History Headscratchers / Ratatouille

[[folder:Pulling on Hair? They Just Didn't Care!]]
* The hair-pulling thing was lazy.
** ...care to expand on that?
** Personally, I think that hair-pulling thing was scary- does it work with any rat, on any human? If it did, imagine the chaos that rats would wreak upon the world, getting their long-sought revenge against the humans.
*** That is a ridiculous assertion. By way of apology, you should send cheese to this Troper's home ASAP.
*** Dammit, Renaldo! Stop leading the humans on! We can't let them know our plans! They'll find TheBigBoard and everything!
** My theory is, that Linguini is suffering from some kind of genetical defect, that has his nerves more directly tied to his skin and, subsequently, to his hair. This is why Remy can control him so easily, just by pulling his hair. You may notice, even if it's not someone pulling his hair, he's extremely prone to involuntary movements, which is one of the big reasons why he's so terribly clumsy.
*** He's only clumsy on his feet. Put him on skates and he's doing rings around Nancy Kerrigan.
** I think I recall hearing from the creators (sorry, I can't remember the exact place- perhaps one of the video-interviews) that this was simply because Linguini was so "high-strung."
** I think it was supposed to be a sort of reflexology, where certain parts of the scalp had connections to the rest of the body. Of course, traditionally reflexology occurs in the foot, and this was stretching things quite a bit. Then again, the movie is about sapient rats, so...yeah.
** Well, what would you have them do? Remy whispering in Linguini's ear? Biting him? When your two protagonists can't communicate, there's really only so many ways you do things without getting even more contrived. Moreover, it's an extension of what people do in real life - those moments in movies where two people become close when one person is showing someone else how to do something and touches them to do so. And considering the movie starts out with an old lady shooting out her ceiling with a shotgun, shouldn't a little comedy be okay?
*** A little comedy is always okay, but the hair pulling thing was essential to the plot, yet physically impossible, and never explained or even directly discussed in the script. It's just there, as though it logically flows from the premise, which it doesn't. It's a flaw. I'm inclined to agree it was lazy, too.
*** It bugged me also. Yes, it's a movie about an intelligent rat who can cook. Ok, so a ground rule of this story universe is that rats are smarter and can cook, that's fine, it's nice and self-contained. But I also have to accept that this human (as someone else wondered, ''only'' this human?) can be controlled like a marionette just by pulling his hair, ''even when he's sound asleep''? WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief pushed too far now, sorry. Yes, they really could have come up with something better. For example, let Remy still pull his hair, but make it more obvious that they are ''learning to coordinate'' not that Remy is just pulling his strings - literally. A little trial and error and Linguine learns that a tug "here" means "no you need to pick that thing up in front of you" and a tug "there" means "move this hand over there" and this means "stir faster" or "slower" ... etc. And yes, I'm holding Pixar up to the standard that they ''could'' have come up with something better than this - I mean, look at the ''amazing things'' they ''have'' effortlessly gotten us to believe. It's not so much unbelievable as it just seems uncharacteristically sloppy of Pixar to just sort of toss this into the movie with no real explanation and expect us to roll with it.
*** The special features on the DVD (or perhaps just the Blu-ray) establish that they had already tried a number of other things that just weren't working. Brad Bird was out of time and had to go with something. Also, RuleOfFunny.
*** The fact that RuleOfFunny isn't enough for some people in a ''children's animated movie'' is kind of sad, really. Remember, guys, Pixar may want to make the movies enjoyable for everyone, but their primary audience is not adults, and it's especially not the sort of adults that go on TV Tropes and grump about how [[ArbitrarySkepticism they can accept a superintelligent cooking rat]] but not "the hair thing". It's little kids who would probably find Linguini's flailing as his hair gets pulled on funny as hell.
*** Uhm... it's quite clearly not for "little kids". Despite being animated and from Pixar, Ratatouille has ''never'' been a kid's movie. I mean, it's a movie about a cuisine-loving rat helping a socially-awkward garbage boy to restore a once-beloved French restaurant to its former glory, mostly taking place in a fancy kitchen full of chefs with dark back-stories, which evolves into a rather complex set of plot threads relating to romance, cultural decline, vermin infestation and corruption, with the film's final goal being the need to impress a miserable, hard-to-please food critic. It was clearly made for a more adult audience who would be more sucked into the upper-class setting, the French culture, and the intricate, sitcom-style story, so it isn't a film for a kids in any way. Still, I was personally okay with the hair-pulling thing. It made no sense, but it worked as a plot point, adding some humour into the proceedings.
*** I think you're giving kids ''way'' too little credit with this. Pixar and Disney specialise in producing "family" films - as in, films to be enjoyed by adults ''and'' kids. Yes some of the finer details of the plot and the deeper meanings of the theme might go over a young child's head but to say that it "isn't a film for kids in any way" is just ridiculous. You might as well say that ''The Lion King'' isn't for kids in any way since it includes regicide (which also happens to be fratricide), attempted child murder (no less than four times - three of which happen to be attempted nepoticide), allusions to fascism, betrayal, depression, and a main character being devoured alive, plus it also happens to be based on a play which, while well-known, very few children have the comprehension to fully understand...plus what western child will understand all those African phrases they're singing anyway? That doesn't change the fact that children can enjoy it and ''have'' enjoyed it to the point where it's now considered a staple of most childhoods since the time it was released. Same with ''Ratatouille''. It's bright, colourful, funny, purposefully cartoonish, heartwarming, and with relatively low stakes in the grand scheme of things - all of which are designed to be suited to children's media. It's also got a solid theme and message and absolutely beautiful animation along with some great ParentalBonus content which the adults watching can appreciate, and so can the children once they've grown a bit. The hair-pulling thing was probably an example of an aspect specifically designed to appeal to the kids: it's funny watching Linguini move about in such a ridiculous way, but as soon as you try and consider the logic of it? It's impossible to do so. A child will more likely than not just accept the concept of "rat controls human through hair like a puppet".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Why Is Ego Even Taken Seriously?]]
* How is it that Ego is revered for being an influential food critic if he's always giving negative or medicore reviews? Surely at some point someone would have to realize that maybe not every restaurant in France is subpar, but that Ego is just a Negative Nancy with possibly poor taste.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The real chef]]

