Every Hidden Reference to Future Pixar Movies Explained | WIRED

hi everybody my name is Jonas Rivera I'm a producer and the senior vice president of production at Pixar Animation Studios and I'm talking to you today from my home office and I'm here to talk to you today about Pixar's Easter eggs [Music] it's an old tradition at the studio something we're very proud of it's kind of appropriate that I'm talking to you from my home office because my home office is sort of a living Easter egg I suppose so ever since a bug's life Pixar film makers have hidden at least one Easter egg from an upcoming project in our films now some of these are fairly obvious some of them are a little more subtle and there's lots of different reasons why and how we've done that and so we're gonna walk through every single one from the beginning [Music] [Applause] [Music] so a bug's life was our second film came out in 1998 was the follow-up to Toy Story and I loved that film I worked on that film I was the art department coordinator so I was really involved in the minutiae and I'd say this is kind of where the Easter Egg tradition sort of began right we were just very scrappy and putting anything we could in that movie and the specific want to talk about here cuz it's sort of a so not a Toy Story - which I hadn't come out yet was putting woody in one of those funny little outtakes scenes at the end as a nod to Toy Story - oh yes princess hangs about bug's life that's cool is it's also the first place other than Toy Story 1 where you see the Pizza Planet truck and that sort of been this long-running tradition in terms of the Pixar Easter eggs we get a lot of credit for being clever on it but the truth is in that film we were just more scrappy than we were clever we just didn't have a lot of modeling budget to build all these props we needed for this world and so I just remember someone pulling the Pizza Planet truck over from the we called the digital back lot and using it at a shot the kind of thinking no one would notice people noticed and that became part of our tradition so and I think bug's life is sort of the point of origin of this whole conversation it's another one that's near and dear to my heart I was the art department manager on this film and working with Pete docter kind of for the first time and we had so much fun putting stuff in this film and not the film that came out after that was Finding Nemo so what we did is we kind of snuck three little nods to Nemo somewhere a little more subtle more obvious on this one the first one if you remember the Harryhausen's restaurant which of course Harryhausen's itself is a little Easter Egg a nod to one of our favorite animators of all time inside the restaurant there's murals and we use kind of the clownfish motif on one of those murals which was fun there's a scene in the movie where Randall is banished out into the world thrown into some little trailer and on the wall inside that trailer is if we use the clownfish model on the walk like it was caught like a fisherman caught it by the way that's double prizes because that trailer is the trailer from a bug's life we're parked next to the Pizza Planet truck so that's an easter egg within an easter egg but my favorite one was at the end of the movie were where Sullivan comes back into blues room and he's kind of putting her her back saying goodbye and he hands her a bunch of toys one of which is Jessie but the other one was literally Nemo we took the Nemo model that hadn't even been finished by remember correctly I think the model was done but hadn't been articulated and made ready for animation I think that the character people had to build one little control of squeezing because he squeezed him to make a little squeezy toy sound audience is none the wiser because of course they haven't seen Finding Nemo yet but we knew and we thought that was pretty fun and that really was the modern first step of the modern tradition of putting a upcoming films character or Easter egg in a current one maybe only speaks whale [Music] finding Nemo which came out in 2003 this is a fun one because it's two-for-one easter-egg snuck into this film the first is in the dentist office if you look really close there's a family way there's a little Boyd reading a comic book the cover is an Incredibles comic so it's a little nod to to what would be the Incredibles and mr. Incredibles on there so it's sort of a 2d graphic done in the art department which we thought was really cool mr. incredible was added in it was pretty early I think we were still working on the Incredibles and the design was probably still being finessed but mr. incredible and probably the whole family wasn't quite ready for prime time but I think the graphics and the drawings were so that's why they're kind of a comic book version in Finding Nemo because I don't think we usually especially in those days we didn't have time to go in and tweak and make a lot of additions for these things they're just kind of fun ways to make a nod to the next film here's another bonus one I'm gonna give you that's not a nod but while I'm here in that dentist office I remember they wanted you know in dentist office how you have kind of funny fake plants they needed to put some plant set dressing in the dentist office and they took some of the palm trees from monsters ink that we used in the world like the weird monster ease scaled them way down and put them in little pots so the plants in the dentist office were actually monster trees from monsters in but I'm off to topic let's get back to future Easter Egg just like old time Incredibles 2004 Pixar film if you blink you might miss read the fire truck from the