-
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and in
this video I'm explaining how Pixar's new
-
movie Soul proves the theory that all the
studio's films take place in an interconnected
-
universe.
-
I'll also show you how Soul explains the Toy
Story movies, where the Incredibles get their
-
powers, and the origins of the magical doorways
in Monsters Inc and Brave.
-
Plus I'll explain how the new film fits in
with Inside Out and Coco.
-
Of course, there'll be some spoilers, so take
care.
-
Jon Negroni first introduced the idea of a
single Pixar timeline, and it's in Soul's
-
The Hall of Everything where we can find especially
compelling evidence to confirm Negroni's theory.
-
The hall is overflowing with specific objects
and locations which often recur in Pixar's
-
films, from the iconic Pizza Planet truck
to the blimp from Up, and even the weirdly
-
shaped rock, called Wille's Butte from the
Cars movies.
-
And that's a huge pointer that the films exist
in the same universe.
-
But Soul goes even further than this, because
even though the film appears to be set roughly
-
in the present day, which I'm basing on the
look and feel of New York City and the cellphone
-
Joe uses,
the Hall of Everything even has objects from
-
the future such as the Axiom from Wall-E,
one of a fleet of giant starliners that wasn't
-
used until 2105 when Buy N Large arranged
for the evacuation of Earth.
-
This implies that The Hall of Everything may
even contain blueprints or at least the inspiration
-
for events that are still to come in the future
of the Pixar universe.
-
Soul also demonstrates one of the most important
concepts at the heart of Negroni's Pixar Theory,
-
that humans are batteries.
-
The idea is that human beings are a source
of energy to sentient objects such as the
-
toys in Toy Story which is why they crave
the love of their owners;
-
otherwise, it's suggested that if the toys
end up stored away they lose their life.
-
And in Monsters Inc, we know that technology
exists that can harvest energy from human
-
emotions such as fear or joy.
-
And there are several moments in Soul that
strongly support this idea of humans as an
-
energy source.
-
When Joe is on the elevator that leads to
the Great Beyond, he notices that as the souls
-
of the recently deceased float up into the
big bright light, they fizzle and crackle
-
like an electrical charge.
-
[electrical crackling sounds]
As if to reinforce this idea that a soul is
-
a form of energy, there's also an electrical
crackle sound effect whenever we see Terry
-
counting souls on her abacus.
-
[electrical crackling sounds]
Joe also discovers in the Great Before that
-
before new souls can take their place on Earth,
they not only have to acquire a set of personalities,
-
but they also need what the movie calls a
"spark" to complete that personality.
-
Without this spark, theoretically a soul isn't
allowed to go to Earth and live a human life.
-
Twenty-two does end up on Earth by accident,
but the general rule is that a "spark" is
-
needed to complete the Earth Pass which a
soul needs to live a life.
-
The word "spark" can, of course, mean a number
of things such as a burst of electricity or
-
an intense feeling or emotion, which again
points to this idea of human beings as a form
-
of energy or batteries even.
-
Another crucial element of Negroni's Pixar
theory is the idea that Boo from Monsters
-
Inc travels back in time to become the Witch
in Brave.
-
I'll get to how Soul supports this idea shortly,
but first let's quickly recap what the theory
-
says about time travel.
-
Brave is set in 10th-century Scotland whereas,
given the monsters' advanced technology, Monsters
-
Inc takes place in the future.
-
The clearest evidence which suggests time
travel is the wood carving of Sulley that
-
the Witch has in her cottage.
-
She's also obsessed with bears which could
be her way of expressing the strong friendship
-
she made with Sulley in Monsters Inc.
-
On top of that, the Witch has carvings of
the Pizza Planet truck which should be impossible
-
given motorised vehicles most definitely did
not exist in medieval Scotland
-
and she has carved parodies of famous art
by artists from the future like Michelangelo.
-
The door to the Witch's cottage is also magical
and can transport her into an alternate interior
-
version of her hut, and it can also make her
disappear.
-
This is because Boo learned how the technology
of the portal doors at the Monsters Inc factory
-
worked, which is how she travelled through
time and space.
