WMG / Luca

Pre-Release

Gay romance story.

Come on, two protagonists of the same sex? Highly unusual in this day and age, what with the emphasis on gender equality and diversity and all. But following Disney tradition it won't ever be stated directly.

• Except those protagonists appear to be no older than preteens, maybe early teens; not exactly an age yet for romance, and the things we see them do in the trailer looks just like 2 boys being friends and having fun.
• Sometimes boys, who are likely best friends, also eventually develop crushes on each other. It doesn’t matter if they act on their new feelings or not, as long as their feelings are mutual.
  • When your exploring a new world with your best friend, while having to keep both of your sea creature identities a secret from everyone, a possible crush on your best friend usually takes a back seat.
  • Jossed. Casarosa said in an interview leading up to the film that the relationships in the film are platonic friendships(including between Luca and Giulia, which would make for something of a bisexual love triangle), particularly the kind between very different people. Additionally, the kinds he had in his own youth.
• Partially jossed. The movie was originally written to be about pre-romantic kids from vastly different backgrounds coming of age and forming platonic bonds, but the director aknowledges and accepts the romantic readings of the story.

Something is gonna happen that causes the two boys to break off their friendship.

Likely one of the boys ends up screwing up royally and causing the other to leave in anger. That's basically a staple at this point when it comes to Pixar stories. Bonus points if something ends up happening to one of them that causes the other to realize how much they care for them.

• Confirmed. Alberto gets jealous when Luca also befriends Giulia.

Luca and Alberto won't be the only secret fish people.

It will turn out that someone else in the town is also a fish person pretending to be human.

• The villain, if there is one.
  • Jossed; there is a villain, but he's human.
• Giulia, for three reasons:
  • She's the only person in the human town with an American accent, and the only other characters with American accents we've seen so far are Luca, Alberto, and Luca's mother—who are all sea monsters.
  • Her design, particularly her face, looks much more similar to Luca and Alberto than the other kids in the town.
  • In the new poster, Luca and Alberto are standing in the water, showing their sea monster legs, but Giulia is sitting on the dock with her feet above the water. Maybe she is a sea monster who's just as anxious as Luca and Alberto are about revealing their secret.
    • Possibly Jossed, as another poster similar to the one above has Giulia's feet in the water, and them remaining human feet. Meaning she is most likely a regular human girl.
  • She might still be one, with the reveal that she's been on land so long (possibly since she was a baby or toddler) that she's lost her ability to transform.
  • Jossed. It seems that she is a regular human girl.
• Confirmed that the the two old women are and that Luca's granny visits the town fairly often.

If the above is true and Giulia is a sea monster as well...

What about her father Massimo? He clearly despises sea monsters given his appearances in the trailers. Perhaps Giulia's mother was a sea monster disguised as a human, and following a One-Night-Stand Pregnancy, she had to return to sea and leave her child behind. Massimo was completely oblivious to this and instead assumed she had been killed by a sea monster. This would mean Giulia is a Half-Human Hybrid rather than a pure-blooded sea monster like Luca and Alberto - maybe there are differences in how she transforms, which is why her father (and maybe even Giulia herself) is unaware she is part monster.

• If Massimo finds out about this, it will create a conflict between his love for his daughter and his hatred of sea monsters.
• Jossed. But who knows? maybe if the story is continued as a series, maybe the idea of her having sea monster heritage could be used in some form. Also, he father dosen't feel any conflict upon learning Alberto and Luca are sea monsters. At least not a big one.

Characters from Finding Nemo will appear.

Perhaps the Tank Gang will have escaped from the reserve from Finding Dory and ended up in Italy, only to still be trapped in their bags. Or Luca and Alberto will swim past Nemo, Marlin, and Dory but it will be a split second shot.

• As a huge fan of the Finding films, I would love for this to happen. However, if Pixar is going to give any of those characters an Easter egg cameo, it’s probably going to be the guy who hides in plain sight—-Hank the septopus.
• A Shout-Out to Scales: Mermaids Are Real and/or We Are Who We Are are also possible with the Jack Dylan Grazer connection, especially since he considers the former an Old Shame.
• Confirmed. Hank does appear, though only in the form of a sculpture. The seagulls in the movie look almost identical to the ones in Finding Nemo, although they lack the "Mine! Mine! Mine!" catchphrase.

