The Pixar Theory
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Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies actually exist within the same universe.
Since then, I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme.
This theory covers every Pixar production since Toy Story. That includes:
- A Bug’s Life
- Toy Story 2
- Monsters Inc.
- Finding Nemo
- The Incredibles
- Cars
- Ratatouille
- Wall-E
- Up
- Toy Story 3
- Cars 2
- Brave
- Monsters University
[SIDE NOTE: All text in blue indicate updated edits since the original version]
Brave is the first and last movie in the timeline. Obviously, this movie about a Scottish kingdom during the Dark Ages is the earliest time period covered by the Pixar films, but it’s also the only Pixar movie that actually explains why animals in the Pixar universe behave like humans sometimes.
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[Some of pointed out that the animals in Brave gradually regress back into an animal state, disproving the idea that this is the source of animals acting like humans. My rebuttal is simple. They regress because the magic wears off. Over time, their evolving intelligence grows naturally.]
Centuries later, the animals from Brave that have been experimented on by the witch have interbred, creating a large-scale population of animals slowly gaining personification and intelligence on their own.
There are two progressions: the progression of the animals and the progression of artificial intelligence. The events of the following movies set up a power struggle between humans, animals, and machines. The stage for all-out war in regards to animals is set by Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, and Up, in that order. Notice I left out A Bug’s Life, but I’ll explain why later.
In Ratatouille, we see animals experimenting with their growing personification in small, controlled experiments. Remy wants to cook, something only humans explicitly do. He crafts a relationship with a small group of humans and finds success. Meanwhile, the villain of Ratatouille, Chef Skinner, disappears. What happened to him? What did he do with his newfound knowledge that animals were capable of transcending their instincts and performing duties better than humans?
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[Some have pointed out that Muntz was working in South America before the events of Ratatouille. This is true, but it is not explicitly stated how and when he developed the collars. Also, we know Ratatouille takes place before Up for several reasons. In Toy Story 3, a postcard on Andy's wall has Carl and Ellie's name and address on it (including their last names to confirm). This confirms that in 2010, the time of Toy Story 3, Ellie is still alive or hasn't been dead long. This supports the idea that Up takes place years later.]
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Buy-n-Large (BNL), a corporation that runs just about everything by the time we get to Wall-E. In the “History of BNL” commercial from the movie, we’re told that BNL has even taken over the world governments. Did you catch that this one corporation achieved global dominance?
Interestingly, this is the same organization alluded to in Toy Story 3:
Toy Story 3 (Buzz’s batteries)
Think about Dory from Finding Nemo for a second. She stands apart from most of the other fish. Why? She isn’t as intelligent. Her short-term memory loss is likely a result of her not being as advanced as the other sea creatures, which is a reasonable explanation for how rapidly these creatures are evolving.
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And that is the furthest movie in the “animal” side of things. When it comes to A.I., we start with The Incredibles. Who is the main villain of this movie? You probably thought of Buddy, a.ka. Syndrome, who basically commits genocide on super-powered humans.
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Buddy didn’t have any powers. He used technology to enact revenge on Mr. Incredible for not taking him seriously. Seems a little odd that the man went so far as to commit genocide.
And how does he kill all of the supers? He creates the omnidroid, an A.I. “killbot” that learns the moves of every super-human and adapts. The omnidroid eventually turns on Syndrome, which leads us to believe that he was being manipulated by machines the entire time in order to wipe out the biggest threats to robot dominance, super-powered humans. The movie even shows clips of the superheroes with capes being done in by inanimate objects, such as plane turbines…accidentally.
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But why would machines want to get rid of humans in the first place? We know that animals don’t like humans because they are polluting the Earth and experimenting on them, but why would the machines have an issue?
Enter Toy Story. Here we see humans using and discarding “objects” that are clearly sentient. Yes, the toys love it Uncle Tom style, but over the course of the Toy Story sequels, we see toys becoming fed up.
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With the super-humans all but gone, mankind is vulnerable. Animals, who want to rise up Planet of the Apes style, have the ability to take over, but we don’t see this happen.
Also, A.I. never takes over humans. Why do you think that is? It’s reasonable to assume that machines did take over, just not as we expected. The machines used BNL, a faceless corporation (which are basically faceless in nature) to dominate the world.
In each of the Toy Story movies, it’s made painfully clear that sentient objects rely on humans for everything. For fulfillment and even energy. It’s hinted at that the Toys lose all life when put away in “storage” unless they are in a museum that will get them seen by humans.
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When the animals rise up against the humans to stop them from polluting the earth, who will save them? The machines. We know that the machines will win the war, too, because after this war, there are no animals ever to be seen again on Earth. Who’s left?
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So what happened to the cars? We’ve learned by now that humans are the source of energy for the machines. That’s why they never got rid of them. In Wall-E, they point out that BNL intended to bring the humans back once the planet was clean again, but they failed. The machines on Earth eventually died out, though we don’t know how.
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Which brings us back to Wall-E.
Have you ever wondered why Wall-E was the only machine left? We know that the movie begins 800 years after humans have left Earth on Axiom, governed by the AutoPilot (another A.I. reference).
Could it be that Wall-E’s fascination with human culture and friendship with a cockroach is what allowed him to keep finding fulfillment and the ability to maintain his personality? That’s why he was special and liberated the humans. He remembered the times when humans and machines lived in peace, away from all of the pollution caused by both sides.
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That’s right. The reason no humans exist in A Bug’s Life is because there aren’t a lot left. We know because of the cockroach that some of the insects survived, meaning they would have rebounded a bit faster, though the movie had to be far enough in the timeline for birds to have returned as well.
