Summary

Ratatouille includes a dark Finding Nemo Easter egg in a pantry scene with a reference to Nemo Brand Caviar.
Despite its family-friendly nature, Ratatouille hides dark Easter eggs such as violent scenes and a cynical critic nicknamed "The Grim Eater."
Pixar movies often tackle dark topics, and Ratatouille takes it further with hidden sinister references that may have slipped past viewers.

Pixar movies are full of Easter eggs and references to past and future movies, but Ratatouille went a bit too far with a dark Easter egg that connects to one of Pixar’s biggest box-office hits. Pixar is now a powerhouse in the world of animation, and it all began in 1995 with Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film. Since then, Pixar has brought a variety of stories exploring different cultures, settings, and worlds, and not all of them have been human. Falling into that category is Ratatouille, set in a world where rats have the same aspirations as any human.

Directed by Brad Bird, Ratatouille took the audience to Paris to meet a young rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), who dreams of becoming a chef at Auguste Gusteau’s restaurant. For that, he allies with the restaurant’s garbage boy, Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), through whom he cooks unbelievable dishes. As it’s tradition at Pixar, Ratatouille has various Easter eggs that connect to other Pixar movies, but one, in particular, is a pretty sinister callback to the studio’s 2003 box office hit.

Woody from Toy Story, Riley from Inside Out, and Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles

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Ratatouille Has A Subtle But Dark Finding Nemo Easter Egg

Although Finding Nemo and Ratatouille are set in two very different environments, Pixar found a way to include the former in the latter but went a bit too far.

Four years before the world met Remy and his desire to cook delicious meals, Pixar took viewers to the depths of the ocean to meet clownfish father and son duo Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Alexander Gould) in Finding Nemo. At the beginning of Finding Nemo, Marlin and his wife, Coral, are living happily in an anemone waiting for their many eggs to hatch. Unfortunately, they are attacked by a hungry barracuda which knocks Marlin out, while Coral sacrifices herself in an attempt to save their eggs, but only one survives.

Six years later, Nemo, in a moment of rebellion, defiantly swims to a speedboat and is captured by scuba divers, leading Marlin to cross the ocean to rescue his son. Finding Nemo was a critical and commercial success, and at the time of writing, it’s the fifth highest-grossing Pixar film. Although Finding Nemo and Ratatouille are set in two very different environments, Pixar found a way to include the former in the latter but went a bit too far. A Finding Nemo Easter egg can be found when Remy is in Gusteau’s pantry, though it’s very easy to miss.

While Remy eats a piece of cheese on a tray and Linguini talks to him, behind Remy are two cans of caviar, which read “Nemo Brand Caviar”. The reference alone is quite dark given that Nemo is a fish, but it’s even worse when ing the opening of Finding Nemo and the loss of his many, many siblings. However, various viewers have pointed out that “Nemo Brand” caviar could be a reference to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which has a character named Captain Nemo.

Ratatouille Has Other Hidden But Dark Easter Eggs

Despite being a family-friendly movie, Ratatouille has some dark Easter eggs. When running through the building, Remy comes across two very peculiar scenes: first, he spies on a painter who is working on a nude portrait of a woman, with a fruit bowl strategically placed, and right after that, Remy witnesses a couple fighting, with the woman pointing at her partner with a gun. There are also a couple of sinister Easter eggs around Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole), the cynical and hard-to-please restaurant critic who Remy ends up winning over with his version of ratatouille.

Ego is referred to as “The Grim Eater” and has a pretty dark design, and his typewriter has a subtle but still noticeable skull-like design. Pixar movies often address dark topics, but Ratatouille took them a bit further with these (and perhaps more) Easter eggs that might have slipped most viewers or were easy to forget after everything Remy and Linguini went through.