Western Animation / Elemental (2023)

Opposites react.

"They said you couldn't go in there. Why does anyone get to tell you what you can do in your life?"

— Wade Ripple

Elemental is a 2023 animated romantic fantasy comedy film from Pixar, their twenty-seventh feature film. The film is directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream, and was released on June 16, 2023.

This story is set in a world where people are made out of one of the Classical Elements (air, earth, water and fire), which is demonstrated from their various abilities and even the way they move. However, because they are made of the elements, interactions can get tense. A bump with a fire elemental can accidentally burn the plants off an earth elemental's body but exposure to water can extinguish a fire person, even permanently if too much.

This doesn't stop all four from living in Element City, a city whose architecture is built around the elements but has a subsection called Firetown - an area filled by fire elemental immigrants who after facing discrimination from the other three elements grew into its own community.

The film follows Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis). A resident from Firetown who believes she's destined to take over her father's shop, but has a tendency to lose her temper in fiery outbursts. Literally. Set to prove that she can control her temper and take over the shop so he can retire, her dad gives her an opportunity to run the shop by herself on a sale day. Unfortunately, as the rush of customers proves overwhelming, she hides herself in the basement to let her emotions out and her flames cause the pipes to burst.

Not only do the pipes flood the basement with water, but they also spit out a water elemental named Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a go-with-the-flow city inspector who writes up the shop due to seeing the building's numerous code violations. Not wanting the place to get shut down, Ember chases after him so she can get the tickets cancelled.

Eventually, Wade's sympathy opens him up to finding a new way forward for them all, but soon they both realize one crucial detail: Firetown isn't supposed to have water. As they try to find the source and fix it before losing the store, they begin to grow a bond of mutual attraction, though one that Ember would prefer to keep quiet for now.

As they grow closer, it turns out fixing the leak is only the beginning of the journey. And several important questions begin to develop. Can a relationship between fire and water work? Why is taking over the shop so important to Ember? Does she have any of her own dreams or talents? And ultimately, what does she really want out of life?

Previews: Teaser, Trailer

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Elemental contains examples of:

• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Wade and Ember are able to walk through a chain link fence, the former just slipping through and the latter melting through it as she passes. Wade even asks why anyone bothers to use them, to which Ember responds with "Eh, who knows".
• Absurd Phobia: Wade is afraid of sponges due to accidentally getting absorbed into and stuck inside a sponge for several hours as a child, which his relatives mock him for. On the other hand, perhaps it's not so absurd when you're made entirely out of water and can't escape on your own, making it akin to a sort of claustrophobia.
• Advertised Extra: Clod appears rather often in advertising, is in the theatrical poster, and has his own promotional image, but only has around three major scenes in the film, and even then they only last for a couple minutes at most.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: During their trip to the flooded garden, Ember is given an air bubble so Wade can take her down to see the tree at the bottom. Unfortunately, they spend a bit too long enjoying the sights and the bubble begins to shrink. In this case, the threat isn't so much the lack of air than all the water it's holding back.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The ending theme for the Japanese dub is "Yasashii Kimochide" by Superfly.
• Ambiguously Gay: During the montage date scene of Ember and Wade falling in love, several of the characters who hug in the background look fairly similar to each other, presenting the possibility that they're the same gender. However, there's no way to confirm for sure due to their androgyny.
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: Ember constantly loses her temper dealing with stupid customers and berates herself for not being able to control it. Wade suggests that anger is a way of expressing a feeling she can't yet put into words, ultimately leading to the realization that she doesn't want to take over the shop.
• Anguished Declaration of Love:
  • Wade bursts into Bernie's retirement party to tell Ember he loves her, and that it's not impossible for them to be together despite what everyone says. Afraid of upsetting her father, she denies loving Wade and tells him to leave.
  • Later, when the two are trapped in the furnace with Wade slowly evaporating from the heat, Ember finally admits she loves him.
• Bait-and-Switch: During the climax of the film when Fire Town is flooding, you expect Ember to be the one to undergo the Disney Death, since water puts out fire. Instead, it's Wade who seemingly dies when he evaporates due to the furnace being too hot for him.
• Battered Bouquet: Clod the earth elemental tries to flirt with Ember the fire elemental by growing flowers under his armpits, which he (painfully) plucks and offers to her. She's not at all interested and he's far too young for her; her reaction is to incinerate them.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Wade and Ember share one in the climax after he is reassembled.
• Bizarrchitecture: Water architecture features lots of vase-like designs and plenty of waterfalls.
• Black Comedy: When visiting Wade's family, his nephews, Marco and Polo, excitedly ask Ember if she'd die if she fell in the water, just as they start shaking the floating chair she was balancing on.
• Blowing Smoke Rings: When Ember and Wade visit the top of a skyscraper to admire the view, Ember impresses a group of children by blowing large smoke rings at the nearby buildings to make faces on them.
• Book Ends: The film opens with Ember's parents (while Cinder was pregnant with her) arriving in Element City on a boat. It ends with Ember leaving with Wade on a boat for an internship.
