Headscratchers / Ratatouille

Rat Repulsion is Racist

• Is anybody else immensely disturbed by the fact that humans are persecuting and murdering a sentient species in this film? Rats are obviously just as intelligent as humans in this universe; the only difference is they can't speak with humans. And nobody has figured it out.
  • This troper always got the impression that previously, no rats had ever tried to get involved with humans to any degree. After all, if every time you got close to somebody they tried to kill you, wouldn't you stay away? And so the humans never figured out that rats were sentient.
  • Besides, humans have persecuting and murdering sentient species all throughout history. It's just this one is a Non-Human sapient species.
    • Even assuming the world at large doesn't know about these sapient rats — Isn't Linguini being kind of selfish in trying to keep Remy's human-like intelligence a secret to further his own career? Shouldn't Remy be more concerned with getting the guy to put a good word in for his species then with what's in the white sauce? I know he loves to cook, but if I were spending hours in the kitchen coming up with fantastic new recipes to serve to some folks who were trying to systematically exterminate my race, I'd feel like a bit of a traitor, even if I was following my dreams.
    • He does feel conflicted, remember?
    • Rats in the kitchen = MAJOR health code violation.
    • 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? Hmm.
    • Realistically, what could either Linguini or Remy do? Neither one of them were even in contact with other rats during their partnership, so an arrangement where Linguini and Remy helped each other get what they wanted made sense. It wasn't until Remy found his family again that the conflict came back and by the end of the movie, Linguini and Remy found a way to help the rest of the rats as well. And for what its worth, until Remy had a better idea, the rats were perfectly happy living as they did away from humans and salvaging scraps.
  • The movie displays that only rats can understand other rats. Even Linguini can't understand Remy.
    • But Linguini and Remy are clearly capable of communicating with each other to a certain extent, even if they don't share a common language. Hell, Remy can directly influence Linguini's actions via hair-pulling. Linguini might be a bit slow, but Remy's a heartless bastard if it never occurred to him to try and use this ability to stop humans from murdering his kind. Also, Remy understood written French.
    • Since he probably can't write, what was Remy supposed to do? Organize a rat overthrow of human kind? What?
    • Well, how else could Remy read the cookbooks?
    • Reading and writing are different.
    • And most of the writing skills (and texts) are designed to meant be done with a "thumb"(Which Remy doesn't...or does he?) have).....But than again , maybe Remy should use a typewriter(or a PC keyboard).....those thing don't require a thumb to operate.(As for under his size)
  • One must keep in mind that Linguini is 'just' a chef in France. As several moments show in the film, him saying that Remy is the real chef results in people believing that he's insane. Justifiably so - if your species has been essentially ignoring something for millennia, would one guy, no matter how famous, saying that they're not sound like something reasonable to believe? Not for most people. Of course, this also ties into one of the themes of the movie - acceptance. It doesn't really matter that they're rats (or whatever); what's important is that we accept their contributions to the world and our lives. We don't have to like everything they do but we should not also dismiss for the sake of dismissing (as Ego writes in his review).
    • But no one would need to take Linguini's word for it, really; even if the hair pulling trick wouldn't be particularly compelling evidence, there were still about a million ways he and Remy could have demonstrated rat intelligence to the world. We're talking about a campaign of xenocide as old as civilization that could have been laid to rest with a YouTube video. Somebody really should have shown some initiative.
    • It wouldn't necessarily be that easy. People would be more likely to assume that it was all some clever stage trick and/or that Linguini was simply a gifted animal trainer. If they tried partnering Remy up with someone beside Linguini, that other someone would likely be suspected to be "in on the trick." And even if it was accepted that Remy was intelligent, that wouldn't necessarily mean people would accept that all rats are.
    • Scientists have already devised many tests of animal intelligence that Remy could easily complete with or without a human partner. Results would need to be replicated in a controlled environment, but saying it would be impossible to get the word out when Remy is so clearly of human-like intelligence is depressing. Either Remy and Linguini are selfish to the point of sociopathy, or humanity in this film really, really sucks.
    • Not impossible, but not exactly easy either. The problem is that you're talking about erasing several millenia of hatred and enmity, and even Anton Ego knew how hard it was to get new ideas to be accepted. You'd get a few humans willing to accept the idea, but the majority would be more skeptical and harder to convince, which means that Remy would basically have to devote his entire lifetime to work with getting the humans to understand; already a hard task. Basically, he would be swapping one boring but useful job (poison checker) to another boring but useful job (test subject on rat intelligence) — and then it becomes a movie not about daring to dream and nurturing your talents, but about giving up your own ambitions for the greater good, even when people don't appreciate what you do. I mean, the other rats couldn't care less about humans; interacting with and behaving like humans seem to be some kind of mild taboo in rat society (note Emile saying that all with all this cooking and reading and TV watching he feels like he's aiding Remy in some kind of crime); the only reason why they helped out in the end was because of Remy. Now, admittedly, they could have made it work, but abandoning cooking and instead dedicating yourself to the betterment of inter-species relationships would probably have made for a much less focused and probably less interesting movie, that would likely cause the audience to say: "Wait, didn't he want to be a chef? Why have we spent the last twenty minutes watching him crusade for rat rights?" ...okay, I kinda went off-track there, but my main point is that it would be a lot harder to change things than simply, as an earlier troper remarked, put up a video on YouTube, and calling Remy and Linguini "selfish to the point of sociopathy" just because they don't try to take on a task bigger than both of them, that neither of them are probably qualified for (Linguini is not good with convincing people, as evident by his total failure to bring most of the chefs around) seems unnecessarily harsh.
    • If Pixar wanted to make a shiny, happy film about cooking rats without getting sidetracked by all that messy xenocide stuff, they shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. Unfortunately, they do bring it up, even going so far as to let Remy's father give a little speech about how humans kill their kind while standing in front of an exterminator's storefront with dead rats hanging in the window. Saying that addressing this would have made the script longer or unfocused is missing the point; Pixar could have sidestepped the issue entirely if they wanted to, but instead they decided to milk it for drama and then ignore it later creating some disturbing implications. Naturally, getting humanity to accept that rats are people too would have been difficult, and any effort on the part of main characters' towards this end would not be guaranteed to succeed, but it's downright upsetting that every major character spends the entire film entirely preoccupied with their trivial personal concerns (I want to be a chef! I have a crush on my coworker! An excellent restaurant is about to go out of business!) with nary a thought for the ethical considerations of the deeply horrific discoveries they make during that timeframe. Besides, when important concerns that arise from the premise organically are being pushed aside to make way for less important, more contrived conflicts, that's just plain bad writing.
    • Okay, in response to the above, a real life comparison. By the 1940s Louis Armstrong was recognised as the one of the greatest Jazz musicians/singers and entertainers in show business, able to command huge audiences of both whites and blacks. Yet it was still necessary for Martin Luther King to lead a civil rights movement for blacks by 1963. Now should we criticise Louis Armstrong for not doing more to fight for racial equality and 'selfishly' persuing his dream of being a jazz musician. Or should we recognise that his finally achieving his dream despite extreme prejudice is a Momentof Awesome and, incidently, doing something to push the door open for more of his people to achieve equality.
    • Comparision doesn't hold up for a number of reasons. Firstly: Remy hid his identity, and thus did nothing to 'open the door' for more rats who might have wanted to follow their dreams in human society. Armstrong might have been chiefly motivated by the desire to make great music, but if he'd bleached his skin and pretended to be white in order to play in white clubs, we'd likely not hold that up as his finest hour. Secondly: Remy and Linguini were in a rather unique position to improve the condition of ratkind, what with Remy's human communication skills, and Linguini being (at least as far as he knew) the only human to know of the sentience of rats. It's one thing to choose cooking over the crusade for social justice, but it's entirely another when the means to make a good run at saving an entire sapient species falls into your lap and choose to ignore it because you had less important things planned for yourself. Thirdly: there were in fact supporters of the civil rights movement who were disappointed with Armstrong's choice avoid offering the movement any public support. This, of course, does not make Armstrong any less of a jazz musician, but regardless of whether his choices were ultimately right or wrong, historical context does make his life story a little more complicated than what is implied by Ratatouille's Unambiguous Disney Happy Ending (and that's without the metaphorical skin bleaching).
    • ...has it occured to you that you are bringing xenocide into this entirely of your own accord and holding Pixar responsible for an insane idea you yourself concocted? Right around the time we're invoking Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement in a children's movie about rats cooking is around the time we should go "I think I'm overthinking this and I should go outside." For goodness sake, you're complaining that a rat that actually did, by the way, do exactly what you're bitching he didn't by the end of the film (i.e. create a way for rats and humans to co-exist), is solely responsible for millions upon millions of dead rats simply because he didn't...fuck, I don't know, contact a ratologist or speak to the media or something completely unbelievably complex and unrealistic.
  • Do you have any idea of how people would react to the possibility of rats controlling them by pulling their hair. Everybody would shave their heads and anti-rat feelings would increase. It was probably safer to keep rat intelligence a secret.
    • Even if the hair-pulling thing only works on Linguini and/or was kept a secret, the notion that rats aren't merely small animals that have a knack for raiding human garbage, but a rival intelligent race that has effectively infiltrated all of human civilization without people realizing it's happening, is hardly going to endear them to humans. Vermin infestations are met with periodic visits by exterminators to keep their numbers down, but a furry Alien Invasion would be an invitation to all-out war.
  • Moreover, Remy is only one rat. What gives him the right to unilaterally decide to blow the cover of his entire species as annoying, yet harmless non-sentient pests? The vast majority of rats probably feel a lot safer having humans underestimate them, so the big clumsy giants will keep right on setting obvious traps and leaving food in easily-cracked garbage bins rather than taking them seriously. Indeed, if Remy told other rats that he intended to reveal his intellect to the human world, they'd probably silence him themselves, for fear of exposure.
  • 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.
  • People have been using rats in psychological and behavioral studies of animal intelligence for generations, and keeping them as pets since Victorian times. Presumably if rats wanted humans to know how smart they were, they've had plenty of opportunities to reveal this before Remy's day, and have consistently chosen to keep us in the dark about it.
  • ... It's just a children's movie, people. We should probably relax.

