The Pixar Theory – an Intro to the Miyazaki Theory

Although in my last blog post, I said I was going to go into theories about the Miyazaki movies, I would first like to take a detour and explain the Pixar Theory. Seeing as many of the people reading this blog would likely not have watched any of the Ghibli movies, I want to take this time to explain a similar theory that involves more popular American movies that will hopefully help you understand the Miyazaki movies.


So, what is the Pixar Theory?

An image featuring the main characters of a few of the Pixar movies.

An image featuring the main characters of a few of the Pixar movies.

In short, the Pixar Theory is a fan theory that all Pixar movies are from the same timeline. Although this claim hasn’t been confirmed by Pixar, fans have found a substantial amount of evidence that could be used to support their ideas. The Pixar Theory basically states that the timeline that these movies are in illustrate the changing relations between three basic races: humans, animals, and robots.

 


The Beginning: Brave

An image of a tapestry showing the bond between Merida and her mother as a bear.

An image of a tapestry showing the bond between Merida and her mother as a bear.

At the start of this epic timeline is the movie Brave. This movie was released in 2012, but the events in the movie are estimated to have taken place in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. If you haven’t seen it, the movie focuses on the life of the Scottish princess, Merida. After getting frustrated with her mother, Merida runs off and finds an old, bear-obsessed witch who instills magic in wood. This witch frequently uses doors to teleport places and transform her surroundings. Merida convinces the witch to help her change her mother’s mind, but the witch ends up turning her mother into a bear. There was one other instance in which the witch turned someone into a bear but they were never able to turn back. Despite this, at the end of the movie, Merida and her mother make amends and her mother turns back into a human.

This movie shows the beginnings of the relations between humans, animals, and magic.


Evolution of Mankind: The Incredibles

Syndrome (right) and his Omnidroid (left).

Syndrome (right) and his Omnidroid (left).

The Incredibles is the second movie on the Pixar timeline. It is said to have taken place from the 1950s to the 1960s and features a family of five that has incredible super powers, but they aren’t the only ones. They use their powers to fight against evil, and in particular, against Syndrome who creates robots who are trained to seek out and destroy anyone with superpowers. It is theorized that between the time that went unexplained between Brave and The Incredibles, humans were rapidly evolving and developing their magic until they had superpowers. However, because of Syndromes machines, the numbers of people with these special genetic mutations were decreasing rapidly and, in essence, mankind was devolving. At the end of the movie, although Syndrome is defeated, his killer robot, the Omindroid, was lost, but still functioning.

Enter the robots.


Evolution of Robots: Toy Story

An image of Lotso displaying his hatred for humans.

An image of Lotso displaying his hatred for humans.

Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and Toy Story 3 take their places here in the timeline, at around 1997-2010. In the first Toy Story movie, the ideas that toys were able to feed off of human emotion was introduced. The Pixar Theory suggests that the Omnidroid, which was considered so intelligent that it turned against its own maker, spent its time in the wilderness creating more robots and essentially allowing them to evolve. As the robots grew more and more advanced, they created toys that were able to understand human emotion, but could only live if they brought joy to children. However, as humans began to take their toys for granted, the toys became independent and fed off their own resentment for humans (as was seen in Lotso the bear and Jessie who hated her owner for abandoning her).

Robots begin to rebel.


 

Evolution of Animals: Finding Nemo and Ratatouille

Dory talking whale.

Dory talking whale.

While humans and robots have been evolving, animals have also been quickly making progress. In Finding Nemo, the animals show incredible communicative skills, with Dory being able to talk to whales. Additionally, Nemo’s dad and Dory were able to travel across the ocean alone. They showed unbelievable navigational and survival skills that wouldn’t have been found in more primitive species of these fish. Additionally, it is found out that humans have been experimenting on animals for a long time. It is said that Dory was experimented on, which is why she is so forgetful. To make matters worse, humans had been polluting their home for years, adding growing resentment towards the humans.

The mouse in Ratatouille also displays incredibly human traits, including the ability to cook better than professional chefs. His vast intelligence shows just how much evolution really affected the animals. However, not all animals were affected by the supermutations that the fish in Finding Nemo and Remy were able to attain. Lastly, the rat clans featured in Ratatouille, like the other animals, show intense hatred and fear of humans.

So when does the rebellion start?


The Introduction of By ‘N’ Large: Up

Dug introducing himself briefly before getting distracted by a squirrel.

Dug introducing himself briefly before getting distracted by a squirrel.

