Hey, brother!
Ben, let me tell you, I had a crazy weekend.
Saturday night I watched Pixar's Brave, and then Sunday I watched Pixar's Wall-E, so...
Yeah. I know.
Wild.
Anyway, afterwards I was searching Google for all the easter eggs in each movie,
because Pixar always leaves references to their other movies in their current movies
and I love finding them,
and I came across something even better.
Ben, today I'm going to tell you about...
The Pixar Theory!
(electronic fusing and zapping noises)
The Pixar Theory is the idea that all Pixar movies take place on the same timeline.
Everything from Toy Story to Monsters University is part of one giant story arc, and they're all connected.
Before we begin, let me just say that I did not come up with this theory.
A guy - nay, genius - named Jon Negroni did. I am just passing it along, 'cause it is AWESOME.
So the movies aren't coming out in order, but chronologically the first movie is Brave.
Brave is set in the Dark Ages of Scotland and is the only Pixar movie that ever explains
why animals in Pixar movies sometimes act like humans.
This happens when Merida meets a witch who can perform magic and asks her to change her fate, which
inadvertently turns her mother into a bear.
Now her mother eventually changes back, but we also learn that the magic has been used on at least one other human,
also turning him into a bear -- in a much more permanent way.
Now this is the only two cases we know of, but it's definitely possible that the witch has used this spell on other humans
and created animals with heightened intelligence and human-like qualities.
Animals like Remy, Nemo, and even Doug.
I should note at this point that throughout this timeline we are going to see the power struggles of three different races:
humans, animals, and artificial intelligence.
Now I'm gonna try to hit all of these chronologically, which means our next three are Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, and Up.
In that order.
During these three movies we will see the kind of interactions that eventually lead these three races...to war.
In Ratatouille, Remy the rat wants to learn how to cook, an activity exclusive to humans.
But it turns out that he's better at it than pretty much every human.
But this information does not remain secret by the end of the movie.
Not to the heroes, and not to the villain Chef Skinner.
Whether through the heroes or evil Chef Skinner, rumors of animal intelligence would definitely start to spread,
and would definitely reach the ears of people who are exploring the globe.
People like Charles Muntz.
"Adventure is out there!"
Hearing the rumor and seeing the potential in animals, Muntz creates special collars for his dogs that allow them to speak,
and while the technology is isolated in South America,
by the end of the movie Charles is dead and the dogs are free to do whatever they want, so...
the technology could be anywhere.
Now we don't know how that affects things, but we do know that animals are getting smarter,
and that now we've seen animosity between animals and humans.
It's also important to note that in Up we are introduced to the company Buy 'N' Large, or BNL,
who seize Carl's house at the beginning of the movie.
BNL is also the company in Wall-E that has assumed control of the entire planet and ALL OF ITS GOVERNMENTS.
I'm not kidding. BNL literally takes over the entire planet
and proceeds to pollute it to the point of near extinction for...everything.
Side note: you can also use batteries from BNL to power your Buzz Lightyear action figure!
Moving on to Finding Nemo, where we follow a father-figure fish who's gained enough intelligence to
successfully transnavigate the ocean and rescue his son...
from HUMANS.
Throughout the Pixar history, humans may have been treating animals like this all the time,
but here, we see animals do something about it.
Now as far as the animal progression, that's pretty much as much as Pixar has given us so far,
although with the release of Finding Dory, hopefully we'll learn more about it.
And yes, I know what you're thinking. "What about A Bug's Life?"
Don't worry.
We'll get there.
But now we'll turn to the Incredibles and the world's catchiest frickin' theme song.
(sings Incredibles theme music)
Gonna be there all week.
Turns out animals aren't the only ones evolving. Humans are, too, in the form of Supers.
But let's have a look at the not-so-super villain, Syndrome.
Syndrome creates an AI killing machine, the Omnidroid, which Mr. Incredible states
"got too smart to wonder why it had to take orders."
We are led to believe that this is what Mirage wants Mr. Incredible to think,
when in actuality, Syndrome is in control of the robot and wants it to kill Mr. Incredible.
But by the end of the movie, we see that this statement is correct,
with the Omnidroid turning on its creator, defeating him within seconds.
We also see that the machines are capable of destroying even Earth's mightiest heroes,
as even lesser versions of the Omnidroid basically commit genocide on all of the Supers that Syndrome invites to the island.
But so what? At the end of the movie, Syndrome is dead, and the Omnidroid is gone.
But the AI exists, and is very advanced.
And even though the Omnidroid might have been programmed to destroy humans,
it doesn't necessarily mean that all AI would behave that way, so at this point it doesn't really have any reason to rebel.
Enter the TOYS,
which supposedly takes place a good forty to fifty years after The Incredibles,
giving the machines plenty of time to develop BNL.
But - wait, toys are inanimate objects.
They don't qualify for AI!
Well, our buddy Syndrome literally zero-points to the solution with his zero-point technology.
That is, "electromagnetic energy that exists in a vacuum."
"This unseen energy we find in wavelengths and would be a reasonable explanation for how the toys draw power."
Throughout the Toy Story movies, we see different factions of toys - and therefore, AI - become fed up with the status quo of how humans treat them.
In the first movie, the toys rise up against Sid.
In the second movie, Jessie resents her former owner for abandoning her.
And by the third movie, Lotso straight-up hates humans for the abandonment he was given by his owner.
The AI is becoming less and less satisfied with the way of the world and the way they are treated by humans.
