The Dark Connection Between Ratatouille and Finding Nemo You Never Knew Existed

Summary:

• Pixar is famous for leaving many references to its other projects in their movies — but some of these references can seem quite cruel.
• There’s one dark connection between Ratatouille and Finding Nemo in one scene of the former.
• Despite its sinister meaning, the reference was literally ignored (or just unnoticed) by most of the audience.

Just like many other cartoon studios, Pixar never gets tired of flirting with its audience — and constantly leaves different references to other projects or even past or future films of the same franchise.

In 2007, the studio released Ratatouille, a cartoon where a rat called Remy embarks on a tough journey on the way to his dream about becoming a chef in a famous restaurant. Since its release Ratatouille has become a huge hit and brought more than $600 million to the company’s piggy bank.

Now the cartoon is going viral again and this time thanks to one quite peculiar reference that the creators added in one of the scenes — but back then it was hardly even noticed. The reference itself obviously brings to mind another successful project of Pixar, Finding Nemo.

Starting from the very beginning: Pixar released Finding Nemo several years before Ratatouille. In it, the initial story is quite sorrowful — Nemo’s parents, Marlin and Coral, sacrifice themselves for saving their eggs that were about to hatch, but were attacked by a bigger fish which didn’t leave a chance to survive to all of them except just one.

And though Marlin stays alive, later he’ll also need to forget about his own life to save his son Nemo's.

Going back to Ratatouille: in the scene where Remy is eating a piece of cheese on a tray in the restaurant pantry there are also some caviar cans behind him. Though it’s not very catchy for most of the viewers, the cans have “Nemo Brand Caviar” written on them, which unambiguously hints at the sad destiny of Nemo’s siblings.

And though it seems like this time Pixar has gone too far, it has gone openly unnoticed. Maybe it was even some kind of test from the part of the company which most of the viewers, obviously, didn’t pass.