Purchasing films on VOD allows viewers to discover cut scenes, like on Blu-ray bonuses. This is the case here with Red Alert, which had to delete a few scenes before arriving on Disney+.
Disney has made Red Alert, the latest Pixar released in March 2022 on the Disney+ platform, available for purchase on VOD. This little animated gem follows Meilin, an exuberant and passionate 13-year-old girl torn between her image as a model girl and devoted to her mother, and the chaos of adolescence.
Her protective, even slightly authoritarian mother is never far from her daughter, a reality that is not always easy to manage for the teenager. And as if the monstrous changes associated with puberty weren’t enough, whenever she gets too excited (which is pretty much all the time), she transforms into (a-do-ra-ble) giant red panda !
Fans can now experience early drafts of Red Alert and experience the mayhem caused by the appearance of the red panda with never-before-seen bonus features, including seven deleted scenes, three featurettes and audio commentary with the director of the movie, Domee Shi.
In this first deleted scene, Domee Shi explains that Mei is trying to get elected class representative and to do so, participates in a debate. But very quickly, the panda will appear and shake up his plans. But it was the entire scene that upset the film’s plans and was therefore deleted.
This second video reveals another narrative arc that has also been completely set aside. In this sequence, the temple of Mei’s parents is on the verge of bankruptcy and Mei is then under immense pressure to become the tourist attraction of the place to bail out the family’s finances.
In this third video, titled “Containing the panda”, Domee Shi explains why this one was so important to him. She explores parent-child dynamics in Chinese-American culture. It is also a story of transmission since Mei’s mother also experienced this phase of “transition” by turning into a giant red panda at puberty. She then teaches Mei to contain her panda by managing her emotions.
These three scenes could have been an additional asset in the story of Red Alert, but in animation as in live action films, the making of a film is always a story of sacrifice.