Soul’s Original Ending Would Have Been Way Worse

Warning: SPOILERS for Soul ahead.

Pixar’s Soul is a touching rumination on the meaning of life, but its original ending would have made the film a much more somber affair. In the final version of the story, Soul ends with jazz pianist Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx) returning to his body and 22 (Tina Fey), the reluctant soul he encountered in the Great Before, getting ready to embrace life on Earth. It’s a happy ending for both main characters.

However, co-directors Kemp Powers and Pete Docter revealed that there were other versions of this upbeat ending, including several where Joe remains dead. In these versions, Joe lets 22 keep her Earth pass and either stays in the Great Before as a mentor to new souls or goes to the Great Beyond. Despite their darker turn, these endings would have portrayed Joe as being at peace with his death – just as he is in the finished movie, when he believes that he’s giving up his life to give 22 a chance at one.

It’s ultimately a good thing that Powers and Docter kept Soul‘s current ending, because ending the movie with Joe’s death would have negated the film’s message and Joe’s experiences. Throughout the story, Joe comes to the realization that he hasn’t been living life to the fullest. He is so focused on his pursuit of jazz greatness that he loses sight of the people around him and fails to connect with them as meaningfully as he can. If Joe were to come to this realization and stay dead, as he does in the original ending, it would greatly diminish the impact of his character growth.

One of the greatest things about Soul‘s ending is its sense of potential, and the promise that from now on Joe will truly live every moment of his life. In the original ending, he simply accepts that he didn’t live his best life and dies without getting a chance to remedy that himself. This is unfair to both him and the audience, as it snuffs out the potential of Joe learning from his mistakes and dims the inspiration for the audience to do the same.

Finally, at its core, Soul is more about Joe than it is about 22. This is not to say that his initial choice to let 22 go to Earth is not powerful – it is actually a moment of true selflessness that shows how much Joe has grown. However, it wouldn’t feel right for only one of the protagonists to practice what Soul preaches; both characters deserve that chance. Adding to that, having Joe, a Black man (and Pixar’s first Black lead character), sacrifice himself for 22 (who, while not any race in particular, is voiced by a white woman) would not do any favors to a film whose body-swapping narrative unfortunately plays into the tired trope of Black characters being dehumanized in animated films.

Soul‘s ending is wonderful as it is, and it amplifies the movie’s message of embracing every moment. It leaves the possibilities of Joe and 22’s lives wide open and invites the audience to live more fully. The original ending would have dampened this message and been much too somber to fully enjoy. Powers, Docter, and the rest of the team behind Soul made the right decision with the film’s current ending.

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