The Pixar Theory by Noah Hancock
The current state of film features many colorful shared universes, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) or the Alien vs Predator universe. The blending of many different movie elements leads to many interesting possibilities in film. With so much potential, it leaves one to wonder whether there are more shared universes around; perhaps some that aren’t as discernible as the MCU. Jon Negroni proposed just that concept, and he went on to create The Pixar Theory, connecting every single Pixar movie into one single timeline. Now the question stands: Is Jon Negroni’s proposed shared universe concept accurate, or is it just a conspiracy?
But first, we need to know exactly where this theory is coming from. Negroni initially posted the theory on his personal blog. The theory documents the human, animal, and machine evolution throughout a single timeline. The movies starts with the good dinosaur, showing how the asteroid intending to kill all dinosaurs actually misses and starts an alternate ‘Pixar’ timeline. The movie demonstrates animal’s capability of superior intellect, yet mammals nevertheless dominate. The concept of dinosaurs dying out later means that humans develop technology at a quicker rate, because of the lack of fossil fuels. As seen in Brave, humans also experiment with magic, accidentally providing the landscape for animal’s return to superiority. Now nearly in the 50’s, The Incredibles demonstrates the human’s farther developed technology, known as zero point energy, as well as the adaptation of the witch’s magic.
Further along the timeline, we see toys and machines absorbing this same zero point energy and coming to life as seen in Toy Story. The theory begins to tackle human’s possession of energy, which can be used as fuel for the toys and animals. The toys need the children to be happy, and thus do not reveal themselves. We also see animals evolving at a peculiar rate around this time, doing near human things like reading and communicating (Finding Nemo/Finding Dory), and even mastering cooking (Ratatouille). The machine evolution subtly shows itself as well, through the company known as Buy n’ Large. The theory claims that the BnL company is responsible for the pollution of the planet, and we start seeing its initial control in Up and Toy Story 3. Then, once the humans have left the polluted planet (Wall-E), the machines make due with what they can (Cars), yet regardless show a shortage of fuel (Cars 2) as well as permeable deaths (Cars 3). The human energy is needed for sustaining life.
When the humans return to Earth at the end of Wall-E, they bring plant life back. Unfortunately, the animals have been evolving at a rapid pace in the human’s absence,(a Bug’s Life), and the theory takes a major leap to assume that the humans become scarce and the remaining animal life takes over. The bugs are mutated into monsters (Monsters inc. series), and they again have an energy crisis. This requires them to build time traveling doors, where they begin to harness human emotion for energy. This is also shown in Inside out, when the emotions are most powerful at happiness. Boo, a human child, crosses into the Monster universe and becomes infatuated with Sully. She eventually learns to control the same powers of door travel and energy, and becomes the witch from Brave. Start with a door, end with a door.
Overall, the Pixar theory is a creative piece of intricate connections by Negroni. The theory, however, does not provide nearly enough evidence for itself. The only main pieces of evidence all come from Jon Negroni himself. One other possible connection, provided through a disney youtube series called “Pixar Secrets”, demonstrates John Ratzenberger’s appearance in every Pixar movie to date. Ratzenberger’s appearance throughout the series is some form of concrete evidence, hinting at the possibility of a shared universe. But John Ratzenberger could be some form of hidden link, but he is not mentioned in Negroni’s drafts of the Pixar Theory. Unfortunately, this amount of “evidence” could not help confirm the Theory by itself.
Likewise, the evidence against the Pixar Theory seems to consistently mount up. An interview with Pete Docter, one of the leading creative minds behind Pixar’s Genius, provides him the question of whether the theory is true. Docter goes on to claim that “[the theory] breaks my brain. To me, they are very separate universes.” His quote almost perfectly refutes the Pixar Theory altogether. Another Pixar creative lead, Jay ward, was quoted with similar debunks when he said “ the movies were sort of made in a different order by different directors in different times, in different places. It’s cool that it all worked out that way, but it probably was not intentional.” The interviewer teases Ward, saying that perhaps he is actually feigning a debunk to let the secrecy of the Pixar universe prosper, to which he comments “It was all thought out in the beginning. It was all Steve Jobs’ master plan. It’s all about selling the iPhone 6”.When playing devil’s advocate, you can look at this interview and think that perhaps the creative minds behind Pixar were doing just that; pretending that the theory was actually false would leave them be to continue implementing ideas into this shared universe.
A much more likely scenario would be to say that the creators are just playing their hand in easter eggs. Easter eggs are “an intentional inside joke, hidden message or image, or secret feature of a work”. The separation of Theory and easter egg helps provide these Pixar interviewees with some further credibility (as if they need it… Docter personally directed four Pixar films); The easter eggs are just clever callbacks and nothing more. A Walt Disney run Facebook account posted a compilation video entitled “Easter eggs”, and runs through every clever cameo throughout the Pixar series, such as the pizza planet truck.
