiences would be forgiven for wondering just how Joe returns to the You Seminar after having left the Jerrys for good with 22's Earth badge. The answer lies in his piano. Let's recall that Moonwind and his merry pranksters each gain access to The Zone every Tuesday by meditating in whatever way they can immerse themselves. Joe's chosen form of meditation is music, so he retreats to his piano, enters the zone, and follows a wild, lost 22 through her box portal from The Zone back to the You Seminar to achieve his true goal and make things right.

How Lost Souls and the You Seminar Work

Tina Fey's 22 embodies on her journey to self-actualization after struggling with self-doubt and apathy. Soul suggests that when these feelings take hold of you, as they do 22 during the film's climax, your soul becomes encased in a cocoon of negative feelings. Such is the two-sided coin of The Zone, as Moonbeam describes: passion can consume them in a positive way, but passions and negative feelings alike can lead a soul astray.

The You Seminar is the preceding counterpart to the afterlife. It is run by the Jerrys: various manifestations of "the coming together of all quantized fields of the universe" which take a form legible to the human mind for the benefit of Joe and the audience. Early in Soul, it's established that it's the You Seminar's job to prepare souls to begin life by creating their personalities and helping them find their spark, but it's in the third act that it becomes clear precisely what that spark is, or perhaps more importantly, what it is not.

Joe operates for most of the movie on the mistaken assumption that the You Seminar is meant to give souls their singular purpose, with this being his fatal flaw in the film. However, as a Jerry explains before Joe returns to Earth to play in the Quartet, that understanding is far too simplistic.

The Real Meaning Of Soul’s Ending

This is the message writer/director Pete Docter hopes to leave with audiences: lives don't boil down to some binary success or failure, but rather it's in the way each moment is lived, no matter how small, that gives all time on Earth meaning. Soul posits that one of the best way to be fulfilled is to simply find fulfillment in the small things by living in the moment rather than always being concerned about what is to come.

Furthermore, the film's exploration of lost souls through 22's incapacitating pessimism touches on themes of self-worth, which Soul producer Dana Murray describes as learning to love one's self. The ethereal film continues the existential discussions from Docter's 2015 effort Inside Out, but rest assured, Soul stands on its own two feet as another intriguing investigation into the mortal experience.

Soul

PG

Family

Animation

Adventure

Pixar's Soul follows Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a pianist, who is killed in an accident just before his big opportunity to finally succeed in the world of jazz music. Joe's soul gets stuck in the "Great Before", a purgatory which gives him the idea of reuniting his body and soul. Alongside Foxx, Soul features the voices ofTina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga,Richard Ayoade,Phylicia Rashad, andAngela Bassett.

Release Date

December 25, 2020

Director

Pete Docter

Cast

Tina Fey , John Ratzenberger , Daveed Diggs , Jamie Foxx , Phylicia Rashad , Ahmir-Khalib Thompson

Runtime

100 minutes

Writers

Pete Docter , Kemp Powers , Mike Jones

Budget

150 million

Studio(s)

Disney

Distributor(s)

Disney

Franchise(s)

Disney