* Anyone else think about the end of 1984 throughout the entire film? "The rat," said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, "although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless."

** As others have pointed out, it's an ANIMATED MOVIE. We've also got animated movies about carnivorous animals like [[WesternAnimation/NormOfTheNorth polar bears]], [[WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}} lions]], and [[WesternAnimation/AlphaAndOmega wolves]]. Plus, this is hardly the first thing to have a good guy rat - remember [[Franchise/TheMuppets Rizzo the Rat]]? Or the rats from ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRun''? Ratso from ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster'''s sequels? [[ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} Ratbert]]? And rats are, you know, ANIMALS. They're not an entire species of evil sociopaths.

*** My man, an eppisode of Peppa Pig was banned in Australia becouse it made spiders look ,,cute" and could result in actual child fatalities. Now, let's compare small and only-sometimes-poisonous spiders with actual fucking rats.

*** At no point in the film does it show that Linguini love or have a passion for cooking. Linguini only tries to get a job at Gusteau's because he's desperate and can't find any other place to employ him, and he was happy enough being a garbage boy. It was only after the soup incident that made it look like Linguini could cook and his job depended on keeping up that façade, that Linguini began cooking. Even then it was just Remy controlling him. Unlike Collette, who is shown at the end of the film taking notes and learning from watching Remy cook, Linguini never expresses interest in learning how to recreate Remy's recipes or learning himself. He's mostly just trying to live up to everyone's growing expectations, but once the pressure's on it all culminates into him admitting that he isn't a chef at all and it's Remy who's the real mastermind behind his cooking. Linguini's real motivation and character development in the film is finding his place in the world, where he's accepted for who he is and not immediately kicked out or fired despite his clumsiness and perceived lack of talent.

*** So we're supposed to cheer for a guy who puts his job as a kitchen scullery above saving an whole sapient species? Or a rat who only 'feels conflicted' about not making an effort to stop the systematic killing of his kind? [[MoralDissonance Hmm.]]

** [[Main/{{Meta4}} This troper]] theorizes they simply found work elsewhere. With Gusteau's on their resumes, some restaurants would kill to have any one of them in the kitchen.

** The short that comes with the movie, ''Your Friend the Rat'', centers around Remy trying to convince people rats don't deserve their negative reputation and that they can all get along, which would presumably stop the rat killing (he even mentions removing traps at one point). It's presumably an out-of-universe thing, but at least there's that.

* A better question is -- why didn't they try to convince the health inspector that his experience of being 'kidnapped and tied up by rats' was a hallucination? Or just wait for Skinner to start blabbing about it and make them both look like lunatics.

* A better question is -- why didn't they try to convince the health inspector that his experience of being *kidnapped and tied up by rats* was a hallucination? Or just wait for Skinner to start blabbing about it and make them both look like lunatics.