The Scene That Changed Pixar's Coco...

Pixar's Coco was seriously my first date option to my current relationship! So naturally, it's pretty near and dear to my heart... And totally not some kind of bias that makes me say: THIS IS THE BEST PIXAR MOVIE. But I truly do adore it. And what is the best scene in the runtime? What is the scene that forever changed Coco for it's classic plot twist and elevation of stakes? Why it's the one where we finally learn of Ernesto De La Cruz's secret. The flashback Miguel causes between him, and Hector...

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... Such a wholesome movie. If you forget about all the dead people in it.

[raphaeldagamer]

I feel it's also worth pointing out that when Imelda said "Miguel, I give you my blessing..." the marigold petal she was holding immediately began glowing, but when Ernesto said the exact same thing, the petal he held did not glow, foreshadowing the fact that Miguel wasn't actually related to De La Cruz.

[trinaq]

I love how Mama Imelda doesn't forgive Hector for supposedly abandoning her and Coco right away, but seems to have forgiven him by the time of the ending in the afterlife some time later. Even though Hector left through no fault of his own, it's realistic that Imelda would need more time to warm up to him again.

[superfanmusicmaker]

The worst thing about Ernesto’s movie is that the character he plays immediately figures out that it’s poison and he beats the bad guy. This is basically his way of posthumously _mocking_ Hector as naive and stupid for trusting him when it happened in real life.

In most other stories where a flawed villain kills someone close to them, they hate themselves for it and desperately try to justify it as a necessary sacrifice. Ernesto not only has no shame or regret whatsoever for what he did, but through making this movie he’s basically _bragging_ about it.

[DanGamingFan]

I love how this scene plays out, like it slowly dawns on Hector the same speed it does the audience. I also love in general how respectfully this movie portrays Mexican culture, and the ending is impossible not to tear up at.

[mrdrprofessor]

I love that Ernesto's downfall was his own ego. The movie plays in his mansion because he finds what he actually did back then as his greatest achievement. If it weren't for his ego then his secret might have still lurked in the shadows.

[psychgeekgirl]

One of the other reasons I love this scene, is it gives so much more context with Hector as a character. Up until now, Hector has been typecasted as the “comic relief” the sidekick whose job it is to help the protagonist reach their goals and navigate the world. Hector is silly, doesn’t seem to be taken seriously by anyone, and as an audience, we’ve laughed at his misfortune since the start.
At the entrance to the Land of the Dead, we learn that not everyone can cross the bridge through Hector’s failure; played off as a joke and a simple “darn flower bridge.” We learn if Hector’s death as “he choked on some chorizo” and even as he says “I got food poisoning, ” we laugh, because it’s a stupid way to die. We’re out into the idea that Hector’s a clown, made to laugh at. This continues and we (and Miguel) disregard Hector when he says “I played with your great grandpa and taught him everything he knows, ” “no manches” (no way). When Hector shows up again after the fight, we think he’s going to turn against Miguel…but then…th truth comes out.
This clown…this sidekick…this strange skeleton who died of “chocking chorizo”, was betrayed, murdered, and silenced by De la Cruz. As Miguel gets the revelation, so do we, and it garners much more sympathy and empathy than previous because…we were like Miguel. We disregarded Hector, focused on meeting the elusive De la Cruz, laughed at the poor skeleton man’s misfortune, when he was the victim of the “hero.”

[trinaq]

One of the many reasons why I adore "Coco" is that it's not afraid to tackle dark subjects such as death, grief and pain, but doesn't talk down to its target audience, since they understand that they're smart enough to comprehend the complex, deep messages.

[Nic_]

I’m glad that Pixar at least did a twist villain way better than most of that era

[js_musicmedia]

My favorite thing about Coco is the fact that Miguel is in fact the main character, but the central narrative is a father-daughter love story that teaches the importance of family, and it’s told so powerfully

[TheRibottoStudios]

What one has to remember, is this is right around the time where Disney AND Pixar were going IN on the twist villain plot. This easily could've soured things for the movie, since audiences were tired of it. With other Disney/Pixar twist villains at the time, the villain persona is SO out of character from the façade they had on, when the reveal happens, you're just left scratching your head.

But here, this is just something that actually makes sense as it's just a natural extension of de la Cruz's narcissistic personality of which we get showered in examples throughout the movie before actually meeting him. Not to mention, this is technically a retroactive twist. He's already done his evil. He's already on top. Again it's not like most other twist villains who wanted to GET to the top. He was already there in life AND death because of his crime. We're just witnessing the fallout of that act. It's rather genius when you think about it.

