“Pixel Perfect” is a 2004 Disney Channel movie on Disney+. The description makes it look like a take on the “Weird Science” story. A boy makes a hologram girl to be the lead singer of his favorite high school band. It pretty much follows the G-rated idea for the first part of the movie. Somehow, the hologram has feelings of jealousy, love, and vanity, which the adults mostly ignore. This stirs up conflict between the real girl lead singer and the boy. However, because this is a Disney Channel film, it never gets beyond vague notions of love.

The first part of the film proceeds as any rom-com aimed at the pre-teen/early teen set. Oblivious boy, longing girl, will they, won’t they, do they, don’t they? The creation of the singing hologram also follows a relative normal path if you’re familiar with this story archetype. When the hologram wants to be released from the constraint of not being able to go outside (hello COVID), the weirdness starts. She uploads herself to the Internet, meets a search engine, gets involved with guard dogs and emails herself. The imagery is chaotic, strange, and intentionally glitchy.

Spoiler Alert: If you don’t want to know how much weirder it gets, stop reading, bookmark this page, and go experience it for yourself. Then return to finish reading about the next level of weirdness.

The real girl gets a head injury and the hologram uploads into her head – there’s a great scene where the hologram repairs a guitar and reboots the real girl and then takes over her body. This being a Disney film, it all works out in the end, but that end involves rain, lightning, a fading pattern, and a guardian angel. “Pixel Perfect” is trippy indeed.

If you want to read more about Disney and creativity, check out “Disneyland Is Creativity” and “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.” Read more about the Disney Company in “Penguinate! The Disney Company.” Check out other Disney stories at www.penguinate.weebly.com. If you’d like to get my copy of John Carter, let me know. Otherwise, use this affiliate link to get it on Amazon.