Hey, brother!
Ben, today we are at long last delving into the question everyone has been asking.
How does Inside Out fit into the Pixar Theory?
(electronic zapping and fusing noises)
Okay, so if you're not familiar with the Pixar Theory, you can watch an entire video on it right here.
Or you could just watch me recap the high points real quick.
The theory suggests that every Pixar movie exists in the same universe and on the same timeline;
that every movie is telling one giant story that starts with Brave and ends with Monsters, Inc.
Or Brave again, depending on how you look at it.
Throughout the timeline we see the rise of the humans and the fall of the humans,
the rise of the machines and then the fall of the machines,
and then the return of the humans and the...evolution into monsters?
Yeah, you heard me.
The theory also suggests that humans are somehow working as batteries.
They're giving the toys life, they are keeping Wall-E running when all of his other buddies have puttered away,
in Cars 2 they're having an energy crisis without the presence of humans,
and in Monsters Inc. they're traveling to the human world to gather this energy to run their cities.
Inside Out is the explanation for exactly what it is about humans that has them acting as a battery.
It's not just their physical presence or their imaginations.
It's their emotions.
These cute little guys are a little different from our real-world emotions.
They are powerful enough to just straight-up make decisions for you.
And how well any given emotion is performing their job can, like, define you as a human being.
Riley, for example, is literally referred to by her parents as "happy girl" on multiple occasions.
And this makes sense, because Joy is overwhelmingly in control of Riley.
A look into Riley's long-term memory shows that a vast majority of her memories are joy,
and all of her core memories.
You could say that Joy is fueling Riley.
And that fuel is up for harvest.
That's our premise. That the emotions are the fuel of the Pixar universe.
And this is the proof.
Something has always bothered me about Monsters, Inc.
Sully and Randall are both vying to be the first to break the all-time scare record.
That means that the two best scarers of all time are working at the same time.
And yet they have an energy crisis.
What gives? Obviously the quality of scaring is at an all-time high, so why is energy at an all-time low?
The movie later introduces a solution of laughter instead of screams, because it's ten times more effective.
And while that's great because kids are laughing instead of screaming now, it still doesn't answer the question.
Because the monsters have lived on screams for generations with no issues, but now, with the best of the best out there, they're...suffering?
My theory is not that joy is more powerful than fear, but that joy has become more powerful than fear.
Now bear with me here. The Pixar Theory says that monsters are not just traveling to the human world,
but traveling back in time to when humans existed to gather their energy.
But how does this time travel work?
Can the monsters choose what time they're going back to?
I don't think so.
Every door Mike and Sully go through brings them to the same point in time.
But I don't think it's a fixed point in time.
We see on the Scare Floor map that the monsters move which region they're scaring each day.
This is probably to allow the passage of time between scaring the same kid so that theydon't get used to it.
Basically, time is moving parallel on both sides of the door.
If a day passes in the monster world, that day also passes in the human world.
This means that over the course of decades, as times and moods change in the human world,
it will directly affect the monster world.
Which brings up the question: when does Monsters, Inc. take place on the human side of the door?
Well, if we are to believe that this little girl in Toy Story 3 is Boo herself,
then Monsters, Inc. is probably taking place a few years before Toy Story 3.
This is really important, because it is the time in the human world when things are changing so much
that the overall mood is going from fear to joy.
And this actually lines up with the rest of the human-based movies we see in the Pixar universe that take place before and after Toy Story 3.
All the way back to Brave, it would make sense that fear would be the lead emotion for a lot of kids.
They're living in very medieval times, living very close to nature,
they probably have a lot of hardships, and you know, not to mention the monster bears running around.
Fast forward to The Incredibles, and not much has changed.
There's so much crime in the world that Supers have been introduced into the population to help fight the fear.
But something else very important happens in the Incredibles.
We are introduced to highly advanced artificial intelligence.
And this is what will eventually lead to the humans changing from fear to joy.
Because the machines don't rise to power through violence, but rather by capitalism and pleasing the humans.
So, as the machines rise in power, life gets easier for the humans, and kids have more powerful joy emotions.
Heck, by the time we get to Wall-E, we see that humans have gotten to a complete state of just joy and relaxation, even for the adults.
Inside Out also explains why monsters are scaring kids and not adults.
Younger kids are not shown to have as complicated emotions.
All of Riley's memories are strictly one emotion.
But then by the end of the movie, she's starting to have mixed ones.
And it would make sense if those were a little bit harder to harvest.
Ben, I think that's all the time I have today.
That's how Inside Out fits into the Pixar Theory.
And actually, I didn't even get to talk about Bing Bong!
WHO'S YOUR FRIEND WHO LIKES TO SING BING BONG BING BOOOOONG
But hey, maybe we'll save him for a future video!
Ben, my question for you and everyone else is WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Are the emotions the fuel for the Pixar universe? Let me know in the towel section below,
and I will see you in another life, brother.
These socks are amazing!
Also, special thanks to our youngest brother, Tyler, who filled in for me last week while I was on my honeymoon, 'cause I got married.
Um, if you guys would like to see any pictures from the wedding, I have shared an album on the SuperCarlinBrothers Facebook page.
You can get to that via a link in the description box below.
Bye!