• Both Sides Have a Point: During their argument over Ember turning down the glass-making internship and choosing to stay and work her father's shop, Wade calls Ember out on doing something she admits she doesn't want and letting her fear rule her decisions, while Ember snaps back that he's from a completely different culture and doesn't grasp how big and hard that choice really is for her.
• Burning with Anger: Naturally for a fire elemental, Ember literally flares up and burns purple when she has a bad temper. Because she also burns down everything around her when mad, she accidentally breaks the basement pipes, which leads to Wade's introduction. When witnessed firsthand, her father Bernie holds off his retirement and passing the shop to her because she's "not ready yet".
• The Chase: During their first meeting, Ember follows Wade through Element City to keep him from turning in his citations that would shut down her father's business.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Ember's skill at shaping glass is demonstrated early on with her shaping a sugar treat for a customer and precisely repairing a glass case she had broken in a rage. Her glass molding is displayed more throughout the movie, particularly when she uses it to close up the leak, before it's eventually revealed that she has a legitimate gift at shaping glass into artwork, which leads to her being offered an opportunity that adds to her conflicting desires.
  • When Ember meets Wade's family, she learns one of Wade's greatest traumas from his youth is being absorbed into a sponge. This demonstrates that something with a similar porous nature can contain him. As a result, instead of vaporizing into steam and dying when the pair are trapped in the furnace, the concrete ceiling collects him and holds him safely until they're dug out and he cools enough to condense back into liquid. That said, neither he nor Ember realized this would happen.
• Comically Missing the Point: Given the stupidity of the customers, it's no wonder Ember explodes when dealing with them.
  • One customer misunderstands "Buy One, Get One Free" as an either/or scenario and believes he can simply take the free one without paying, ignoring Ember's explanations.
  • Another assumes the "Red Dot Sale" thinks it means the red dot stickers are for sale, taking every single one off the items.
• Company Cross References:
  • The film has several posters that parody previous Pixar films.
    • This one◊ features Gale Cumulus in a parody of WALL•E called "Wind-E", as a pun on the fact that she's a wind elemental. The background is colored blue, similarly to much of the promotional art for Wall-E.
    • This one◊ features Wade in front of a grass background and a logo reading "Wave", in reference to Brave.
    • This one◊ with Clod, an earth elemental, has a logo in the background reading "Soil" in the same font as the logo for Soul.
    • This one◊ showing Ember with a school student name tag is a spoof of Turning Red, with the student name tag being similar to the one Mei wears and a logo for "Burning Red" in the corner, a pun on how Ember is a fire woman.
  • In the film proper, Ember and Wade go to a movie theater with a poster for a movie called "The Good Element" on the outside, referencing the Pixar movie The Good Dinosaur.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Zig-zagged. Fire people are shown to naturally generate light and heat. Ember causes sand to melt and liquid to evaporate just with physical contact. On the other hand, they can pick up and hold things like paper, cameras, and other items they would definitely otherwise melt with no issue. Ember keeps a paper pamphlet in her dress that she pulls out several times until she intentionally chooses to incinerate it. In general, if and when the reality of being made of fire applies either comes down to Rule of Drama or Rule of Funny.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Wade's flashback has him curiously touching a sponge and getting completely soaked up in it.
• Dance of Romance: Ember and Wade share a slow dance once they realize they can touch without hurting each other.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Bernie hates water people, which adds to Ember's issues as she starts to fall for Wade. After Wade ends up saving both Ember and their family's sacred blue flame during the flash flood at the cost of nearly evaporating, her father comes around to accept him.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Wade mentions to Ember that his dad is no longer in the picture, and he regrets not being able to patch things up before he died.
  • Gale refers to her own father in the past tense when discussing why she's so passionate about Cloud Ball.
• Disaster Dominoes: In the climax, Ember's seal on the spillway door finally breaks. The force of the built up water rips the door from its hinges and damages the foundation of a nearby windmill, causing it to topple over onto the canal wall. The wall shatters from the impact, releasing the ocean into the spillway, creating a flash flood that barrels through Firetown.
• Disappointed in You:
  • During an argument with Ember, Wade points out how he thought Ember figured out what she wanted to do with her life, but she's too afraid to follow her heart out of fear of disappointing her parents (especially her father).
    Wade: Funny. And this whole time, I thought you were so strong, but it turns out, you're just afraid.
  • Also when Ember's dad Bernie finds out she caused the pipes to burst in the shop and that she was secretly dating Wade—a Water elemental and thus Bernie's Berserk Button.
    Bernie: (angry and disappointed) You have been seeing water?! (coughs) You caused leak in shop?! I trusted you! You will not take over the shop! (coughs) I NO LONGER RETIRE!!
• Disney Death: During the flash flood, Wade and Ember are trapped in the furnace of her father's shop, the heat causing him to slowly evaporate. When the community finally manage to dig through the rubble to them, Wade has completely evaporated. Thankfully, having nowhere to go, he is able to condense back into liquid with a little help from Ember.
• Double Entendre: Wade calls Ember "hot" in the literal sense when she accidentally lights his bag on fire, then corrects to "smoking" when she takes offense. Naturally, Ember takes both in the metaphorical sense.
  Wade: You're so hot.
  Ember: (deeply offended) Excuse me?!
