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How 'Coco' Fits Into the Pixar Theory

Have you seen 'Coco' yet?

By Jonathan SimPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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How does Coco fit into the Pixar Theory?

Last month, I wrote an article about the Pixar Theory, a theory created by Jon Negroni that states that all Pixar films take place in the same universe, as part of a very long story arc that is released out of chronological order.

And although Negroni has not updated us on how the film fits into the Pixar Theory, Jon Carlin from the popular YouTube channel, SuperCarlinBrothers, has given us a pretty good explanation of how it fits in.

But first, here's a video on the theory in case you don't want to go to my old article and come back.

That video is a little bit outdated on the details, but here's the basic rundown of what we need to know first:

So, there's a recurring theme in the Pixar Theory where human emotions give life. This is why toys can come to life, cars can come to life with the personality and memories of their previous owners, Wall-E is so unique, and why Monsters, Inc. needs human screams/laughter to run their cities.

Coco provides a similar idea where it is not human emotion that gives life, but it is human memory.

We're gonna be thinking back to Inside Out. If you recall, memories of the human mind are stored in orbs and sent to Long-Term. When the memories grow faded, they are disposed of and forgotten by the human. And it's not just orbs. It can also be living beings, such as Bing-Bong.

So, memory is also essential for giving life. Bing Bong was kept alive so long by Riley's memory, not emotion. And in Wall-E, when there are no humans left on Earth, pretty much all of life vanishes.

But there ended up being two living things left on Earth in Wall-E: the cockroach and the plant, which were kept alive because they were around a robot engulfed in remembering humans and their culture.

And now, we go back to Coco, where the citizens of Mexico have created a pathway for their dead, and on Día de los Muertos, they honor their dead, remembering them and giving them gifts.

This is how it works: if you're dead and your descendants have a picture of you on their ofrenda, you are able to cross back into the real world. Your descendants won't see you, but you will see them. However, once the last living person forgets that you are dead, you disappear from both the land of the living and the land of the dead. This is called a "final death."

This is why Hector spends the movie desperate to get his picture back on the ofrenda. Because the only living person left in the land of the living is his daughter, and if she forgets him, he will suffer a final death.

And in the film, we see Hector's friend, Chicharrón, suffer a final death in which he is forgotten by everyone in the land of the living. And he fades away, much like Bing-Bong did in Inside Out when Riley forgot him.

If you think about it, these scenes are pretty similar. The appearance of the land of the dead looks remarkably like the appearance of the inside of the human mind.

The difference is that the citizens of the land of the dead don't have to rely on just one person to remember them before they fade away. They can rely on many individuals across many different generations.

So, as long as at least one person in the land of the living has a memory orb with you in it, you can continue to live in the land of the dead.

And as we've established, the need for human memory is essential in a lot of Pixar movies. Bob Parr from The Incredibles is clearly very scared of the idea that one day, people will forget about Mr. Incredible and as a result, Mr. Incredible will cease to exist.

This is why he says, "Reliving the glory days is better than pretending they never happened." He needs to know that they happened, and much like Bing-Bong and Hector, they are scared that if people forget about their past selves, they will be gone forever.

Similarly, Carl from Up needs to remember Ellie, Arlo from The Good Dinosaur needs to remember his father, and this theme is just everywhere.

Dory's parents virtually don't even exist in Finding Nemo, and you don't see them at all. However, in Finding Dory, once Dory remembers her parents, she finds them and they exist after all.

And Boo once again ties the whole theory together. She is the witch in Brave, and she has traveled all heaven and earth to find Sulley, the greatest memory she has ever had, because in order for Sulley to remain alive for her, she needs to remember him.

And that's it! The source I used for the article is listed here.

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About the Creator

Jonathan Sim

Film critic. Lover of Pixar, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings.

For business inquiries: [email protected]

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