Why 'Onward' Could Mean the End of the Pixar Theory!

For the past several months, I've definitely moved away from film theories and focused more on film reviews. It's been nearly a year since I've written about a Pixar theory, but I think it's time to dip my toe back into that pool and talk about something.

The newest teaser trailer has come out for Pixar's upcoming original film, Onward.

And I had several takeaways from this trailer; firstly, it's got Chris Pratt and Tom Holland in it, so I'm already excited for this cast. Secondly, this movie does not feel at all like a Pixar-esque film.

If you had shown me the trailer for this film without letting me know it was a Pixar film, I would have thought this was a Dreamworks movie or an Illumination movie. This film seems to be taking a very different approach to what we usually see in a Pixar film.

And my final realization from watching the Onward teaser is that this movie looks like it may signal the end of the famous Pixar Theory.

If you've never heard of the Pixar Theory, you can click here for all of the evidence that supports it, but it essentially states that all of the Pixar films take place in the same world on one ginormous timeline beginning with The Good Dinosaur and ending with Monsters, Inc.

Out of all the fan theories that people have come up with over the years, the Pixar Theory is my favorite of all of them. It's incredibly complex and creative, and I really love the amount of work that went into its creation.

This theory started with Jon Negroni's blog post in 2013, and it has taken a life of its own, with people adding to the theory every time a new Pixar film was released in theaters. And I can say that we've done a pretty good job of adding Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, and Coco into the theory.

But the new teaser for Onward has given us quite a bit of information, and it shows how this film has the potential to create problems with the Pixar Theory. Because this movie doesn't seem like it fits in with ANY of the other Pixar films.

So it's time to dive face-first into the Onward trailer and truly examine if this film could fit into the PCU (Pixar Cinematic Universe), or if the Pixar Theory is truly dead once and for all.

The first thing we see is a unicorn... and unicorns don't exist anymore! There you go. Pixar Theory is dead. Article's over. Go home.

Just kidding. As an avid lover of this theory, it's gonna take a lot more than that to convince me that the Pixar Theory is dead. We're gonna need a little more information first.

Okay, so there was the unicorn problem, and now, we have two moons. This seems to imply that this takes place on a different, imaginary planet, and therefore, Pixar Theory is dead, right?

Not yet. In the past, scientists have theorized that Earth may have once had two moons, and this other moon would have been smaller than our current moon, like we see in the picture above, so this would put Onward around the time of The Good Dinosaur or in the years before or after.

Title cards reveal that the world used to be magical, but now, the world is different. We see the citizens of New Mushroomton, a town of various fantasy creatures, living the way humans do.

And you remember how I said this film probably takes place millions of years ago back when there were two moons? Yeah, that's not happening.

Here, we see one of our main characters, Ian Lightfoot, wearing headphones and looking at his phone, which are all recent technologies, meaning this film couldn't have taken place millions of years ago.

Given that they have these technologies, this movie must take place in the 2000s or onward (ha ha, see what I did there?). Now, what else does this trailer give us?

What?! That's it?! Was this teaser made to ACTIVELY TRY to ruin the Pixar Theory?!

Alright, we need to work with what we've got. So, in the trailer, we see title cards that tell us the world used to be magical. And this can easily be explained, because if Brave exists in the timeline, then that can be a time where the world was once "magical."

As for the unicorn thing, keep in mind that this film doesn't take place in OUR universe. It takes place in the Pixar universe, a universe that has talking dinosaurs, cars, toys, and bugs.

Therefore, the reason why we saw unicorns that existed in the past could be because they formed as a species sometime after the dinosaurs from The Good Dinosaur died out.

However, following the humans' return from the Axiom in Wall-E, they decided to do some genetic engineering and bring back the unicorn.

Now, how do we have an entire civilization of elves and trolls and gnomes? Where does that fit into the Pixar timeline? Well, we were able to decide that Monsters, Inc., a movie with a civilization of monsters, exists in our world. They're just humans who evolved.

Therefore, we can assume that these monsters eventually evolved into the characters we see in Onward, and Onward could take place incredibly far down the timeline.

And at this point, I've been able to smush and squeeze this film into the Pixar universe, but there's one problem that we still have.

Although I've explained the past existence of unicorns, the current existence of unicorns, the reason for the technology, and a place for Onward to land on the timeline, there is a giant hole that stops all of this from being the case. Two giant holes. Spheres, actually.

Two moons. Earth may have had two moons in the past, but if Onward were to take place far down the timeline, there is no explanation for why the Earth has two moons instead of one.

I actually Googled "can moons multiply?" to see if there was any possibility that the Earth's moon just cloned itself, but I couldn't find anything. And that is why Onward could mean the end of the Pixar Theory.

I know. It's sad, but if you want some hope, we won't know for sure until the movie comes out.

But until next time, that is it for now. Thank you so much for reading this little article.