  Wade: (Oh, Crap! face) No! I mean, like, you're smoking! No! I didn't mean it like that...
  Ember: Are you done yet?
  Wade: (Sweating) Yes, please!
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Wade is unable to simply get the city's construction crew to fix the broken spillway door because of a Noodle Incident that earned him the crew's ire, meaning he and Ember have to figure out another way to solve the problem.
• Dungeon Bypass: When Ember chases Wade through the city, she finally overtakes him and blocks his path to the city hall building by turning into a huge wall of flame. Wade simply slips into the drainage line and pops out of another right behind her.
• Eating the Eye Candy: After Wade gets sucked into the Fireplace's basement, he looks "squished all out of shape", with his body looking rather more muscular. Ember can't help but say "dang" when looking at him before he reverts back to his regular shape.
• Elemental Embodiment: The water people are made of water, the fire people are made of fire, the air people look like clouds, and the earth people are made of soil, with plants growing out of them.
• Elemental Nation: The fire people come from a volcano-filled country called Fireland.
• Elemental Personalities:
  • Ember has a fiery personality and Wade has a flexible personality, which are common portrayals of fire and water users in media.
  • When Ember talks to the audience about the world she is living in, she describes Air Elementals as "having their heads in the clouds", Earth Elementals as being "seedy", Water Elementals as "always getting into something" and Fire Elementals as "running a little hot".
• Family Business: Ember's family moved to Element City to start their convenience store there, and Bernie plans to pass it to Ember after retirement when she's "ready" for it.
• Fantastic Racism: Citizens of the different elements struggling to get along with each other can be seen as an allegory for conflicts of real-life diverse cultures/identities. As shown in the beginning, Bernie and Cinder were subjected to racist reactions from the other elements upon their arrival to Element City. They were even turned down by potential home renters because they were fire people. It gets toned down in present day, as none of the other elements react in disgust or contempt to Ember's presence whenever she visits the city; however, it's clear that some anti-fire prejudice lingers, as Wade's uncle praises Ember for how "well and clear" she speaks.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Fire Land takes a lot of influence from East Asian culture. Director Peter Sohn has said they are directly inspired by his Korean immigrant parents. They are immigrants who came to Element City by boat after a disaster destroyed their home. Their language is unpronounceable to the locals so they take new names. Immigrants gather in ethnic neighborhoods. Ember's mother is a matchmaker who uses incense in her rituals. They sacrifice a lot to make a life for themselves and their child feels guilty for wanting to pursue a path different from theirs.
• Fatal Flaw: Ember's biggest flaw is her lack of communication and her inability to tell her parents how she truly feels, which is something that Wade calls her out on during their argument.
• Fictionary: The fire elementals have their own language called "Firish", where several phrases are spoken occasionally and untranslated. A few of them have translations such as "Ashfa" for "father". It's an actual Conlang.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: A fire couple is shown feeding their child lighter fluid, who then belches out a huge fireball. Bernie also taunts Wade when forcing him to inspect the food by chomping on one and then spitting out a bit of fire to demonstrate the heat.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Ember and Wade. Ember is a fire person with a snarky attitude and Wade is a water person who is overly emotional.
• Follow in My Footsteps: Ember's father wants her to continue the family business, a convenience store. Part of Ember's development is realizing this is what he wants, but not what she wants. After Wade's sacrifice, she finally admits it to her father.
• Forbidden Love: Wade and Ember since Wade is water and Ember is fire and elements don't mix and Ember knows her parents, especially her dad, will never approve of her dating a water person as they treated the Lumens unkindly in the past.
• Forced Meme: Pixar's official Elemental Twitter account posted a fake fancam video that showed theater audiences cheering wildly when Clod first appears. They even gave him two custom hashtags on Twitter: #Clod and #ActOfClod. It's clear they're trying to turn him into a cute mascot character like Grogu.
• Foreshadowing:
  • There's a scene in the beginning where Cinder predicts a soap opera character denying their love for another. Ember ends up rejecting her love for Wade in the third act out of a sense of responsibility to her father's sacrifices.
  • In the few instances where Ember has physical contact with another Elemental, it's never shown to be dangerous, merely inconvenient (e.g. an Earth Elemental gets his grassy skin burned off, but is otherwise fine). Sure enough, when she and Wade finally touch, neither is hurt.
  • Whenever Ember is left in charge of running the store, she quickly loses control when interacting with the pesky customers and explodes in anger. This hints towards The Reveal that she isn't suited to handle the job and that she doesn't want to run the store after all.
  • Ember's glass seal on the broken dam canal is strong and seemingly sturdy, but the film often cuts back to that seal, showing small cracks within as the water keeps spilling over from the tracks. Sure enough, the seal breaks at the film's climax, with the flash flood heading towards Firetown.
  • After the airball match, Gale said that Ember and Wade are lucky they're a cute couple, foreshadowing Ember and Wade's relationship later on in the movie.
  • In a flashback, Wade got stuck in a sponge that absorbed him, until someone presumably squeezed him out. Later in the movie, when Wade evaporated, his steam got absorbed into the concrete ceiling which slowly condenses back into liquid. He is brought back to life shortly after.