-
Crucially in Soul, we can see this same technology
in the You Seminar.
-
After souls are paired up with their mentor,
Jerry conjures up a door and sends them through
-
it, instantly transporting them to another
location.
-
And when Jerry gives Joe his second chance
to return to Earth, he passes from The Great
-
Beyond through a door and emerges on Earth
through another door.
-
Given The Great Before existed at the beginning
of time, it suggests that the technology for
-
magical portals in the Pixar Universe was
originally born there.
-
Soul also makes a sneaky possible reference
to Boo's time-travel shenanigans in what initially
-
appears to be a throwaway line by one of the
Jerrys.
-
When Terry turns up to complain that the count
is out by one soul, Jerry replies:
-
"I seriously doubt that.
-
The count hasn't been off in centuries."
-
This is a vital piece of information for Pixar
theorists because it tells us an anomaly similar
-
to Joe escaping the elevator that was taking
him to the Great Beyond has happened previously,
-
several hundred years ago in fact.
-
To understand what may have happened all those
centuries ago, let's look at what happened
-
when Joe's soul accidentally fell into the
body of Mr Mittens.
-
"Why am I in a cat?"
-
"I don't know!"
-
"Meow."
-
It seems that Mr Mittens' soul was sent off
to The Great Beyond.
-
So, what if Boo did a similar thing when she
time-travelled to medieval Scotland?
-
Could she have landed in the body of a Scottish
woman and displaced her soul sending it up
-
to the Great Beyond?
-
That would mean there'd be an extra soul in
the afterlife without a corresponding dead
-
body on Earth, which could be the reason for
the count being off as Jerry said.
-
Interestingly, when Joe returns to his old
body in Soul, Mr Mittens appears to regain
-
his original soul too as we see him reunite
with his owner,
-
so if my theory about Boo and the Witch's
soul is correct, it makes me wonder whether
-
Terry did anything about the anomaly that
occurred in the soul count hundreds of years
-
ago.
-
By the way, it's worth pointing out that there's
also a Brave easter egg in Soul during the
-
video at the You Seminar when we see a soul
find its spark after it successfully shoots
-
an arrow into the centre of one of three targets,
referencing Merida's demonstration of archery
-
skills when she fired arrows into three targets.
-
And there are, of course, many more Pixar
easter eggs in Soul including the Chinese
-
takeout box, A113, and the Luxo Ball, all
of which I reveal in my full easter eggs video.
-
Now, there are two Pixar movies, Inside Out
and Coco, which on the surface seem to contradict
-
Soul and maybe pose a problem for how smoothly
it fits into the interconnected universe of
-
the Pixar Theory.
-
The first issue is to do with personality.
-
In The Great Before, we discover that every
soul acquires a set of personalities before
-
they go to Earth.
-
"This is where personalities come from?"
-
"Of course!
-
Do you think people are just born with them?"
-
However, in Inside Out, personalities are
formed whenever a new core memory is made.
-
"Each Core Memory powers a different aspect
of Riley's personality.
-
The Islands of Personality are what make Riley...
-
Riley!"
-
While these ideas about personality may appear
to be at odds with one another, they can be
-
easily reconciled if we think of a new born
soul as having a baseline personality at birth,
-
some of which adapts and changes as that person
grows up and has different experiences.
-
In fact, in Inside Out we see that Riley loses
her personalities when she experiences a traumatic
-
event, however, these are later restored and
new ones are also added as she grows up;
-
so an individual's personality is clearly
not something static or unchanging.
-
Likewise, Soul also shows us how Twenty Two's
personality changes as she experiences life
-
on earth.
-
Something else we need to reconcile is how
Coco's Land of the Dead fits with Soul's depiction
-
of The Great Beyond.
-
In Soul, the afterlife is a relatively simple
place with an escalator that leads souls to
-
a giant white light in the sky.
-
This representation may be alluding to the
idea that many people who report near-death
-
experiences describe a tunnel with a bright
light at the end that draws them towards it.
-
Coco's spirit world, on the other hand, is
complex and bursting with colours, with the
-
Marigold Bridge forming a connection between
the Land of the Living and the elaborate and
-
complex Land of the Dead.
