Super Carlin Brothers' Jay Defends the Pixar Theory Against Cars, Luca and Monsters Inc Plot Holes

If you have ever spent any time in the Pixar corner of YouTube, you already know the Pixar Theory, the idea that every single Pixar movie exists within the same universe on the same timeline. There have been several proposals for how the movies fit together, but the one most people know is the version built by the Super Carlin Brothers over the last 11 years, updated every time a new movie comes out. I sat down with Jay, one half of that channel, to poke some holes in it.

Jay was upfront that this is meant to be fun rather than gospel. "How it fits together is really just a fun thing to think about for me, it's more of like a game at this point," he told me, adding that the Easter eggs across movies, like Riley showing up in Finding Dory or Buzz Lightyear existing as a toy in Finding Nemo, mean "some amount of consistency has to exist." Figuring out the bigger story is the challenge.

Jay Says Cars' Realistic Statues Are Just a Different Pixar Art Style Like Wall-E's Humans

I went straight at the biggest problem first. The theory says Wall-E takes place 100 years after movies like Ratatouille and Finding Nemo, yet Wall-E shows the previous ship captains, and the old Hello Dolly footage, using photorealistic humans instead of the stylized Pixar look. If that realistic look did not exist in Ratatouille, how could it appear a century earlier in the Captain's era?

Jay's answer is that it is an art style choice rather than a timeline problem. "The way I interpret this is it's more of like an artistic style they were going for, in the same way that turning red has a different art style than Toy Story or Luca has a different art style than Ratatouille," he said. In his reading, if Andy from Toy Story were watching Hello Dolly, it would probably just look like the regular Pixar animated people to him.

The Good Dinosaur's Missed Asteroid Kicks Off the Whole Theory

I asked Jay to confirm the setup: is this all supposed to be our Earth on an alternate timeline? He confirmed it starts with The Good Dinosaur, where the asteroid that was supposed to wipe out the dinosaurs misses entirely. That single miss is the catalyst for every change that follows in the theory.

Jay Explains How Cars Could Run on Fuel and Survive an Existential Crisis During Wall-E's 700 Years

According to the theory, Cars is not set 700 years after humans leave Earth on the Axiom, it happens during those 700 years, with cars coming to life using human energy and waking up in the order they were cared for, taking on their owners' personalities. Jay corrected my summary on the timing, but I still had two issues. First, fuel does not last that long, diesel starts to go bad after about a year. Second, would not the first car to wake up have some kind of existential crisis seeing every other car lying inanimate around it?

On fuel, Jay pointed to the end of Wall-E, where the Axiom travels back to Earth from deep space in what looks like seconds, arguing that means the technology and fuel available when humans left was more advanced than what we have now. On the existential crisis question, he did not rule it out. "Very possible, very possible, they woke up and were like what is going on," he said, admitting the movies never actually show us what happened when the first car woke up, only that the cars eventually formed a functioning society.

Why Radiator Springs' Statue of Stanley Might Not Even Be a Car

I raised the statue in Radiator Springs commemorating Mr Stanley founding the town in 1909, wondering if it was already there before the cars woke up, just not depicting a car version of him. Jay found that an interesting angle, suggesting the cars might experience the whole world through what he called a "carified lens," pointing to Cars 2's version of Gusteau from Ratatouille as an example. He floated two possibilities: either a car named Stanley really did wake up and found Radiator Springs, or the statue was originally human and the cars simply perceive it as a car. He was honest that we cannot know for sure since the movies never show Stanley when he was alive.

Jay Addresses the Bugs, Cows, Birds and Crabs That Should Not Have Survived in Cars

I also brought up the car bugs and car cows, plus a couple of frames early in Cars showing non-car birds on a telephone wire, when every animal on Earth should theoretically be extinct by this point. Jay suggested the car cows are actually tractors taking on cow personalities, and that the brief non-carified birds are a nod to the Pixar short For the Birds, which he does not fully count as ruling out real birds existing there. He also pointed to Cruz stopping for a small crab on the beach in Cars 3, noting that Finding Dory shows crabs surviving amid heavy pollution alongside a giant bioluminescent squid, and that Hal the cockroach appearing at the end of Cars into Wall-E fits since surviving anything is "sort of like cockroach's whole deal."

