Warning: Minor Spoilers for Cars 3 ahead!
The famous Pixar Theory – the idea that all Pixar movies take place within the same universe – has become and object of fascination for fans of the films. To this point, every movie from Pixar has fit into this theory flawlessly, but Cars 3 could be the first to prove it wrong.
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This theory, created by Jon Negroni, boils down to four main plot points. First, the human race ended up going to war with the animal kingdom. Second, the humans were victorious, but only with the help of machines who ended up taking over the planet. Third, while the humans went off to live in space, machines ruled the world until WALL-E discovered life and brought the humans back. Fourth, life on Earth began mutating, monsters were created, and they wiped people off the planet.
Now, the Cars franchise takes place in the long period of time that humans were gone. All life on Earth is supposedly mechanical. There are cars of every shape, color & size, but nothing else.
Even the animals in the films have been turned into cars. In both Cars and Cars 3, there are scenes depicting tractors as cows. With those scenes in mind, it’s safe to say that all of the animals are either gone, or have been replaced by mechanical versions.
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However, in Cars 3, we’re given the first mention of other, non-mechanical life forms.
During one of the early training scenes, Lightning McQueen is on the beach with Cruz, working on becoming a better racer. As the two speed down the sand, Cruz skids to a halt, and Lightning wonders why.
Cruz reveals that she saw a crab in the sand, and she didn’t want to hit it. The movie goes on to recall that moment multiple times.
So, crabs still exist in Cars, negating the idea that there isn’t life beyond the mechanical.
Since the crab wasn’t explicitly shown on-screen, there is the notion that the creature could have looked like a smaller version of a car. Maybe, but think back to the tractors.
Mater takes Lightning “tractor tipping” in the first movie. Although it’s explicitly clear that these are supposed to resemble cows, they are only referred to as tractors by the characters. Their original, animal names were never spoken.
So, it would stand to reason that, if a cow didn’t exist, than neither would a crab. There may be mechanical substitutes for crabs, but they would be called something different.
With this new evidence, it looks like The Pixar Theory may have a brand new hole that needs patching up.
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If you want to learn more about this theory, or have never had a chance to read it before, you can head to PixarTheory.com.
