This past week I was lucky enough to be introduced to the legendary “Pixar Theory.” If you’re not familiar with this remarkable idea, I suggest you check out the following link: Pixar Theory (trust me, it’s well worth the 8 minutes). Now that we’re all on the same page, I hope you can join me in saying WOW.
I’ll discuss the validity of this theory in a moment, but for now I want to emphasize how genuinely excited this video made me! The way that the theory brilliantly connects all Pixar movies is incredible. The optimist in me wants to believe every ounce of it. After all, after being shocked by the “Toy Story Theory” a few years back, I know that there’s no saying that Pixar won’t put little tricks into its movies. With that idea, there was sufficient evidence to lead to me believe that Jessie once belonged to Andy’s mom when she was a kid. In that specific example, clues like Andy having the same hat as Jessie’s previous owner practically scream “THIS WAS PLANNED.” It makes me picture little Pixar workers sitting at their desks chuckling to themselves at their cleverness.
The Pixar Theory provokes a different image in my mind. Instead, I don’t quite see it as a planned sequence of events, but rather an incredible coincidence pieced together by Pixar and its fans. And while I don’t think the connections between the Pixar movies was necessarily intentional, that makes it none the less awesome! It’s sort of like the concept of how Mamma Mia was comprised completely of unrelated songs from an ABBA album. The songs, which previously had no relation, were suddenly intertwined and connected. I feel like the Pixar Theory is along the same lines.
The part that especially intrigued me was the concept of life: humans, machines, and animals. I’ll admit, the animal part (Finding Nemo, Ratatouille…) seemed to be a little bit of a stretch. However, after taking a Sci Fi class last year, I can definitely see the truth behind the technological aspect of the theory. I feel that Wall-E and Cars both have enough evidence to make the theory realistic (realistic to believe, at least). My favorite conclusion was the fact all machines and animals need human energy to survive. I loved this claim so much because it seemed to wrap up the theory with one of Pixar’s key ideologies: human happiness is a necessity of life.