The reason why Luca and Alberto are willing to going into a town that's known for slaying sea monsters is because, they have no home or family.

Do you notices we don't see them with their own family? My guess is that Luca and Alberto lost their family at some point and both boys ends up in a town and despite the town's history of slaying sea monsters, Luca and Alberto views as the only place they go to since they have no family or their own home.

• Jossed. The second trailer shows that Luca has a mother who forbids him from going up on land. He and Alberto go on land in spite of this. So kinda like The Little Mermaid (1989).
  • Alberto could be abandoned by his family and living alone in his home.
    • The film reveals that his father left and never returned, and Alberto thinks he ditched him. But whether this is true or something happened to him is unknown. No mention goes to his mother or the rest of his family, though.

Massimo, Giulia’s father, is a sea monster hunter.

• In the trailer, he says he kills "anything that swims", implying that he doesn't just kill fish for food.
  • It's possible a sea monster had some sort of involvement with his missing right arm, which would explain his hatred of them.
• The above part is confirmed. The missing arm part is jossed. It does come out as joke, througth.

It will be revealed the fish people used to live on land alongside humans.

Why else would they have the natural ability to assume a human form upon leaving the water? There's no need for such a power if they spend their entire lives below the surface. Maybe in the past some conflict prompted them to abandon land for good and retreat into the oceans permanently.

• Going with this theory; maybe it will turn out that, originally, they were humans themselves who had the ability to turn into fish people if they needed to go into the ocean; their human forms are their true forms, contrary to what most people these days believe.
  • That could explain why the sea monsters converse in human languages even when together and have regionally appropriate names even when they typically don't leave the ocean.
    • The movie never delves into the history of the fish people or the nature behind their ability to become human. So this WMG could still be true, but we won't know (yet).

Ercole will find out about the boys' secret.

And he would try to expose them to the humans and lead an angry mob to hunt down the "evil sea monsters" ala Gaston style, however since Ericole is 16, it's unlikely he'll end up the same way, more likely by the end he'll be punished for causing a public disturbance and be forced to do community service or have a change of heart (hopefully not though).

• Mostly jossed. While he does try to kill them and does use the fact that they are sea monsters as an excuse, he dosen't lead a mob and tries to do them in all by himself. He does later try to create a mob to kill them, but fails spectacularly. And while he does gets a comeuppance, its not community service. Instead, his goons turn on him and throw him into a fountain, with his precious sweater.

"Silenzio Bruno"

During the trailer, Alberto refers to Luca's hesitance as a "Bruno" and tells him to silence it. But what does it really mean? Perhaps Bruno was somebody Alberto knew who tried to warn him not to go on the surface, similar to Luca's parents. Whoever Bruno is, Alberto's history with him will probably come back to bite him later in the film.

• Jossed; we never learn who Bruno is, and no character by that name appears in the movie.

Post-Release

Sea Monsters becoming human above water is an Adaptive Ability that changes them in other environments.

With his transparent skin and bioluminescent light in his head,I wondered how Uncle Ugo and Luca's dad could be the same species, let alone brothers.Maybe he adapted to being at the bottom of the sea.

Luca would become human permanently if he stayed on the surface long enough.

Piggybacking on the above theory, Ugo doesn't turn back into a normal sea monster when visiting his family in shallow water so it's possible transformations become permanent after a few years.

Daniela's plan was to make Luca unable to go to the surface

The Fridge page discusses how, for Ugo and Lorenzo to be brothers, it's likely Ugo's deep sea features are an adaptive trait. It also discusses the implications of Ugo not quickly or easily adjusting back to a shallow environment and how much more horrible the surface would be for him due to his low pressure-related health problems. Daniela's plan was to leave Luca in the deep long enough that he adjusted to the pressure, making it much more difficult for him to physically tolerate the surface upon his return, at least for quite a while. Like how the negative implications of exposing her son in Portorosso never occured to her, she never considered how absolutely uncomfortable, painful, and miserable this would have made her son, nor how cruel forcing such long-term bodily changes onto someone would be. If she succeeded, it probably would have ruined their relationship—and that's if he returned even remotely as functional as he left.

