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- Hey brother, guys, this past weekend, Turning Red
dropped on Disney Plus, which means as ever, we get to add
to the ever expanding Pixar Theory.
The Pixar Theory in case you are somehow unfamiliar
with this particular idea and still clicked on this video
is the idea that all of the Pixar movies exist
on one giant timeline, one continuous universe.
It all starts with the asteroid missing Earth
in the Good Dinosaur, which first shows us other occupants
of the Planet can exhibit human-like intelligence.
And it goes on to show the rise and fall of humans,
machines, and animals over millions of years,
finally ending with Monsters, Inc.,
or Brave depending on how you look at it.
Or, or maybe after this video ends
with Turning Red, because yeah, Turning Red,
it tackles the big players inside of the Pixar Theory.
We're talking Boo, we're talking the witch,
we're talking Sully.
Let's go.
♪ The Pixar Theory ♪
♪ We're finally going ♪
♪ To see it clearly ♪
♪ The Pixar Theory ♪
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All right, so I'm not gonna lie,
when I first saw the trailers for Turning Red,
I really thought that this addition to the Pixar Theory
was gonna have a lot more to do with how humans eventually
evolved into the monsters,
because, you know, after all,
what we were seeing is a little girl
transforming into a giant hairy monster.
The quick cliff notes explanation here is that the humans
who return to Earth from a space aboard the Axiom
are the ones who ultimately eventually evolved or morphed
or mutated into the monsters
that we know in Monsters, Inc.
But boy, oh boy, do I have to tell you that Turning Red
took a turn that I did not expect,
but ultimately still kind of brings us
to the same destination,
just not how I thought we would get there.
Turning Red tells the story of a young Meilin Lee
who is a 13-year-old girl living in Toronto, Canada,
who is about to go through
quite the alarming change into womanhood.
- Did the red peony bloom? - No.
- And no, not that one, but well, maybe not,
not that one, but that's not the one
that we're talking about for today's video.
Instead it turns out the women of her family
have been passed down from generation to generation
the same gift,
which is the ability to harness their emotions,
to turn into a powerful giant red panda,
a sentence I never expected I would say,
but I'm glad I have the opportunity to do so.
But I do kind of need to say gift in maybe air quotes,
because when the gift was first imbued to the family,
it was during ancient war times,
where the family's ancient matriarch, Sun Lee
used the power to transform into this powerful red panda
in order to protect her family and town.
However, in modern times in Toronto, Canada,
it seems to be the case
that the family regards this particular gift
as a highly respected and regarded inconvenience,
because fortunately for them,
there happens to be a ritual that you can undergo
that allows you to trap that panda spirit
in some kind of a token, and after doing so,
the members of this family
are able to live a typical human life.
And the ritual in question to trap this panda spirit
involves waiting for the next red moon or lunar eclipse,
and then drawing a circle around the person in question
and singing from the heart.
This allows the person inside of the circle
to go into a spirit realm of sorts,
where they can pass through a mirror,
which essentially separates them from the panda spirit,
which then one of the members around the circle
is able to trap inside of a talisman.
This is typically going to be a piece of jewelry
of some kind, although a Tamagochi will work in a pinch.
And let me just say, one are the things I really liked
about this though, is the inclusion of just simply
sing from the heart.
And that means it's not a specific chant
you need to do just simply singing from the heart,
which is great,
because it's very consistent with how magic works
inside of the Pixar Theory already.
The movie Onward establishes these rules very well,
where we learn that in order to cast a spell,
Ian needs to speak with his heart's fire.
- For any spell to work, you have to speak
from your heart's fire.
- Which by the way, guys talk about challenges,
figuring out how Onward fit into the old PT,
which is short, of course, for Pixar Theory.
But now that I've explained it it's much longer.
It was tough.
But it's actually really cool how it worked out,
because remember how we said before
that the members of the Axiom that return to Earth
are the ones that ultimately evolved
into the monsters from Monsters, Inc?
Well, as far as we know,
only one of those ships actually returned to Earth,
which means the rest of the ships went somewhere.
And the Planet that we see in Onward
is absolutely not Earth,
notably because it has two moons,
which is exactly where one of the other axioms crash landed
and kind of turned into looking like a mountain.
For the full explanation, just click the card.
But that's not today's point, back to Turning Red.
What I found particularly interesting
about the panda transformation is how it all began.
According to Ming, Meilin's mom,
the gods themselves bestowed Sun Lee with this power.
