chris pratt

The Pixar Theory: How ‘Onward’ Fits In The Pixar Universe

onward

When the first trailer for Onward dropped, I was immediately hit with a flood of questions about how it could possibly share the same universe as all of the other Pixar films from Toy Story to Coco. As soon as I watched the trailer, I had more than a few ideas and predictions, but I of course wanted to wait and see the film for myself before drawing any conclusions. Well, that time has come.

In case you’re new here, The Pixar Theory is a fan project I started back in 2013 in an effort to connect all of the Pixar films through a single, all-encompassing timeline. Since then, the theory has really taken off and I always get a real kick out of the branching theories people come up with and contribute to this site and elsewhere. The idea is simple: every Pixar film, according to this theory, exists in the same universe. Going deeper they share a strong narrative about what it means to be human in a world where anything is possible, including the apocalypse. Fun right?

I published a book called The Pixar Theory in 2015, which fleshed the whole fan theory out in a more meticulous fashion. But a couple of years ago, the book switched publishers, and I went to work revamping the theory into a brand new book that will include plenty more Pixar films, including Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Coco, and soon, Onward (maybe Soul, too, which comes out in June).

But I don’t want to keep fans of the theory waiting long. Though I’ll certainly need more time to finalize the Onward chapter of the theory with all of the easter eggs and narrative connections you’d expect, I can at least give a sneak preview right now into where Onward fits in the timeline, plus maybe a few extra details.

onward

Don’t worry. I’m not spoiling any of the story elements of Onward. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you can keep reading without having to worry about having any surprises ruined for you. But you will get a sneak peek into the world of Onward and what it’s like on a basic level.

Directed by Dan Scanlon (Monsters University), Onward is about two brothers who go on a quest to find a magical gem that will bring their late father back to life for one, single day. You see, Ian (voiced by Tom Holland) never got a chance to even meet his father, who died right before he was born. His brother Barley (Chris Pratt) only has a handful of memories about their dad, because he too was very young when this tragic event took place.

Here’s the catch. These brothers aren’t human, and the world they live in has more in common with “Dungeons & Dragons” than it does a world like ours today. Ian and Barley are elves, and the opening of the film explains that their world once contained many of the fantasy elements (like magic and dragons) that we’d see in a book written by J.R.R. Tolkien. The big difference is that there are no humans whatsoever in this world, not even in the visual history shown onscreen. And all of these fantastical creatures like unicorns, gnomes, trolls, and centaurs discovered the modern conveniences of electricity and indoor plumbing all on their own, making their world a parallel to the human one of 2020.

onward

The premise is a fun one. We get to see these traditionally old-school fantasy characters living in a modern world with cities, freeways, and themed restaurants. But lurking in the background is a hint of the magic that was once commonplace, only to be replaced by the perceived convenience of lightbulbs and automobiles. Centaurs don’t need to run 70MPH anymore because they have, well, cars.

So…how does this work for a Pixar movie? You might be wondering how it’s possible for a modern version of “Middle Earth” to exist anywhere close to the same one containing superheroes and Andy’s toys. This world has two moons, even! Is it another planet? Another dimension? What’s the deal?

THE DEAL.

Onward takes place in a section of the Pixar Theory timeline we’ve been curious about for years: in between the events of WALL-E and Monsters Inc. (also A Bug’s Life, which is shortly after WALL-E). As you may remember from the original theory, WALL-E ends with the humans of Earth returning home after centuries of being in space aboard the Axiom. While gone, the cars of Cars roamed the planet until running out of fossil fuels. But we’ve had little to go on when it comes to how humans were replaced with “monsters,” the animal-hybrid creatures who have their own modern society allowing them to go back in time to steal human energy (or…magic?) from the emotions of children, as we see in Monsters Inc.

Monsters University shows us that the monsters have been honing their scaring skills since at least 1313, when the university itself was founded. Onward hints at what this time might’ve been like for these diverse creatures, which aren’t very dissimilar to monsters. Remember, the timeline was reset for these creatures at some point in the far future, so 1313 for them would be thousands of years in the future for us.

onward

Simply put, the monsters of Monsters Inc. and Monsters University are part of the same society as the fantasy creatures we see in Onward. In Onward, we only get to know a small corner of this world, and it likely takes place many years before Monsters University, because it still contains many remnants of folklore, like wizards. But the Monsters films show us Monstropolis, which is more similar to a human society with little hint to the past. That’s because their world is more closely influenced by human society, as this is where Monsters Inc. is located, so this part of the world has a close connection to the human world of the past, which may have influenced the customs of this particular city.