  • When Ember and Wade first met in the flooding basement, Wade was holding a picture of Ember as a young child with her family celebrating her birthday. Later in the movie when the shop flooded and before Ember and Wade got trapped in the small room you can see the picture underwater.
  • The small room that Ember and Wade got trapped in is the same room where Cinder did their reading and the reading said it was true love.
  • Ember chases Wade on the metro and in the darkness she sees a glowing flame which is revealed to be herself in the back of his head, foreshadowing that these two are destined for each other and her light reflected through him is going to be her way through an uncertain world.
• Generational Trauma: There are shades of this in Ember's family history. Before Bernie left with Cinder to Element City, his father refused to return a traditional bow while renouncing him for his decision to leave Fire Land. This in turn pushes Bernie to put his heart and soul into the Fireplace as running the store and providing for his wife and daughter is all he has left in the world. It doesn't help that he lost his first store in Fire Land because of a major storm. This becomes a heavy lift for his daughter Ember who doesn't want to let his sacrifices be in vain, thus she sets herself up to accept ownership when she knows that she really isn't cut out for the job.
• Get Out!: Bernie says this to Wade after he "desecrates" his food with water.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: When it appears Ember is going to end their relationship, Wade, with Gale's help, creates a way to get Ember into the city's flooded central station so she can realize her childhood dream of seeing a Vivisteria flower. It's while riding the high of this escapade that the couple tries physical contact for the first time, and succeeds.
• The Ground Is Lava: For fire elementals, water is deadly to them. Ember has to hop across furniture when dealing with the flooded basement, and also when visiting Wade's family.
• Hammerspace: Ember is able to pull an umbrella from behind her whenever she needs to, even though her dress seemingly has no pockets, much less ones that would hold an item so large. She does the same with the pamphlet about shutting down her father's business, pulling it out now and then as a reminder.
• Happy Ending: Several months after the flooding incident, Firetown has been restored, with non-fire elements appearing as inhabitants and customers. The Fireplace is now run by another fire couple, allowing Bernie to retire in peace. And lastly, Ember and Wade sail off to pursue the former's new glass-making internship while receiving her parents' blessings.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend:
  • After the airball match, Gale finally agrees to help Ember and Wade, saying they are a cute couple; embarrassed, both insist they are not dating.
    Gale: [Smirking] You're lucky you're a cute couple.
    Ember: (Embarrassed) Oh, we're not—
  • Later on, Brooke tells Ember that Wade speaks about her often, and comments that her son is smitten. The latter protests, but Brooke assures him she can feel it.
    Brooke: Wade hasn't stopped talking about you since the day you met. That boy is smitten!
    Wade: (Embarrassed) MOM!
    Brooke: What? I'm your mother! I can tell when something's lighting you up! I just didn't know she'd be so smokey! [Wade and Ember laugh nervously and awkwardly]
• Healing Factor: Downplayed. If part of a fire elemental's body is extinguished, they can reignite it by eating some kindling.
• Holding Hands: After spending much of the movie physically distant from each other out of fear of getting hurt by their opposite elements, Wade offers his hand to Ember to see if their relationship can work. While she's understandably hesitant, Ember forces herself to take the chance, and much to their surprise (especially Ember's), all that happens is a little steam coming off Wade. They then entwine their fingers and embrace, showing that Ember's fears were for nothing.
• Hufflepuff House: The Earth elementals lean toward this trope. They lack the special powers the Fire, Air, and Water elementals possess, and the few Earth characters who get lines (Fern, Clod, and the unnamed apple tree couple) don't have any real influence on the plot.
• Hypocrite: When Wade points out how Ember is too afraid to stand by her own choice, she tells him not to judge her when she just judged him by calling him and his family "rich kids who goes by the 'follow your heart' choice."
• I Have No Son!: Implied with Bernie's father. When he and Cinder left the Fire Land, he performed the Big Bow to show his respect for his father, but he didn't return the gesture, likely viewing his son as a disgrace to their culture by leaving their homeland.
• An Immigrant's Tale: Bernie and Cinder arrive in Element City fresh off the boat and work to build their own shop.
• Impossible Task: Cinder, upon discovering Wade and Ember's relationship, puts them through her incense love test with the expectation that Wade won't be able to complete it and thus their relationship is doomed, since it involves the individuals lighting the incense themselves. Wade shifts himself to form a makeshift Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass using Ember as his light source, thereby proving her wrong.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Wade and his family do this when they get emotional... which happens very easily.
• Innocently Insensitive: While Wade's family is very loving and supportive towards his relationship with Ember, it's clear that his relatives have never interacted with fire people in any significant way, especially the older ones. Brook makes a couple of awkward, well-meaning jokes that leave Ember uneasy, and Harold praises her on how "well and clear" she speaks; when she replies with discomfort that she's a native speaker, he realizes what he's just done and cringes in embarrassment. Wade's younger relatives are no different as they ask if Ember will die if she falls in water before recklessly shaking her chair while Ember is using it to float in the room.
  Marco: (excited) Do you DIE if you fall in water?
  [Marco shakes the chair Ember's balancing on]
  Wade: (scolding) Marco!
  Alan: [comes by and nervously shoos Marco and Polo away] Marco! Kids! (whispering; to Ember) Don't... hate us.
