Pixar Parrallels

The Pixar filmmakers tend to interweave similar themes into their movies and/or characters. This thread is all about naming the parrallels between certain characters or movies. I’m not talking about in-jokes like “Boo has a Jessie doll in her room”; these should be themes or personality-type things. And please don’t post obvious things like “Both Jessie and Linguini have red hair” or " Edna Mode and Roz both wear glasses".

What about the parallels between toy story 2 and monsters inc climax, they are similar, except that in monsters inc they use doors and in Toy story 2 they use bags

Stinky Pete, Waternoose, Muntz, and Lotso all follow the same “appears nice but is actually evil” idea.

I thought Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo had similar plots.

In Toy Story 2, Woody gets kidnapped by Al and Buzz and the gang have to save him. Woody is taken to an apartment full of collectibles and meets new friends. Woody is saved but Jessie is still on the plane. Woody saves her then they all go home.

In Finding Nemo, Nemo is kidnapped by a dentist and his dad Marlin and Dory have to save him. Nemo is taken to a dentist’s office where he meets new friends. Nemo is saved but Dory is captured in a net. Marlin and Nemo save her then they all go home.

Off the top of my head… I’ve said before that I think Pete Docter’s films, MI and Up, have the common thread of an adult (Sulley/Carl) being unexpectedly saddled with a kid (Boo/Russell) he doesn’t really know how to deal with, but ends up growing attached to. I would add to that: In MI, the scene where Sulley really starts to soften up toward Boo is when she falls asleep in his bed, and the scene where Carl really starts to soften up toward Russell is the “cross your heart?” bit where he falls asleep at the campsite. Also, there’s the “you name it/you get attached to it” bit: Sulley calls the kid “Boo” (“That’s what I decided to call her”), Russell calls the bird “Kevin” (“That’s his name I just gave him”). And, as Bryko pointed out, Waternoose and Muntz both seem like “nice guys” at first - not just that, but “nice guys” our heroes, Sulley and Carl, look up to, and even regard as role models. (Stinky Pete and Lotso, as mentioned, also have the “he’s good/he’s bad” twist, but don’t have the same “prior relationships” with the heroes.)

I think the bigger disapointment would be the Sulley/Waternoose betrayal, if only because the two actually knew each other. Muntz and Carl never met before we first saw Muntz in the film, so Muntz could make whatever decisions he wanted and it would be out of Carl’s control. But because Sulley and Waternoose had worked together for (presumably) a number of years, Sulley could do a lot more about his betrayal than Carl could.

And as far as Stinky Pete goes, it could be argued that his past relationship with Woody was cemented when they actually acted together on “Woody’s Roundup”.

I think that there are parrallels in A Bug’s Life and Ratatouille, in that the protaganist is an outcast who has a paticular talent, in a society who likes to have everything the same. They both seek the help of outside sources, which both lead them to a downfall of sorts, but in the end, all parties come together and the protaganist is allowed to be individual :slight_smile:
Also, Andrew Stanton being a Christian, Finding Nemo and WALL-E parrallel eachother as they both have religious undertones, obviously dependant on how you look at things. In FN, Dory is the angel fish, leading Marlin to be a better parent to his son. In WALL-E, well, theres so many theres no point pointing them out.
Finally, quite a few of the films have symbolistic items: the house in UP, the rock in A Bug’s Life, the plant in WALL-E.

Props to you definedancing! You have a fantastic list of Pixar Parallels, thank you for pointing them out! I am defintely not that observant!