Bruno is the name of Alberto's Disappeared Dad.

• He certainly changes the subject quickly when Luca asks why Bruno is called as such.
  • Jossed, Director Enrico Casarosa confirmed on Twitter that while they discussed the idea, it is rather the name Alberto found to name his insecurities, who is sometimes the voice of reason. As Alberto states to Luca, "Bruno's" name could be anything.

Ugo is Alberto's Disappeared Dad, hence Alberto and Luca are cousins.

• Ugo arranged beforehand for Alberto to hide from the other sea monsters in the tower, so his son would not share his fate.

Luca will go on to work in the European Space Agency as an adult.

I cannot be the only one who sees this as a path for him.

• Alternatively, he could work for Piaggio Aerospace, as they're also in the aerospace industry, they're based in Genova, and they're a sister-company to Piaggio, the company that makes Alberto's and Luca's favorite thing in the world.

Sea monsters were once hostile towards humans but have long since evolved.

Notice that Luca and the other sea monsters in the film are very humanoid. However, the sea monsters portrayed in the town, such as the fountain, are more fish or serpent like. It's possible that sea monsters originally looked like this and acted savagely towards fishermen, considering that they are also portrayed being slain and harpooned. Over time, the monsters stopped attacking humans ^note (maybe with their rising population and technology; Luca's mother says that boats weren't as common nor had motors back when she was young) and decided instead to harvest their own food, gradually becoming underwater farmers who avoided humans by staying away from the surface.

Ercole was spoiled rotten by his wealthy family.

Considering he owns a Vespa and a wool sweater that is worn around his neck, it can be assumed he is wealthy. Furthermore, you'd think that the Portorosso Cup would have disqualified him for his unsportsmanlike behavior or set an age limit for its competitors - unless of course the Visconti family had influence over the games so that Ercole and his friends could keep signing up. Speaking of which, why did Cicco and Guido even hang out with him despite his constant abuse and belittling? Maybe they were being paid off and merely tolerated him up until the climax when they realized he wasn't worth it.

• Adding to this, it's possible he is related to someone of significant power and influence in Portorosso, explaining his entitled behavior and the fact that he calls the place his town a few times in the film.

Alberto is actually a human-sea monster hybrid.

We know almost nothing about his backstory, except that his father left him. We know nothing about his mother, or how he ended up on land. But if he had two parents of different species, that would explain why he grew up on an island, away from the human population but still connected to the ocean. There are two possible outcomes:

• Alberto's father is a sea monster and his mother is human.
  • His father was a hidden sea monster who began spending time on land and fell in love and married a human, only to be dumped when she learns his identity. His father would then have wanted to hide any evidence of the event— interactions with humans being strictly forbidden in sea monster culture— so he left Alberto to his own devices as quickly as he could and abandoned him, never to return.
• Alberto's mother is a sea monster and is father is human.
  • When Alberto was younger, his mother was killed by humans while protecting him from hunters after he had sneaked away. Since the traumatic event, his father was never the same and had to raise a sea monster child on his own (while never properly grieving his wife). He forbid Alberto from going to the human village, which led to Alberto disobeying to find human objects to his collection. As the years went by, Alberto's father soured out considerably to his son, that he always subconsciously blamed for the death of his mother. Sure enough, when Alberto is deemed to be "old enough" to be on his own, his father leaves to never return.

Alberto's father did intend to return to him...

Unfortunately, he was killed by fishermen before he could make it back, and his son will never know the truth. Yes, it's the Hector Rivera story all over again.

• Jossed. Enrico Casarosa stated in this tweet that Alberto's dad was always meant to be a bad father. Alberto tells Luca that his father stated he was old enough to be on his own, which implies right away that when his father found an opportunity to leave his own son, he did.

Ercole is such a Jerkass because he's the only teenager in town.

Now that This Troper thinks about it, were there any kids around Ercole's age in the background and establishing shots of the town? Everyone seems to be either adults or pre-pubescent children. Maybe the reason he started lording it over the kids of the village is because he has no real peers in his own age group. Maybe he was unfortunate to be born in between successive generations. It doesn't excuse his behavior by a long shot, but it might explain it.