future film cars actually shows a brief cameo in The Incredibles read I think sort of fit Brad's vision of the Incredibles which is in this kind of 1950s blurry era very romantic designed world so that's why he's that thanks this one was a lot of fun I was working on the film up at the time and they needed a dog in one of the montage scenes so the idea was they wanted to sneak Doug from up what I love about this one is they did it in a really clever way because unfortunately we weren't finished with Doug at the time his shading and his fern groom and so forth weren't done so they took Doug and they just used the model and they lit it to create the shadow of that quickly barking as the character runs through so it's kind of because of that clever approach is really one of my favorite one so look close you'll see the shadow of Doug and ratatouille also in the apartment if you look close we snuck in how a little cockroach from from wall I just kind of run him by really quickly we figured poor Linguini's apartment Mike might be the right place for how to make an appearance so it's a little nod to who you'd meet later in wall-e wall-e is literally a treasure trove of Easter eggs I mean if you look at Wally's trailer it's full of stuff it's a little like the Toy Story for antique mall that we did years later but one of the favorite ones of mine in wall-e again cuz I was working on up at the time was they took Carl Fredrickson's you know his cane with the tennis ball things on the floor they took his cane and they set dressed it around there and you can kind of see it in there twice once when wall-e takes the magnifier puts it from the iPod while he's watching the film if you look just above that you'll see Carl's Walker and again eye falls off the ceiling of his truck after it's not there by later in the film he wali actually collides with it there so that Walker is important to us and important to Karl apparently it's important to Wally [Music] UPS very near and dear to my heart I've produced this first film I produce so I'm very very proud of that that film are fun Easter egg in that film my favourite scene it's when Karl lifts up and all the balloons fly his house he goes away he's kind of crashing things and going through town we cut to a little girl in her room who's playing with toys as the house goes by her window and if you look closely kind of near her bed almost under her bed you'll see a sweet little cute pink teddy bear turns out that's lots of huggin bear who we'd meet later in Toy Story 3 the audience doesn't know yet that he's actually a pretty bad guy but in that one shot in that sweet little girl's room he's just a cute little little Easter egg that we snuck in I actually got in trouble on this one because I was there it came up in some conversation some interview not unlike this talking about you know when we were getting ready to launch up people are asking you know what kind of things have you have you snuck in you know even back then they were asking and I said oh you look close in the little girl's room you'll see in the little teddy bear it turns out that's the villain in Toy Story 3 on camera like 6 months maybe even a year before Toy Story 3 came I revealed and spoiled that lots lots so was the villain lianca which wasn't happy with me but anyway we didn't hurt the movie I guess but I felt bad normal ass [Music] in 2010 we released Toy Story 3 and in Andy's room he's got a lot of stuff in there he's a teenage born now so there's posters and tchotchkes and things like that if you look really close you'll see one of his poster is thin McMissile who you'll meet later in cars - also this is a really interesting one this is a deep cut because also in Andy's room there's a little Street Sciences new crossing that sign is a reference to a film we were working on at the time a film we decided to actually not put into production for various reasons but that little sign is a nod to a film that was never even made so that's a real deep cut Easter egg and you know that happens we we developed these films and there's so many ideas that never kind of kind of make it through the creative process of new-new it was one of them we all really loved it and so we're kind of happy that it lives on a little bit in Andy's room there's anywhere from three to six films and various stage of development that Pixar at any given time and you know half of them you know come through and you know half of whom evolved into other ideas part of the creative process actually something we're really proud of you know it's it's not a one-to-one process we've kind of pride ourselves and working on these stories and concepts until we fill their movie worthy and if for whatever reason they don't kind of make it to that level you know we move on and get on to the next thing so it's just part of our creative chair the insult we were missing ROTC cars too came out in 2011 and we were working on that film we were also working on brave which would come out in 2012 so this was challenged because how do you take something from the Highlands of Scotland and put it in the world of cars but we did it if you look close in ye left turn in in London during the race there's the dunbroch family tapestry that you'll see later in brave only it's a clarified version you know because everything in world of cars even the clouds are somehow clarified so this tapestry was no different which is kind of cool little nod to brave brain was tricky because obviously such a specific era and location but yet we worked hard so with monsters University of mind we had this scene in the witch's Hut with all the wood carving so if you look closely you'll see Sullivan and even