And I have to tell you guys
that when I first heard this explanation,
I kind of needed to take a deep breath,
because we are pretty deep inside
of the Pixarverse at this point,
and this is the first time we've ever needed
to consider a deity or godlike-power
as an explanation for anything,
because if that's something we need into consider,
then it suddenly reframes everything
and kind of becomes a bit of an elephant in the room,
I guess, in this case, panda! Ayo.
But here's the thing I think that Ming's story
is just slightly inaccurate, kind of,
depending on your, you know,
perspective and relationship with magic.
I mean, because yes, they obviously actually
do turn into red pandas, but the story itself,
I think is more of the folklore, the myth,
the story that's been passed down
from generation to generation version of it.
And I say that because believe it or not,
this is not even the first time we've seen
this exact kind of magic inside of the Pixarverse,
because in case you missed it,
there is this whole other Pixar movie
that has everything to do
with a mother-daughter relationship
where the daughter has bright red hair,
and someone magically gets turned into a bear.
This is a pretty original concept for a story.
How has it happened twice?
Well as ever, nothing, at least according to us,
is ever a coincidence.
Also I don't think I said it,
Brave is the movie I'm talking about.
Ironically though in Brave,
Merida's mother is really determined to get her married.
Whereas in Turning Red, Ming is horrified
at the thought of Meilin entering the dating pool,
or probably public pools, for that matter.
Either way though,
the more that we started comparing these two stories,
the more that started click right into place.
In Brave, much like Turning Red,
we get an origin story of the character of Mor'du.
He similar to Sun Yee, sought tremendous power,
and was gifted that in the form of a giant bear.
The notable difference here is that Sun Yee was seeking this
for the protection of her family and village,
whereas Mor'du was seeking it for power.
Mor'du's approach led to his own demise,
whereas Sun Yee's led to the continuation
of her family for generations to come.
Nonetheless though, there are still plenty of similarities
between the two situations.
For example, both of the bears seem to have
some kind of a darkness hiding within.
Mor'du's you can spot if you look really carefully,
because it's literally everywhere.
He's honestly basically in full dark mode all the time.
Which is interesting,
because when we ultimately do see him die, we see the spirit
of the man inside rise, and he seems much more at peace,
suggesting that somewhere along the way
the bear or primal darkness must have taken over.
Also again, if we wanna go back to that
like how folklore is established
over generations and generations and generations,
when he does exit the bear's body,
the spirit that we see looks a bit different
than the one we see in Merida's mom's story.
To me, this suggests that possibly
the original Mor'du, the human
was not quite as savage and power-hungry as represented.
Because on that same token,
Merida's mother throughout the movie
also has these moments where it seems like the darkness
is winning out a little bit.
This same thing happens in Turning Red,
where we see Meilin even lose her cool on Tyler
when he calls her a freak,
not to mention there's also Meilin's mother Ming,
as a giant Godzilla panda.
But again, if we do back up to that scene with Mor'du
where the spirit does rise out of the bear at the end,
this is incredibly similar visually
to what Meilin is experiencing with her red panda spirit.
Suggesting that these two are separate entities.
Each bear situation also has a way of being undone,
where there are a lot of similarities, again,
between these two stories.
In Turning Red as we mentioned,
you stand inside of a circle,
and then sing with your heart's fire.
This allows you to trap the spirit of the red panda
inside of a talisman during the red moon.
And in Brave, there is also a celestially-based time limit
on the magic.
Merida must repair what has been broken
before the second sun rises,
also while the witch tells Merida these terms,
that you must repair what is broken
in order to break the spell,
look at where the spell is actually broken.
It's inside of a stone circle,
where there's a group of people standing around all wishing
for Merida's mother to return.
Okay, fine, we don't actually know
that that is what they're thinking, and they're not singing.
But if you think for one second
that Merida doesn't have enough hearts fire to do this
entirely on her own,
then you need to go back and watch the movie.
And now you might be wondering if it is in fact the same,
shouldn't Merida's mother also have
some kind of piece of jewelry that is responsible
for containing the bear spirit.
Well, interestingly, Merida does pay for the spell
in the first place with a pendant
that is incredibly similar to Ming's.
And we also see that Mor'du also paid the witch
with a ring when he asked for his spell.
But either way, no, that's not the case.
There is no way for Merida's mother
to turn back into the bear,
because even though there are a ton of similarities
between these two situations,
there are also several key differences
between these two spells.
They are not, and do not function exactly the same.
I mean, right outta the gate for one,
one spell turns you into a giant black bear,
while the other turns you into a giant red panda.
The panda spell seems containable
outside of your body via the ritual.
And it can even be performed several times if needed.
The black bear spell on the other hand
has a much greater sense of permanence.
You have a limited window of time
to get everything fixed before the cement sets.