For all we know, many of the towns and cities outside of Monstropolis are more similar to the one we see in Onward, which is clearly located closer to where magic was at its strongest. Put another way, Monstropolis resembles America because of its “new world” energy. But in Europe, it’s easier to find historical landmarks closely tied to the legacy of the past, which we see laid out a few times in Onward.

Of course, there are plenty more clues to consider and dissect. We see in Onward that magic does still exist, like the magic we see in Brave, in fact. The elements of the dead coming back to life are an obvious callback to how Day of the Dead works in Coco, and at various points in the movie, you could consider the magical action seen onscreen as something out of The Incredibles. The running theme, however, is that these powers are governed by emotion. In order for elves to perform magic effectively, they have to use their “heart’s fire” as a means of channeling magic. And as we see in the movie, only elves and other humanoid creatures appear to have the ability to use any kind of magic at all, hinting at the possibility that they are in fact the descendants of the humans who were aboard the Axiom and “re-inherited” the Earth.

onward

Humans are batteries in the Pixar universe. Their emotions can power toys, cars, and entire cities ( as seen in Toy Story, Cars, and Monsters Inc., respectively) But what happened to them after WALL-E and A Bug’s Life, when there were barely any humans to be found? Well, it’s possible they gradually changed into a new species, or bred into what would eventually be known as elves. And over time, they’d die out all the same, because we learn in Onward that not all elves have “the gift” of using magic. Eventually this ability would apparently disappear completely, forcing “monsters” to go back in time to harvest the energy needed to power their world. Perhaps these creatures evolved into scary monsters out of necessity, because it would be the only way for them to effectively scare children for centuries, weeding out all of the “nice-looking” creatures in favor of the scarier ones.

That’s not to say some of the creatures of Onward are helpless unless they have some connection to the humans of the past. Dragons breathing fire and pixies being able to fly can be easily compared to the heightened abilities of some monsters, like Randall, who can turn invisible. But when it comes to outright magic, the source always seems to come back to humans.

There’s a lot more to figure out with Onward, like why there are two moons, as opposed to just one. I have a few theories about this, but I’d like to see the film a couple more times to finalize my thoughts on how this is possible. It’ll also be fun to revisit the Monsters Inc. movies to find more direct comparisons between the world of Onward and the one where we meet Mike and Sulley. I’ll also be scouring the film for more easter eggs and cameos revealing all of the clues we’ve come to expect from these movies, so please stay tuned for the new and improved book, The Pixar Theory. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

Before we part, I definitely want to praise the incredible work of Dan Scanlon and the fine folks at Pixar who did an incredible job making Onward. It’s as wonderful and heartwarming as many of Pixar’s other recent work, like Inside Out and Coco. The core message of the film pertains to brotherhood and how memories carry us through tragedy and toward the adventures of the future. I hope you all like crying in public, because yes, this is another Pixar tearjerker. I simply can’t wait to see it again and again.

Thanks for reading this. Be sure to say hey on Twitter: @JonNegroni

All images courtesy of Disney/Pixar

The First Trailer For Pixar’s ‘Onward’ Imagines A Magical World Without Magic

I should’ve known Pixar had a few hidden tricks up their sleeve for this one. We’ve known for some time that Onward centers around two elvish brothers on a quest to find some trace of magic left in the world connected to their deceased father, which is a relic of an idea that traces back to director Dan Scanlon’s real life experience of finding an old object containing a memory of his own dad.

Now, we see this “quest” has a few curveballs, as shown in the trailer. Looks like the “magic” object is a staff, and there are some cartoony rules that dictate how and when their dad can actually come back to life. So it’s a blend of Brave and Coco in that respect.

At first glance, this familiarity worries me. How many times have we seen kids in Pixar movies trying to beat a deadline to save their parent, or the other way around? It’s well-worn plotting at this point for the studio, but this is a unique enough setting to keep me interested, plus the two main characters (voiced by Chris Pratt and Tom Holland) have no shortage of charm and chemistry to make this one a proper Pixar feels trip.

