Should you go loco over trailer for Pixar's Coco?

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Screen grab from Coco trailerImage source, Disney/Pixar
Image caption,

The trailer features a boy called Miguel and his dog, called Dante

The first trailer has dropped for the latest Pixar animation, a "love letter to Mexico" that uses imagery from the country's Day of the Dead celebrations.

Entitled Coco, the film tells of a boy called Miguel who is transported to the Land of the Dead when he touches a dead musician's enchanted guitar.

Sounds ghoulish? Well, it is - and a little contentious too, given Mexico's strained relationship with the US.

We'll be able to judge for ourselves when Coco comes out later this year.

In the meantime, here's what we've learned from watching the two-minute teaser, external.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

It's okay to leave candles burning when you're out

The trailer begins by revealing Miguel's lovingly assembled shrine to a dead guitar player called Ernesto de la Cruz, voiced in the film by Benjamin Bratt.

With its collection of album covers, maquettes, mugs and photographs, it's clearly a labour of love for the angel-faced tyke.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

There is still such a thing as a working VHS player

Ernesto, we understand, is Miguel's great-great-grandfather - which explains why he has a video cassette of his most famous moments.

Clearly, DVD players have yet to make inroads in the place Miguel calls home.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

It's okay to sit really close when you're watching television

"I have to sing! I have to play," says Ernesto in black and white. "The music - it's not just in me, it is me."

Clearly the music is in Miguel as well, who has a battered guitar modelled on his idol's.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

Photographs in movies tend to have bits missing

Remember that bit in Spectre where James Bond finds a photo with someone's face missing? Well, this scene seems awfully similar.

Why does this incomplete family portrait show Ernesto's fabled guitar though? The plot thickens.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

It's okay to break into a mausoleum after dark

Something about that photo sends Miguel to the mausoleum built in Ernesto's memory, a giant tomb bearing the name of his most famous song - Remember Me.

Apparently there's nothing to stop anyone sneaking in at the dead of night to pay their respects.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

Leaves appear when you play a dead man's guitar

Or, for that matter, taking down the guitar that sits beneath the great man's portrait and giving it a twiddle.

Like Kubo before him, external, though, Miguel discovers that playing an instrument can have magical results.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

You also end up looking like the Ready Brek Kid

Playing the guitar gives Miguel an ethereal glow - and it also turns him invisible.

"What's going on?" he gasps as he tries in vain to hold onto a passer-by's arm.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

The dead are scared of the living

Turns out Miguel has somehow crossed over into a parallel world where skeletons walk.

They also wear hats and make-up and freak out when the non-dead scream at them.

Image source, Disney/Pixar

You get to the Land of the Dead by crossing a bridge

Remember those leaves? Well, it turns out they make up a magical portal that Miguel and his dog use to get to the Land of the Dead.

Could it also be seen as a riposte to the wall President Trump wants to build along the US-Mexican border?

Image source, Disney/Pixar

The Land of the Dead looks a bit like Blade Runner

Is it just us, or does the trailer's final scene recall Ridley Scott's 1982 classic - soon to spawn a belated sequel?

A nice touch, by the way, to name Miguel's dog after Dante Alighieri, whose epic poem Divine Comedy begins with a visit to Hell.

Now if all this sounds a little familiar, it could be because there's already been an animated film about the Day of the Dead.

Released in 2014, The Book of Life, external told of a bullfighter with musical aspirations whose love for a beautiful woman takes him to the afterlife.

Disney/Pixar has some other skeletons to deal with too: namely, the howls of protest that greeted its attempts to slap a trademark, external on Mexico's "Dia de los Muertos" in 2013.

Coco is out in the US on 22 November and the UK on 8 December.

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