- Hey, brother!
Ben, it has been a couple weeks since "Luca" dropped,
and as ever that means it is time to figure out
how it fits into the Pixar theory.
And the plot certainly thickens with "Luca"
as we now starting to see the blended existence of monsters
during the time of the humans.
(upbeat instrumental music) ♪ The Pixar theory ♪
♪ The Pixar theory ♪
♪ We're finally going to see it clearly ♪
♪ The Pixar theory ♪
- This video will contain spoilers for "Luca"
and every Pixar movie.
The Pixar theory, in case you are somehow unfamiliar,
is the idea that every single Pixar movie exists
in the same universe on one giant timeline.
It all starts in "The Good Dinosaur"
when the asteroid misses the Earth
and we get our first glimpse at how other creatures
on the planet could develop human-like intelligence.
It shows the rise and fall of the humans, machines,
and animals over millions of years,
finally ending with "Monsters, Inc."
Or "Brave," depending on how you wanna look at it.
And "Luca" is a very interesting movie to include
because whilst the stakes in the movie are not that high,
you know, just like win
a promotional pasta eating contest/triathlon,
or as I like to call it, a pastathlon.
I mean, I guess it also sends the message
that loneliness can come from anywhere, so there's that.
But what it offers the Pixar theory is huge.
Because throughout the massive timeline
that is the Pixar theory, there are 2 huge sections
that are somewhat harder pills to swallow.
The first being when the cars inherit the Earth,
and the second being the transition from humans to monsters
after the Axiom returns at the end of "Wall-E."
Now that said, the explanations in place
are already perfectly plausible.
Don't you worry about that.
But "Luca" totally helps out by sanding off
some of maybe the rougher edges on both of these situations.
But before we get into all that, let's just first establish
when in the Pixar timeline "Luca" is actually happening.
Now, despite coming out in 2021,
the movie actually takes place way before then
back in the 1950-'60s era.
This has actually been confirmed by the director himself,
Enrico Casarosa, who said on Disney's Japanese Twitter
that the movie takes place in the 1950s and '60s.
But I think we can go in-universe
to get even further clarification.
First of all, there are plenty of posters around the town
referencing classic Italian cinema,
and specifically this woman is watching a movie called
"Big Deal on Madonna Street," which came out in in 1958,
so it has to be taking place by at least after that.
Then in the credits we can see Luca and Giulia
watching the moon landing on TV which took place in 1969,
so it's also maybe just a little bit before that.
I mean, to be fair, that's a single sketch in the credits,
but either way I'm gonna say mid to late '60s.
Which is a very specific and important decade
in the Pixar theory because it is when Supers
were at their height,
which to me helps explain just a little bit more
how the townsfolk at the end of the movie came around
so quickly on the idea of sea monsters.
I mean, look, nothing against the townsfolk
and bravo to them for being so open minded,
but it is a lightning-fast turnaround
to go from someone having a statue
of someone killing a sea monster in your town square
to announcing that the winners of your annual pastathlon
are sea monsters.
Pastathlon, we're gonna have one at Castle Con.
If you know, you know.
But, if you were alive during a decade
where things like Supers and superpowers are a thing,
then yeah, I can see you maybe just being more open
to supernatural stuff like this.
And, of course, we know everyone in the world
does know about this because of the end of "Incredibles 2"
they have Supers from all over the world.
But moving on.
Another thing that actually lines up really nicely
with the rest of the Pixar theory,
and you might not have thought of this,
is the cleanliness of the water.
Because in other recent Pixar movies
which take place a little closer to the present,
the water is often horribly polluted
if it is anywhere near humans,
a sure sign of what is to come.
And whilst Alberto is certainly doing his part
to litter the ocean at the beginning of the movie,
for the most part it is very clean.
But actually, on that same note, lets also talk about
the fish that Luca is shepherding around
because you may have also noticed
that the fish in this movie are,
well, they're not nearly as smart
as the fish in, say, "Finding Nemo."
You may recall those fish were so smart
they managed to drive a truck.
Yeah, that happened.
Here it is. It's happening.
This happened. This was real.
This happened.
But so, shouldn't the fish in "Luca" also be smart?