Wall-E End Credits, as well.
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[Okay there is a a lot of contention over the idea that A Bug's Life takes place post-apocalypse, but hear me out. The reason I am so inclined to push the idea is because of how different the bug world is from the "animal" movies. No other Pixar movie has animals wearing clothing, wild inventions, animals creating machines, or so much human influence like bars and cities. In Finding Nemo, the most human thing we see is a school, and even that is pretty stripped down. But in A Bug's Life, we have a world where humans are barely even implied. At one point, one of the ants tells Flik not to leave the island because there are "snakes, birds, and bigger bugs out there." He doesn't even bring up humans. Yes, there are some humans, like the kid who allegedly picked the wings off of the homeless bug, but that still fits in a post Wall-E world. Also, the bugs have to be irradiated for them to live such long lifespans. The average lifespan of an ant is just 3 months, but these ants all survive an entire summer and allude to being around for quite some time. One of the ants even says he "feels 90 again." That works if you accept that the ants are sturdier due to evolution and mutated genes.]
So what happens? Humanity, machines, and animals grow in harmony to the point where a new super species is born. Monsters. The monsters civilization is actually Earth in the incredibly distant future.
Where did they come from? It’s possible that the monsters are simply the personified animals mutated after the diseased earth was radiated for 800 years. [Not during Wall-E. I would guess that it took hundreds of years after Wall-E for the animals to become monsters] The alternative could be that humans and animals had to interbreed to save themselves. Gross, I know, but plausible since the lines between animals and humans are constantly up for debate in Pixar.
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[An issue some have found is that this doesn't properly explain what happened to humans. I haven't settled on a theory I really like yet, but I'm leaning towards the idea that monsters and machines eventually forgot that they need humans and got rid of them again, not realizing their mistake until all humans died out, leading to the necessity for time travel. Another explanation is that humans just couldn't survive on Earth anymore.]
In Monsters Inc., they have an energy crisis because they are in a future earth without humans. Humans are the source of energy, but thanks to the machines, again, the Monsters find a way to use doors to travel to the human world. Only, it’s not different dimensions.
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Though a lot of time has passed, animosity towards humans never really went away for animals/monsters. Monsters must have relied on anti-human instincts to believe that just touching a human would corrupt their world like it did in the past. So they scare humans to gather their energy until they realize that laughter (green energy) is more efficient because it is positive in nature.
[An alternative explanation that fits even better that some of you brought up: The machines and monsters created the time travel doors but realized that messing with time could erase their existence and change history. So, they falsely trained monsters to believe that humans are toxic and from another dimension, making it suicide for a monster to interact too much with their world.]
We even see a connection between A Bug’s Life and Monsters Inc. via the trailer we see in both movies. As you can see, the trailer looks exactly the same, except the one in A Bug’s Life is noticeably older and more decrepit, while the one in Monsters Inc. where Randall is sent via a door has humans and looks newer.
Look at the picture above. On the left is the trailer from A Bug’s Life and the one on the right is from Monsters Inc. The one on the left looks older and more rundown. Even the vegetation is noticeably dryer and there’s less of it. The trailer on the right has humans and the frame even includes tall grass and a tree hanging overhead.
[Some have argued that the trailer in A Bug's Life should be nothing but dust. I disagree based on how barely intact other buildings were in Wall-E. They also bring up the bug zapper that is powered by electricity. The zapper could easily be solar powered, just like Wall-E. The bugs probably used it as a light source to signal other bugs to "Bug City." Also, the trailer in A Bug's Life never shows lights in the trailer like it does for Monsters Inc.]
That said, Monsters Inc. is so far the most futuristic Pixar movie. By the end, humans, animals, and machines have finally found a way to understand each other and live harmoniously.
And then there’s Boo. What do you think happened to her? She saw everything take place in future earth where “kitty” was able to talk. She became obsessed with finding out what happened to her friend Sully and why animals in her time weren’t quite as smart as the ones she’d seen in the future. She remembers that “doors” are the key to how she found Sully in the first place and becomes…
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Yes, Boo is the witch from Brave. She figures out how to travel in time to find Sully, and goes back to the source: The will-of-the-wisps. They are what started everything, and as a witch, she cultivates this magic in an attempt to find Sully by creating doors going backwards and forwards in time.
[Just to clarify: The theory is that Boo discovered a way to use doors to travel through time on her own, possibly by developing magic on her own. She probably went back in time to the Dark Ages to get more magic from the will-o-wisps.]
How do we know? In Brave, you can briefly see a drawing in the workshop. It’s Sully.
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[A lot of people have brought up how easter eggs are scattered throughout all the Pixar movies. I barely scratch the surface, but a great theory offered by some that I support is that these easter eggs are planted by Boo either intentionally or accidentally as she travels through time to find Sully. Some support for that is the fact that every easter egg in Brave lies in her workshop.]
Does Boo ever find Sully? I like to think so. He surely reunited with her at least once as a child at the end of Monsters Inc. but eventually he had to stop visiting.
But her love for Sully is, after all, the crux of the entire Pixar universe. The love of different people of different ages and even different species finding ways to live on Earth without destroying it because of a lust for energy.
And that is the Pixar Theory.
More will be added to it, undoubtedly, when Pixar’s next movie The Good Dinosaur comes out in 2014.
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Until then, if you have anything to contribute or correct, don’t hesitate to bring it to my attention. Thanks for reading!
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