But after that, you're simply stuck as a bear,
and even before that,
you couldn't change back and forth freely.
The point is surprisingly,
this bear to human magic already exists
inside of the Pixarverse,
and thus far it is the main kind of magic
that we've seen on Earth.
So the next question is if Boo, who I will remind you
inside of the Pixar Theory is the witch
was responsible for the events of Brave
and the gods themselves weren't responsible for Sun Yee,
then who was, was it the witch again?
Honestly, quite probably,
for one, we already know that the witch is capable
of some form of time travel through the doors
in the same way that the monsters are able to
in Monsters, Inc.
And we even see her use her own door
to transform the room inside
on several different occasions.
Suffice it to say, Boo figured out door tech
or magic or both, or neither,
either way, the point is, again, that the main reason
that Boo is traveling through time,
according to the Pixar Theory,
is so that a memory of Sully always exists
so that he never has to experience second death,
which in case you're wondering is the huge piece
of the puzzle that was given to us by Coco,
there's a full video by clicking the card.
The idea here is that in order to create a permanent memory,
you'd have to be able to travel back
into the past and remember something from the future.
And from there, you have to be able to set into motion
a set of events that always ensure
that you ultimately experience that memory again.
So you basically can come back in time
and recreate the events, and you see what I mean?
It's a big time, no, that's a circle.
This makes the relationship between two characters,
Boo and Sully, literally the crux
of the entire Pixar Theory.
He appears to her as a little girl
and then promptly disappears.
Never to be seen again.
Well, almost.
- Kitty.
- From there, she spends her entire life
trying to figure out where he came from or how to find him.
But how do you even start looking for a big bear monster
that you met as a little kid?
Where do you even begin?
Enter Turning Red,
because as I'm sure you are aware,
they are still talking about pandaapocalypse
in 2002 in Toronto.
This was obviously a fairly significant news event
for the planet Earth.
Meaning everyone on Earth would have heard this story,
including Boo, who would probably be very interested
as to where a giant bear monster came from,
especially because I don't even think she was that far away
from where pandapocalypse happened.
Allow me to explain.
According to the Pixar Theory,
the timeline that is happening
on the other side of the doors in Monsters, Inc
is within the 1950s.
This is based on the fact that many of the rooms
that the monsters enter in Monsters, Inc.
all feature posters for the original Disneyland,
which of course opened in the 1950s,
and Boo herself owns a Jesse doll,
which would've come out in 1955,
meaning that by the time Turning Red arrives
on the timeline,
Boo herself would be in her mid- to late forties.
Roughly say the age of someone who could
be the parent of a teenager.
Now obviously Meilin is not her daughter,
because we meet her mom inside of the movie.
However, Mei does have a very good friend of Asian descent
who wears pink and purple flowers,
just like Boo's door, Abby.
On top of that in Monsters, Inc.,
we can actually see a map of the world that shows us,
which part of the world the monsters are scaring in
the day that Boo arrives.
And guess what, Toronto is totally in that zone.
So it's possible that Boo not only heard
about pandapocalypse, but that her daughter
was actually directly involved with it.
Like mother, like daughter, am I right?
And it even continues to add up after that,
because after pandapocalypse,
Meilin's family does not hide
their involved with it.
They actually make a huge deal about it
inside of their sanctuary.
And don't you think that if anybody might have access
to Meilin's parents to ask as many questions
about how this came to be, it would be her friend's parents.
You see what I mean?
You think it's any coincidence
that the panda shrine is literally covered
with wooden carvings of pandas,
and the witches shop is literally covered
with carvings of bears?
- Coincidence, I --
- It's okay, I got it Bernie, I got it.
Thank you.
Calm down.
The crazy thing about all of this though
is that it means that Boo is, once again,
part of another time loop.
Not only does she learn about the bear magic in the present
but she can actually travel back in time
to the start of the story to ensure that it happens again,
so that the future her will learn about it again.
It is the same trick over and over again.
How elegant is that?
Unless happy though, as long as we're talking about it
it also means that Boo as an adult
is not a fan of Four Town, and according to Abby,
thinks their songs are stripper music.
I mean, come on.
But there you go, guys.
That is how Turning Red fits into the Pixar Theory.
For my question of the day, what do you guys think?
Is this a good explanation?
Let us know in the towel section down below,
also bonus question, would you go to a Four Town concert?
I totally would, but guys as always,
thank you so much for watching.
Be sure to like this video,
and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already,
if you would like some more Pixar Theory action from us,
you can check out this video right here,
where we discuss how Soul fits into the Pixar Theory,
otherwise until next time, bye.