Blush (2021 film)
Blush is a 2021 animated science fiction short film inspired by a true story from writer and director Joe Mateo, produced by Heather Schmidt Feng Yanu and executive produced by John Lasseter, David Ellison and Dana Goldberg. Developed from Skydance Animation, the short film follows an astronaut falling in love with an alien on a small planet. The film was dedicated to the memory of Mary Ann R. Mateo who died from breast cancer. It was released on Apple TV+ on October 1, 2021.
Plot
The short film opens with an unnamed astronaut maintaining a garden in his spaceship. His unattended spaceship collides with a meteor and crashes into a small barren rock planet. The astronaut attempts to contact earth but fails. Then, he removes the plants from his spaceship garden and plants them on the planet, but they wither due to lack of air and water. He later witnesses another spaceship crash into the planet. Upon inspection he finds it empty, but notices footprints, which makes him believe there was someone on the ship. He follows the footprints back to his spaceship, where he finds his plant suddenly growing into a large tree, and at the base of it he notices a pinkish female alien with ribbon hair making the tree grow. The alien runs to his ship and brings out the other plants from the spaceship, and plants them into the planet's soil, making most of into it a large garden. They fall in love at first sight. When the alien removes the astronaut's helmet, he nearly dies from asphyxia, only to find the alien has made air for him to breathe.Some time later, the small planet is now a lively green planet, with an atmosphere, a body of water, vegetation, trees, clouds etc. As the astronaut spends time with her, he teaches her a few things, like eating mangos. As the years goes by, the couple develop their relationship and are seen having two daughters who have their parents' traits.
The alien later is seen becoming weak, to the point where she can no longer eat and/or walk. As a result, the planet slowly begins to wither and she eventually dies in the astronaut's arms in a sparkling aurora, at which time the astronaut starts to experience asphyxia again. However, he wakes to find his daughters are able to give him air like their mother, causing him to be able to breathe again, and also share their mother's power to revive the planet in an instant.
During the post-credits scenes, as he is sleeping with his daughters and a pet alien dog under a tree, the astronaut witnesses another spaceship crashing into the planet. Curious, he and his daughters go to check the ship only to discover something that makes him blush.