• That or he was such an ass he drove the other teens to kick him out of their group. Who would WANT to be this jerk's friend?
• There is a poster in the background of the town piazza that looks a lot like Roman Holiday. That came out in 1953, so figure on the film being set a few years later. Given that time frame and the fact that Portorosso is a pretty small town, there may have been a small gap in young couples having kids due to the young men going off to fight in World War II.
• It's also possible he deliberately avoids being around people his own age and instead sticks around younger kids so he can lord over them. Same reason why he keeps entering the Portorosso Cup.

Possible spinoff idea

A series of Disney+ shorts partially involving Luca's life with Giulia and her mother, going to school and experiencing other things as a human, usually leading to his true form being exposed, unwittingly making new friends who are amazed rather than afraid of him...and some that take a while to get used to him. Each episode will end with Luca writing about his experiences to Alberto and his family.

Likewise, some episodes will be taking place in Portorosso as more sea monsters begin exploring the town and becoming acquainted with humans. These mainly feature Alberto helping Massimo catch fish, serving as a lifeguard (as shown in the credits) and making new friends around the town. Ercole may show up to humiliate him, only for his attempts to backfire on him. And it will end with Alberto writing about it all to Luca.

• Confirmed. The director expresses interest in a sequel, although it is a little different than this idea. Not only that, Disney+ has sent a survey to subscribers about their opinion of the movie and asked how likely each household member would watch the continuation of the world of Luca. The survey being uncommonly new, this implies that Disney does express large interest in continuing the story.

The fish that Uncle Ugo was talking to in the stinger was Enrico.

• Jossed, it's Giuseppe, as he is seen scuttering away the same way he did to Luca in the movie's prologue.

Daniela had a bad experience with humans before.

Perhaps when she was Luca's age, or maybe even younger, she was out swimming and was minding her own business, when a hunter tried to get her, either mistaking her for another animal or realizing she was a humanoid sea monster and tried to kill her to show it off to everyone in their hometown. She survived, but was afraid of the surface world ever since.

Why the Sea Monsters have "hair", or hair-like fins.

Aside from simply being something that can translate to human hair upon going to the surface, it's possible that the "hair" is meant to act as a hunting lure. Sea monsters could bury most of their bodies into the sand, or stand very still, and use their "hair" to attract fish to them and then eat them.

• Perhaps they are like Axolotls and that is where they keep their gills?

Sea Monsters are aware of the Humans' World Wars.

The in-universe literature and media shows that the story takes place some time in the mid-20th Century, possibly the late 50s or 60s. Luca's parents would have been children during the events of World War II, and thus would be justifiably fearful of the humans. Let's not forget that Mussolini, a stooge of Hitler himself, was in charge of Italy just 30 years prior to the story's events. They would surely be aware of the Nazis, warships, submarines, and the other innumerable atrocities of the time.

• Worse yet, if there are sea monsters all over the world, one can only imagine the absolute horrors that those around the Sea of Japan would have witnessed during that time. If humans treat each other with such cruelty, one could only imagine what they would do to sea monsters, who are about as "other" as it gets.

• But conversely, Luca's grandmother and the two elderly sisters would be old enough to remember Italy before World War II, and thus remember what humanity was like during peaceful times. So they would be far less hesitant to take a risk in that area, at least when there isn't a war going on. In fact, they would have been eager to return to the peaceful lives they once knew.

Uncle Ugo and Luca's father are not full-siblings.

Ugo looks very different rest of the sea monsters we see in the movie. So it is not unreasonable to assume he is from a different subspecies. And, since him and his brother doesn't look anything like they are probably step-brothers or at least half brothers.

Other types of monsters exist in this world.

Sea monsters can change into humans on dry land and live among society undetected. Who's to say there aren't werewolves, aliens or other creatures that also have this ability? Maybe Luca revealing himself at Guilia's school will inspire more residents of Genova to show off their true forms.

Ercole comes from family of sea monster hunters.

A likely sequel idea, so you know how Ercole tried and failed to hunt down Luca and Alberto, right? well what if he was trying to follow in his footsteps of his family which consisted mainly of sea monster hunters?, since that attempt failed miserably, especially now having to go through the public embarrassment after losing the Portorosso cup, Ercole now wants to move away from all that and start a new life... that is until when his older twin brother (who is more hardcore and serious about Sea Monster hunting than Ercole ever was) comes along, and he's pissed that his younger brother did not kill Luca and Alberto, basically making a fool out of the Visconti name. it's then that the brother becomes the main villain of the story as he desires to kill the two for himself, this begins something of a redemption arc for Ercole who now has to stop his brother from killing the sea monsters, it could also make Luca 2 a more Darker and Edgier follow-up ala Temple of Doom.