• In the Hood: Ember hides her head under a hoodie when she travels to the rest of Element City as she doesn't want to attract unwanted attention or get folks hurt by her element (or be hurt in the case of water).
• Ironic Echo: During their Dance of Romance, Wade tells Ember "I'm so lucky," unintentionally echoing her father saying the same thing, which scares Ember into going back to the shop.
• Irony:
  • In the prologue, a young Ember has an experience in scaring off two Water teenagers who were being disrespectful of the shop, giving her and Bernie the impression that Water makes bad customers at the Fireplace. But some years later while learning to run the shop herself, Ember also learns the hard way that Fire customers can be just as rude and obnoxious in their own way.
  • Fire people are the ones who are viewed as the most dangerous by the other Elements, for understandable reasons. But because Element City was structured by Water people, it was made without the thought of Fire individuals living there in mind. And thus, the city is the least safe for Fire people, especially when there are train tracks that goes over the Fire section of the city.
• It's All My Fault: Ember after the flood damaged the store and Wade evaporated.
  Ember: (tearfully) This is all my fault. The shop, Wade.
• Just Friends: Ember tries to give this excuse when Cinder spots her with Wade. Her mother doesn't believe her for a second because she can smell the love on Ember.
  Ember: Mom, it's O.K., he's just a friend.
  Cinder: SI-(catches breath after running a lot)-SILENCE! I can SMELL you from over there! Ugh! you stink!
  Ember: What are you talking about?
  Cinder: You know what I'm talking about.
  Ember: [Sniffing herself; Surprised] You're smelling love on me?
• Liar Revealed: Ember when her dad Bernie finds out that she was the one who burst the pipes.
• Last Request: Played for Laughs. Cinder is driven to find Ember a perfect match since her mother's dying wish was for Ember to "marry Fire", right before she snuffed out in an instant.
• Literal Metaphor:
  • Gale complains that the referee for the airball game has his eyes in the back of his head. Cut to the ref, who literally pops his eyes through the back of his head to give her a Death Glare for the insult.
  • Wade starts a wave in the stands to cheer on Lutz. That is to say, the water elementals create a literal wave down their row.
• Logo Joke: In the teaser, the Pixar logo transitions from Luxo Jr.'s lamp to a subway car headlight.
• Love at First Punch: In the movie, Ember and Wade's first meeting is not very friendly. He bursts into the Fireplace's basement through a broken pipe, and runs off to report Ember's family for building violations, forcing Ember to follow and stop him.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Elements are discouraged from dating those not of their kind because "elements don't mix", besides the problems they have with direct physical contact. This is the main conflict of Ember and Wade's relationship since the former's a fire elemental while the latter's a water elemental, and Ember's father disapproves of them dating. Turns out, they can safely touch as long as they're not careless.
• Man of Kryptonite: A major concern for Ember, complicating her budding feelings for Wade, is the fact that they are two opposing elements that could seriously harm one another, making her reluctant to even touch him. Ultimately downplayed, as it only becomes a problem if they're trapped in environments that favor one party over the other. Otherwise, they can touch, hold each other, and even kiss with little worry.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Ember is the fiery Masculine Girl to Wade's easy-going Feminine Boy.
• Masochist's Meal: Forced onto Wade by Ember's father via serving him live coals to try making Wade prove to him that he's the "food inspector"; Ember worriedly insists the dish is too hot for Wade and Wade looks visibly in pain even after having finished the plate. Technically a Downplayed Trope, as the dish would be perfectly harmless and even delicious to fires like Ember's family, but it definitely isn't a pleasant experience for Wade.
• Meaningful Background Event: In the teaser, Wade can briefly be seen in the background shortly before he tries to pick up Ember's headphones.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • When Ember meets Wade's family, she plays the "Crying Game" with him, where they compete to see who can make the other cry first. Wade says, "Butterfly. Windshield Wiper. Half a butterfly," and also tells a story of a man who lost his love over the summer to try making Ember cry. Ember then repeats these after the flood to restore Wade after he evaporated from her heat.
  • Bernie tells Ember about how, when he left for Element City, he gave a respectful bow to his father, who refused to reciprocate because he felt Bernie was making the wrong choice. At the end of the film, as she's leaving for her internship, Ember gives the same bow to her father, who responds in kind.
• Meet Cute: The teaser shows Ember and Wade meeting this way, with the former dropping her headphones on the subway train and both of them reaching for it with a drop of Wade's water accidentally landing on Ember's hand. How they actually met is more Love at First Punch.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Bernie and Cinder are short and squat compared to Ember, who's a head taller than her father and lankier. This goes double for Cinder, who is the shortest adult in the film, barely half her husband's size.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The movie begins with Ember's parents moving into Element City, starting their business there, and raising Ember as a kid. Then there is a Time Skip to her adult life.
• Mood Whiplash: Ember and Wade commit to experiment with touching each other. The comedic spark of Ember's jumpiness about the experience then leads into the heartwarming moment where they can not only touch, but hug each other. And then, after Wade ends up saying something similar to her father, this leads to Wade and Ember's big argument and temporary break up.
• More Hero than Thou: Wade and Ember each try to sacrifice themselves to save the other in the climax, with Wade ultimately talking Ember into letting him do it.
