The Pixar Theory

Daniella Galatro

March 21, 2016

We’ve all seen Pixar movies. I’m not saying we’ve all liked them, but we’ve all seen at least one. They create multiple universes that we could only dream of, but what if they weren’t multiple universes? What if they all took place in the same universe? What if they all existed on the same timeline? That’s a lot of ‘what if’s’, but there’s an answer that explains it all: The Pixar Theory.

The Pixar Theory suggests that every Pixar movie ever made takes place in the same universe, and on one giant timeline. The theory was developed in 2013 by Jon Negroni, a writer/blogger who has written articles about the theory for websites like Huffington Post, Mashable, Slate, and Moviepilot, and that’s only a few of them. He even has a podcast, a book, and a serial novel called, The Pixar Detective. This complex and amazing theory will contain multiple spoilers for these movies, so you’ve been warned. Now, get ready to go to “Infinity and beyond!”

The Theory’s timeline had originally started with Brave and ended with Monsters Inc. or Brave again, depending how you look at it. Set in the dark ages of Scotland, Brave is the only Pixar movie that explains why animals in Pixar movies will sometimes act like humans. When the main character of the movie, Merida, meets a witch and asks her to use magic to change her fate, her mother is turned into a bear. We also see the witch disappearing each time she passes through a door, making us believe that she may not exist. This information may seem strange and irrelevant now, but it’ll make sense later. Back to Brave: Merida’s mother is restored to her human form by the end of the movie, but we learn that this magic has been used on one other person: turning the person into a bear, with a more permanent result. While these are the only two cases in the movie, it’s safe to assume that the witch has used the magic on other animals before. Over the coming centuries, the objects and animals that were experimented on would evolve, thus creating a power struggle between humans, animals, and machines.

The three movies in the human-animal relationship are Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, and Up, in that order. You may have noticed I’ve left out A Bug’s Life, but I’ll explain later on. In Ratatouille, we see Ramy the rat’s desire to cook. Even though he’s a better chef than pretty much any human, cooking is only done by humans. By the end of the film, he finds his way to success when he befriends a small group of humans. But the villain of the movie, Chef Skinner, just disappears. Where he went we’ll never know, but what if his knowledge of the animal intelligence were to make its way to Charles Muntz, the villain of Up? In learning about animal intelligence, Muntz creates the dog collars and realizes that dogs are smarter than expected. The dogs are set free by the end of the movie since Muntz has died, and again, we don’t know all the details, but as the humans begin to cross the line, we see the animals increasingly resenting humans. To develop new technology, the see the humans enter an industrial revolution. We see it in the beginning of Up, as the faceless corporation Buy-n-Large (BNL) forces Carl to give up his house. Sound familiar? Buy-n-Large is the corporation that takes over earth in Wall-E and forces the whole human population to evacuate to space. Still not ringing any bells? If not, you can watch “History of BNL” to refresh your memory. Oh, and don’t forget that you can use BNL batteries to power your Buzz Lightyear, or to read BNL’s news article about the sea in Finding Nemo! Coincidence? I think not. The movie focuses most on the animal’s perspective is Finding Nemo, which adds to the evidence of the hatred of animals and humans.

Moving on to humans versus machines, The Incredibles is the first movie that introduces artificial intelligence. Syndrome,the villain of the film, commits mass genocide on all the superheroes using an A.I. called the Omnidroid, until it goes rogue and starts killing everyone. This raises the question as to why machines want to get rid of humans in the first place. We know that animals dislike humans because the humans are destroying the earth, but what motives do the machines have?

That’s where Toy Story comes in: we then see how toys are used and discarded. And over the span of the three movies, we see how toys start displaying resentment towards their past owners. In Toy Story we see Buzz and Woody rise up against Sid, in Toy Story 2 we see how Jesse hates her old owner, Emily, for donating her, and by Toy Story 3, Lotso just despises the human race. Despite all this hatred, the toys need humans for energy and fulfillment. I’m not saying the toys are 100% machines, but maybe they are an evolved form of the A.I. from The Incredibles. It’s possible considering that The Incredibles takes place sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s, 40-50 years before the events of the of Toy Story (1990 – 2010). This also gives the A.I.’s time to rise up and create Buy-n-Large. The creation of Buy-n-Large triggers an industrial revolution, which eventually leads to the pollution of Earth. In a last ditch effort to save the human race, the machines put all the humans on the Axiom and sent them to space. Once on the spaceship the machines make sure that the humans have to depend on them for everything, treating the humans like they had treated the machines, like toys.

With the humans and most of the animals gone machines are left to take populate Earth, this is the era in which Cars and Cars 2 (and Planes, but I’m not going into that since it’s the same concept) takes place. Some people have argued that Cars couldn’t take place during this time because there’s no sign of pollution during any of the movies, but by looking closely at Wall-E, we don’t see the world during this time period, so we don’t know how polluted the world is. We do know that humans have existed in the past, because of the places visited in Cars 2: Europe and Japan. The next question is, how did Wall-E become the last robot on Earth? We don’t exactly know how the machines died but it’s safe to assume that they simply died off from lack of an energy source, and because they became so disconnected from humans. That’s how Wall-E is different: he remembers the time where machines and humans lived in peace before the pollution. Even though it’s been 800 years since the humans left, his fascination with human culture and friendship with a cockroach is what helps him maintain his personality and find fulfillment. It’s the reason why and how he pretty much saves humanity and rebuilds society. So what happens next? The answer is A Bug’s Life, yes this movie takes place after the apocalypse. In the end, credits of Wall-E we see the tree from the movie being planted and how it grows and it looks very similar to the main tree in A Bug’s Life. Plus, there aren’t many humans left, hence why they wouldn’t be in the movie. The bugs have cities, their own machines, bars, they know what a Bloody Mary is, and even a traveling circus, which shows us that humans had an influence on their culture and evolution.

Speaking of species evolving, we are left with monsters. Where could they of come from? Its very possible to believe that they were animal who were mutated by disease and evolved enough to replace the humans. Some have pointed out that the college in Monsters University was founded in 1313, but it’s possible that the monsters could’ve started their own calendar. That would make sense as to why it’s so dangerous for monsters to have any form of human contact, the doors they use bring them to the past, thus not wanting to face the effects of changing the past. They also rely heavily on humans screams for energy, much like the A.I.’s. That’s until Boo comes along and changes everything, and in a way, starts everything. After her adventure with Sully and Mike, all she wants to do is get back to “Kitty”. As she grows up, she searches for ways to reunite with Sully and along the way she goes back in time and discovers magic. Using this magic, she becomes a witch, the witch from Brave, to be exact. As I mentioned earlier, we see the Witch disappearing though doors, much like how monster to visit children. If that doesn’t convince you, The witch is also seen making wood carvings of the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story, turns people into bears because they resemble Sully, and probably the most obvious we see she also has a drawing of Sully in her house in Brave. Thus making Boo’s love for Sully is the foundation of the Pixar Universe, showing that love of different people, ages, machines, and even species finding ways to live on earth in peace. That is the Pixar Theory.