Everybody loves a good sequel, and Pixar has come out with several. Finding Nemo has one, Cars has two, and Toy Story, the one that started it all, has three! We’ve all enjoyed watching our favorite characters continue their journeys, but then, when it came time for Monsters Inc. to get a second movie, we were introduced to a whole new concept in the Pixar movie lineup: a prequel!
Monsters University showed us the lives of the two monsters we know and love before they had their adventure in Monsters Inc. This has us thinking that we want to know the history behind the other Pixar guys and gals. From Riley to Russell, and the circus troupe to the tank gang, we’re sure that there are dozens of stories before the stories that are just waiting to be written. Here are ten of these tales that would answer some questions and make great films.
The Tank Gang
After Nemo gets captured by divers, he finds himself the newest occupant of a fish tank filled with several aquatic swimmers. At one point, several of them explain where they came from - a fish mart, a mail order, and even eBay! Gil is from the ocean just like Nemo, and we would love to see more into the lives of him and the other fish before they lived at the dentist’s office. If their journeys to the tank are as adventurous as Marlin’s to find Nemo, we know we’ll love watching them get there!
How Andy Acquired Woody
We all know about how Andy received the coolest space ranger in the universe, and we saw the events and turmoil that unfolded because of it. Buzz joining Andy’s family of toys certainly rocked their world, but what about Andy’s original favorite toy, good old Sheriff Woody?
How did Andy come to own his cowboy friend? How did other toys feel when he came along? Was he a birthday present like Buzz? There is a rumor, made public by a friend of one of the writer’s, saying that Woody was an old family toy, given to Andy’s father at a young age as the result of a cereal box top contest. Will we ever see this backstory confirmed? We hope so.
Linguini
Linguini was the main human character in Ratatouille, working with the little rat Remy to become a fabulous cooking team. While we think Linguini is a great guy, we know nothing about him, other than the fact that he’s Gusteau’s son, and he can’t cook on his own. Any character named after a type of pasta deserves a background. What was his mom like, and how was his life growing up with no dad around? What are his interests and hobbies? We only have one thing to say about not knowing this information - rats!
Russell’s Adventures as a Wilderness Explorer
In the Pixar film Up, Russell meets Carl because the young boy is hoping to help an elderly person so he can earn a badge for his sash, and thus, their journey together begins. It is clear by the numerous badges visible on his sash that Russell has already earned many patches, and we can assume that he must have many stories to tell regarding how he acquired them. Anyone who was a young scout can remember some of the badges they had to work for, and Russell is no different. If he traveled in a floating house to the middle of nowhere and saved a rare mother bird from a hostile explorer and his pack of talking dogs, and that was all for just one badge, just think of what he did to earn the rest!
How the Bug Circus was Formed
Have you ever had the dream of abandoning your jaded everyday life to go and join the circus? Chances are, that’s what happened to some of the bugs in A Bug’s Life. With so many different types of bugs with such unique personalities and talents, there has got to be wonderfully entertaining histories behind them!
Why is Francis so insecure about his feminine side? How did Rosie become the one to take care of Dim? And just how did Tuck and Roll wind up in an English speaking circus when they don’t seem to understand the language? A prequel would answer these curiosities, Pixar! What we’re really hoping for is a spoof of The Greatest Showman. Can you imagine Manny and Gypsy singing “Rewrite the Stars” or Heimlich singing, “This is Me?” We would blast that soundtrack all day!
Riley’s Parents
Inside Out was a great film that showed us the inner workings of the mind and emotions in the head of a young girl named Riley. While most of the film focuses on her emotions, we do get a brief glimpse of those belonging to her mom and dad. Audiences want to see more! How great would it be to go back and watch Riley’s parents meet and fall in love, all from the point of view of their five feeling wranglers? How do emotions handle love, anyway? If it’s anything like the boy Riley met at the hockey rink, we’re in for one chaotic movie!
The Vegetarian Sharks
If you were to play a word association game using the word “shark,” you probably wouldn’t think to say “vegetarian,” but someone working at Pixar did. When Marlin and Dory are searching the ocean for the answers to Nemo’s disappearance, they become guests at a vegetarian shark support group when they come across three sharks who do not eat fish. They have a pledge, testimonies, and even a steps program (step 5 is “bring a fish friend”). We really want to know the first four steps as well as any that come after, in case any viewers are hoping to stop eating fish, and we are chomping at the bait (oops, we mean bit) to find out exactly how these plant-eating sharks met and came to be vegetarians. Finding Vegetarianism is the prequel you didn’t know you needed.
The Other Robots
The corporation Buy-N-Large evacuated humans into space once Earth becomes nothing but a dump. Left behind to clean up the garbage are many robot trash compactors, and in WALL-E, we get to see the last working robot, a Waste Allocation Load-Lifter (Earth-class).
As we learn from the film, WALL-E has a personality, collecting items he finds interesting and even having an infatuation with another new robot, Eve. But what about the rest of the robots? What were they like before they stopped working? Maybe they all collected items, or maybe they had different hobbies to keep them busy during their off time. Who wouldn’t want to see that?
All About Hank
In Finding Nemo’s sequel Finding Dory, the vibrant blue tang Dory meets a grumpy old septapus named Hank at the Marine Life Institute. He agrees to help her on her journey to find out about her roots in exchange for her ticket to get transferred to an aquarium in Cleveland because he’s afraid of being released back into the ocean. A seven-legged octopus with a fear of the ocean? There’s a backstory waiting to be told! Hank definitely deserves more screen time, and since Finding Dory gave us a good look at Dory’s past, we would love a similar movie for Hank.
The Wood Carving Witch
A friendly witch helps princess Merida by giving her a magic cake made from a potion, and when the witch is not giving out spells, she carves wood into sculptures in a little hut in the woods. There’s got to be so much more to this old lady than what Brave shows us. We demand to know who she is, how she learned magic, and what led her to become a wood carver. Those familiar with the “Pixar theory” believe that she is actually Boo from Monsters Inc who has time traveled through a door and ended up in Merida’s time! We may never know for sure.