Stealing

• Django actually makes a really good point - it may not be the most noble existence to live off garbage, but it isn't theft, either. Remy further undermines his own position by lecturing his father about how bad it is to steal, then turns around and proposes that they should swipe food out of the kitchen. And then tries to. And then despite having a moment of conscience when he's at the party, takes herbs from a rooftop garden for his omelette and doesn't show a shred of remorse. For all that he's supposedly tormented by a rat's parasitical existence, he's pretty casual about it at times.
  • This troper is guessing that Remy tries to justify his scavenging by thinking it's for the sake of his cooking skills. Remy has always come off as a somewhat self-centered but caring character.
  • It's also not really one of those right-wrong arguments. The fact is, they're -both- right in different ways.
  • For all Remy complains about their supposed stealing, he never really offers up an alternative and really there isn't one. Obviously they can't buy the stuff, and, if the fact that they have escape boats ready and waiting for them is any indication, they probably aren't used to staying somewhere long enough to grow their own. With that in mind, Remy probably takes from the kitchen under the logic that if they're already stealing, and there's no alternative, he might as well steal stuff that doesn't disgust him. Notice how he prefaces his suggestion with "If we're going to be thieves...", implying there's an element of "I wouldn't be suggesting this if we weren't already in the wrong" to it. Taking the herbs is a bit harder to justify, but it's possible it's just a mix of being used to his old ways and excitement. It's also possible he doesn't really know what exactly a garden is and viewed taking them as no different than using grass and mushrooms back in the country side, and therefore it never even occurred to him that it was stealing.

The Fate of the Cooks

• What happened to all the other cooks after Gusteau's restaurant was closed? After they walked out on Linguini they were never heard from again.
  • They simply found work elsewhere. With Gusteau's on their resumes, some restaurants would kill to have any one of them in the kitchen.
  • They starved to death in the streets. And then Remy's family ate them.
  • Now, now. It's just as possible that they repented and were rehired to work in Remy and Linguini's new restaurant.
    • Um, no it's not. The rats were the chefs of the new restaurant.
    • Except that no they weren't. Most of the cooks were human, all the other rats did was chill out in the attic/on the roof, eating. Remy's family were nothing more than customers after Gusteau's was closed down. Not that any of the cooks would actually work for Linguini again, considering they know his secret. They probably just split up and went their own ways, other restaurants DO exist ya know.
    • True. The new restaurant was small enough that only Remy and Colette needed to cook.

Wasted Potential with the Cooks

• Why didn't the writers do more with the other cooks at Gusteau's? We are shown that all of them have interesting pasts and personalities... and yet they barely get any screen time.
  • Sure, if you want a four hour movie. Basically, it's not needed. It's not their story.
    • Yeah, but the way they're handled, you could've just not given them personalities at all and it wouldn't have made any difference.
    • All the more credit to the writers, then, for giving even their background characters interesting personalities instead of just making them clone cooks. It adds detail and colour to the volatile environment of the kitchen, which helps Linguini seem even more out of place.
    • It's also a way to justify Colette's attitude problem at the start. While the other chefs don't seem particularly antagonistic to her, it's noteworthy that the little hints of background they receive suggest they're all extremely tough characters. If they were just faceless nobodies, it'd be hard to account for why Colette needs to present such a ferocious front, even if she is a woman in a male-dominated profession.
  • It's somewhat of a play with The Chosen One of other stories. This troper saw it as a way of avoiding a story where some random guy shows up as is special and better just because he's the protagonist and you're left wondering how the place held together before his arrival. The other chefs are legitimately better than Linguini and by all rights are more deserving than he as far as being head chef. It, at the same time, is also to emphasize one of the points of the movie. They are interesting and unique... but fail to follow the idea of Anyone Can Cook - they're not expressing their individuality and creativity, they're simply following orders so no matter how good they are, they're not cooking just making food.
  • This Troper actually attended a lecture by the lead character animator of this film. Apparently the reason they had to fire their old director and pull in Brad Bird was that the first director had a storyline for fucking everyone including Remy's mother who wanted to be a lounge singer for Christ's sake. The movie would've been eight hours long, incomprehensible and a terrible movie. In the end they made a good move by making sure that there was only one important story and not 36.