Well, surprisingly, no.
Despite some animals in the Pixar universe,
like rats or dinosaurs or fish,
gaining really high levels of intelligence,
that is never true for animals that have been domesticated.
You can see this with the chickens
in "The Good Dinosaur" or Buster in "Toy Story"
or, yes, the fish in "Luca."
Admittedly, the dogs in "Up" are kind of an exception here,
but they are also really highly trained
and also are still very much dogs.
- Squirrel!
- All in all though, "Luca" is very consistent
with everything else that is happening
in the Pixar theory timeline at that time.
But speaking of allinol, lets talk about "Cars 2."
Woo, yeah! Give a like for that segue, am I right?
Do it.
(crickets chirping)
Okay, so Pixar theory wise, the cars inherit the Earth
after BnL forces the humans to leave.
They come to life by taking on the memories
of their former owners
and see the world through a carified lens.
Human memories, of course, being the main source of life
for pretty much everything else in Pixar, besides humans.
And this could take on a lot of different forms,
whether its scream energy, or your imaginary friend,
or the toys coming to life, or literally keeping you alive
in some version of the afterlife if you live in Mexico.
That last one is from "Coco"
where as long as someone remembers you anywhere,
you never experience what is known as the final death.
But that's the theory for the cars come to life,
and "Luca" helps drive...
Eh? Killing it today.
Seriously, like button.
(crowd yelling)
It home with the mystery of Alberto's father.
We don't know much about Alberto's father
other than that he abandoned Alberto
and lived above water with him for some time away from town.
But I also feel pretty confident his name was Bruno,
which is the source of Alberto's,
shut up the voice in your head, you only live once,
let's drive this rickety Vespa off a cliff
into the ocean and just generally ignore gravity battle cry.
- Silenzio, Bruno.
- The idea here being that his dad used to tell him
not to do stuff a lot of stuff.
- Alberto, you can't.
Alberto, you're gonna die.
Alberto, don't put that in your mouth.
- But after being abandoned,
Alberto rebels by refusing to listen to any warning echo
from that voice in his head.
- Gravity!
- But anyway, all that's relevant because in "Cars 2"
there's a car named Bruno Motoreau,
the French crew chief of Raoul CaRoule.
He is otherwise a very minor character,
except he is almost definitely the carified version
of Alberto's father.
And we don't know much about him,
but everything we do know points that way.
He plays the accordion,
he likes romantic drives along the Seine,
and his favorite movie is "The Engine of Dr. Motoreau."
"The Engine of Dr. Motoreau" though is the carified version
of the movie "The Island of Dr. Moreau,"
which is a movie about a man creating human-animal hybrids,
like, uh, I don't know, the sea monsters.
And while the Seine is a river in France,
it also has a second meaning as fishing net,
specifically the exact kind Alberto is almost caught in
at the beginning of "Luca."
So, the idea is that the human Bruno
caught Alberto's mother in a seine fishing net,
and then when she was above the surface,
she, of course, just looked like a human.
They fell in love, had Alberto, and then she died,
possibly at the hands of the townsfolk
who, again, have a statue of someone killing a sea monster
in their town square.
But that leaves Bruno to raise his son alone,
which, of course, he has to do above the water
because he is not a sea monster,
hence why Alberto doesn't live underwater.
And he almost definitely does not live underwater,
like at all, because him and Luca have never met,
which is weird because Luca seems to know everybody in town.
- Good morning, Mr. Branzino.
- The point is the similarities
between Bruno Motoreau's interests
and the likely story of Alberto's father are so similar
that it all but proves
that this is how the cars came to life.
It also suggests that monsters and humans
are similar enough to each other to actually reproduce,
which could offer another explanation
for how after people return to Earth from the Axiom,
they start transforming into monsters
from, you know, the blob people.
Which to me seems perfectly possible,
especially if they were able to survive under the water
the entire time the humans were off in space
and then reemerged after the humans came back.
And actually, there is some credence to that thought
because whilst there's basically no non-carified creatures
present in "Cars," there is glaring exception:
crabs.
- I didn't wanna hit a crab!
- We see in "Finding Dory" some crabs
surviving in the pollution.
But do you know how else you might be surviving?