• Naked on Revival: When Wade finally condenses back into a liquid after seemingly being killed by extreme heat, he is briefly not wearing his shirt.
• Naturalized Name: Upon their arrival to Element City, Ember's parents were given the names "Bernie and Cinder" as the immigration officer couldn't make heads or tails of their Firish names.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Cinder telling Ember "elements cannot mix" when talking about Wade in the trailer goes unused in the final film, where she instead says "fire and water cannot be together". Coupled with Ember's misleading dialogue preceding right before it: "we live by one simple rule", it sounds as if all four elements stick to their own. In the film, a crucial aspect of Element City is that it's a place founded by water elementals who later welcomed earth and wind elementals to form a cosmopolitan city, with Bernie and Cinder being the first of a growing but presently isolated fire elemental community. Despite initial prejudices against fire, the city did shut down water to Firetown because it's a genuine hazard to fire elementals, and the city is at least starting on the path to full integration. Most of the friction in the film comes from Ember being introduced to the world beyond her community and struggling to adapt.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Wade inspects the Fireplace's pipes, Ember tries to assure him that they are fine, since her dad built this place by himself, which causes Wade to realize that he built an establishment without a permit which is grounds to have it shut down by the city. Cue Ember's Oh, Crap! and the rest of the film is set in motion.
• No Antagonist: One of the rare Pixar movies to not have a Big Bad. The tensions in the movie come from Fantastic Racism and Ember's personal struggles in trying to figure out what she really wants in her life. The crisis in the climax isn't even the result of someone deliberately causing it, instead being a legitimate accident.
• Nobody Thinks It Will Work: Ember is fire and Wade is water. They fall in love and become a couple even though people say "Elements can't mix".
• The Nose Knows: Ember's mom can smell when people are in love.
• Not Helping Your Case: When Wade first bursts into the shop and sees the pipework, he insists on having to write a citation because it's not up to code. Ember furiously defends the work, explaining how her father rebuilt everything by hand after purchasing the place as an abandoned building. Unfortunately, as Wade points out, that means he didn't apply for a permit, itself a major violation.
• Ocular Gushers: Happens every time Wade or his family cries.
• Odd Couple: Ember is fire and Wade is water. 'Nough said.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Little Wade when he got stuck in a sponge during a flashback.
  • Ember when the basement of the shop flooded.
    Ember: Oh, no no no no no no no!
  • Ember when Wade writes citations and is going to shut down the shop.
  • Whenever the pipes in the shop start to leak.
  • When the pipe in the shop broke near the Blue Flame, threatening to put it out.
  • When the glass dam broke.
  • Wade when Ember took Wade calling her 'Hot' the wrong way.
    Wade: You're so hot.
    Ember: (deeply offended) Excuse me?!
    Wade: (Oh, Crap! face) No! I mean, like, you're smoking! No! I didn't mean it like that...
    Ember: Are you done yet?
    Wade: (sweating) Yes, please!
  • Ember and Wade when Ember's mom catches her and Wade together.
    Ember: Oh, flame! It's my mom!
  • Wade, Ember, and Cinder when Ember's dad wakes up and almost catches Wade in the shop.
    Ember: (To Wade) Oh! That's my dad! You gotta go!
  • Ember and Wade when Ember's dad catches Wade in the basement of the shop.
  • Ember and Wade when the latter accidentally reveals that the former burst the pipes to the former's dad.
  • Ember when she finds out a flash flood is heading for Firetown.
  • Wade when he sees the smoke and hears the sirens coming from Firetown.
    Wade: Ember!
  • A silent but very dramatic one when Ember and Wade are trapped inside the shop's oven and Wade begins to bubble.
    Wade: It's too hot in here.
• One Head Taller: Wade is a head taller than Ember under normal circumstances, though both of them can stretch to be taller than the other in certain scenes.
• Opposites Attract: The very tagline for the film itself is 'Opposites react'.
  • Ember is a snarky fire Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Wade is an overly emotional water Nice Guy. They both fall in love.
  • The stoic Fern and lively Gale also get together by the end.
• Outside Ride: As she's pursuing Wade through the train, Ember tries to bypass the crowd by crawling through a window and moving along the outside. She's forced to melt her way back inside to avoid being doused by a waterfall over a tunnel, but she makes it to the next car and catches up to Wade.
• Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Zig-Zagged. A majority of the adult male water citizens wear shirts but no pants, while the opposite applies to male fire citizens such as Bernie. Meanwhile, the majority of female characters are shown fully clothed, but some characters such as Gale and Cinder are shown with their lower halves exposed.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Inverted; Bernie turns his head with a grimace when Ember and Wade share their first kiss.
• Parasol Parachute: Ember uses a variation when chasing Wade, increasing her heat with her umbrella overhead to lift her over the crowd. Reality then kicks in and it reaches its flashpoint, catching fire and bringing her back down.
• Pardon My Klingon: Ember curses a few times in the movie by exclaiming "Flame!" in a way that isn't hard to see as a softer swear. There's a few other elemental curses words used here and there as well.
