The reading
The bead. A boy crosses into the land of the dead and learns that the dead live exactly as long as the living remember them — and reunites a family split by a lie across the boundary of death.
Engines
- legacy/transcendence · content · spine · ~ — the purest statement of the engine: "Remember Me" — the dead persist only while remembered, and final death is being forgotten. The payout is remembrance as a form of survival, Héctor saved from oblivion by being restored to the family's memory.
- homecoming/reunion · content · also-runs · ~ — the family sundered by Héctor's exile reunited across the land of the dead; Miguel restoring the broken line.
- belonging · content · also-runs · ~ — the family (living and dead) made whole, the misfit musician boy folded back in.
The bundle. A legacy spine (remembrance as survival) carried by a cross-death reunion and the family restored — to be remembered is to belong.
Dual-use read. Legacy's counterfeit is the "your name will live forever" martyr-pitch; Coco is the enabling case — remembrance is earned through love and truth (the family's, not fame's: the celebrated De la Cruz is the fraud, the forgotten Héctor the real artist).
Verdict. A legacy/transcendence specimen at its most explicit — the dead live as long as they are remembered — with a family reunion as the payoff.
Evidence. ~ reviewed — from the film (in-copyright). Miguel as the protagonist, the Land of the Dead, his deceased musician great-great-grandfather (Héctor), and the family's ban on music verified against the Wikipedia article (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_(2017_film)); "Remember Me" is the Oscar-winning song from the film. Legacy's slot-proven home: The Iliad.