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Just a heads-up, this video contains spoilers
for the movie ""Elemental"".
Hey, brother!
Guys, this past weekend, "Elemental" debuted in theaters,
which means as usual,
it is time to add to the ever-expanding Pixar Theory.
The Pixar Theory, in case you are somehow unaware,
is the idea that every single Pixar movie
exists in the same universe on one giant timeline.
It all starts way back in "The Good Dinosaur"
when the asteroid misses the Earth,
or I suppose you could argue it starts in "Soul",
depending on your point of view
and how you think time works in the Great Before.
- You're more than welcome to opt out.
- Or, or now with "Elemental" out,
it possibly starts with "Elemental"?
I mean, what is the source of life, really?
Is it your soul?
Is it your ability to love?
Is it cosmic energy generated from the base elements?
Honestly, never thought
these are the questions we'd be tackling
when we first started trying to connect
just "Toy Story" to "Finding Nemo",
but here we are.
As ever, Pixar's wild imagination has brought us
to yet another new world inhabited by the embodiment
of yet another concept of existence,
the elements.
But I'll be the first to admit,
when I first saw the trailer for this movie,
I was like, "Oh, no.
"How on earth is this gonna fit into the Pixar Theory?"
Because honestly, Element City feels as foreign
as any new Pixar movie has ever felt
in relation to the rest of the timeline.
But as usual, I had nothing to fret.
It turns out it fits in perfectly
and even helps answer
one of the most base questions of the Pixar Theory,
which is, how does memory power everything?
Get ready, you guys, because today,
we explore how "Elemental" fits into the Pixar Theory.
♪ Pixar Theory ♪
♪ The Pixar Theory ♪
♪ We're finally going to see clearly ♪
♪ The Pixar Theory ♪
Okay, so when I saw the first trailer for "Elemental",
my immediate thought was,
"Okay, I bet, I bet what we're gonna get here
"is how the supers got their powers."
Because I mean, so many of their powers
seem to be sourced from the various elements anyway.
Frozone is just frozen water,
which is also very fluid, like Elastigirl.
Bob is probably strong like earth, right?
And Dash is fast like lightning.
And honestly, that might all still be the case.
But as I watched "Elemental",
I was surprised to find that the movie
it most goes hand in hand with is "Inside Out".
And that's a big deal, because "Inside Out"
is massively important to the Pixar Theory
because it is the first movie that starts showing us
the source of all of the power in the Pixarverse, memories.
Which, as a refresher,
human memories are what power everything in Pixar,
or at least what gives life to things.
It's why the toys can come to life.
It's what the monsters are harvesting to power their cities.
Heck, in "Coco", we even learn about second death,
where after you've died,
you can continue to live on in the afterlife as a skeleton
as long as a single memory orb of you
exists in some living person.
But if that final memory orb ever fades, so do you.
We also know that each memory
is colored by a certain emotion,
or even multiple emotions sometimes,
and that those memories can be harvested for energy.
And the color of the memory makes a difference,
because it helps explain like why, in "Monsters, Inc.",
despite the fact that the two best scarers of all time
are working at the same time right next to each other,
there is somehow a scream shortage.
But the reason for that is because
over on the human side of things at that time,
there is just less fear in the world,
so there's less purple orbs for them
to be collecting the energy from.
But as a result, joy is the new more powerful emotion.
But speaking of the emotions,
let's pivot back to "Elemental" now
because there are some undeniable parallels
between the elements and the emotions.
Out of the gate, let's just start with the easiest one,
water and sadness.
Upon first meeting Wade in "Elemental",
I thought, "Wow, maybe this guy's
"just a really emotional character."
But no, it turns out it's just a water thing in general.
- Let me guess, you try to cry?
- We try not to cry.
- Wade and his entire family
are constantly crying about everything,
good, bad, beautiful, or sad.
And then over in "Inside Out",
Sadness is pretty much crying all the time as well
and loves everything to do with it.
- Remember the funny movie where the dog dies?
- Next is fire and anger.
And again, this one's pretty obvious.
All throughout "Elemental",
Ember is constantly losing her temper
and just exploding all over the place.
Which ties in perfectly with Anger over in "Inside Out",
who, whenever he really loses his temper,
he also literally catches fire
and explodes all over the place.
But it even goes deeper than that
into our next emotion, fear,
which, of course, in "Inside Out"
is represented by the color purple.
And if you'll recall early on in "Elemental",
one of the customers at the fireplace
remarks how Ember almost went full purple.
And indeed, throughout the movie,
Ember does go full purple several times
and it always looks like extreme rage.
But later in the movie,
after Ember is trying to run away from Wade
after their big, touching moment,
he drops this big truth bomb on her and says,
"Wow, I thought you were so strong.