Aggravating Accents

• Those goddamn accents. Foreign accented-English in a movie where the characters are supposedly speaking another language is a serious pet peeve of mine. The fact that the viewer can understand the characters in such a movie means that we, the viewers, are honorary speakers of the in-story language. The characters are NOT diegetically speaking English. Thus, they should not have foreign accents, because foreign accents occur when a speaker cannot correctly pronounce another language. But they're all French, and they're all speaking French. There is absolutely no reason they should be speaking English with a French accent. Of course, Linguini has an American accent because he's the protagonist, and Ego has a British accent because he's snobby. Isn't it time we retired this ghastly nonsensical shorthand and found better ways to establish setting and characterization?
  • Surely they'd speak French with a French accent; the only thing "wrong" about turning that into English with a French accent is that now you have an accent that doesn't normally go with the language. If they all had American or British accents, then the accent would match the language but not the location rather than the other way around. You say that we ought to find better ways to establish setting and characterization; those better ways could easily be an addition rather than a replacement.
  • As an actual possible explanation, it's possible that people with French accents were from one part of France, and the people with American and British accents were were from other parts or places. Since accented English was so prevalent, we can assume that the accent indicated they were local Parisians, and the others were originally from somewhere else.
  • I always assumed that was the case for Linguini, at least, going with his fascination at the pronunciation of "ratatouille" ("It sounds like 'RAT'... and 'patootie.'").
  • I'd just assumed that Linguini was raised abroad and came back to France after his mother died. Ego could simply be from England and living in France.
  • Anybody else think Colette's accent sounded more Quebecois than French?

Link to Linguini is a Leap in Logic

• When Remy enters the pantry to steal food for Emil, imaginary Gusteau is concerned that Linguini could be fired as a result. No one knows about the connection between Remy and Linguini at this point, and no one would notice the tiny amount of food he took at any rate.
  • But at that point in the film, Skinner is looking for any excuse to fire Linguini - and if food is going missing while Linguini's still technically the garbage boy, someone's gonna pay...
    • Exactly. Skinner told Linguini to go kill a rat once, and now there's a rat in the kitchen. It's enough of an excuse to fire him.
    • Does Skinner honestly know enough about rats to tell if it's the same one he'd told Linguini to kill?
    • Well, he's the garbage boy. He's responsible for keeping the kitchen free of garbage and grime and such precisely so that food doesn't become contaminated or otherwise attract germs. You don't think the -only- thing Linguini would be doing all day is hauling garbage?
  • Why did Remy even go to the pantry for Emile? He'd just been given a napkin full of cheese and grapes! "Here, bro, have some of my feast!"
    • Maybe Remy wanted to keep it for himself?
    • Even still, it's pretty obvious Remy wants Emile to start savoring the good stuff, and, hey, I just happen to have a snack-y banquet available. Have a grape, or some cheese, or whatever...
    • Remy had bread and grapes. He went to the fridge to grab some cheeses for Emile to eat with the grapes to show him how the flavors compliment each other.
    • He had cheese on the napkin. In fact, he seemed to have multiple kinds of cheese. That was what the knife was in.
    • If he'd shown that much cheese to Emile, his brother would've probably gone into a gobbling frenzy and never listened to what Remy wanted to teach him.
    • Then how did Emile not notice that massive pile of food at any point while Remy was gone?
  • Gusteau is, as he himself says, only a figment of Remy's imagaination - he only knows what Remy knows. So maybe in the back of his mind he was worried about Linguini, and it was projected on his "conscience" in the form of Gusteau?

Still a Thief

• After Linguini takes over Gusteau's, and becomes wealthy and successful... why is Remy still compelled to sneak food behind his back? Even though they can't communicate by speaking, all Remy has to do is "direct" Linguini into leaving some food out for them, and I'm sure even as dense as he is, he'd get the idea.
  • Remy didn't want for Linguini to know he's feeding the ever increasing amount of rats. He felt bad about it already, why make it harder?
  • Also, the other chefs would probably notice if someone was leaving food out at night. Leaving food out is very bad practice in any kind of food service - it's a pretty severe health violation to leave food out over night, to allow food to linger at room temperature, to leave food out uncovered, etc. Even Linguini would know that - after all, he gives Remy food on a napkin... exactly how you're suppose to give food to someone if you aren't wearing gloves (ie use some sort of protection to avoid touching ready to eat food).

Rats in the Kitchen

• At the end, after the health inspector closed down one restaurant for rats in the kitchen...how do they have another successful restaurant with RATS in the KITCHEN?
  • Despite the name and sign outside the bistro, it's not explicitly stated that the customers know the chef is a rat. Ego never revealed Remy's identity to the public. The bistro is probably successful purely on the reputation of the excellent cooking, and whenever the health inspector comes round, Remy and the colony stay well out of sight. Remy has always been a clean-conscious rat, so keeping the kitchen clean wouldn't be a problem.
    • But how do they explain the kitchen modifications for Remy like the scaffolding on the door to the dining area?
    • If it doesn't affect the cleanliness of the restaurant, would the Health Inspector care?
    • Probably not - as long as it's clean and doesn't break any codes.
    • Possibly the little railings are passed off as a safety measure to keep the contents of the shelves from falling off. The balcony-seating area for the rats can probably be hidden with drop-down doors when the inspector comes around.
  • I always thought that Ego DID reveal that a rat was the chef, since his article was about 'defending the new,' and that the restaurant found a crowd willing to open their minds to the weird Disney logic operating in Paris. Which is extremely weird, but there were a whole bunch of people who knew about sentient rats at that point.
    • Ego never revealed that the rats were the cooks. His reputation was ruined because there were rats in the kitchen of the restaurant he gave a good review to. He could have kept mum about it and nobody would know that a rat was really cooking the food.
    • Indeed. Remember that at the climax of the movie, Remy's family -kidnaps- the health inspector because he stumbles across all of them working in the kitchen. Even if Ego hadn't said a word, that'd be enough to shut down the place.

Why Doesn't Remy Type?

• A tiny detail of interest: Early in the film, we are shown that Rémy is literate and has read Gusteau's book. It effectively means that he could write in perfectly understandable French if he ever came near a computer keyboard. It's not important to the film, but the thought that there is a way for him to communicate with Linguini in human language is intriguing.
  • If I was Remy, I had already grabbed the nearest sheet of paper and written in capitals: GOD! MY NAME IS REMY. R.E.M.Y. NOT "LITTLE CHEF". WHAT ARE YOU?! SEVEN?!
    • An opinion of mine: I thought "Little Chef" became more of an affectionate nickname. And that Remy possible did such offscreen.
  • Intriguing... but impractical. Remy's little Awesome, but Impractical skill. It's not like he can walk around with writing utensils all the time.
  • It's probably Translation Convention at work. The reality is that Remy's name probably isn't Remy, given that rats can't pronounce the sounds necessary for that to be a name. More likely his name is some collection of rat noises that either sound somewhat similar to Remy, or have roughly the same meaning.
    • Indeed, his "name" is probably either ultrasonic or scent-based, not something humans could perceive in either case let alone render into written characters.
  • Fridge Brilliance: It is not like Linguini had the money to own a computer. Perhaps the restaurant has a computer, but it would not have been possible for Remy to use it without getting noticed.
    • Especially given the tech level of the time—look how old all the TVs are. Home computers would still be something of a commodity if they exist at all.
  • Ah, yes. I see pens and pencils designed for thumbless eight-inch-tall people all the time. (The larger point does still stand. Handwriting is an acquired skill, but Remy could have guided Linguini to a typewriter and sat his butt down while Remy typed his message.)
  • Why in the world would Remy object to being known as "Little Chef"? Being a chef is all he's ever wanted!