though Sullivan from monsters appeared in the original monsters this was our nod to monsters University and also special points you look close you'll see a wood Pizza Planet truck kind of hidden away so we had to keep the traditional alive and brave was a special channels 2013 monsters University we had these scare games that was kind of our opportunity to hide something in there and this in fact was the good dinosaur good dinosaur gets two of these do you look closely we got toy versions of some of the dinosaurs hidden in the scare games scene which is kind of fun they sort of seem to fit the world and again we had to keep that tradition alive this is an interesting one because this is two years before good dinosaur comes out you'll see these little toys character show up as toys in monsters University which is a little bit of a reminder at how glacial are processes in animation I mean it takes about anywhere from four to six years to make one of these films so we usually have a long runway which gives us the ability to kind of put things in previous films as a matter of fact on good dinosaur it covers two films because if I jumped ahead to inside out another film near and dear to my heart that's the second film I produced we had this idea of this scene and inside out where Riley and her family were driving from Minnesota to San Francisco and they needed a couple of places to stop along the way we thought about that you know that kind of classic roadside weird California dinosaur out in the desert and we thought oh my gosh that's perfect so we took we took a couple of dinosaur characters they weren't entirely shaded but that was fun because we reshape them as like these kind of crummy looking concrete things that you'd see in a roadside and that's where mom and dad and Riley Park and effect poured dad lets the brake off and it goes right through you know that the tail goes through the window so the good dinosaur got to be Easter eggs in two films the good dinosaur came out in 2015 we were working on finding dory so we had to find a way to keep the tradition alive with finding Dory so if you look close the bottom of water in the good dinosaur when Arlo is learning to swim you'll look down there you'll see Hank Hank the octopus from finding dory Hank is a really complex character we love him so much so he got to be our little nod to finding dory the year later so Hank is an example of kind of what all these are it's a little bit of using an existing model or existing character but more than that sort of a fun look at what might be ahead for the audience 2016 we released finding Dory follow-up to Finding Nemo this one's really fun because it's maybe the one of the more saw ones the driver of the truck that's heading for Cleveland at dinner film driver has a band-aid and on that band-aid and you got to look close it's like a kid's band-aid an image of Lightning McQueen it's how it is in my house every time I need a band-aid it's got some character picks our character on it so this driver is the same so the Lightning McQueen bandaid on his hand is arnaud two cars three that was coming up the following year it's fun because I think I don't know if it's a mix of it gets harder and harder to sneak these in or if it was just we try to make it harder I don't know everyone's gonna probably give you a different answer on that but nonetheless it's it's a really fun one because it's so subtle [Music] incarcerate is to to really cool ones one is Cruz Ramirez who I've loved you know puts up an image on her display to motivate kind of the homesick trainee and that image is the Santa Cecilia you know gravesite that you'd see later in cocoa to remind them of home we just love that set in cocoa and it would seem like that'd be a place that you yearn for so it was a kind of a two-for-one and really work for the story but it was also kept our tradition alive by showing a little nod to cocoa there's also the guitar we stuffed the guitar in which maybe begs the questions of how cars might even play a guitar but nonetheless you know there in the little bar there at the cotter pin and there's a band plan so if you look on the wall you'll see Miguel and the famous silver guitar from cocoa so it's kind of two dots to the next year's film cocoa in cars three [Music] in 2017 we released Koko a film were tremendously proud of this was really fun because this one has a couple in it there's a scene when Miguel and Hector are on their way to the land of the dead for the first time in this city and all the sets in Coco are so lush they're so detailed this is a lot of room to kind of put stuff in and set dress and if you look really closely there's an Incredibles poster on one of the walls which is clearly a nod to the Incredibles - that was in production but also in production during cocoa is Toy Story 4 so if you look closely towards the beginning I think what Miguel is kind of running into the plaza for the first time after he says hi to Dante there's a rack of pinatas up on one of the little storefronts there's a buzz and woody pinata up there those pinatas are a good example of how you can't just throw something from one film into another you have to honor the era you have to honor the art direction the tone the setting of the film and so making pinatas out of buzz and woody was sort of the perfect example of how that could work [Music] 2018 we released Incredibles 2 and at that time we were working on Toy Story 4 so we wanted to make sure there was a couple little nods from Toy Story 4 one of them is seen with the Elastigirl kind of swing him through the city there's a billboard that showcases Woody's hat we had to honor sheriff woody sort of