It's no secret that Pixar loves its Easter eggs. The studio is an expert at planting connections — like Boo in Monsters, Inc. having her own Jessie doll — for the audience to find, but nothing will prepare you for the Toy Story 3 and Up crossover Buzzfeed found. In fact, this amazing Pixar Easter egg that everyone missed could be a game-changer for how you view the movies in the future.
Everyone remembers enduring the trauma of watching Andy go off to college and give away his toys in Toy Story 3. It is easily one of the Top 10 most traumatic moments in Pixar movie history, and given the sheer amount of tears the studio's films have caused over the years, that is saying a lot. The only other movie that comes close to the pain factor is Up, and its stunning opening scene chronicling the romance of Carl and Ellie. Spoiler alert for the one person who hasn't seen Up: at the end of the opener, Ellie dies of old age, leaving Carl all alone.
Now, if you watched Up, you will no doubt remember that Carl and Ellie couldn't have kids, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a kid in their life. That kid? Andy. If you zoom in on the photo below and look closely at the postcard to the left of the trophy on Andy's bulletin board, you will see it has Carl and Ellie's address on it. Yes, my mind is blown too, and no, I don't know why it took the internet so long to discover this beautiful, heartbreaking Easter egg.
Just take a moment and breathe, because this is about to get super emotional. Remember, Up came out in 2009, and Toy Story 3 was released in 2010. That means Andy is not only preparing for the major milestone of going to college, he may have just lost Ellie, as well. Basically, having Carl and Ellie in his life makes Andy's coming of age arc all the more poignant.
The message on the postcard is covered up, so there's no way of knowing how Carl and Ellie were connected to Andy, but they could have been his uncle and aunt, friends of the family, or even his pen pals. (Ellie was definitely a pen pal kind of person.) Their presence in Andy's life could even answer the age-old question of how Andy came into possession of a Woody doll in the first place. Toy Story 2 revealed Woody was most likely made in the 1950s, when the popular show Woody's Roundup was on TV. What if Woody is a hand-me-down gift from Carl or Ellie to Andy or even to Andy's dad? Let the crying commence.
No matter how Carl and Ellie knew Andy, this Easter egg is further proof that all Pixar movies exist in the same universe designed to emotionally ruin fans of all ages forever.
