In 2012, a man by the name of Jon Negroni watched a Cracked video about every Pixar film taking place in a Shared Universe, he became obsessed with the idea, and created quite possibly one of the biggest and most expansive piece
of Wild Mass Guessing ever made.
Then on July 24, 2013 the YouTube duo known as the Super Carlin Brothers made a video explaining the theory, since then the Pixar theory has exploded in popularity. Negroni has even written a book about it!
The Super Carlin Brothers continue to make videos on the theory, adding more and more to it with the post-2013 Pixar films. In 2022, they posted an updated summary of their take on the theory.
While every single Pixar movie has some connections to other ones thanks to the dozens of Easter Eggs Pixar hides in them referencing their past (and next) films, fitting all of these connections together into a proper timeline requires some interpretation.
Films of interest
- Soul and Inside Out - These films emphasize the importance of human souls and human memories, which will be exploited as a power source later down the road.
- The Good Dinosaur, Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo - These films make the point that all species will develop humanlike intelligence given enough time without humans.
- Toy Story and Cars - Toys are also shown coming to life but for a different reason. The power of human memory is enough to bring them to life when no humans are around. After the human evacuation seen in Wall-E, cars are able to come to life thanks to human memory in much the same way, but only for a generation or two before humans forget about cars.
- WALL•E - The plot of this movie informs much of the theory's timeline; Buy-N-Large (after having cameos in a bunch of later-released but chronologically-earlier Pixar films) will eventually realize the potential of humans as a power source, Take Over the World, and use the power of humans to travel outer space for multiple generations, in the process letting Earth rot away without humans.
- The Incredibles - Perhaps the most controversial inclusion to the theory, as one would expect the existence of superheroes to come up in other movies, but it doesn't. Some consider Incredibles to be an In-Universe movie a la Lightyear, while others consider it canon, meaning Syndrome invents A.I. in The '60s.
- Monsters, Inc. - Following humanity's return to Earth in Wall-E, they will have to adapt to the wasteland that the planet has become, turning into monsters... but since they aren't human anymore, they generate power by use time-traveling Portal Doors to sneak around during the time that humans inhabited the planet to pull a Monster Façade and scare children, until Boo teaches them that laughter generates even more energy...
- Brave - ...and speaking of Boo, she is probably the most recognized aspect of this theory, because it posits that she grows up to be the mysterious witch Merida encounters. Boo never forgot about "kitty" and the monster future, and as an adult she discovers the will-of-the-wisps, magic, and the time-traveling portal doors (which are in both Brave and Monsters, Inc.). The witch has wooden carving of Sulley, as Boo is traveling around time trying to find him. She also has a sculpture of the Pizza Planet truck, which can be found in the background of every single Pixar movie...
The Pixar Theory provides examples of:
- Alternate History: One kicked off by the asteroid missing the Earth in The Good Dinosaur, resulting in Amplified Animal Aptitude as the dinosaurs evolved further than they did in our timeline.
- Animorphism: Transformation into animals is an aspect that helps tie together Brave and Turning Red.
- Ascended Extra: Bruno, a very minor background character from Cars, is interpreted as Alberto's father's car.
- Composite Character: Boo with The Witch.
- Dark Fic: This theory makes the world of Pixar much darker than in the actual films, most notably in the Great Offscreen War, which is not sugarcoated at all.
- Demoted to Extra: Very much downplayed as he still revolutionized the AI, but Syndrome got hit with this after Coco was released, The Toys and the Cars were Retconned into magical creatures powered by human energy rather than Artificial Intelligence.
- Fanon Welding: The entire theory is more or less built around this trope.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Buy N Large from WALL•E becomes this for the entire Pixar timeline.
- Mêlée à Trois: The central conflict is between humans, sapient animals, and Artificial Intelligence.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The theory posits that the reason the cars exist is that they exist based on human memory thanks to the power of remembering the dead fueling emotional energy.
- Sci-Fi Kitchen Sink:
- The monsters from Monsters, Inc. are reimagined as Mutants.
- The Incredibles gives us Superheroes.
- WALL•E features robots, space travel, and the apocalypse.
- The world of Onward is interpreted as an alien planet, with its inhabitants becoming justified Rubber-Forehead Aliens.
- Shared Universe: For all the films released by Pixar.
