This is, chronologically, the very first Disney cartoon
- Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, everyone they are all descendants of the very animals who survived the war of mankind.
Alternatively, the events of this cartoon lead to the events of Redwall.
The replacement of warring humans by peaceful animals is going to turn full-circle.
- Hey, do you expect THE ENTIRETY OF ANIMALS stop killing each other because a book says so?
- If we're going to look at the Fridge Logic of Carnivore Confusion, we should also address the fridge logic of animals being able talk and read, which would distract from the message. Also, it's not just any book, it's the Bible.
- Besides, animals only kill each other for food and survival, not out of some irrational hatred.
- Considering the Christian themes, maybe there will be divine intervention to stop the Carnivore Confusion. St. Francis legendarily made a wolf vegetarian.
Mankind wasn't actually driven to extinction.
- Rather, the tale Grandpa Squirrel tells was either embellished by him to drive home the anti-war message, or what they saw happening was just from their perception of what little they know; what actually happened was that the humans they saw were involved in a regional battle or were in a small part of a bigger war that ended up killing many or all of the local or caused the town that the animals eventually inhabit and rebuilt over to be abandoned. There can also be evidenced by what happens on-screen, since it would be utterly implausible for mankind to have completely killed all of each other off using mere firearms of cruder weaponry of the day (a plot flaw that was addressed with the rise of Nuclear warfare in the 1950's remake "Good Will to Men"). This does bring up the question of why the animals wouldn't be aware of the existence of other humans then, assuming they interact with other animals outside their territory.
- Building on this, the average lifespan of a squirrel caps out at 10 years, and the scavenged materals haven't shown any signs of rust. Then there is the fact there are areas in France that no one is allowed into because of the amount of unexploded ordinance and lingering effects of chemical weapons, even a century later. The village the animals are in could easily be one of the many destroyed villages caused by the war, and everyone is too busy trying to repair the country to clean up a village that was marked lethal to even set foot in.
The movie's plot takes place in a Hidden Elf Village.
- It's why the animals believe mankind went extinct. The only humans who knew about the village killed each other — therefore they've never seen any other humans since.
There was a massive Hate Plague around humanity.
- Which is why mankind in this cartoon was so obsessed over killing each other that they brought every reason to war to the point they killed each other with World War I weaponry. Well, in the Peace on Earth short. The war was probably very long, and, given that rodents don't live long, Grandpa Squirrel was born two weeks or so before the last soldiers finally killed each other.
There'll be another remake.
It would be explained that the humans were wiped out by a plague of their own making, as well as their own stupidity in handling it. The owl found a Bible Abridged for Children.
Because as powerful a statement as “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is, anyone who has read through the whole Bible knows that in the Old Testament, not only is war glorious (literally—God Himself is shown fighting for Israel and personally destroying its enemies) but it’s divinely mandated. If anything it’s pacifism condemned by the Old Testament (as in the story of Saul and Agag). Literally no one could read through Numbers 31, or the books of Joshua or Judges, or the story of King David, or even Psalm 137 and conclude that men disobeyed the book of rules by warring with themselves. So the owl must have found a Bowdlerized text with those stories omitted.