But then why don't we ever see a Planet-of-the-Apes-style rise-up from the machines?
Why don't they ever attack?
Well, in Toy Story it's hinted that toys that are abandoned by their humans and neglected long enough
lose the ability to even come to life, suggesting that human life is what is really giving the AI its power.
Machines need humans as much as humans need machines.
But the machines still want to be in control.
Soooooo...enter BNL, the faceless corporation that eventually takes over the globe.
This is why after Toy Story, we won't see another animal on Earth for a long time.
It's possible that animals tried to rise up against humans to stop the pollution,
but we know that they get stopped by the machines, and even if that's not the case,
we know that there's no animals left anyway, because what is left?
Cars!
Superintelligent, very human-like cars with incredibly advanced AI.
There are no humans or animals at all in Cars, but we know they're still on Earth because of all the different places they visit in Cars 2.
But as you'll recall, machines need humans. Without them, they're forced to rely on fuel,
which is why there is an energy crisis in Cars 2.
This leads to an actual fuel war, where one side actually creates a fake green-energy fuel to kill off enemy cars.
That green fuel is called "Allinol", which is such a great name, don't you think?
I mean, "all in all," I would say Allinol is a great name.
No, that sounded stupid.
Hold on...um...
"By and large," I'd say Allinol is a great name.
Yeah, I don't think it's a coincidence that "by and large" and "all in all" basically mean the same thing.
In any case, whoever wins, they eventually run out of energy because there's no humans, which leads us...to Wall-E.
Some 700 years later, what remains of the human race is left on a ship in space called the Axiom.
On the Axiom, the AI autopilot manipulates the captain and treats all the passengers like...
...wait for it...
...TOYS.
The machines were frustrated with the lack of attention they got from humans, so,
and this sounds like the way a machine would fix something to me,
they correct the problem by giving humans endless attention.
And back on Earth, we have Wall-E, the...only remaining robot?
I mean, why is that? If they're all solar-powered, why is he the only one left?
It seems odd until you find out what sets Wall-E apart from all other machines.
His fascination with humans.
Every single day he collects different human artifacts and watches old movies.
And it could be that this interaction is what keeps him going while other machines have failed.
Anyway, at the end of the movie, we see humans return to Earth, and Wall-E plants a tree,
which I have to think would be a pretty resilient tree to be the first plant on Earth in 700 years.
Resilient enough, in fact, to be around when life begins to return to the planet in its smallest form.
Bugs.
The tree they plant really does look a lot like the one in A Bug's Life, although I guess it's open for interpretation.
That's right, A Bug's Life is waaaaay in the future.
Why? Because the bugs in A Bug's Life don't behave like any other animals in any other Pixar movie.
They have cities! They're inventing things! They're building things!
Flick is also warned not to leave the island for fear of birds, snakes, and bigger bugs.
Not humans.
Now I know we said earlier that humans did return to Earth, but at this point there would not be a lot of them.
So it would not be unreasonable to think that the bugs didn't even see them as a threat.
So now what? We have machines, humans, and animals on Earth again, living in harmony.
Until the evolution of the next super-species.
Monsters.
That's right, Monsters, Inc. is the furthest in the future we go.
Way in the future.
In Monsters University, we see that the university was founded in 1313,
meaning that the monsters could have restarted their own calendar and year system.
That this could be 1400 years after Wall-E.
But where do they come from? Well, I have two possible explanations.
One, humans evolved into monsters after living on a radically radioactive planet for like 800 years or something.
Or they could have crossbred with animals, which is weird, but remember, animals are getting smarter all the time,
so if they got that smart, maybe it...wouldn't have been that weird?
Once again, we're in a world without humans. And what does everything need to survive, apparently?
Humans!
Including the monsters, who have to collect all the screams or laughter of humans to power everything in their world,
because guess what, something new - ENERGY CRISIS!
But wait. We see monsters and humans interacting in Monsters, Inc.
They have to exist at the same time!
Unless monsters are actually traveling back in time through the doors to the peak of human existence to collect the screams.
This would also make sense for why monsters are trained to be afraid of humans and not touch anything.
Because touching anything could result in a crazy butterfly effect that could affect the future.
Boo does get through, and falls in love with Sully.
He's her monster!
We see her at the end of the movie trying to open and close the door, trying to get him to come back,
and we know that eventually she does get that visit from Sully.
But imagine you're that kid. I mean, you grow up knowing another world exists.
You remember that world. You've been visited by it. You're gonna try and find it.
In fact, if you're Boo, I think it becomes your life's obsession.
And you travel the globe looking for a way to get back to the monster world,
and what do you discover?
Magic.
And you use that magic to travel in time...to the Dark Ages of Scotland.
That's right, BOO IS THE WITCH.
Don't think so? Okay, well, for one thing, she's obsessed with bears, which Sully definitely kind of resembles.
Or if that doesn't convince you, what about this DRAWING OF SULLY IN HER WORKSHOP?
Or this carving of the Pizza Planet truck in her workshop?!
I mean, how would she even know that that exists unless she's come from the future?
And at one point she actually uses the door to transform the contents of her room!
Walks through the door, walks back out, different thing inside.
That sounds a lot like monsters to me.
Don'tcha think?
AAAAAAAHHH Pixar is amazing, and this video's getting way too long.
If you want to learn more, I will leave a link down to the entire Pixar Theory written by Jon Negroni in the description below.
That's all for me. What is your favorite Pixar movie?
Let me know down in the towel section, and Ben, I will see you in another life, brother.