Alberto is FTM transgender.

Theory courtesy of my stepbrother; Alberto is never shown without his tank top, and the design of his sea monster form is somewhat more in line with the ones of the female sea monsters. The reason why he still has a masculine voice and rather masculine appearance in his human form could have something to do with his shapeshifting abilities as a sea monster, though it's unknown at the moment if they can only shapeshift between human/sea monster forms or if they can change aspects such as their gender as well.

• Alberto is not yet old enough to need a binder (and by extension the tank top); Giulia who is of a similar age has clearly not hit puberty yet either. The shapeshifting aspect is plausible, though, as an extension of the other WMG regarding Adaptive Ability and Ugo not looking anything like his brother; there are real life animals that can change gender/sex for various reasons, why not sea monsters?

The Marcovaldos and Viscontis are Feuding Families

This sheds more light on why Giulia and Ercole are always at each other's throats, because their families have always been competing against each other in the Portorosso Cup. It's also a possibility that at least one of Ercole's relatives may been at odds with Massimo during his youth, ridiculing him for his missing arm.

Alberto and his dad did not have the best relationship even before he was abandoned.

We never actually see Alberto's dad or get insight into how Alberto was treated by him before being abandoned. If we consider that Alberto learned a lot of his behavioral traits from his dad, as kids tend to do, then we suddenly have a bigger picture of what their dynamic might have looked like, and it would explain a lot of Alberto's issues and insecurities. While it's likely Alberto's traits are the result of the direct abandonment, it could also be signs of neglect issues in how he was raised long before his dad actually left him, and paint him as a demeaning and negligent parent.

• The only insight we ever get into why Alberto's father left was that he, somehow, thought Alberto was old enough to live on his own (Despite Alberto being 13 or younger at the time he left), so we can only guess he tired of taking care of a kid for his own selfish reasons. Alberto doesn't express any confusion as to why his father did it, implying that he was raised to either expect the abandonment or at least sympathize with his father's nonsensical idea that being abandoned was a good idea.
• Even if his father's name wasn't literally Bruno, Alberto's dad may have been very harsh and created the internal self-critic that Alberto develops. "Bruno" is both the voice that tells Alberto to not do dangerous things like a parent reasonably would, ("Alberto, you can't!" "Alberto, you're gonna die!""Alberto, don't put that in your mouth!") but also seems to be demeaning and harmful towards Alberto in moments of self-deprecation, such as reinforcing that he's just "the kid that ruins everything" and also reinforcing his general self doubts. This means that "Bruno" represents both the reasonable demands a parent would make of Alberto and the voice that tells Alberto that he is unlovable and worthless. This would also explain Alberto's stubbornness and reluctance to listen to Luca when his friend corrects him; Alberto has conflated reasonable criticism with his decidedly unreasonable self esteem issues. While this could be explained by his father abandoning him, it could also be explained by his father enforcing these insecurities on more than one occasion throughout his childhood. In Real Life, studies show that kids who are victims of abuse or neglect are likelier to suffer from insecurity issues.
• In "Ciao Alberto", Alberto does everything in his power to prove his worth to Massimo, and constantly asks if he's fired when he screws up, which certainly isn't the attitude of a child who understands that kids shouldn't have to prove their "worth" to their fathers by performing labor for them. It's possible that Alberto's own father taught him that affection was similarly transactional, especially since Alberto's reaction to his failures was to leave because of his failure to be "useful", implying his own father left for a similar reason.
• Alberto, for all of his bravado, has a tendency to run from his problems; he tries to run away on a Vespa with Luca, runs back to the island to hide after Luca betrays him, and in "Ciao, Alberto" tries to run away after he thinks he's disappointed Massimo one too many times. Running away is often caused by loss of control, and it's possible that Alberto learned this because he has never had a reliable adult to turn to when he's upset.
• Alberto pretends to be an expert on things he's not and lie about stuff he doesn't know, even when Luca later tells him what the objective truth is. Pretending to know things you don't tends to be a direct result of being punished for not knowing what something is, so perhaps his dad's criticisms made Alberto overcompensate with sharing his "knowledge".
• While thankfully this is a trait he outgrows, Alberto has shown to become surprisingly aggressive, both verbally and physically, in his worst moments. His jealousy over Luca escalates to verbal spats with both him and Giulia, and he never verbalizes his jealousy in a healthy way, not to mention that reveals his true form in a moment of poor judgement. This aggression also presents itself physically, such as when he escalates his and Luca's argument to a physical fight and nearly punches him before Giulia thankfully interrupts them, tries to raise his fists to Ercole on a few occasions despite being clearly outnumbered and outmatched due to the latter's age, and later (though offscreen) destroys his collection of "human things", presumably out of sadness and anger at Luca's betrayal. While there is nothing to suggest that Alberto was physically abused at all, this still seems to point that Alberto didn't exactly have a good point of reference for regulating his emotions in a healthy way and he lashes out because he hasn't developed the skills to verbalize his feelings.
• Alberto's envy towards Giulia over Luca also comes with a possessiveness that clearly stems from trauma. In psychology, there is the concept of a "starvation economy", in which a person is taught that love is a finite resource that, in order to be given, must be taken from another person and vice versa. This is normally occurrent in childhoods where parents' love is conditional on the child's "worth" rather than on the child themself, and creates a person who gets incredibly jealous and possessive of other people and things because they think someone else will take them away by being "better". Alberto's abandonment from his father, in his mind, was the result of not being "good" enough, rather than as a moral failing of the adult. This is why he later applies the same logic to Luca and pushes him away when the latter tries to apologize for his betrayal, and tries to run away from Massimo when he sets the boat on fire in "Ciao, Alberto". Alberto associates his "worth" as a friend and as a son with how much he is able to add to someone's life, and fears that he will be unloved once he makes one mistake too many.