Linguini the Liar

• This is a minor niggle- silly because it'd get in the way of the wall-to-wall happy ending- but why wasn't Colette more bothered that her entire relationship with Linguini was based on a lie? It's effectively Cyrano with a rat.
  • She didn't fall in love with him for his cooking skills - if that was what she went for in a guy, there were already plenty around for her to choose from - but for his sweet, shy personality, incurable romanticism, etc. (Remember the line, "I thought you were different"?) Additionally, we don't know how long it was between the big reveal and the opening of her and Remy's restaurant. When she returned to Gusteau's at the climax, she's still pretty ticked at him, but there could have been months in which they managed to patch up their relationship.
    • I understand that, but surely she would be annoyed she'd put all that time and effort into coaching him, only to find Remy was the one taking her tuition on board? Also, it had taken years for her to get where she was, while Linguini simply got lucky. A real girl would quite naturally feel bitter. Lastly, relationships founder without trust. Yes, he'd tried to tell her, and it's mainly Remy's fault that he didn't, but would you really expect her to believe the rat called all the shots?
    • First, I don't agree that "a real girl" would automatically be upset at the reveal; each person is different, after all. Second, when you think about the ending a bit more, Colette ended off pretty well. She's working with the best cook in Paris, in a bistro that has customers lining outside the door, and as far as anyone knows, she's the owner and award-winning cook of La Ratatouille (Linguini is waiting tables, after all). In essence, Colette has taken over Linguini's role as Remy's "face."
    • If you pay attention, her tutoring isn't going to waste. Even though Remy's the one ultimately doing the cooking, he noticeably improves because he takes Colette's teachings to heart. He's at first very resentful that anyone could teach him anything (because like his father, he thinks he knows best about everything), but it shows him realizing that yes, she does know some things he could stand to use. (There's even a particular scene all about this, showing Remy's annoyed expression as she starts teaching, then it shifting into a look of dawning comprehension as he realizes how much better what she said to do works.) Colette was probably angry about that, then as she calmed down and pieced it together realized that her effort hadn't gone to waste after all.
  • I have a problem with characterizing it as a "wall-to-wall happy ending." After nearly the entire movie revolves around trying to revive the now-failing Gusteau's, it closes down for good. That's a pretty significant downer, even if the rest of the ending is happy.
    • No, the movie revolves around Remy trying to fulfill his life's dream. Gusteau's reputation (both the chef's and the restaurant's) were already on the decline at the start of the movie, but no one was actively trying to restore either.
  • Their relationship wasn't built on cooking - that was just a jumping point. Look at the romantic montage - most of the stuff they do has very little to do with cooking or Remy. This implies that while Remy may have given Linguini the courage, such as it was, to make the first move, after that, Linguini was able to do things on his own. And even if his cooking ability was part of the attraction, that may be part of the point - she loves him so what difference does it make that Remy is the real chef? Breaking up over someone trying to help a friend accomplish a dream and/or over something ultimately insignificant and non-central to the relationship is pretty petty. In other words, did she/would she love him despite his lack of cooking skills.. or because of it? If she only loved him because of it, she's treating Remy and Linguini just like other chefs had treated her - dismissing them because of her uniqueness rather than accepting it because of it.

Green-Eyed Monster

• Why did Remy care so much about Linguini telling Collete about their secret and yet he get extremely offended when after Linguini own Gusteau's he doesn't give him any credit? Is he really that jealous of Linguini's fame?
  • At that point when Linguini was about to tell her, they're just getting started. And again, rats in the kitchen would be really bad as far as health inspectors go. As for the latter, it seemed more like Linguini was legitimately taking credit and thought he didn't need Remy. It wasn't so much the credit (after all, that's probably something they both understood would happen) and more that Linguini began to treat Remy as garbage - something he could do without. More or less, Linguini felt that Remy had gotten into his head.

City of Neon Lights

• Would a 5 star Parisian restaurant really have a giant neon sign?
  • This may have been Skinner's doing; an extra on the DVD establishes that the commercialization of Gusteau's name began before his death.

But Rats *Are* Dangerous

• Anyone else think about the end of Nineteen Eighty-Four 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."
  • The fact is...O'Brien's quote is true. The movie is dropping the anvil that nobody should be judged based on appearances or whatever, but rats can be particularly vicious. In the old days, they were known to grow to large proportions and could even kill small cats and dogs. Cute little Remy made this troper scoff a little bit. Rats can be kept as pets, sure, but feral rats are vicious, and this troper was surprised that Disney preferred to portray them as more sensible than humans.
  • Well, so are feral kittens, and they don't have the reputation rats do.
  • This is the same company which says good things about lions, tigers (Jasmine's pet in Aladdin) and bears (Baloo in The Jungle Book) among various other creatures that are surprisingly deadly. Anything can be a main character in Disney, and they made Remy so cute I could care less. (Plus it probably won't encourage children to pick up a rat and hug it, since...well, they're rats. Instincts are scream on sight for most of us.) Then again, Remy being a rat could be a reference to Disney's nickname 'The Mouse'...which by critics is mutated to be 'The Rat'.
    • Yeah, but in those movies you mention the dangerous animals didn't dream of becoming, say, baby-sitters, and the plots weren't about how the only reason people don't let lions, bears, etc. watch children is their small-mindedness and prejudice. Rats destroy 1/5 of the world's food supply every year. There are good reasons we kill them and keep them out of kitchens.
    • Does that even matter what rats can do? You act like rats have nothing positive to contribute and thus the movie should not have been written. Plus this isn't just a regular Disney movie. It's a Pixar movie (Pixar is a complete part of Disney now but its still Pixar.
  • FWIW, O'Brien is misrepresenting the facts. Rats are omnivorous, not carnivorous: they'll eat pretty much anything we do, which is why they're the rodents who thrive as urban pests rather than, say, voles or hamsters.
  • As others have pointed out, it's an ANIMATED MOVIE. We've also got animated movies about carnivorous animals like polar bears, lions, and wolves. Plus, this is hardly the first thing to have a good guy rat - remember Rizzo the Rat? Or the rats from Chicken Run? Ratso from The Brave Little Toaster's sequels? Ratbert? And rats are, you know, ANIMALS. They're not an entire species of evil sociopaths.
  • We seem to be taking this movie a bit... literally. The movie is using the idea of a rat who wants to be a chef as a child-friendly allegory for anyone who wants to live their life and follow their dreams despite others telling them that they're not supposed to want to live their life that way, or dream those dreams, or that they're not the kind of person who can be good at that sort of thing. No one, not even the filmmakers themselves, should seriously believe this to be a propaganda on behalf of feral child-eating rats, or that this film should genuinely be the final word on rat-human relations, or that children shouldn't also learn that rats in real life can be dangerous animals. Frankly, if you're unable to engage your Willing Suspension of Disbelief for the animated children's movie about a friendly rat who becomes a chef without obsessing over a quote from the sociopathic torturer for a totalitarian regime in a completely different story all the way through it, that's more your problem than the movie's. No one's saying you have to like real rats, but if you're unable to switch off your distaste for them to enjoy what is simply a fantasy that makes no bones about being so, then Ratatouille is simply not for you. No one's fault, but the filmmakers aren't required to throw out the story they want to tell solely to accommodate your personal feelings about rats.

