So, Pixar have released a video in which all its films are connected via a load of neat little Easter eggs, and it's pretty cool. OK, it doesn't actually confirm that they all take place in the same universe, but still.
You may have been watching one big massive Pixar crossover without even realising it. Could all the Pixar movies from Toy Story to Coco take place in the same universe?
Writer Jon Negroni came up with one of the most detailed (and convincing) fan theories of all time a few years ago, which explains how each film takes place at a certain point in the same timeline, and that there is an overall story involving humans, machines, animals and emotions. It's utterly fascinating, bonkers and addictive. It theorises that it's human emotion is what powers all things - now the addition of Coco suggests that more than just emotion it's human memory which gives life.
It would take far too long to explain every single connection, but the timeline begins with The Good Dinosaur millennia ago, and ends with Monsters Inc around the year 5000 (although it technically ends with Brave too, more on this later). In a (relatively complicated) nutshell:
65 million years ago: A different timeline to 'ours' (but the same in all Pixar stories), a meteor that made dinosaurs extinct actually misses Earth, allowing them to live millions of more years and eventually sharing the earth with mammals including humans. However, in time they found that they could not survive in the way that humans could and died out.
However, dinosaurs and other exotic creatures are able to advance to a human-like state and also contain magical properties. And as dinosaurs lasted a lot longer than in our universe, it means that there is far less oil on earth, explaining just why human emotion is so valuable millions of years later.
14th-15th Century: The magic used in Brave is what helps animals and inanimate objects behave like humans, and leads to the creation of superheroes.
1950s-1960s: The Incredibles' Buddy creates AI bots and Zero Point Energy, leading to the eradication of heroes and to sentient objects.
1997-98: Toys have been able to absorb and draw powers from Zero Point Energy (energy that travels in wavelengths). The toys in Toy Story come up with rules and learn that human love provides them with energy.
1999: Toys learn in Toy Story 2 that it is dangerous to be abandoned by humans, and resentment towards mankind by objects and animals grows.
2003: Fish in Finding Nemo are incredibly advanced, and resentment is continuing to increase due to humans' experiments and pollution, while animals are more curious about their existence.
2004: More and more fish are getting wary of humans, while it is revealed in Finding Dory that Dory's upbringing in captivity helped her ability to read and speak other 'languages'. Despite the growing animosity, humans' energy provide animals with special abilities. Like with...
2007: Remy in Ratatouille is the first animal to directly communicate with a human, and controls everything he does. His rat clan clearly hate humans.
2010: By Toy Story 3, many toys have had enough of humans, with Lotso trying to look after his own people. Resentment is still growing.
2011-2016: Up's Carl discovers that humans can communicate with animals via Doug's collar, and that they generally have bitter thoughts towards humans. Eventually this leads to a (currently unseen) war between animals and humans... which humans won.
2015: Inside Out shows how humans use emotions as energy, with joy being the most powerful emotion. We later learn in Monsters Inc that machines thrive off the energy of humans.
2018: Coco shows that it's not just emotions, it's more specifically memories that are intrinsically important in story which sees a Mexican tradition that while at least one living person still remembers someone who has died, the dead person is allowed to live on in the Land of the Dead. But when you no one living can remember you even existed, then you actually do cease to exist - going through a 'final death'. This is the same fate that befell Riley's former imaginary friend Bing Bong in Inside Out - she forgot him and he vanished.
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2100-2200: Humans teamed up with machines to defeat animals, with the remaining humans being sent to space and machines left behind, explaining why no humans are seen in Cars and Cars 2. By now, machines and BnL – the company which evicted Carl – have polluted the world to the point where life can't be sustained.
2800-2900: Humans haven't lived on Earth for 100s of years, and WALL-E is the only functioning machine left behind. He continues to work due to his friendship with a co*ckroach. He and Eve help save humans and bring them back to Earth using the last plant alive.
2898-3000: The plant grows into the tree in A Bug's Life, and animals are stronger due to evolution and mutated genes.
4500-5000: BnL's radiation led to the accidental extinction of humans and mutated monsters becoming the dominant species. In Monsters University, they are falsely taught that humans are toxic and from another dimension.
4500-5000: Monsters and machines realise that humans provide them with energy, and machines come up with a way to interact with humans using magic time-travelling doors. Riley's imaginary friend Bing Bong in Inside Out is actually a monster she remembers as a young child.
All Time: Boo from Monsters Inc becomes obsessed with finding Sully, and works out how to travel through time using doors, and eventually becomes the old lady in Brave, who has a door with Sully's image carved on it.
Mind blown? Wow, we're officially knackered now.
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