History YMMV / Soul

* JerkassWoobie: 22 is a cynical, snarky and mischievious LongLived newborn soul, who makes no effort to hide her unwillingness to be born, as the Jerrys and her past soul mentors can attest it. But, [[JerkassHasAPoint as she points out multiple times, there is an huge difference between "simulating your hypothetical life" and "actually experiencing it directly" (such as feeling tastes, smells, listening your favorite music, etc)]]. Furthemore, [[spoiler: when she becomes a Lost Soul, we find out that, while she doesn't show it, she does take everyone' criticisms at the heart, to the point of even questioning herself if she has something inherently wrong or if she's unworthy to have a chance to live her own life]].

* AccidentalAesop: Watch where you're going, or you're going to get hurt, like by falling into a manhole and going into a coma as a result of the fall.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Is Terry a ControlFreak who took retrieving Joe way too far or is she only preventing a soul that needs to go to the Great Beyond from getting away because it could lead to far too many eventually avoiding that fate when they’re in line to do so?

** Connie, the trombone playing student in Joe's class quickly became quite popular.

** Terry, also voiced by [[Creator/RachelHouse a woman]] and wearing her hair in a bun, has a rather startling amount of viewers confidently referring to her as a man. Like the unborn souls, Terry and the Jerrys are hypothetical abstractions of people, but also seem to official conform to the gender binary.

** Terry, also voiced by [[Creator/RachelHouse a woman]] and wearing her hair in a bun, has a rather startling amount of viewers confidently referring to her as a man. Like the unborn souls, Terry and Jerrys are hypothetical abstractions of people, but also seem to official conform to the gender binary.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Even though 22's voiced by [[Creator/TinaFey a woman]], her voice sounds... ambiguous, to say the least. Since 22 is a soul that does not yet have a human body, it probably doesn't matter anyway. In the film itself, Joe even wonders why 22 sounds like "a middle-aged white lady", to which 22 explains that she could sound like whatever she wants, and she just chooses that particular voice [[TheGadfly because it's the most annoying]] ([[SelfDeprecation this is, of course,]] Creator/TinaFey [[SelfDeprecation saying this]]). Officially, 22 is referred to with female pronouns.

** Joe discovering he can’t taste or smell anything in the soul world becomes less funny in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the loss of taste and smell is one of the more prominent symptoms of the disease.

* JerkassWoobie:
** 22 is a cynical, snarky and mischievious LongLived newborn soul, who makes no effort to hide her unwillingness to be born, as the Jerrys and her past soul mentors can attest it. But, [[JerkassHasAPoint as she points out multiple times, there is an huge difference between "simulating your hypothetical life" and "actually experiencing it directly" (such as feeling tastes, smells, listening your favorite music, etc)]]. Furthemore, [[spoiler: when she becomes a Lost Soul, we find out that, while she doesn't show it, she does take everyone' criticisms at the heart, to the point of even questioning herself if she has something inherently wrong or if she's unworthy to have a chance to live her own life]].

* CommonKnowledge: Some believe that this is the first Pixar film without a cameo from Creator/JohnRatzenberger. He is in the film, just [[https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2021/01/01/john-ratzenberger-pixar-soul-cameo as a physical cameo rather than a vocal one]].

* AccidentalAseop: Watch where you're going, or you're going to get hurt, like by falling into a manhole and going into a coma as a result of the fall.

** In addition to losing out on an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture when it was widely deemed as one of the absolute best films of 2020.

** While deservedly winning both Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, it’s left up to debate as to whether or not it would’ve deserved to win Best Sound over ''Film/SoundOfMetal'' as both both wowed in that category for different reasons.

* AwardSnub: In addition to losing out on an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture when it was widely deemed as one of the absolute best films of 2020.

* DesignatedVillain: Terry, although hardly treated as a villain, is just trying to do her job and fix a discrepancy.

** The first two trailers caused a bit of controversy with the indication that it would be one of (surpassingly) many animated features with a perceived "separate but equal" plot of having its BIPOC main human character spend a majority of the film as an animal or otherwise nonhuman being (other examples being ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog,'' ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'' and ''WesternAnimation/SpiesInDisguise''). The movie proper zig-zags this a little bit: Joe's consciousness isn't in his own body for a majority of the film, but the cat that it ''is'' in is on screen in virtually every scene with his body when it's occupied by 22. Nevertheless, all future advertisements either played up the scenes of Human!Joe or downplayed any indication that his body and soul weren't one and the same for most of the time they're on screen.

