VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Dr. Terry Lindvall is putting a unique spin on education at Virginia Wesleyan University through Pixar films, and you can bet this course is waitlisted.

Over 15 weeks, up to 12 Pixar films will be shown for students to analyze and interpret, ranging from shorts like “BAO,” to full length features like “Coco,” “Inside Out,” and “Monsters, Inc.”

While watching vibrant animations for an entire semester is a great selling point to pique students interests, there’s a deeper concept behind Lindvall’s class.

“Many scholars are dealing with these Pixar films and looking at the ideas of friendship, the ideas of integrity, the ideas of authenticity,” he said. “How do these films communicate? What are the emotions that we have and that we carry around and how do we deal with them? And so it looks a lot into psychology and into theology, into basically, why are we made this way?”

Lindvall said it’s all about taking a more in depth look at how these stories are told and how people respond to what’s being communicated through the film.

“You look at a film like “Monster’s Inc.” and it’s really about a father who works too much and how he has lost the opportunity to be with this child,” Lindvall said. “Or, you look at films like “Coco,” and “Coco” deals with death. It deals with memory and it deals with, I mean, just wonderful emotions of a family.”

Before the semester ends, VWU students will be tasked to script, storyboard and pitch a story of their own.

“I hope they take away, first, an idea that popular culture is not just superficial,” he said. “There are stories behind [it] and we need to begin asking questions of other cultures. What virtues are they recommending? What vices are they warning against? And so [hopefully], they can take this ability to read and interact with popular media, television [and] social media.”