Jon Negroni’s Pixar Theory is very cleverly written, drawing very intricate details together to create a massive world. Unfortunately, the Theory is lacking in overall depth and support from the Pixar community, and will officially remain as just a conspiracy. To draw from Pete Docter’s answer to the Theory one last time: “If you want to imagine that they’re all connected, then I certainly don’t want to stop you.”
Annotated Bibliography
Disney. “Pixar Secrets | John Ratzenberger In Every Disney•Pixar Film | Oh My Disney” YouTube, 9 Oct, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVZT4t7eS9g&ab_channel=Disney.
This youtube video was posted by the official Disney Youtube channel. The video is a compilation of every appearance by John Ratzenberger to date, of which he appears in every single Pixar Productions movie since Pixar’s conception. The video may come in handy, as John Ratzenberger’s appearance in every film could play an important role in showing the theory’s different tenets and provide counter evidence. The video is titled as Pixar Secrets, which could give some insight into how the Ratzenberger characters could somehow tie in with the secrets of provided in the theory.
Nasserian, Daniel. “The ‘Pixar Theory’ Proved False by Pixar Legend Pete Docter.” Disney Geekery, 8 Aug. 2015, www.disneygeekery.com/2015/08/08/pixar-theory-proved-false-debunked-pixar-legend-pete-docter/.
Pete Docter is a film director, animator, and chief creative officer working with Pixar Animation studios. He is the brain behind many of the most acclaimed Pixar films, such as Up (2009) and Inside Out (2016). He has also contributed to numerous stories of the films throughout his career. The article, pulled off A Disney Geekery post, details an interview conducted with Docter along with co-director Ronnie del Carmen. The interviewers asked if the pixar theory held any water. Docter claimed to think that “This is gonna be a controversial answer. I don’t know. For me, that kind of breaks my brain, to think that they – I think of them as very different universes and that they don’t cross over.” Del Carmen followed by saying that We don’t believe that they are [take place in the same universe]…except we have these easter eggs that translate over all these movies so it’s contradictory when we say that, too.”.
It is hard not to look at an interview with a creative head of pixar with the magnitude of Docter and not take it as evidence against a theory such as this. The source will be used against the theory, to show how the creators themselves think of it as a concept that may seem disconnected from their own views of the universes.
Negroni, Jon. “The Pixar Theory.” Jon Negroni, 11 July 2013, web.archive.org/web/20180917020610/https://jonnegroni.com/2013/07/11/the-pixar-theory/.
The original author of the Theory, Jon Negroni, originally published the entire theory in his personal website’s post. The post has gone on to receive over 22,000 comments and has received lots of traction over the recent years. Of course, there were speculations of a pixar universe for many years, but Negroni’s post is the first one to put it into words. This source outlines this theory and is important to understand the theory in its entirety.
The post goes into incredible detail about how the films are thoroughly intertwined in the same chronological timeline and universe. The base of the theory stems from the witch’s magical abilities in the film Brave (2012), and has since been connected to each and every film released by Pixar Studios through his theory.
Torchinsky, Jason. “Pixar’s Jay Ward Responds To The Unified Pixar Movie Theory.” Jalopnik, Jalopnik, 18 July 2013, jalopnik.com/pixars-jay-ward-responds-to-the-unified-pixar-movie-th-822973346.
Jay Ward is a creative director previously employed on the likes of pixar productions such as Cars (2006) and Inside Out (2016). He has been in charge of numerous facets involving the pixar films, such as character direction in the Cars film. The source is an interview of Ward, of which he is questioned regarding the Shared Universe Theory. He went on to say that “the movies were sort of made in a different order by different directors in different times, in different places. It’s cool that it all worked out that way, but it probably was not intentional.” He also sarcastically states that of course the films are connected, they were a ploy by Steve Jobs to “sell the iPhone 6”. This interview can be valuable whether leaning to disprove or prove. For disprove, it is as clear as day that a creative director claimed there is no way such loose connections could be official. On the other hand, denying the theory could also be part of the theory itself and could further the evidence, though unlikely.
Toy Story. ‘Easter Eggs.” 15 Jan. 2017. Facebook post. https://www.facebook.com/PixarToyStory/videos/10154597909999130/
The Toy Story Facebook page is an official Disney account, which posts Toy Story and Pixar related content. While the credibility of Facebook is quite feeble, the reason for citing can mean much more. The post has been quoted by several news articles, some as big as NBC news, as “confirming” the pixar theory as true. However, the video is titled Easter Eggs, which Jon Negroni, the Author of the Pixar Theory, has brushed off anything claiming easter egg in the past. He said “easter eggs are just easter eggs and don’t match up to the theory”. Regardless, the fact that disney used this compilation in an official post shows that they have acknowledged their own clever connections to the movie, and the source will be used to hopefully show that the Theory is not so elaborate after all but can ultimately be boiled down to easter eggs.