Birth and Death

• What bugs me is what will happen to Linguini and Collette's restaurant a couple years down the road. Considering just how many rats are born within a single litter, and the environment which they are in protects them from any type of natural selection, there will soon be thousands of rats living there. And then what will happen when Remy dies (rats don't live very long after all) and the rest of the rats all decide to abandon his ideology?
  • Perhaps Remy had children of his own who he passed on everything he knew. Even if they didn't inherit his sense of smell, they could still learn all of is techniques (which he'd probably make notes of). Plus, he was also telling Collette how to modify the recipes and she would surely remember them. As for the huge numbers of rats, not all of the rats in the film ended up working there, didn't they? Some seemed to just be diners. There would probably be rat children who would decide to go off on their own early in life.
  • Also, since Django seems to only have two children, maybe we can assume that rats in this universe have more human-sized families, meaning the clan's population won't grow quite so insanely.
  • Also, children's movie. You don't end a children's movie saying "Oh, and then Remy died a year later and Linguini buried him under a cobblestone. The end."
  • There was no indication that the Restaurant was the home for all of the rats. They were shown eating on top in a mini-cafe, so it might have been more or less an eating establishment and hangout for them just as it is for the humans. They still had homes to go to after the restaurant closed (they seemed to have found one offscreen during the movie, there's no point in leaving that). As for Remy's death; that's inevitable. However he had already made several interesting recipes that would certainly allow the restaurant to stay in business long after he's gone. And here's the brilliance part: the head chef is Colette, the only person in Gusteau's who took the original master's lessons to heart; now she's free to experiment instead of following guidelines to compete in the "men's world", so she might be equally as good as (or even better than) Remy.

Ego Losing His Reputation

• This is a minor complain, but it bugs me, that Ego lost his reputation and job as a food critic after it was revealed that the restaurant had a rat infestation. Sure it was better for him when looking back how gloomy and cynical he used to be before the movie's events. The thing is, (that even if he kinda deserved it because driving Gusteau to commit suicide) that Ego never actually did anything wrong and therefore didn't deserve to be 'fired'. He came, ate and made his review like professional. It wasn't his fault that there were rats, and given the success of the new restaurant, he never admitted knowing that there were indeed rats, so he couldn't have been accused because of hiding information (And if Linguini wouldn't have revealed the secret how he would have known?). In other words, there were no fair reason given why he lost his job. It was just plainly mean.
  • Well Ego was known as a particularly nasty critic, so there were probably a lot of people who didn't like him and thus leaped at the chance to discredit him. After all, it's not like there aren't people in real life who are blamed and laughed at for things that aren't their fault. Even if Ego wasn't mocked universally, it still would only take a bit to bring him down. Plus, he was known for being extremely meticulous. As a result, people who actually respected him would probably be let down since they would imagine that he would be able to tell if food was prepared in an infested kitchen (it wasn't just like there were one or two rats in there and none of the complainers would have known that Remy had his family keep clean). Given that Remy seemed to change Ego's outlook on life, he probably didn't work too hard to overturn these complaints or rebuild his reputation. After all, it was true that the restaurant had a lot of rats in it and he would have seen nothing to apologize for.
  • We don't really know how long elapses between Ego's review and the finale at Ego's new restaurant (one would assume several months). Remy's meal induced a sea change in Ego's personality, and apparently made him a lot happier. Consider his line about negative criticism being "fun to write, and to read" and it's likely that with Ego's newfound happiness, he simply wasn't able or willing to churn out the nastiness that drew in his audience and so he simply lost his readership.
  • You've interpreted Ego losing his job as the movie's punishment for the villain! IT WASN'T!! He didn't suffer at all as a result; Remy ends his story decsribing how, "He's doing very well as a small-business investor." It wasn't fair, but it didn't matter. He lives Happily Ever After along wtih the heroes!
  • I'd just like to point out, it was never stated exactly how Gusteau died. While suicide is a perfectly logical conclusion to come to, it was just mentioned he died shortly after Ego's review.
  • You completely and utterly missed the point. Ego's review was him completely and utterly rethinking his life. After that, he wouldn't want to be a critic anymore. How could he ever savage food and restaurants after learning that, literally, anyone can cook? After being confronted with the truth of the world in the form of Remy's talent, why would he ever want to write another review again? He invested in a new restaurant because his real passion was now promoting "the best chef in France", even if discreetly, and enjoying the rich and multi-faceted aspects of food up close and personal.
  • Even if he wanted to keep being a critic, Skinner and the health inspector were let loose and squealed to the public it wouldn't make a difference what Ego did. If there is a rat infestion and Ego allowed it to happen, there's going to be suspicion. Ego lost his job because he was considered complicit in the health code violation, even though he really was not.
  • It's possible that Ego had an opportunity to recant his glowing review of Gusteau's after the rat infestation came to light, but he chooses to stand by his veneration of the restaurant regardless and that's what revoked his qualification as a critic.

Crimes Against the Environment

• One of Horst's explanations for why he was in jail was "I created a hole in the ozone over Avignon." Would that actually be a crime? What could they possibly charge him with?
  • Reckless Endangerment (or the French equivalent) comes to mind.
  • "I defray the ozone in your general neighborhood!"
  • His other explanations also include having tried to rob a bank with a ball-Point pen and killing a man with his thumb. The "reasons" are supposed to sound implausible and nonsensical. He doesn't want you to know and so he gives strange and obviously false answers when you ask.
    • I think the stories are true and part of one big crime. If the stories were fake then Horst would not have been able to attack the fired Skinner with his thumb. Yes he didn't kill Skinner, but that could just be because doing so would just get him arrested again.

Five Stars in France?!

• It is stated that Gusteau's was a five star restaurant. Upscale French rating only has three stars.
  • Gusteau's was just that good.
  • Main page answers it, the Michelin stars are a trademarked thing, and Pixar either couldn't secure or didn't want to pay for the rights to use them, especially considering that their primary target country is more used to five star ratings anyway.

If Skinner was Nice, We Might've Thought Twice

• Skinner is a bad guy for not telling Linguini about his parentage, and indeed, his reasons for hiding it are entirely selfish. But one thing that the movie doesn't really dwell on is that his mother didn't want him to know; we don't know why she feels that way, and maybe she would have changed her mind if she realized the truth would fix all of her son's money trouble, but we can't say for sure. One could certainly argue that he has a right to know even against her wishes—especially with the inheritance issue—but my point is that while Skinner was a Jerkass, even if he had been a nice guy there wouldn't have been a clear-cut answer about what he should have done.
  • I got the feeling the reason she didn't want it known was to protect Gusteau, along the lines of, "Don't let people know the famous, well known, and family-friendly chef had an extramarital affair."
  • Gusteau wasn't married. He wasn't even in a relationship. His relationship with Linguini's mother wouldn't have caused much of a stir, especially considering French (and European attitudes) towards sex.
  • Maybe she lied about who his father was and didn't want him to know the truth immediately. I mean, he had just lost his mother. She may have been trying to give him some time to process it before the second whammy - "I know who my dad really is but he's already dead" - hits.
  • It seems like Linguini's mother knew that she couldn't prove it, but still threatened it to Skinner to get her son a job. She may have known that if Linguini knew, and tried to fight it, he wouldn't stand a chance and would instead be buried by legal fees. At least this way the boy has a job.
  • Renata probably knew that Linguini wasn't the kind of person who would be adept at running a restaurant, and Gusteau's reputation was already starting to slip into the toilet. Remy exposes the truth because he knows his cooking skills are sufficient to help Linguini keep the place running once he takes ownership, but without him, neither Linguini nor the restaurant would've benefited from anyone finding out. So she thought it best to leave the more competent chefs like Skinner in charge and just arrange for her son to have some low-level position that would keep him afloat.