• Persona Non Grata: When Bernie catches Wade at the store, he claims he's a food inspector, which leads to Ember's father feeding him some of the Fireplace's fire-based goods. After having a smoky reaction, Wade says that it actually tasted good near the end once it cooled, and just needs to be watered down. This comment unfortunately ends up enraging Bernie to the point that he puts Wade on the store's 'Banned' list, with him mispronouncing it as 'Panned'.
• Photo-Booth Montage: During a day out, Ember and Wade have their photos taken in a booth, but Ember's natural glow creates a huge glare that obscures them both other than their eyes. She keeps the set anyway and tries to hide it from her parents, but her mother eventually finds it and concludes she's in love, driving her to figure out who the mystery boy is.
• Plant Person: Most of the earth elementals are essentially dirt covered in plant life, ranging from simple things like grass to entire trees. Other earth elementals have ores on them instead of plants.
• Pose of Supplication: This is a part of the fire people's culture. It even has a name: the Bà Ksô, translating from Firish as the big bow. It's the highest form of respect one can give. Bernie did this to his father as he and Cinder prepared to leave the Fire Land, but his father was so disappointed in Bernie's decision to leave that he didn't return it. A scar that Bernie carries to the present day. At the end of the film, Ember gives Bernie the Bà Ksô just before she leaves Element City with Wade. A gesture that Bernie returns.
• Precocious Crush: Clod is a child earth elemental who tries flirting with the grown-up Ember early in the movie, whom she rejects on the grounds that "elements don't mix". He's seen flirting with a fire girl his age in the epilogue.
• Prone to Tears: Wade and his whole family get emotional very easily and frequently display Ocular Gushers when they start crying.
• Punny Name: The gimmick of element-based characters gives this to pretty much every cast member. Our main duo are Ember Lumen and Wade Ripple, it just goes on from there...
• Racial Face Blindness: Played for laughs. When Bernie recognizes Wade as the guy who Ember was chasing out of the store and the one who burst the pipes, Ember hastily claims he's a different guy and reminds him that "Not all water looks alike," while shaking her head at Wade apologetically.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Ember says this when the basement gets flooded.
  Ember: Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no.
• Rapid Hair Growth:
  • In the teaser, one of the Plant People's grassy Plant Hair grows instantly after it gets accidentally watered by a sneezing water fellow.
  • In the movie proper, Clod grows flowers on his armpits, which he gives to Ember as he flirts with her.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Ember is fiery and hot-headed (and her fire is red) in contrast to Wade's calm and go with the flow persona (and his water is blue).
• Rousseau Was Right: While large-scale societal prejudices do exist, very few of the Elementals are shown to be actively malicious towards each other. They're mostly just doing their best to coexist.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • When Ember and Wade are on the beach making sandbags, it's sunset. They argue about the best way to save Bernie's shop, and Ember crumples in a heap of stress. Wade kneels down to comfort her and they come to a mutual understanding, just as the sun meets the ocean on the horizon.
  • The solution Ember and Wade came up with to fix the broken spillway door is a seal made of glass, made from sand melted by Ember. It stops the leakage and even stands up to being whacked by a hammer, but it isn't designed to hold against the repeated stress of water impacting the door every time a boat passes through, cracking bit by bit as time passes. It parallels with Ember's suppression of her own desires and the lies she makes just to make her father happy, and naturally the seal breaks shortly after her father finds out the truth.
• Running Gags: Ember saying Nope/No multiple times, Bernie misprouncing the word "Banned" as "Panned", Cinder spraying kissing couples with her spray bottle filled with water, Clod giving flowers to Ember, Wade and his family crying, and Ember losing her temper.
• Secret Relationship: Ember and Wade, until the end of the movie, keep their relationship with each other and their dates a secret since Ember is fire and Wade is water and elements don't mix and Ember's parents, especially her dad, will never approve of her dating Wade since he is water and Ember's parents hate water as they treated them unkindly in the past.
• Self-Made Man: Ember's father, Bernie, came to Element City with what little he owned, took over an abandoned building, and renovated it from top to bottom into the Fireplace. Unfortunately, as Wade points out when Ember tells him, he did it without applying for a permit.
• Ship Tease: Two in the ending. The first is Clod who's making moves on a fire girl his own age and the second is Gale who's delighted to see that her coworker Fern is also a fan of her favorite sports team.
• Sigh of Love: While dancing with Ember, Wade sighs happily as he expresses how lucky he feels to be with her.
• Single Tear: During the Crying Game, Wade was paired against Ember, which seemed to be a one-sided match since as being made of fire, she can't possibly produce moisture of any kind. When all his attempts to get her to cry failed, Wade gives Ember a heartfelt confession of his feelings for her, which causes her to shed a single tear of lava.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Wade is able to shift his mass to imitate the effect of a focused magnifying glass, using it to light some incense as part of the love reading test.
• Spontaneous Human Combustion: Inverted. When Ember's grandmother passes away, she stops burning and disappears in a puff of smoke.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The film is a love story between Ember and Wade, but being a fire girl and a water boy can make dating each other a pretty challenging thing, especially when you can't even touch one another. On top of this, different elements are discouraged from intermingling. The first step is Wade convincing Ember to at least attempt holding hands, because neither of them will be seriously harmed by it, leading to the discovery that they can touch each other.