I'm Hoping Elio Finally Explains How Cars Fits the Timeline

Neither of us expects a consensus on Cars anytime soon. Jay said he is hopeful that Elio, releasing in 2025 with a heavy sci-fi and technology focus, might give a better explanation for where Cars sits on the timeline, though he stressed "we'll just see."

Jay Explains Why Luca's Sea Monsters and Humans Interbred to Create Monsters Inc's Monsters

Moving to Luca and Monsters Inc, the theory holds that sea monsters and humans eventually procreate, producing the monster population, while humans as a group die out. I joked that this implies humans found sea monsters more appealing than each other. Jay explained that when humans leave Earth on the Axiom, sea monsters stay behind and hide beneath the ocean. When humans return 700 years later, the Axiom's population represents the entire human race at that point, meaning genetic diversity is limited since the same families have lived on one ship for generations. Once Earth is habitable again, sea monsters emerge and simply look like people, as seen in Luca. Jay's take is that it is not that humans reject other humans, it is that these new people are more plentiful and mix in naturally, with the resulting offspring becoming the monsters over time.

The Bootstrap Paradox of Sea Monsters Creating Monsters That Banish Sea Monsters

I pushed further: the theory also says the monsters originate from sea monsters banished from Monstropolis back to Luca's time period. But if monsters evolved from sea monsters, how can monsters also be the ones sending sea monsters back in the first place? Jay called it "a little bit of a bootstrap paradox situation" and reached for Brave's own themes of destiny and fate being woven together like a tapestry. His resolution, borrowing a time travel logic he compared to Prisoner of Azkaban, is that "if it ever happened, it always happened," meaning the monsters always send the sea monsters back, without needing a clean origin point.

Jay Says the Brave Witch Is Boo, Keeping Sully's Memory Alive Like in Coco

That led us to Brave, where the theory identifies the witch as an aged Boo from Monsters Inc, traveling back in time to make sure young Boo always meets Sully so his memory is never lost. Jay confirmed that summary, connecting it to Coco's idea that the dead persist in an afterlife only as long as someone remembers them, and that losing every memory triggers what Coco calls the second death. Boo, in this reading, is trying to prevent Sully from ever experiencing that.

Why Boo's Time Travel Door Works Differently Than Monsters Inc's Doors

I asked why Sully's door, rebuilt at the end of Monsters Inc, would not let him keep visiting Boo if time moves at the same rate in both worlds, and why Boo's witch door can reach any point in time when the monsters' doors are limited. Jay said Sully realistically could keep visiting, we just are not shown whether he does, so it is left to interpretation until future movies say otherwise. As for the doors themselves, his explanation is that Boo is a fully trained magic user who can manipulate the door precisely, while the monsters only invented door technology, making theirs less refined, essentially magic versus science.

I noted that even if Boo already met Sully once, and time traveling again would not stop her from eventually aging and dying regardless, it might be more effective to simply teach a new child about Sully instead of repeating the same loop. Jay agreed there might have been better options, but said it is not his place to explain Boo's reasoning: "all I can do is connect the dots based on what she did decide to do, even if there were clearly better options at her disposal."

Jay Reveals Where Boo's Magic Comes From: Pure Genetic Luck

As for where Boo's magic even comes from, Jay pointed to Onward, which shows a world where people used to have magic before shifting toward technology. In his view, Boo simply won a kind of genetic lottery, comparing it to Onward's Ian being able to do magic while his brother Barley cannot.

My Hope for Elio: An Onward Cameo in the Communiverse

Looking ahead to Elio in 2025, about a boy abducted by aliens who mistake him for Earth's leader and bring him into a group called the Communiverse, Jay said it would be validating if any character from Onward showed up there too, even just in the background, since Onward's world clearly interacts with other planets. I added that I would love to see Lightning McQueen on that ship, joking it would finally explain how the cars got there.

Do you think Cars can ever be properly explained within the Pixar Theory, or is it the one movie that breaks the whole timeline?