Why is Ego Creepy and Mean Anyway?

• Is it ever actually explained precisely why Ego because the creepily cadaverous, cruel, Caustic Critic he did? For me, the whole "he's not such a monster, really" thing falls a bit flat if they didn't explain why, then, he was acting like one.
  • Maybe he is creepy and harsh, but that doesn't mean he's a horrible person.
  • It's because he immersed himself in tasting and criticizing so much fancy food that he's forgotten to enjoy a simple meal in a very long time.
    • Exactly. Listen to what he says when Linguini zings him with that very fact ("You're awfully thin for someone who supposedly likes food!"). "I don't like food, I love it. And if I don't love it, I don't swallow."
  • Think of Ego as the Simon Cowell of the French food criticism world.
  • Ego says it himself: "We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read." He's defined his career as a someone able to destroy a restaurant's reputation with one critique. So he's essentially Method Acting. He's adopted this grave persona so restaurants know to fear and respect him.
  • Simple Rule of Symbolism, really. The movie wants Ego to look like the kind of person to be feared, which isn't really going to happen if his character design is more like, say, Gusteau's.
  • As for why he's cadaverous— genetics?

Anyone Can Cook Except Linguini

• Am I really the only one bothered by the fact that the core message of the film, that "Anyone can cook," is defeated by Linguini never developing a skill for cooking and becoming nothing more than a waiter? Wouldn't the ending have been more exciting if Linguini had to cook the ratatouille himself, realizing mid-process that Collette's training had actually worked? Instead, he gets no character development whatsoever.
  • By "anyone can cook", I think the authors meant "no matter the circumstances of your birth, you should be able to do what you love."
  • So, what exactly did Linguini love, if not cooking? It's never really made clear what his motivation is, if anything. That just undermines the message even more.
    • Roller-skating. And being useful. We don't get the sense that Linguini is particularly leaning towards any one thing but we do know he excels at and loves to roller-skate, and the one thing he's never managed to be is useful (see: losing all those jobs), so it must have meant a lot to him to realize that he can do this.
    • Alternatively he had an epiphany and realized his true calling was being a waiter. He certainly seemed happy with himself, and he seems pleased to be doing the same in his little bistro.
    • At no point in the film does it show that Linguini loves or has 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.
  • Ego explains this in his final review. "Not everyone can be a great chef, but a great chef can come from anywhere." In other words, regardless of the circumstances of your birth, you should follow your dreams.

All Critics Are the Same

• One thing that irks me is that the writers here seem to conflate the way food critics work with the way movie critics work. Yes, it is fun to read and write reviews of terrible movies, so that you can nitpick and mock just how terrible they are, but food reviews work in the opposite direction. With food, it is the good reviews which are most entertaining, and indeed, critics who try to appeal to the lowest common denominator will give restaurants undeserving good reviews. After all, who would want to go to a bad restaurant?
  • Saying it's the positive reviews that are the most entertaining is a personal opinion. Gordon Ramsay has an audience for whenever he tears into some poor bastard who overcooks the fish. Perhaps his writing style is funny even if you disagree with his ultimate opinion (ala Yahtzee), or alternatively some people like him because he takes pretentious 5* restaurants down a peg.

How Did Skinner Identify the Food?

• Minor as can be, but I'm still curious. How did Skinner recognize the dish as ratatouille? It's normally a stew, and that creation of Remy's looked nothing like what it was meant to be.
  • Same way that Ego recognized it and had his Proust moment—taste.
  • But no, Skinner clearly says "Ratatouille? They have got to be joking!" before he tastes it.
    • The ingredients (if not the cooking style) make the dish recognizably a kind of ratatouille. Since the dish is Remy's invention and totally new, maybe it was just the only thing Skinner thought the dish could be called.
  • The smell. Ratatouille is from Provence, which means it might be flavored with herbes de Provence (which have a distinctive aroma) and it's definitely got garlic.

How Does Ego Survive?

• "If I don't love it, I simply don't swallow." Then... what does Ego eat? Sure, he's thin, but wine alone won't keep you alive.
  • Maybe he keeps a collection of foods he gave good or at least standard reviews for in his pantry.
  • He probably has a chef who knows how to prepare things that he loves. Or he cooks for himself.
  • Some food from when he chews manages to slide down his throat anyway, maybe. He's being kept barely alive by meat juice runoff and vegetable particulates.
  • Ego has impossibly high standards, but he is still Paris's top critic. This means that he must have liked some restaurants, otherwise he would be out of a job (you can't survive as a critic with only negative reviews, otherwise people might think you have something wrong with your taste buds rather than just have impossibly high standards). Remy just stood out because 1.) Ego seems to have a vendetta against Gusteau's for his motto, which Ego feels cheapens professional cooks, and 2.) Remy not only managed to hit Ego's expectations, but is shown to be the first to surpass them.
  • Or perhaps Ego wasn't being literal. If we remember the context, he was in the middle of a verbal battle with Linguini in front of the press. Therefore, when Linguini retorts that he's "thin for someone who likes food", Anton thought of a quick comeback to have the last word. Notice his small glance around after Linguini's retort and before his line? Anton was being hyperbolic to save face in front of the journalists.
  • Presumably he doesn't eat exclusively in restaurants. That would get very expensive. Perhaps he cooks his own meals at home, or has a relative who cooks for him.
  • Ego probably does eat every now and then but only just the bare minimum to provide his body sustenance. Remy's ratatouille is perhaps the first meal in decades that he truly saviored and enjoyed.

Does the Friendship Go Both Ways?

• I, personally, have always been curious as to how Remy really feels about his relationship with Linguini, even in the end. I know Linguini considered Remy his friend, he even said so when he discovered the rest of the clan swiping food from the cooler, "I thought you were my friend, I trusted you!" but what about Remy? I've always been a little cloudy on how he felt about it. It almost seems to me that from beginning to end, he pretty much regarded Linguini as a vehicle for him to live his dream vicariously through; even during the climax, Remy returns to the restaurant because they would fail without him, and when his father asks why does his care, he responds, "Because I'm a cook!" Even in the end, when Linguini and Colette open their own place, I'm sure Remy joined in mainly to continue to live his dream of being a cook... maybe by that point, he considers Linguini (and probably Colette now too) his friend, but it still seems a little cloudy to me.
  • I'm sure Remy sees Linguini as a friend — Remy was determined that Linguini know the truth about his inheritance as soon as he saw the will and letter even though he had nothing to gain from that (he was already cooking as much as he wanted), and he began to feel left out when Linguini began spending time with Colette and leaving him behind. Did they become friends because they both needed to work together and help each other to gain something each of them wanted but couldn't get without the other's help? Yes. Is this a bad thing? No.
    • Nothing to gain? What if, at this point, Remy had already figured out Skinner was just waiting for an excuse to fire Linguini? Also, it gave Remy's puppet more power in the restaurant without giving the power to cut the strings.