By being domesticated.
And do you know who domesticates crabs?
The sea monsters!
I mean, honestly, there's almost no greater way
to ensure your survival as a species
than to be domesticated by humans,
or I guess in this case
creatures of human-level intelligence?
But if sea monsters survived underwater
for the entire 700 years that humans were missing in space,
then chances are their population is actually a lot greater
than what returns on the Axiom.
Like, maybe enough to fully convert the entire species.
I mean, we do know for sure that there are some versions
of monsters that live specifically under water.
But the question is, where did the sea monsters come from?
Well, I have two options for you.
First, we mentioned earlier that "Luca" takes place
during the same time period as "The Incredibles,"
and we know some Supers power
is literally just to change forms.
So it's possible the very first sea monster was just a Super
who had the ability to change into an underwater creature
and he passed that ability on so much
that eventually there was just an entire community
of sea monsters.
Which I think would be a pretty interesting take
because it would mean the sea monsters
were all actually humans first and sea monsters second.
They just fully adapted to the sea monster side of things
and decided to live underwater.
Which would still add up because, indeed,
Supers were driven underground for a while.
Or I guess in this case underwater.
- [Narrator] They are living among us,
average citizens, average heroes.
- The other option though,
and I kinda like this one a little bit better,
is that the earliest sea monster was actually
a banished monster.
And the reason I like this idea a little more
is because we actually already know
of a banished sea monster.
- Loch Ness, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman,
they all got one thing in common, pal, banishment.
- Now granted, Loch Ness is in Scotland, not Italy,
but I don't really see that as much of an issue
'cause they can just be banish monsters
to more than one location,
which is for sure a fact
because Mike and Sully get banished to the Himalayas,
which is very, very not a lake in Scotland.
It is where the Abominable Snowman is banished, though.
- Welcome to the Himalayas!
- Meaning the monsters are happy to reuse the same door
for this exact purpose,
which could explain the large number of inhabitants
living off of the coast of this town.
But even so, you might be thinking,
"But gosh, that is a lot of banished sea monsters.
"Like, why are so many of them breaking the rules
"and getting exiled?"
But the reason for their banishment
I think is actually pretty obvious,
and maybe banishment is just the wrong word.
Its more like relocation.
But they need to be relocated
because if they ever come above the water,
they look like humans.
And you may have noticed this about the monsters,
but they are like, uh, super afraid of humans.
- 2319! We have a 2319!
(monster gasping)
- Heck, that would even explain the setting
of the Italian Riviera.
I mean if they are gonna relocate you
from your home time period,
the least they can do is put you up somewhere nice,
am I right?
That would mean, however, though,
that the monsters are actually responsible
for their own creation because they're the ones
that send the monster back in time to begin with.
Which would mean then that the future had already happened
and was somehow fixed, like on a loop.
Oh, that does sound familiar though.
What did we say about human memory earlier?
That as long as someone remembers you anywhere
you can never experience the final death?
Right, yes, so in order then to make sure
that someone never truly dies,
you would have to find a way to create
a permanent memory of them.
Which, which, you could do if you found a way
to live in the past and remember something from the future
that had not happened yet, right?
Then, from the past, you could set events in motion
that would ensure you always eventually remembered
the same person again so they would never die.
And if that's ringing a bell somewhere
in the distant memory of your mind, it should be
because it's exactly what Boo, a.k.a. the Witch, is doing
to make sure that Sully is never forgotten
and never has to experience the final death.
Poof!
♪ Everything is part of the Pixar theory ♪
But there you go, guys, that is how "Luca"
fits into the Pixar theory.
I'm curious, what do you think?
Is it more likely that the sea monsters are Supers
or that it's a monster being banished from the future?
Let me know your thoughts in the towel section down below.
Guys, thanks as always for watching today's video.
Don't forget to leave a like on it if you haven't already,
and subscribe so you don't miss
any future Pixar theory action from us.
If you want to see how "Soul" fits into the Pixar theory,
you can check out this video right here,
or if you wanna see how anything fits into the Pixar theory,
we have an entire playlist right here.
But Ben, that's all I've got for you today, man.
Until next time, I will see you in another life, brother.