** The scenes involving Mother Teresa are quite cringeworthy in light of her [[VillainWithGoodPublicity true nature]] becoming more widely known around the time of the movie’s release.

** Is Terry a ControlFreak who took retrieving Joe way too far or is she only preventing a soul that needs to go to the Great Beyond from getting away because it could lead to far too many eventually avoiding that fate when they’re in line to do so?

* CommonKnowledge: Some believe that this is the first Pixar film without a cameo from Creator/JohnRatzenberger. He is in the film; just {{uncredited|role}} as a voice from offscreen in one scene.

** A lot of the score by [[Music/NineInchNails Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross]] counts as this, but the standout has to be “[[https://youtu.be/zNXY1av-NUE Epiphany]]”, which plays when [[spoiler: Joe realizes he needs to make amends with 22 and allow them to live on Earth.]]

** The pandemic also makes it quite awkward that the movie expects us to laugh at Joe discovering he can’t taste or smell anything, as the loss of those senses is one of the disease’s more obvious symptoms.

** Andrew Jackson was a slave-holding political figure from the opposing party of Lincoln's previous generation, and Jackson wasn't featured on the $20 bill (or any money) until after Lincoln's death, so Abe's reaction makes complete sense.
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: In one of the few areas to receive ''Soul'' theatrically, China, the film performed surprisingly well for Creator/{{Pixar}}, whose films have typically flopped in the country. At $57 million, it not only outstripped ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'' to be China's #2 Pixar film (behind ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}''), but it also significantly outperformed would-be blockbusters ''Film/WonderWoman1984'' and the China-tailored ''Film/{{Mulan|2020}}''.

** "What if Black people had feelings?"[[note]]A long-running joke about Pixar is that their pitch for every film is "What if X had feelings?", with the joke previously reaching its climax with [[WesternAnimation/InsideOut "What if feelings had feelings?"]], until this film led to the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that this particular question is what led to Pixar creating their first Black lead.[[/note]]

** Parodies of the film's logo have been made with other series on Twitter, mostly works with "soul" in the title, the biggest example being ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''.

* MisaimedMarketing: Both the first poster and the teaser prominently feature Joe in his human form, which lead many to believe that this was going to be a more "mundane" Pixar movie like ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}''. [[spoiler: Of course, it's worth noting while he's not in his body the whole time, human Joe is the character/body who appears the most throughout the film.]]

** [[spoiler: We even get to see what happens inside her Lost Soul form, and it’s not pretty. She’s basically trapped in a dark PocketDimension in a constant self-inflicted MindRape, as she repeats, through giant shadowy version of her past mentors (now including Joe), every bad things they said to her as they give up on her. For those who suffer from low self esteem and anxiety issues, it can be a soul-crushing experience]].

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: Having a singular passion or purpose in life is great, but it's not the same as living, nor is it the one thing about your live that can/should make you happy. It's the little things in-between the exciting ones that make life worth living.

** The full trailer was also criticized for spoiling a major plot point ([[spoiler:Joe isn't actually dead -- yet]]). That being said, this specific moment only happens at the end of the first act, so it is not much of a spoiler.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Even though 22's voiced by [[Creator/TinaFey a woman]], their voice sounds... ambiguous, to say the least. Since 22 is a soul that does not yet have a human body, it probably doesn't matter anyway. In the film itself, Joe even wonders why 22 sounds like "a middle-aged white lady", which 22 explains they could sound like whatever she wants, and they just chooses that particular voice [[TheGadfly because it's the most annoying]] ([[SelfDeprecation this is, of course,]] Creator/TinaFey [[SelfDeprecation saying this]]).

* WTHCastingAgency: While Creator/TinaFey's performance as 22 was generally well-received, due to her controversial history of using racial humour [[note]]most notably, writing episodes of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' in which characters don {{blackface}}[[/note]], some found it inappropriate for her to play a character that spends a significant chunk of the film in the body of a black man.

* AccidentalAesop:
** From WebVideo/ScreenRantPitchMeetings: "Well, I think it's important for kids to understand that their loved ones that died first of all didn't try hard enough to come back, and also weren't inspiring enough."

** The pandemic also makes it quite awkward that the movie expects us to laugh at Joe discovering hi can’t taste or smell anything, as the loss of those senses is one of the disease’s more obvious symptoms.