Alberto's father abandoned him because he found out his son was gay.

That is, if you believe the homosexual context of the story, it makes a lot of sense.

Ugo masquerades as an actor on the surface.

Lorenzo and Daniella come across a poster for a monster movie featuring a creature resembling Ugo, which is lampshaded by Lorenzo. This is no coincidence, as Ugo has his own surface double life and uses his fish form by keeping himself consistently moisturized to create a realistic fish monster form for extra authenticity.

Crossover

Luca and Giulia are the grandparents of Linguni from Ratatouille

I know this sounds crazy but I couldn't help but notice that there is a certain resemblance physical between Giulia and Linguini, and that the latter's personality is very similar to Luca's. Now, within the movie there are several indications that this is set in the mid-20th century, possibly the early 1950s, and the Ratatouille movie is located in more "current" years. So he considered it possible that perhaps at some point when Luca and Giulia grew up, they fell in love, got married and later had a daughter, who would be Renata, Linguini's mother, a girl half human and half sea monster. She at some point when she became an adult went to live in France, where she met Gusteau, with whom she had Linguini.Now the serious question is, then why doesn't Linguini turn into a sea monster when he touches the water? Well, it is simply because, having a half-human mother and a fully human father, this means that he has more human genes than sea monster genes, which allows him to maintain that appearance at all times.

Porco Rosso and this movie take place in the same world.

• The Blind Cat is basically Marco Pagot if he was a cat who flew, instead of a pig who flew. He's got the sunglasses, he's got the mustache, he's got the hat/flight cap... That version of Pinocchio was drawn by someone who at least knew of the interwar flying boat ace. And it's also part of why the Portorossinis are quick to accept the sea monsters - they know of land monsters.

Bruno is Bruno Madrigal from the movie Encanto.

• People heard of the family Madrigal in Italy. Alberto took the meaning "we don't talk about Bruno" as "we don't listen to Bruno."

The sea monsters originated from the Monster World to live on Earth

The question now is how the sea monsters can possess the ability to shapeshift unlike any of those monsters. It's an Adaptive Ability that occurs when monsters spend enough time in the human world. Maybe the reason the Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster ^note all of whom were banished from the monster world have gone unnoticed is because they too can change into humans.

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