PixarIf you thought the Toy Story franchise couldn't tug at your heartstrings anymore (they held hands in the furnace!), then welcome to reality.
You know Disney has a thing about parents. They either kill them or give them storylines that somehow keep them out of their kid's life. So of course one of the few Disney movies where a parent is a fairly big character might have a depressing backstory tacked onto it.
This theory was originally brought to the world by Jon Negroni, the man behind the crazy-as-hell-but-still-totally-plausible idea that all Pixar movies are connected. If you have some time, definitely read about that bombshell. But anyway, back to this heartbreaking theory that might change the way you look at Andy's mom forever.
It all starts with a hat. Andy's red hat, actually. We know he's had that hat from the very beginning, and he wears it while playing around with Woody. Does it look familiar?
That's because Jessie, first introduced in Toy Story 2, has the same exact hat. And so did Jessie's original owner. And we all know the terrible story about how Jessie's owner Emily gave her away when she got older. We're tearing up just thinking about it. Damn you, Sarah McLachlan!
If you remember that sequence, most of the scenery looks old-fashioned, and since Jessie was made in the 1950s, it makes sense that Emily grew up in the '50s and '60s, as shown by the decorations in her room as she got older:
That would mean Emily in present-day Toy Story is old enough to be a mom. Maybe Andy's mom? We never found out Andy's mom's first name, and since that red hat that Emily always wore while playing with Jesse quite possibly now belongs to Andy...
Andy's mom could be Emily. And by a crazy twist of fate, Jessie ended up with the son of her former owner. Full circle! But take our advice and try not to picture Andy's mom stumbling across Jessie one day while cleaning Andy's room because just imagining that scene makes us choke up.
Recently, Pixar writer Pete Docter kind of debunked this theory by claiming Toy Story director and Pixar Chief Creative Office John Lassiter had his own backstory about Andy's mom that's "a little different" from this one.
But if you guys just ignore Docter like we did, then we can all believe the Andy's mom is Emily story! Deal? Deal.
Maybe we'll get an answer in Toy Story 4, which is set to release in the summer of 2018. Until then, we choose to accept this theory as truth.