Turning Red Director Reveals Top Nintendo Franchises Including Pokemon Which Inspired the Movie

Video games have always been crucial in giving a lot of people fascinating ways of imagining a world in a more creative and mesmerizing manner. And the latest animated blockbuster in Turning Red is a live example of this. It seems like Nintendo played a heavy role in the comedy’s making, especially when it comes to its visual aesthetics.

Domee Shi, who’s helmed Turning Red, recently revealed in an interview that her film takes immense visual inspiration from some of the most popular Nintendo IPs. And they are none other than Earthbound, Pokemon, and Zelda.

How Turning Red imbibed the best elements from Nintendo’s Pokemon and Zelda!

For anyone who’s still not watched it, Turning Red is an animated feature fantasy comedy, helmed by Domee Shi. This happens to be her first project as a director. Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it’s also the first Pixar film to be entirely directed by a woman.

The film’s story is set in Toronto, with the timeline being from the year 2002. It follows the journey of the character named Meilin “Mei” Lee. She’s a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who has an interesting situation going on with herself. Due to a hereditary curse, whenever she reacts strongly, she turns into a big red panda.

While there’s no doubt that Turning Red is a stunning movie, there’s even more stunning fact that not many people might be aware of. Apparently, Disney’s animated feature has been heavily inspired by some of the best-looking Nintendo titles to date.

WATCH THIS STORY: Ranking The Highest Selling Pokemon Video Games of All-Time

As reported by ScreenRant, Domee Shi had a recent media interaction in which she surprised everyone by disclosing a little-known secret. She mentioned that Nintendo video games played an essential role in the making of her film. Titles like Earthbound, Zelda, and Pokemon helped her to present the movie in an appealing manner.

“There’s just something so appealing about how they are able to stylize their world in such an appealing, chunky, cute kind of way.” 

She stressed on the point of having a beautiful yet simple-looking world-building which Nintendo games do pretty well.

“When we were looking at the looks development for our movie, we looked at Breath of the Wild and were like, ‘Wow, how are they able to make the world feel so beautiful and rich but are still able to simplify it?'”

Turning Red is now available worldwide on Disney’s official streaming service.

Upcoming releases on Nintendo

In other news, Nintendo will soon come up with its next batch of breathtaking releases later in 2022. Some of its highly awaited titles include the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

READ MORE: Nintendo Switch vs Steam Deck: How the Japanese Giant Could Finally Face Real Competition In 2022