Pixar made a Luca sequel, and it’s an emotional 6-minute short

Pixar added an unusual new element to popular animated films when it began making sequels to its feature films and short film spinoffs. Pixar’s eventual parent company, Disney, had always wrapped up its stories with “happily ever after” endings. Pixar’s first shorts like “The Happily Ever After” Monsters, Inc. Spinoff Mike’s New CarOr Finding Nemo’s hybrid goof The Reef: Exploring, didn’t mess with that tradition at all — apart from bringing back the movie’s characters, they barely intersected with the films at all, and certainly didn’t have much to do with the originating movies’ plots. This was true for shorters, such as Jack-Jack Attack, BURN-EAnd Party CentralThe joke-filled side stories were told by Amazing Things, WALL-EAnd Toy Story, respectively. These shorts were primarily intended as DVD bonuses, to give buyers some extra incentive — fun little returns to a world, but without much depth or significance.

However, something has changed. Riley’s First Date?The 2015 From the Inside short. It isn’t just a jokey aside to From the Inside, it’s a legitimate mini-sequel that checks in on the characters after the action of the movie, and actually moves the story forward slightly, past its seemingly final point of closure. The Pixar spinoffs shorts were the basis for Disney movie franchises. Tangled’s sequel short Tangled Ever AfterThe Frozen Following short Frozen Fever, the studio took up the same model: emphasis on the “after” instead of the “happily ever after.”

Disney’s latest CGI short, the Luca sequel Ciao AlbertoThe same mindset is behind the. It’s brief, cute, and focused on sight gags, but it also reopens some big, raw emotions that seemed at least nominally resolved in Luca. The story is so fast that it feels as if it could last an entire film.

2021’s LucaThe film is principally about the main character Alberto, a sea monster and friend who decides to live on land after meeting a brave peer. It is about their friendship, their quest for money and the low-stakes battle to beat a local bully. Ciao AlbertoAfter the film is over, Alberto returns to Alberto in order to resolve one of his biggest problems.

[Ed. note: Major spoilers for Luca ahead.]

Alberto writes a letter from his treehouse in the Pixar short Ciao, Alberto

Image: Pixar Animation Studios

Luca, it eventually emerges that while Alberto claims he’s hanging around the area waiting for his father to return from work-related travel, Alberto’s father has actually abandoned him, leaving him to survive on his own. His father’s disappearance has left him with a deep emotional hole to fill, and he tries to cram it full of incident and adventure, pretending he isn’t hurt and lonely. He quickly becomes controlling and possessive after he has made a friend with Luca. He sees each independent thought or desire or any relationship Luca develops as a violation of their friendship.

The movie ends with Luca fulfilling an independent dream by moving out of the region to study and to learn about the rest of the world. Alberto discovers his own path to fulfillment by working for Massimo, the local fisherman. This gives him a role in the community and allows him to feel a purpose and value. But the film is Luca’s story more than Alberto’s, and while they both get happy endings, it’s easy to see why Ciao Alberto McKenna Harris was the writer-director and also served as Luca’s story lead) felt Alberto needed a little more closure.

Ciao AlbertoAlberto has repeatedly failed to complete his Massimo’s work due to being too eager, confident, impulsive and inexperienced. He doesn’t just make small, reparable mistakes, either — he alienates Massimo’s customers, makes a huge mess of his home, and eventually destroys the boat Massimo depends on for his livelihood. Weirdly, he doesn’t even seem that apologetic or thoughtful about what he’s done. He’s just worried about losing his job, and about fielding Massimo’s entirely theoretical anger at him.

In a short, the problem is resolved in a positive manner. Alberto’s anxiety comes to a head, Massimo delivers a short speech, and all is well. But the way the short taps into Alberto’s insecurities and inadequacies necessarily feels pretty shorthanded — it’s an awful lot of trauma and emotion to pack into less than six minutes of runtime. Harris’ ambition here in telling a meaningful and emotional story instead of going for six minutes of sea-monster transformation gags is laudable. But Alberto’s abandonment trauma, desire for a father, overcompensation, and life of pathological pretense is also fertile emotional ground, and it feels like it could have been the seed for an entire feature-length sequel, rather than a few kinda horrifying gags and a quick ending.

It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with Ciao Alberto. It’s colorful and lively, full of quick edits, big moments, and gags around Machiavelli, Massimo’s beloved cranky cat. It’s a nice little window back into a bright world, and it does contribute something significant to the Luca story. It just feels like it could have been a lot more — and given the desperation and dangerous behavior on display here, it seems like Alberto needs and deserves more. It’s clear that the end of Luca wasn’t the end of him processing his trauma and moving on, and that he has a long way to go yet. Ciao Alberto shows the cracks in his façade, but barely gets to the point of letting him understand that façade itself.

Maybe that’s the downside of Pixar’s thoughtful, emotional approach to storytelling — there’s never going to be enough room to get to everyone’s story, and viewers will often have to settle for implied resolutions rather than exploring every side character at length. It is possible for the audience to complete large gaps in a story, which can sometimes be an excellent way to do so. The two sea-monsters, an old lady and a woman at the bottom of LucaThey certainly have interesting histories, as an example. It’s easy to wish this short had been about them, but then again, maybe it’s more fun to leave their backstory open to fans’ imaginations.

And it doesn’t seem like their tale is nearly as crucial or as raw as Alberto’s. For a little kid, he’s got some big problems, and this short does more to expose them than to permanently resolve them. However, Ciao AlbertoIt packs quite a punch for its brief runtime and is a worthy footnote to your overall experience. Luca story, it’s a little stunning how much it tries to take on, and how quickly it tries to wrap up a lifetime of hurt in a few quick minutes.

Ciao AlbertoDisney Plus is streaming it now

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