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The “modern mythological” setting is still a blast to discover and learn new details about, including the gag of pixie bikers harassing the dad corpse. Speaking of which, said corpse is a fun nod to Weekend at Bernie’s, which is one of many references to 80s pop culture in the movie we can connect back to Scanlon’s work on Monsters University. There’s a reason that “Quests of Yore” spell book closely resembles a Dungeons and Dragons manual, which for me is just brilliant world building.

The look, feel, and energy of this movie is just so Monsters University, down to the humor itself. As a lot of you know, I absolutely adore that film despite its baggage as a prequel, so this familiar tone only boosts my expectations for a road trip movie with enough twists and turns to make the latest original story from Pixar a positive step forward for their brand.

Pixar Theory stuff:

  • The voiceover narration says that “in times of old, the world was filled with wonder and magic.” This might squash any early speculation that Onward takes place in the future, post Monsters Inc., but all that said, it’s hard not to notice a lot of similarity in design between some of these characters and “Monsters.” One era Pixar has never really covered is the long stretch of time between WALL-E and Monsters Inc., so take that as you will.
  • The “Visitation Spell” sounds pretty similar to the rules of how the dead can visit the living for “one day” in Coco. And we see the same sort of thing in Brave with how the “wisps” are implied to be spirits of dead ancestors.
  • At minute 1:29, you can just barely spot an ad in the gas station referencing Poultry Palace, a fast food restaurant seen in Toy Story 4 and the Toy Story short “Small Fry.”
  • In the gas station scene that follows, you can clearly see “Triple Dent Gum” being held by the pixie uttering “you got a problem, Shades?” This particular gum brand traces back to Inside Out, of course. Don’t act like you forgot the theme song…
  • At minute 1:38, you can see a formation of rocks that resemble not just Stonehenge, but the rock formation where Merida encounters the wisps for the second time in Brave.
  • The tavern is full of creatures that resemble monsters, as noted before. Worth considering if this movie shows us an early inception of how the monsters came to be, but it’s hard to square that sort of assumption with the movie’s established vibe of European folklore. Plus, we would have to explain those two moons, and writing it off as some sort of alternative universe just seems boring to me.

Did I miss anything? Of course I did. Let me know what stuck out to you in this trailer by commenting below.

The Jurassic Park Series (Anyway, That’s All I Got)

jurassic park series

In what is undoubtedly our longest episode to date, we decided (against our better judgment) to revisit all five movie in the Jurassic series, from the original Jurassic Park all the way to the newly released Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, we dissect the few successes and many failures of the series thus far, all the while pondering how this franchise manages to continue, and how the hell it got to the point it’s at today. Needless to say, we have plenty of agreements, disagreements, and insights along the way, and at the end of the show we give our individual pitches for where we’d like the franchise to go.

Hosted by Sam Noland, Jason Read, and Anthony Battaglia!

Go on…The Jurassic Park Series (Anyway, That’s All I Got)

Ep105: Describe Yourself In Three Magnificent Characters

now conspiring

You can also download this podcast episode on iTunes and Stitcher.

Hey conspiracy cats, this week we review The Magnificent Seven, Storks, and Queen of Katwe. But honestly, we spend most of our time talking about…mansplaining? The internet? Our patronuses? Look, you listen to this podcast for a reason, and Dumbledore help us, we don’t know exactly what that reason really is.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: How would you describe yourself using three fictional characters?

Go on…Ep105: Describe Yourself In Three Magnificent Characters

Review: ‘The Magnificent Seven’ Is Enjoyably Average

magnificent seven

In 1960, The Magnificent Seven came about under the direction of John Sturges to limited acclaim. Critics didn’t love it because Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (of which Magnificent is adapted from but with a Western spin) was still a near-perfect film fresh on everyone’s minds. In the decades since, critics have grown to appreciate Magnificent Seven more due to the cascading success of the film’s actors, and it’s hard to deny the sheer entertainment value to be had in the first 2/3rds of that film.

As someone removed from that era entirely, I found the 1960 adaptation to be a forgettable shadow of Seven Samurai — but I’ve always been interested in the idea of updating the original concept with heavier themes, better visuals, and other details it could rightfully borrow from Kurosawa’s work.