• Starfish Language: The Fire People's language "Firish" is this. Although the spoken language sounds like Speaking Simlish, its written form consists of various fire shapes, and letters are spoken using roars.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Ember being living fire in a city not made for it is used for a series of quick gags during her date with Wade. Her attempt to sample a local beverage causes it to evaporate before it ever touches her lips, a Photo-Booth Montage results in a bunch of overexposed photos, and she acts as a distracting light source during a movie.
  • Bernie made all the shop's repairs himself, but clearly has no actual experience with plumbing, simply melting metal over any leaks. So when Wade is suddenly thrust into the shop, he notes that none of it is up to code and has to write citations for their many violations.^note Bernie appears to have gotten away with it as long as he has because the city just shut off water service to Firetown rather than risk dealing with any leaks, so they never bothered doing inspections for plumbing no one was using.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: One of the central conflicts of the film is Ember's conflict between pursuing her own dreams or being a "good daughter" and taking over the family shop so her father Bernie can retire. When she's finally open and honest about her feelings and desire to make her own way through life, she discovers that her parents actually encourage her choice to put herself first because they value her happiness over their business. Ultimately, the brief conflict and hurt feelings between Bernie and Ember ends up with everyone happier: Ember gets to be with Wade and secures an internship that will let her focus on her own talents, while Bernie entrusts the shop to two younger friends and gets to retire after all.
• Take a Third Option: Ember is initially eager to take over her father's store so her father can retire for the sake of his health and she can pay him back for the sacrifices he made, but when Wade helps her realize that the store isn't what she wants in life, she's torn whether she should pursue the life she wants, or take over the store to repay her father's sacrifices. At the end of the movie, her father does retire, but he entrusts a pair of frequent visitors to take over the store instead and encourages his daughter to travel the world.
• Technicolor Fire: Ember demonstrates to Wade that standing on colored crystal mineral deposits will make her assume the same color. She can even be two-tone by standing on two at once. Ember also burns purple when having a bad temper, and a blue flame is sacred to her people.
• That Came Out Wrong: Wade mistakes Ember for a fire when she's camped out in front of Gale's offices and tries to stomp her out before she pulls the blanket off and reveals herself. He apologizes and says that she's "hot", followed by "smoking", each time earning her ire because it sounds like he's hitting on her.
  Ember: Are you done yet?
  Wade: Yes, please.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Throughout the movie, Clod attempts to flirt with Ember by offering her flowers from his armpits and calling her "my queen". Ember does not return his feelings, initially because "elements don't mix" (as well as the age gap), and later because she develops feelings for Wade. At the end of the movie, Clod instead flirts with a younger fire girl closer to his own age, but this time he's more successful, as she giggles in response to his flirting, and in the credits sequence, they are later seen going on a cycle ride and then a boat ride together.
• Time Skip: Several months pass following the aftermath of the flood.
• Toilet Humor: Wade takes Ember to an airball game between two air elemental teams, the Windbreakers and the Cropdusters. The former even have a chant:
  "Toot toot!"
• Trying Not to Cry: Wade's family plays the "Crying Game", wherein they pair off and try to get their opponent to cry first. Pitting Wade against Ember seems like a lopsided match at first, but he actually manages to get her with a heartfelt confession.
• Twirl of Love: Wade lifts Ember up and spins her around as they share their first kiss.
• The Un-Reveal: The film never explains what caused the initial damage to the spillway door, which appears as if something crashed through it. It's just there as a problem to be resolved and a threat to be avoided in the climax.
• Uptown Girl: Ember comes from a middle class family who runs a convenience store, while Wade's family is upper class, lives in a fancy penthouse, and is well-off enough to prioritize hobbies over jobs.
• Visual Pun:
  • Let's face it, the Big Damn Kiss between Ember and Wade is very steamy. Alternatively, it could be seen as a hot wet kiss.
  • The word wave normally is used literally when meaning "a certain movement of water", and metaphorically when refering to "crowd of people making a coordinated movement, usually in a sports stadium". In this movie, sport watchers do a wave in the latter sense... But because they're water elementals, this also causes/is a wave in the literal sense.
• Water Is Blue: Water people like Wade as well as their neighborhood are shades of blue. A flashback shows a young Wade curiously touching a sponge and getting completely absorbed, turning it from yellow to blue in the process.
• Wet Cement Gag: Wade is initially unable to get the leak patched up because he caused an incident in which five of the foreman's workers got covered in cement which ended up mixing with them and hardening, resulting in them being trapped as statues.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The issue of the broken spillway door is forgotten about after the Time Skip. While it was presumably fixed, it seems odd that it not even gets a mention after all the trouble revolving around it.
• Wham Line: As Ember is done sealing the furnace with Wade and her inside, ...
  Wade: It's too hot in here.
• Worth It:
  • Ember nearly dies getting to see the flooded Vivisteria, but considers it completely worth it to see the thing she missed as a child.
  • Wade has no regrets evaporating in a furnace because he got to meet Ember.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Ember's both incredulous and frustrated when Wade explains his occupation in their first meeting.
  Ember: I sucked a city inspector into our pipes?!
  Wade: I know. Ironic, right?

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