"But it turns out you're just afraid."
Oh, burn.
Here's the thing, though.
I've seen the movie twice now,
and if you're aware of this interpretation
of the purple fire,
that it is actually Ember being really afraid,
you can notice that every single time
it happens earlier in the movie,
this is also the case.
And so, yeah, it lines up really well.
Purple in "Elemental" also equals fear.
Conversely, though, moving on to the next emotion.
When Ember is inside the bubble
looking at all the Vivisteria flowers for the first time
and after Wade first tells Ember that he loves her,
Ember turns a very bright shade of yellow,
the color of joy.
Which just leaves us with green and disgust.
And I'll be honest,
this one definitely gets the least attention in the movie
and doesn't have really anything to do
with the main characters.
I mean, I guess Ember does turn green as well at one point,
but that's just 'cause she's standing on the minerals
and then she turns every color at once.
So, yeah, I don't really think that counts.
But instead, I think disgust gets represented really well
by just all of the earth elementals.
I mean the little boy Clod
keeps trying to give Ember flowers,
which is cute until you realize
he's picking them from his armpits.
Fern down at city hall mentions
how he has to leave work early
to get some root rot treatment or something.
And then don't even get me started
on these two pruning each other, okay?
Wow, thought this was a kid's movie.
- Nothing weird going on here!
- Uh, just a little pruning!
- So, yeah, I think those are all
pretty obvious correlations.
But it gets even better,
'cause not only do I think the elements are the source
or possibly even the DNA of the emotions,
but throughout the movie,
they're literally making memories.
And I don't just mean they're having good times,
making good memories.
I mean they are physically creating glass orbs.
They are also having good times, though.
- Watch this!
(bright music)
(water splashing)
- All right, guys, now we need to take a quick pause
to tell you about today's sponsor, BetterHelp.
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We mentioned them a little bit at the top of the video,
but I really wanna get into them
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Unfortunately, there's not really an instruction manual
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Humans are complicated and messy,
and oftentimes, we have no idea
how to navigate these waters,
or fires, I guess, to be on theme with today's video.
But fortunately, we do have therapy,
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because even when there's not a clear answer for a problem,
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Link is the description down below.
In particular, there are three big moments in the movie
when Wade and Ember make great memories together.
And in each case,
there is a circular orb
either created physically around them, by them,
or visually created on screen.
The first time happens
when they're sitting on the beach together
trying to gather sand so they can rebuild the wall
to stop water coming into the canal.
Ember is super depressed in this moment
and she begins to fade,
which, side note, honestly reminds me a lot
of Riley's near plight in "Inside Out".
If you recall,
as Riley's depression continues throughout the movie,
her islands of personality begin to crumble
until she is really no longer herself at all.
Had her core memories actually been lost
into the memory dump,
she no longer would have been the Riley she was before.
She would have just completely faded away,
like Bing Bong,
and like how Ember looks on the beach.
Anyway, in that same scene,
Ember burns a lot of the sand that she's sitting on
and turns it into glass,
which she immediately forms into a glass orb
and then draws a Vivisteria flower into the middle of.
Is draw the right word?
I don't really know how she does it.
It looks really cool, though.
And this object becomes the symbol
of their relationship moving forward in the movie,
but it also represents a significant memory from her past.
But the really important thing
is that she physically creates a memory
by bonding with Wade.
The second time it happens is when Wade and Ember
take their actual trip to the Vivisteria tree,
a feat which is difficult to accomplish,
but which they manage to do anyway
by forming a giant bubble for Ember to stand inside
while Wade floats her through the tree.
It is the very memory she missed out on having as a kid
and is now the new best memory of her entire life.
And let me tell you,
it is no coincidence at all that as they do this,
she is literally inside of an orb,
just like the memories.
And it is also no coincidence that once more,
the memory orb has appeared
as the result of bonding with Wade.
And the third time it happens is just after the scene
when they escape the tree and Wade and Ember finally touch.
It is possibly my favorite shot in the entire movie,
but Wade and Ember are holding hands
and the camera zooms back to show them
standing beneath an arch bridge
with Element City all lit up behind them.
Which, not for nothing, but if you ask me,
Element City at night looks a lot
like Riley's long-term memory and the City of the Dead.
But anyway, in this scene,
the bridge forms a perfect half-circle around them
and its reflection in the water
forms the rest of the final memory orb.
And honestly, it's really poetic.
The first two orbs,
the air bubble and the physical piece of glass
that Ember makes are very physical,
while their connections in those moments are non-physical,
whereas this time,
they're actually physically touching each other
and the orb itself is more metaphorical.
But that moment in the movie really is the key moment,
the catalyst for change.
Wade says it best.
When they touched, their chemistry changed.
They caused a reaction.