Yes, Magnificent Seven has had sequels and even a TV show since its mid-century release, but we now have a modern remake in the fashion of 2010’s True Grit. The only difference, though, is that Grit managed to be a remake with a purpose. By comparison, the 2016 Magnificent Seven is more akin to a video game made from the movie. There’s more violence, the characters’ stories are tossed aside for manufactured movie moments, and there’s little reason to watch this one outside of seeing a fast-paced action Western. If that’s what you want out of Magnificent Seven because you have some sort of sketched idea of what the original (and the original before that) had to offer, then you’ll probably walk away satisfied.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), this new take on Magnificent focuses on Rose Creek, an American frontier town under siege by a robber baron aptly named Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who mostly mumbles vain platitudes about how capitalism justifies his boring villainy. This is a strange departure from the small Mexico town victimized by bandits in the 1960 version, made more confusing by the fact that this change to Rose Creek holds little meaning outside of a desire to keep things American, which has all sorts of troubling implications if you think about it too long.

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To ward off Bogue’s militia, newly-widowed Emma Cullen (played by Haley Bennett) seeks out the help of Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington), a warrant officer from Kansas who in turn recruits six other mercenaries from around the area. They include wise-talking and gunslinging Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt as Star Lord in the West, essentially),  a confederate sharpshooter (Ethan Hawke), his knife-throwing Chinese “manservant” Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), frontier survivalist Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), a gruff Mexcian outlaw Chisholm was previously in pursuit of (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and a Comanche archer named Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). 

A significant amount of time in Magnificent Seven is spent fleshing out character skill-sets more than anything else, like why any of the mercenaries are willing to put their lives on the line for strangers. The film tries to posit this as some sort of “Eff it” mentality that might be mixed in with a soft decency that doesn’t come across in any performance, especially with Faraday, who seems to change his temperament based on the position of the sun. Chisholm is the closest to having any real sense of intention in the script, and there could have been real opportunity to make his growing affection for the rest of the cast convincing. But unfortunately, Washington brings almost zero nuance or heart to the role, and the entire ensemble suffers for it.

There are flaws aplenty in the film’s basic narrative structure and script that prevent Magnificent Seven from ever having an affecting impact. But at the very least, it competently accomplishes what it set out to do. The half hour or so of nonstop gun-toting action is thrilling to watch, and you might care enough about some of the characters involved (if not the one-note villain) to share some of their tension as the odds grow ever against their favor. But once the dust settles, you’ll start to wonder what the point of all this endless violence really was as the film rushes to the finish line with as little effort as possible. There’s no reflection on much of anything important that the film accidentally managed to say.

Grade: C+

Extra Credits:

  • I love Matt Bomer, and there is no reason for him to be in this movie (for about four minutes).
  • The late James Horner composed the film’s score (which is fantastic), and it’s also his last composition.
  • Believe it or not (and I checked), this is the first western Denzel Washington has starred in. What a waste.
  • So…Chris Pratt. Honestly, I think the actor was underserved here, same as Washington. The film would have been saved if the script had gotten their chemistry right, but there’s nothing to see here.
  • Review in four words? “The quintessential RedBox movie.”

    Thanks for reading this. Seriously. You can subscribe to my posts by clicking “Follow” in the right sidebar. 

    Or just say hello on Twitter: @JonNegroni

Review: ‘Jurassic World’ Spared No Expense

Jurassic World mini review

Jurassic World is the fourth movie in the overall Jurassic Park franchise that kicked off 22 years ago. We’ve been waiting 14 years for a new movie, but does this return to Isla Nubar satisfy?

Turns out, it really does. Jurassic World is a ton of a fun, and I had a blast watching it. The enjoyment I gained from the movie even rivals the original Jurassic Park, which was a staple of my childhood (and yours, probably). But it’s a different movie with a different tone, and even some different things to say.

Go on…Review: ‘Jurassic World’ Spared No Expense

Chris Pratt Correctly Predicted His ‘Jurassic World’ Leading Role…In 2009

Coincidentally, I’ve just finished binge-watching the first 6 seasons of Parks and Recreation, so finding this clip was too perfect timing-wise. In this “behind the scenes footage,” you’ll see Pratt joking about getting a text from Spielberg about his upcoming role in Jurassic 4 (which will actually be called Jurassic World).

Found this pretty entertaining as a huge Andy Dwyer fan. And it’s painfully obvious that this man controls the future.

Seriously, after starring roles in The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy (which ended up being the biggest superhero movie of the year, by the way) and the upcoming Jurassic Park franchise, there’s literally no stopping this guy. And that’s a good thing.

If you still haven’t seen an episode of Parks and Recreation, do yourself a favor and check out the whole series on Netflix. Stomach through the admittedly bland first season and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the payoff.