As a proud Latina, two of my absolute favorite movies of all time growing up were The Book of Life and Coco. I loved the storyline of both movies, the characters, the colors, the music, and most importantly, the beautiful representation of Latino culture and experiences. Sure, I may not be Mexican, but I am Puerto Rican, so at the end of the day, all Latinos and Latinas have got to stick together. While I do enjoy both of these wonderful movies, there is one big debate about these movies that everyone still talks about today: Did Coco copy the story of The Book of Life? As I got older, I really do understand why people think this way and ask this question all the time. While I’m 50/50 with this question, I do not like the fact that people tend to hate one of these movies and fight about which one is better. While they do have similarities, they also have differences which make them both so special and unique. I believe that everyone has the right to their own opinions and can debate this question, but there should be no hate towards any of these movies and I hope after reading my opinions on this topic, people will stop hating and fighting over these movies.
The Book of Life
The Book of Life was a movie that I was so excited to see when I first saw the trailers for it. I remember begging my parents to go see it, and when it came out on DVD, I made sure my parents got it for me ASAP. What made the movie so great is that we got to learn so much about Día de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead. We get to truly understand the importance of this special day, especially within Mexican culture. Of course, we have to love Manolo for his amazing character growth from hiding who he was to being brave and being himself, doing the thing he loves the most: playing music. Speaking of music, all the songs are absolutely amazing! As a music head, I listen to them all the time no matter how old I get. And best of all about this movie: the love story. How can you not enjoy this cute love story with Maria being such a girl-boss and Manolo being such a romantic? Maria and Manolo were meant to be together and even though Maria was playing hard to get, she knew she loved Manolo since they were kids. I mean, how could she say no to Manolo’s beautiful proposal to her compared to Joaquin’s? Let’s just say, this movie made me have my first cartoon crush and I want to have a proposal just like that in the future.
Coco
I won’t lie, when Coco was doing its advertisements, I really wasn’t paying attention to it and wasn’t really planning on going to see the movie. However, when my middle school got us free tickets to go see it, how could I turn down that trip? I honestly didn’t know what to expect from Coco, but once that movie was over, I was sobbing like a baby and truly loved every minute of it. I loved everything about the movie. The music was one of my favorite parts of the movie, of course. There was a perfect mixture of English and Spanish songs within the movie with some of the songs featuring both languages together. The way they animated the Land of the Dead in Coco was breathtaking, beautiful, and colorful. Honestly, there’s no way any other movie could create the Land of the Dead to look as incredible as this one. Of course, we get to learn more about Mexican culture and Día de los Muertos from a different point of view which is amazing to me. However, the best part about Coco had to be the plot twist. We didn’t just get one plot twist, but two in such a great movie! Making Ernesto de la Cruz the bad guy was genius because here we are through most of the movie praising and loving this guy to find out he’s not as charming as everyone else makes him seem to be since he killed Héctor. And then, more twists and turns with the movie convincing us that Ernesto was Miguel’s great-great-grandfather when it was actually Héctor! With Coco, Disney set out to not only make a movie to represent the culture of Mexico and the importance of Día de los Muertos, but they made a whole telenovela. How could I not love Coco after all of that?
Did Coco really copy The Book of Life?
So, the big question to answer: Did Coco really copy The Book of Life? Well, with both stories being very similar to each other with the main story being about Día de los Muertos and both the main characters being males that want to pursue music but their family doesn’t approve, it does look bad for Disney. I can’t blame people for saying that they copied The Book of Life. I will say, yes, in a way, Coco did copy The Book of Life, but I think it’s not a big old copy and paste that lots of people make it seem to be. With The Book of Life, it was more focused on the love story and Manolo trying to figure out what he truly wanted to do with his life whether that meant pleasing his family or following his dreams. Coco on the other hand was more about Miguel trying to prove to his family that he should be allowed to follow his dreams of becoming a musician and exploring his family history so that he could help save and make his family better connected with each other.
Even though both Manolo and Miguel both went to the Land of the Remembered or the Land of the Dead, Manolo actually died and was sent there while Miguel got cursed which is why he was sent there. Yes, both movies’ main focus revolves around Día de los Muertos, but they do it differently. Of course, there were going to be similarities since it’s focused on a traditional holiday and the same culture and I don’t know if it was a coincidence that both of the main characters wanted to pursue music, but they have different focuses that aren’t just music which makes both so unique and special. Miguel was a kid who wanted to prove that he didn’t have to live under his family rules and Manolo was a grown man trying to find himself and make the life that he wanted when it came to his career and his love life. Both of these characters are related and their stories are similar, but at the end of the day, you have to see that these characters were on different paths. So, these two movies are similar with the culture and setting, yet different in many ways based on what the characters are going through in their lives.
With both of these movies, I feel like we can’t say whether one copied the other. If there are going to be movies about a certain topic, culture, history, etc., you’re going to expect that there will be a lot of similarities. Even though Coco and The Book of Life are animations, they still incorporate real life topics and it needs to be as accurate as it could be. I really do wish people would stop hating one of the two movies because they think it was copied. Honestly, if you do some research, you’ll find that Coco started to be developed all the way back in 2011, three years before The Book of Life came out. Coco was going to be a different story about an American boy living with a Mexican family, but was later changed to what we have now in 2013. The Book of Life came out in 2014 which means that Coco had been in the works for years and couldn’t have known what The Book of Life was going to be about. I love both these movies because no matter what anyone says, they are their own stories, they are unique, and they are amazing films, so I could never think that these movies copied each other. Think about it like this: people love music, so why not have both of the main characters enjoy music as well so that people will be interested in the films? Both of these movies not only show the importance of the holiday and culture that they are about, but show the importance of not being afraid to be who we want to be, just because others may not like who we are. Coco shows that you have to fight to live the life you want to live and The Book of Life shows how we should all be able to write our own stories, both the same message, but shown differently. This is not me trying to hate on people or change their minds about which movie they like more. This is me showing my point of view about this debate and hoping that people will think differently about this topic before jumping to conclusions. All I ask is that people actually watch these films to see how beautiful and wonderful both of these stories are. I just want people to stop saying “This movie copied this movie”. Now is a good time to watch these movies since Halloween and Día de los Muertos are both in October. Go get comfortable and watch Coco and The Book of Life on the same day so that you can remember how fantastic both of these movies are and to see how both are different, but help show the same idea of how you should write your own story.