Sleeping Duty

• Why did Remy feel the need to make Linguini "sleep cook" after he stayed up cleaning the kitchen? Would it have been so bad for Colette to catch him sleeping in the kitchen?
  • Panic, I'd guess. Here comes Colette, and Remy is out in the open in the kitchen. He's a bullseye. He knows the best way to hide is how he's been doing it. And if he just hid under Linguini's hat, Colette might have pulled it off to wake him up and expose Remy. Just a string of bad ideas to save his skin.
  • In addition, I can't recall, but did he know for sure who was going to come in at that moment? Because at this point, Skinner is looking for every excuse to be able to fire him, so anyone but Colette finding him asleep in a messy kitchen wouldn't be very beneficial at all.
  • If you pay attention during the first half of the movie, it's shown that Remy doesn't necessarily care about where it would leave Linguini if their cover was blown. As a matter of fact, Remy starts out as a bit of an opportunistic Jerkass, and in his mind, he probably figured that somebody, especially Skinner, catching Linguini asleep on the job in the kitchen would only ruin his chance to continue his life as a cook, and even if that wouldn't happen, he certainly wasn't going to take that chance.

Crazy Old Lady

• Am I the only one who was a little disturbed at just how determined the old lady in the beginning was to kill Remy and his clan? First by grabbing a rifle to kill them and liberally blasting her house to pieces when a slipper or a mop would have been less destructive, then by following them out into the rain to shoot at them some more? Considering there was now a huge hole in her ceiling, I'd have been more concerned with that or checking over the rest of my house than rats that had already fled the scene.
  • Maybe she has a phobia of rats and panicked.
  • They're a swarm of rats that, to her mind, has just royally fucked up her house. She was pissed off.
  • Except she was going ridiculously overboard even before she realized there was a whole colony of rats in the ceiling. I mean, yeah, I'd freak out at a rat in my kitchen, too, but I wouldn't blow a bunch of holes in the ceiling with a shotgun. I'd go to the store and buy half a dozen traps, and maybe not leave as much food around the kitchen.
    • As a person above said, she clearly had a serious rat phobia. Also, being an old lady, she was probably senile, and was unaware of how much destruction she was causing to her house.
  • Keep in mind that Remy's "new" job as "poison checker" occurred because he actually did smell rat poison in the garbage; therefore, we know that the old lady already knew she was dealing with a rat infestation and had been taking reasonable efforts - which had failed - to combat it. She was probably driven over the edge by pure frustration.

What's with the Cookbook?

• What was Remy's plan with the cookbook? It seems extremely unlikely he'd be able to hide it, since it's relatively huge and someone would undoubtedly see it during the whole leaving fiasco anyway, and considering he wasn't supposed to be in the kitchen in the first place and isn't supposed to be reading, it also seems extremely unlikely he'd actually be given permission to keep it. Had he managed to keep it with him and not get separated from the others, it probably would have done nothing but acted as proof he's been hanging out somewhere he wasn't supposed to be before being gotten rid of.
  • Remy has a passion for cooking. In the heat of that moment, he's not thinking about what he's going to do with the book once he has it, but only what will happen if he loses it and how difficult it might be to find another one, especially depending on where the clan goes to build their next nest.

Famous Criticism = Shooting Self in the Foot?

• Isn't it kind of self-defeating for Anton Ego to be a "Well-Known Food Critic?" I mean, not being recognized on sight is a crucial component of food and restaurant criticism: if the cooks know you're there, they'll step up their game to impress you rather than give their usual everyday effort...which is what you're trying to judge.
  • Perhaps his standards are so ridiculously high no one has a chance unless they intentionally step up their game?
  • Indeed, at least with Linguini, he says he wants to give him a fair chance at impressing him, since he's new to the game - it wouldn't be very fair at all if he just came in and sat down. Plus, if you're a food critic at all, isn't it kind of impossible for you to go and sit down somewhere without being recognized? That's the whole point of being a well-known food critic, because you're so well-known.
  • He simply enjoys being The Dreaded. It's part of his public image as "The Grim Eater."

When Did Linguini Make the Soup?

• On Linguini's second day, Skinner orders him to cook that soup he almost ruined earlier. He tries, but still has no idea what to do. He and Remy need to figure out some form of communication, so they come up with this hair-pulling thing. It probably took them a few days of practice to truly master this skill, so when did Linguini actually cook the soup?
  • At the start of Linguini's second day, Skinner tells him to take as long as he needs to recreate the soup, including all week if necessary. We then have the montage of Remy learning to control Linguini through the hair-pulling which presumably takes place over a few days, followed by Linguini successfully cooking the soup again under Remy's guidance.
  • It sorta looked to me like the cooking-hair-pulling-practice thing only took place during the course of one night - Linguini would've only needed to stall the first day long enough for him to make it home to practice.

"I Wasn't Trying to Cook"— Really?

• When Linguini was meant to dispose of Remy, he tells Remy "I'm not ambitious, I wasn't trying to cook, I was just trying to stay out of trouble" when Remy decided to get "fancy with the spices". However, in the scene before, we clearly saw Linguini messing with the soup, and he considers that to NOT be cooking when it clearly was? I can understand trying to shift the blame onto Remy, but come on, throwing a bunch of ingredients to a soup is still cooking, regardless of how adept the person is at it. Honestly, why did he even bother with lying? It's not like he needed to cover his screw up with a rat, and it's not like there was any reason for him to lie to the audience when we just saw him trying to cook.
  • He wasn't trying to cook. He had bumped into the soup, knocked some stuff into it that wasn't supposed to be in it, and was frantically trying to fix it, but only managed to make it worse. That's what he means by "just trying to stay out of trouble." He didn't just wander in and decide to muck about with the soup.
    • Actually if you pay close attention to the scene, he knocks over the pot and spills a lot of the soup onto the floor while trying to mop. He then tries to cover up his mistake by filling the pot back up with water and ingredients to bring the volume back up and make it look like he hadn't spilled any.

Dub Question

• This is more of language headscratcher, but how did the French dub deal with the Ratatouille pun when Linguini got drunk?
  • Not much different because both "rat" and "ratatouille" are the same word in English and French.

Why Ratatouille?

• What made Remy decide to make ratatouille to serve to Ego? Colette refers to it as a "peasant dish," and Remy didn't have any idea of Ego's history or his mother's cooking.
  • Because of the word rat in the name? Ratatouille is the title of the movie.
  • As someone noted above, Ego was a food critic and thus used to the complicated combinations of flavors in fancy cooking; he had practically forgotten about the appeal of a dish's simplicity, a notion Remy adhered to. He didn't need to know Ego's past, he just went with intuition.
  • Ego did ask specifically for some "fresh, well-seasoned perspective". Whether or not Remy knew where Ego had come from, we know that Remy started learning how to cook in some old lady's cottage kitchen, watching old episodes of the culinary version of Bob Ross, so Remy may have merely been leaning on his own perspective; an understanding of his humble beginnings combined with a passion for high cuisine.

Unhelpful Gusteau

• When Remy asks Gusteau why pictures of Linguine are being kept with his will, Gusteau gestures around them and says "This used to be my office." How does that answer Remy's question? What did it have to do with anything?
  • Because Gusteau was a figment of Remy's imagination, and therefore unaware of things that Remy is unaware of, which is actually mentioned right after this moment, Gusteau's only response was something completely off-topic. The joke was that it really had nothing to do with Remy's question, since Remy himself had no answer to this question.
  • Okay, I get that Gusteau doesn't know anything more than Remy does, but why did he give such an irrelevant answer? The exchange didn't come off like it was trying to be a joke — he could've just shrugged and said, "How would I know?"
  • Remy isn't asking him that so much as expressing surprise that the Will is in the desk in the first place. That's what Gusteau is answering — why is the Will in the desk? Because that used to be his office.
  • Or it's Remy having a mental Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! moment - Linguini is filed with Gusteau's will in Gusteau's office, ergo Linguini is connected to Gusteau.