the epitome of Toy Story so that was our way to do that actually I think one of the coolest ones was a new character is the scene with Jack Jack he's in his crib in his room there and we took Duke kaboom the model of Duke kaboom that no one had met yet because no one had seen Toy Story 4 and he's ends up being a little toy in Jack Jack's crib it's a little quick shot but we were really happy to see Duke in there because we love Duke so much I think Duke also sort of fit the world an era of The Incredibles because in our minds Duke is sort of a late 60s early 70s kind of toy that we might have had and so I think Brad felt he was he was a good fit for a little Jack Jack so you think you meet him in Toy Story 4 but he actually shows up in Incredibles 2 first let's talk about the theory that comes up when we often talk about this and I think the Duke kaboom Easter egg and Incredibles helped amplify this if people ask us is the fact that Jack Jack do kaboom toy proof that all the Pixar films take place in one universe you know comes up enough I once asked Andrew Stanton what's your take Andrew with the all the films take place in one universe he said are you kidding you think we're that smart there's no way - there's no way that we would be that clever - do it let the fans think it and and and kind of draw their own conclusions and so that's kind of our take it's really just us being scrappy and having a little bit of fun but we kind of like that it's growing into it's its own thing you know for key 2019 we released Toy Story 4 I'm very proud of that films it's the third film I got to produce and work with an amazing crew it was really fun on that picture because you have these amazing sets that were just right for Easter eggs you have the antique mall which has everything in it something from every single Pixar film even the shorts and then you had the carnival and that's where we decided we should have our forward-facing Easter eggs so one of the things we did because gala Hall are working on onward we loved honored so much that we loved that dan you know Barley's fan with that amazing Pegasus painting we asked if we could take that painting and we transposed it onto the bounce house that's part of the carnival you know where the toys are in the third act there so if you look close you'll see Barley's van painting on a downtown square for whatever reason we thought it should be once we put these Easter eggs in we have to deal with the fact that our films continue to change and get cut and added things and so forth and so yeah once they're in it doesn't mean they're locked in we still have to roll with the creative punches on these things and but we always have made sure that they show up one one way or another and of course it started in Toy Story 1 you know the Pizza Planet truck and so we obviously had to put it in Toy Story 4 but we didn't want to be so obvious because it just felt like it's somehow found its way into every film so we had to really rethink it so he came up with us I think it was Josh Cooley I don't remember who came up with this idea but the Toy Story 4 version of the Pizza Planet truck is actually seen on a really ugly calf tattoo on the carnival worker that is you know Manning the carnival booth where duckie and bunny are from and it's really quick but for some reason that carnival worker has a tattoo of the Pizza Planet truck on his leg we were really proud of ourselves with that one for some reason the character's name was Axl after our editor Axl geddens is voiced by Bill Hader which is funny because he barely even has a line we basically hired Bill Hader who we love and is a friend of ours from inside out to say what's the line the lines like you know something he says nothing but it's Bill Hader back to life that's not possible it is with this while we were making on word of course the film that didn't production down the hall is soul that hasn't even been released yet but we had to make sure that we had a little bit of soul in our own words so in the family kitchen if you look closer the cult kind of comes in and you know knocks everything down it sits down there there's some records on the table that I feel a close that's Dorothea Williams record and everybody knows Dorothea Williams is the famous jazz singer that everyone loves in the movie soul so it's a forward nod to the world of soul I think the truth about all of these Easter eggs that point forward is they're really just a little fun wing of the audience something that they don't even know they're seeing but what we hope with all of our films is that people watch them multiple times over over over time and people grow up with them and families enjoy them and so what's fun is that helps them age well in a way is that you'll go see Seoul and you'll see Dorothea Williams you might want your rewatching on where our hope is you oh my gosh look at that little that it deepens the experience in some way it's not necessarily anything that we put a ton of storytelling around it's not like we're leaving clues to what the narrative is going to be it's more just a fun wrapper for the audience and something fun for our crews to put into these these pictures there are more future facing Easter eggs we're pretty sure if you look find them [Music] that was about every future forward-facing Easter egg and a Pixar movie that I could think that's a lot of them I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you stayed tuned because we got a lot of new movies coming out with a lot of new forward-facing Easter eggs and they're gonna be fun to keep looking I promise you we'll keep the tradition alive so thank you so much for for watching and enjoy