Also I love that when Miguel is thrown into the cenote, his immediate instinct is to run to Hector for comfort. It's a nice touch considering we still at the moment thought that this is just a stranger to Miguel. However, through the movie we see him behave in a much more familial type way towards Miguel, so we don't question the child. Hector has to be going through it, but his first thought isn't about himself, but this child who again at the time, he didn't know. He just instinctively comforts. There's a TON of subtle hints and details thrown in throughout the movie that MAYBE Miguel and Hector are the ones related, and not Cruz and Miguel, that you only catch on another watch. Another hint is that when Cruz gives Miguel his blessing, the marigold petal didn't glow. I didn't even comprehend that at the time, I was just trying to process the scene that came after.

I love movies like that, where every watch you see something new.

[kirin]

I adore the detail of how Ernesto took Hector's guitar right before he died. He grabbed it just in time to prevent Hector from bringing the guitar with him into the afterlife.

[realafah]

Fun fact: This situation actually happened irl. Not like this movie, but in the aspect of a guy with a huge ego murdered someone and got away with it.
He got so cocky, that he wrote a murder mystery book where the plot was a "perfect" murder case. The only problem was that he used exact details that was not only similar to the murder he committed, but he used so much detail that it was stuff only the police knew about the case.
One of the cops who investigated it read his book and immediately pieced it together because they still remembered the case after years.

And that's how he was caught. He openly bragged about the murder.

[NovaPlusTom]

The sad thing when you really think about it, is Ernesto probably wouldn't be entirely forgotten even after the truth is discovered. In the real world a documentary would be made of him. He might be disgraced, but he won't ever really be forgotten. His memory lives in infamy now, but there's always those who would be fascinated and intrigued by his story, and still honor him.

[ZeekerssRBLX]

Ernesto always reminded me of Charles Muntz from Up. Both are role models that are revealed to be psychopathic, all their work stolen from someone else. And that dead stare

[liamisaac]

It’s funny that Ernesto basically kind of confessed to committing murder kind of like how rappers do in their songs 😂

[silvercandra]

This movie holds a special place in my heart...
I'm a German, and my partner is from Mexico.
It made mea learn quite a few things about his culture, and ask even more questions, until we agreed that we want to mix our cultures together, and if we ever end up with kids, raise them knowing both.

The reveal scene in Coco was one of my favorites, I saw it coming, but it was just done so well...
If I hadn't known the trope of a kid looking for missing family, only to find out they were there all along, I wouldn't have known that Hector was related to Miguel and not Ernesto, and Ernesto having poisoned him actually took me by surprise.
Only on a second watch, did I notice the hint at there having been foul play involved in an earlier scene, when Hector says that he died of food poisoning...

The Incredibles might be good, but I think Coco actually overtook it as my favorite Pixar movie.
Just for the amazing visuals alone, but also, because they remind me of my partner's colourful nature.

[hunterolaughlin]

You know, Ernesto could’ve still gotten away with his crime of murdering Hector and still informed Imelda that her husband died during the tour. I mean, in the Land of the Dead, everyone jokes how Hector died “from chocking on a churro”, which is the lie Ernesto used to cover up poisoning Hector, so he could have used it when writing a letter to Imelda to inform her how her husband died. I mean, Ernesto obviously had some interaction with his friend’s wife at some point during the tour and didn’t think that she’d be concerned about her husband’s whereabouts. If Ernesto had just told Imelda her husband died and still used his lie to cover up him being the cause of his death, Imelda wouldn’t have gotten the assumption her husband abandoned her and daughter to pursue his music career and shut him out from her life in the first place. So, thanks to Ernesto, Hector was disowned by his own wife and descendants for 96 years because he didn’t think of his best friend’s wife.


And yes, I know, the reason why… Because there’d be no story then.

[alexisdominey]

Another detail, when Imelda was giving her blessing the petal glowed as soon as she said his name, but when Ernesto did there was no glow.

Plus Ernesto already had poison, how long was he planning to kill his 'friend'?

[featherlight]

Nobody going to talk about the fact that Ernesto was holding Miguel in front of himself not in a protective grasp kind of way but to put Miguel between him and Hector to protect himself. It’s super subtle but it’s so good

[Anggon]

One minor detail is in the beginning when we see Miguel knock over the picture and reveals the guitar, the guitar has one gold tooth on the bridge. Hector is the only character that has a golden tooth to my knowledge in the movie. So from the very beginning it foreshadows his great great grandfather.