In the beginning of the movie Up, Carl is forced out of his house by a corporation called By ‘N’ Large. Keep this name in mind; it will come up a lot later. The main point that you need to know about this movie, however, is that Carl meets a dog named Dug that can communicate with him through the help of a translator created by Charles Muntz. During his adventure, Carl finds that animals can effectively communicate with each other, and with the help of technology, they can even communicate with humans. Through their interactions, Carl discovers the resentment that animals harbor towards humans because of the mass pollution they caused. It is also discovered that Muntz raised an army of dogs that would later rebel against humans.

Who do you think won that confrontation?


The Disappearance of Mankind: Cars

Tow Mater in front of the deserted Earth.

Tow Mater in front of the deserted Earth.

If you said that animals won the confrontation, you would almost be correct. Fed up with being underestimated, experimented on, and forced out of their homes, the animals rebelled against and fought back against the humans. The animals would have eradicated the humans out of sheer hatred, but the machines that had kept in hiding fought alongside the humans and held the animals back. However, the effects of the humans’ pollution was so devastating that the Earth had become almost entirely desolate, as seen in the first Cars movie. The humans that survived had to be sent to a separate planet called Axiom in order to keep them alive and the machines, or the cars, were left on Earth to populate and manage it.

Now, here’s the real kicker: the leading oil company at the time that contributed to the pollution of the Earth was called Allinol. If that name sounds familiar, well, you’d be right. Allinol, better known to fans as “all in all”, is owned by By ‘N’ Large. It is theorized that a machine that became extremely intelligent became the head of BnL and wanted to pollute the Earth to destruction.


A Reversal: Wall-E

Wall-E trying to interact with humans who are bombarded with pleasure.

Wall-E trying to interact with humans who are bombarded with pleasure.

So now that we know what’s going on down on Earth, what’s the deal with Axiom? For those of you who have watched Wall-E, you would know that humans are being treated like gods. The machines, formerly known as the toys who had so loved the humans, became so fearful of losing the humans that they wanted to preserve their species and pay them back for the good memories they had. Putting aside the resentment they developed, the robots took care of the humans in the only way they knew how: providing everything the humans could ever want or need. Obesity rates sky-rocketed as the humans were pampered and put into a constant state of euphoria. The robots wanted to shower the humans with happiness because, well, when they were toys, they would die without it. At the end of the movie, Wall-E is seen planting a seed on Earth that would grow to become the tree that started life on Earth again.


Repopulation of the Earth: A Bug’s Life

Flick entering the city created by the bugs.

Flick entering the city created by the bugs.

Despite the fact that the Earth became desolate, not every animal species was eradicated. Many bugs actually survived the harsh conditions and continued to evolve. The bugs became more and more human-like, building cities, having families, creating civilizations. The lifespan of the bugs grows beyond belief, even to over 90 years old. The Earth thrives so well that humans begin to inhabit it again, but this doesn’t stop the rapid evolution of animals.


The End?: Monsters, Inc.

A side by side comparison of Boo and the witch from Brave.

A side by side comparison of Boo and the witch from Brave.

The animals were said to have evolved and mutated into incredibly intelligent monsters that were able to use magic on doors to travel back in time to when the Earth was more populated to gather screams from children. On one of their missions, a little girl named Boo discovers the monsters’ time period and becomes extremely attached to one monster named  Sullivan. Although in the beginning, she says that he is a “kitty”, it is theorized that as she grew older, she realized that Sullivan looked more like a bear than any other earthly animal and spends the rest of her life taking the magic she learned about from the monster world to travel through time periods by means of doors to find her long lost friend, Sullivan. Who else travels through doors and is obsessed with bears? The witch from Brave.


Conclusion

So now that we’ve come full-circle back to Brave, we’ve finally finished our adventure exploring the Pixar Theory. I know this was such a long post, but I really do hope it was worth the read. In the next blog post, I would like to finally jump right into the Miyazaki Theory and make comparisons to the Pixar Theory.


Citations

If you want to read more about the Pixar Theory, check out this cool website.

If you don’t want to read all about it, watch this super cool video.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “The Pixar Theory – an Intro to the Miyazaki Theory

  1. zae5019 says:

    I have read the Pixar Theory before and was really interested by it, but your blog did an amazing job explaining it and refreshing my memory on it. It even brought in some small concepts that I forgotten and explained their importance like the toys from Toy Story displaying hatred for humans. I really enjoy fan theories and I cant wait so see what you have in store for your Miyazaki theory!

  2. amh6802 says:

    Angela, I really loved this blog post about The Pixar Theory! I am a big fan of pixar movies and seeing the way that you described them and their relation to perceptions that people have of the real world was really interesting. The whole theory idea about all of the movies being related/the same never occurred to me but after reading your post it made sense!

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