Channel: WIRED

Views: 903,365

Rating: 4.9504094 out of 5

Keywords: pixar, easter egg, easter egg pixar, pixar reference, pixar hidden reference, pixar movies, pixar easter eggs, pixar easter egg, easter egg pixar wired, wired pixar, wired each and every, each and every, each and every pixar, pixar teaser, pixar tease, hidden woody, each and every easter egg, each and every pixar movie, pixar movie, pizza planet truck, finding nemo, toy story, toy story 2, teaser, pixar secret, hidden secret, pixar secrets, pixar movie easter egg, wired

Id: ilYRGccT8CQ

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Tue May 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/naynaythewonderhorse]

He missed a few:

1. Luigi from Cars appears in Finding Nemo at the very end driving past the tank gang when they are in the bags. Presumably, Luigi was one of the first characters in the movie that they designed, as he appears in the teaser trailer, amongst some other footage that appears to be test footage with seemingly early versions of Lightning McQueen.

2. Doc from Cars appears in the Incredibles right around when Mr. Incredible grabs the Omnidroid’s arm.

3. While it’s not technically a feature film, “Your Friend the Rat” (the short that was on the Ratatouille home release) has Wall-E driving vehicle towards the end.

[u/Mattllly]

This is great. When they showed how they put the pizza planet truck next to the trailer AND THEN showed how they also reused the trailer later on I went whoa.

[u/frozenvanillacoke]

Another fun bit of trivia is the driver he's referring to in Finding Dory is voiced by the guy who was the original voice of Nemo (who was too old to reprise his role).

[u/nmpraveen]

Cant wait for these screenshots to be posted in /r/MovieDetails

[u/fleurdesaucisson]

That was so interesting!

[u/ItsTophThatsWho]

I literally just talked about this thumbnails reference to a friend

[u/moviesremastered]

There's loads of little treasures like this in early pixar movies. 💜

[u/sugarmagnolia3426]

Best Saturday morning vid ❤️😁 Thanks!!

[u/mikepictor]

This reminded me that I haven't actually seen some of them (Cars 2 and 3 and Monsters U)