In fact, that's the tagline for the movie,
"Opposites react."
Water and fire come together like they never have before
and cause a new change to occur.
And surprise, surprise,
this is exactly what happens with the emotions
in "Inside Out".
In fact, it even happens in the same way.
See, throughout "Elemental",
one line keeps popping up over and over from Wade.
He says, "When my temper flares,
"it's me trying to tell me something I'm not ready to hear."
And he's referring to Ember going purple.
But the thing Ember is not ready to hear from herself
is that she doesn't want to actually
take over her dad's shop.
And keeping that knowledge from herself
is what's causing her to be in so much fear
throughout the movie.
That by even considering that option,
she's being a bad daughter, selfish,
and an overall disappointment not just to her father,
but basically all of fire culture
and their various struggles.
Riley goes through basically the exact same thing,
just with sadness instead of fear.
After the move, Sadness suddenly becomes more powerful
and is able to change any of Riley's memories blue.
And although they don't realize it at the time,
this is Sadness's way of letting Riley know
that she doesn't have to be
her parents' happy little girl all the time.
- You've stayed, (sighs)
well, you've stayed our happy girl.
- That she does need the support of others
and that she does miss Minnesota
and that she's not totally okay with the move.
Ember tries to avoid her fear.
Riley tries to avoid her sadness.
But in the end,
it's the acceptance of both of these things
that lead to resolution.
In "Elemental", Ember and Wade finally touch
and change their chemistry.
And in "Inside Out",
a brand-new core memory is formed by Riley
made up of not just one, but two emotions, sadness and joy.
But at this point I'm sure you're wondering
that despite all these amazing parallels,
I mean, who drew all these parallels?
That is really well done.
Good job, guys, wow.
(hands clapping)
How exactly does that make the elements
responsible for the power generated by the emotions?
But it all comes back to that line,
"Change their chemistry,"
and the reaction that occurs when Wade and Ember touch.
(hands clapping)
This was more like this and less of a clap.
(hands clapping)
They didn't really high-five.
That would've been cool, too, but not as cool.
And look, I'm no science whiz,
but if you don't know what a chemical reaction is,
I did search on Google for, like, 20 seconds
and this is what it told me:
A chemical reaction is a process
in which one or more substances, the reactants,
are converted into one or more different substances,
the products.
Chemical reactions are an integral part of technology,
culture, and indeed of life itself.
So, the real question is, when they touch,
what are they producing?
Well, at least in our fun little metaphysical Pixar universe
where memories power everything,
what they create is pure energy.
We said it before, but in a way,
the elements are the source material for the energy
and kind of the DNA of the emotions.
In fact, when Wade and Ember
get their love reading from Ember's mom,
the smoke literally intertwines like a double helix.
Even the flowers on the Vivisteria tree
unfurl in the form of a double helix.
But so, on that note,
it really goes on to suggest that at a base elemental level,
it is love that creates the energy that makes memories
that power everything in Pixar.
But also, if you ask me,
it still feels perfectly reasonable
if you had a particular surplus of one element in your body,
that would give you superpowers.
But also also, more seriously,
I can't claim to know whether or not Wade and Ember
are actually the first time ever
that water and fire have touched.
It very much seems like in Element City,
or at least during the brief glimpse we get of it,
that it is extremely uncommon if it is happening.
But if we want to assume for a moment
that they are, in fact,
the first people to touch in this way
and change each other's chemistry,
then it almost has to make "Elemental"
the new origin point for the rest of Pixar
because this would be the literal start
of elements coming together to create energy,
and therefore everything.
However, it's also possible
that we're only seeing a single story happening
alongside trillions of other similar happenings
in a very every-snowflake-has-a-Whoville kind of way.
Like, maybe Wades are meeting Embers
all around us all the time and always.
Personally, I prefer the latter
because it's just way more adorable
and it makes this movie way more meaningful
in the grand scale of the entire Pixar Theory.
But it also seems like maybe the latter is more likely.
But I don't know, what do you think?
Is this one tiny example
of what's happening all around us all the time?
Or is this it,
this is the origin point that we just got to see,
and it's like, "Whoa, that's so cool!"
Let me know your thoughts in the towel section down below.
(smooth music)
♪ Hey, brother ♪
But guys, that's how "Elemental" fits into the Pixar Theory.
If you wanna see the rest of the entire Pixar Theory,
all of the movies, and how they fit together
leading up to this movie,
you can check out this video right here.
It is "The Complete Pixar Theory".
And if you're wondering,
"Man, that was a catchy song
"at the beginning of this video,"
you can check out the full song right here!
It's available on iTunes and everything,
or you can just listen to it on YouTube,
whatever, you know.
♪ The Pixar Theory ♪
Anyway, Ben, until next time.
I will see you in another life, brother.