heyheyitsjuju:

pencokun:

slusheeduck:

im-fairly-whitty:

I was kinda in a weird boat, the guy from Pixar who came to present Coco to my university’s animation department a month before it came out was trying not to spoil the movie but kept saying things like “…Miguel sets out to find De la Cruz, who he believes is his grandfather and who he believes will be able to break the curse…”

So I’m like “okay so obviously De la Cruz 1) isn’t his grandfather and 2) can’t break the curse” because I know how these things work.

I went into the movie looking for the “real” grandpa and once Miguel hooked up with Hector it was pretty easy to tell he was the mystery missing grandparent. What I did NOT expect was Ernesto being A COLD BLOODED MURDERER.

THAT is what truly shocked me.

How about yall? Did you see the grandpa twist coming? Lemme know in the comments whether you were surprised at all or if everyone kinda saw it coming.

I was 100% convinced that de la Cruz WAS the true great-great-grandpa for like 70% of the movie. Allow me to explain why:

Work was hyping Coco a ton and I wound up being the main person hyping it, which got me hype for it. So I got to see the trailers and a few special preview scenes over and over again, which I very much enjoyed. But it also led to me trying to piece together the plot. (And, btw, there were a TON of spoilers around work, and I steadfastly ignored them because I wanted to be surprised.)

Anyway, I was convinced that Ernesto really was Miguel’s great-great-grandpa. BUT I was also sure that he’d be the villain–I mean, his whole color scheme was white. If that’s not villain coding, I don’t know what is. So what I figured was that Miguel was going to learn a “Never meet your heroes” lesson and that his great-great-grandpa was going to reject him. Also, that funny skeleton man– who’s probably from like the 70s, because he seems awfully young–and Miguel both must bond over being fans of de la Cruz; that’s why he sings Remember Me. Clearly “La Llorona” was a Spanish “I hate you” song between Imelda and Ernesto, and “Everyone Knows Juanita” is the fun song where we’re introduced to Hector. And obviously Hector was going to step in as an older-brother character when Ernesto let him down and ultimately become Miguel’s found family. How would it resolve? No idea. Also, Dante was definitely going to die and appear in the Land of the Dead as one of those crazy colorful animals.

I had about two weeks of maintaining this idea of what Coco was going to be about, and so while I went in as blind as possible, I was still pretty sure in my ideas of what the movie would be. I started getting vibes of “Well, maybe Ernesto isn’t the grandpa” about halfway through the movie, but if I hadn’t been crying hysterically during the cenote scene, I would have been S C R E A M I N G. 

I was completely taken off-guard and I loved it so much.

(Also, fun fact: I bought my Hector figurine WAY before seeing the movie because I was like “Eh, even if the movie sucks, it’s a beautiful figurine, and I like skeletons so it’s fine.” The Hector tsum was after we’d been hyping it for a bit–we had a TON of them, and I’d gleaned enough from the trailers and my event to figure that I was going to be ruined by this funny skeleton man. Plot twist: I was.)

I was more or less the same with Slushee! I did get spoiled a tiny bit here but more in a “Héctor is an important character” thing.

What I did not expect was the first big reveal: Ernesto and Héctor were friends/performing partners and the former killed Héctor for his songs and guitar. I didn’t expect the second reveal but I wasn’t as shocked as I was with the first one.

Lmao I was in the same boat! I didn’t know a single thing about the movie going in except: a- Miguel is the name of the boy and b- it’s Mexican culture.

I thought Héctor was either found family or some distant relation they cut out because he ALSO liked music. I thought if he was found family he and Mamá Imelda might grow friendly and I’d have to ship them as a “what could be” type thing (which I’m way too used to so I was fine with)

I HOPED it would be a misunderstanding scenario and that while they didn’t get along/weren’t right for each other, Imelda and Ernesto could set aside their differences for Miguel’s sake (oh how wrong I was)

I also thought Héctor wanted to go back to the Land of the Living to see his girlfriend, not his daughter. That “my girl” tripped me up too much, haha.

But by the talent show scene, I knew it had to be someone besides Ernesto. They were playing up that factor WAY too much. I still didn’t know who, or how, or WHY, but I had a “oh my god nOOOOO” moment: when Miguel put the pieces together, I was right behind him and just as horrified.

Then I died bc Héctor and his wife got together again and has beautiful OTP moments and silently slid Ernesto into my “villains that I love” category without a fuss.