-
Fear not though, because we can resolve these
differences by turning to Pixar's official
-
The Art of Soul book, which describes The
Great Beyond as
-
"a place beyond all that can be known […]
represented by a brilliant white light in
-
a vast space […]
What lies beyond the light is all up to interpretation."
-
As the book suggests, we can interpret what
is beyond the bright light in our own way,
-
and so we can see the Land of the Dead in
Coco as a culturally-specific vision of what
-
the afterlife is unique to people of Mexican
heritage.
-
This would also explain how Coco can have
its own specific rules for its spirit world,
-
such as allowing the dead to cross over to
the Land of the Living one day each year.
-
What's common to both Soul and Coco though
is that the dead souls all retain the appearance
-
and age they had at the time of their death,
whereas in the Great Before, all the souls
-
look more or less similar, likely because
they haven't yet taken a human form yet.
-
The sparks that a soul acquires may even explain
where the Supers in The Incredibles got their
-
powers.
-
Could it be that the souls that ended up as
superheroes were supercharged with extra powers
-
by the spark they received in the Great Before?
-
There is, after all, a statue of what looks
like a caped hero on a plinth in the Hall
-
of Everything.
-
Maybe that statue was responsible for sparking
the unfortunate idea of caped superheroes.
-
"No capes!"
-
And this is just a fun idea, but could the
soul that's being interviewed here for the
-
You Seminar training video be the soul of
Buddy Pine, aka Syndrome.
-
"I'm a manipulative megalomaniac, who's intensely
opportunistic."
-
"Oh ho!
-
This one might be a handful, but that's Earth's
problem."
-
Perhaps Syndrome got his spark from that statue,
because after all it was his cape that proved
-
to be his ultimate undoing.
-
And yes, Syndrome wasn't born with powers,
but that statue might have inspired him to
-
seek glory in whatever way he could.
-
Or could that soul be Evelyn Deavor, the master
manipulator and evil tech genius from the
-
second Incredibles movie?
-
The soul's possibly female-sounding voice
might also suggest this, although we know
-
from Twenty Two that a soul can change their
voice to sound like any type of person.
-
"I can sound like this if I wanted to.
-
Or sound like this instead.
-
I can even sound like you."
-
If you like either of these ideas, leave a
thumbs-up or comment below with which other
-
Pixar character you think this troublemaking
soul could be!
-
Now I want to thank our sponsor NordVPN for
helping make this video happen.
-
If you want to keep yourself safe and secure
whenever you're online from spies and snoopers
-
like Terry from the Great Beyond, you'll need
to get yourself a trustworthy virtual private
-
network.
-
A VPN protects your privacy by encrypting
your internet connection and preventing your
-
internet service provider, the government
or hackers from knowing what websites you're
-
visiting or reading your private messages.
-
A VPN is also a powerful tool that helps you
bypass geo-location blocks so you can access
-
content not available to view or censored
in your country.
-
Unlike many free VPNs, Nord works with Disney
Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
-
And you can connect up to six devices at any
one time, so you can secure all of your laptops,
-
computers, phones, tablets and even home router.
-
Something we especially like about Nord are
the super-fast download speeds on its 5,000-PLUS
-
servers and how it uses new-generation VPN
technologies like Wireguard.
-
On top of that Nord has a no-log policy meaning
it doesn't record or retain details of your
-
online activity when you're connected to its
service.
-
With our exclusive seasonal offer, you can
get a full four bonus months completely free
-
and 68% off whenever you sign up for a two-year
plan.
-
Just visit NordVPN.com/Flicks or tap the link
in the video description to access the offer.
-
This is one of the biggest deals of the year,
so go visit NordVPN.com/Flicks for this limited-time
-
offer!
-
Now, do you have any more ideas on how Soul
fits into the Pixar Theory?
-
And if you enjoyed any of my Soul theories,
a thumbs-up is hugely appreciated.
-
You can also tap left to discover where all
the other Pixar easter eggs are in the movie
-
or tap right for something else you're sure
to like.
-
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
-
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!