Why Doesn't Ego Agree?

• Considering Ego's backstory, why would he declare himself at odds with Gusteau's "Anyone can cook" philosophy? Shouldn't he have agreed with it, since he viewed his mother's cooking as being as good as any of the master chefs he critiques?
  • His problem was with his interpretation of Gusteau's philosophy. Once Remy led him to a new interpretation, he accepted it.
  • Where does it ever say that he viewed his mother's cooking that way? He just viewed it as his mother's cooking, nostalgically loving it because it's his mothers. "My mother made me soup I liked to make me feel better when I was a kid," does not translate into, "Anyone can be a world-class, master chef."
  • This is arguably the whole point of that moment, and Ego's Heel–Face Turn. Remember that Ego is a fairly elderly individual by this point, and he's probably spent decades immersed in high cuisine, critiquing a parade of self-described master-chefs who tend to fall way below his standards. He also almost certainly hasn't tasted his mother's cooking for years, if not decades (given his age she's likely passed away long ago, or at very least has reached such an advanced age and level of infirmity to all but completely prevent her from cooking as she did when he was a child), and it's equally likely that he doesn't really remember the taste beyond some vague nostalgic remembrances of really enjoying it. So combining the two means it'd be entirely easy for him to become convinced that true excellence in cooking is incredibly rare, limited to only a few gifted individuals and requires both a high-end restaurant's level of equipment and practically a lifetime of work and honing to the exclusion of all else to master, and even then it's still incredibly rare. However, that simple taste of ratatouille unlocks a sensory memory of the food prepared by a woman who probably wasn't a professional chef, would have by no means devoted her entire life just to high cuisine (the fact that she raised at least one child by itself suggests otherwise), and yet was capable of cooking the best food he's ever tasted up to that point in his life, with nothing more than the kind of ingredients and tools that can be found in any household kitchen. So if his mother could cook to the same level of quality (or even better) as the professional chefs in a high-end restaurant, with none of their advantages of time, tools or training, then anyone can.

Just Destroy It!

• So...if Skinner was so paranoid that Linguini was trying to depose him and claim his inheritance as Gusteau's son, why didn't he just destroy Renata's letter? It was the only evidence anybody had that Linguini and Gusteau were related (until Skinner shot himself in the foot by ordering a Daddy DNA Test).
  • Maybe he thought Linguini knew about the contents of the letter. The other chefs were around when he gave the letter to Skinner, so destroying the letter and pretending it never existed wouldn't end well if Linguini "decided" to come forward and "expose" his secret.
    • Exactly, as he even tells Talon that he thinks Linguini knows and is "pretending to be an idiot."
  • Or he just didn't want to get rid of it until he was absolutely sure he had no use for it. If Linguini does know about the contents of the letter, then Skinner keeping it has no consequence. If Linguini doesn't know about the letter, then Skinner can keep it locked in his office where no one else can find it.

Hats Off to This Question

• When Skinner sees Remy's silhouette beneath Linguine's hat, why not just have him take the hat off to check? It's not an unreasonable request if he has reason to believe there's a rat underneath it.
  • Because he's suspicious that Linguini and Remy are working together, and if therefore he were to ask Linguini to remove the hat, he knows Remy would find a way to hide and embarrass Skinner in front of the other cooks. That's why Skinner tries to get that hat off Linguini without him or Remy noticing he's there.

Skinner's Freudian Excuse

• Not trying to DILP Skinner, but in a deleted scene (When Gusteau was alive), he says to Gusteau that after Ego's review , the frozen foods that Skinner makes with his boss's image is the only reason the restaurant is still running. This would've given him some Freudian Excuse or made him a low-functioning Well-Intentioned Extremist. I get why they killed off Gusteau, but why did the final version gloss it over just to make Skinner the typical irredeemably greedy French Jerk?
  • Probably because if he was just trying to keep the restaurant afloat and viewed the frozen-foods thing as the unfortunate means to an end, he wouldn't really have the grounds to be upset once Linguini's reputation starts bringing in more actual business.

What was Skinner's Plan?

• Part of the plot is that Skinner is looking for every excuse to fire Linguini, especially after learning that he's Gusteau's son, but later in the movie, he tells his lawyer that he can't fire him or people would grow suspicious and find out anyway. So what was his plan between learning the truth and being kicked out?
  • The will mentioned a deadline by which Gusteau's heir would have to come forward and stake his claim to the restaurant before the rights passed to the sous-chef. Skinner was planning to wait until after that deadline had safely passed before he found some excuse to fire Linguini, so that even if anyone looks into it and discovers the truth, it'll be too late for them to do anything. As long as Skinner doesn't let on that he has the letter from Linguini's mother, he can simply feign ignorance of his paternity and retain ownership of the restaurant with no repercussions.

What About the Lawyer?

• What happened to Skinner's lawyer? Is he still his lawyer after he was kicked out of being in Gusteau's and why didn't he help Skinner out afterwards?
  • Didn't he start to think that Skinner was insane? I'm pretty sure he said, "Should I be concerned about this? About YOU?" Maybe he didn't bother helping Skinner out because he was fully convinced that Skinner was a lunatic with a weird obsession with a rat (now, whether or not he was WRONG, that's up for you to decide).
  • He also might not have the money to pay the lawyer now that he's lost ownership of the restaurant.

Linguini's Skills or Lack Thereof

• Linguini resignedly admits that he "can't cook," but what he actually can't do is improvise on the fly. And most cooks either can't or don't; Colette tells him that only the head chef can be creative, but everyone else has to "follow the recipe". Which anyone can do, provided they get the right ingredients and equipment. Given she was running him and Remy through the wringer, and Linguini was presumably given his ten thousand hours of work, it's plausible he could follow a simple recipe without needing a puppeteering rat. How come his cooking on his own didn't improve? Did he just stop trying because Remy was his crutch?
  • In Linguini's defense, he only had a limited amount of time to recook the soup after his first night on the job, and at that point, not only was his job on the line, but he wasn't exactly well-versed in preparing dishes or the rules of being a cook. Therefore, Linguini's main priority at that point was to figure out a way to collaborate with Remy to figure out how to get out of the whole pickle regarding the soup rather than actually try to improve on his cooking skills. Once Colette starts training him, he actually does try to follow through with her advice of following recipes, but Remy's control over him gets in the way of that. In regards to him not remembering recipes, this may have been poor planning on Linguini's part, but this could probably have been due to a combination of being conflicted between taking Remy or Collete's advice and trying to keep his secret from being revealed.
  • As I recall, the only time he's shown to be screwed without Remy's help is during the climax, when he can't recreate the sweetbread recipe people are ordering because only Remy knows how to make it. We're never told that his culinary skills haven't improved otherwise.
  • Linguini might have improved, but the chances that he could improve enough to be able to function as a chef without Remy's help in such a short amount of time are very slim. He might be able to cook, but he doesn't have the experience necessary to cook on the level that would be expected of him as a high-class chef.

Why Didn't Skinner Get the New One?

• What would stop Skinner from trying to get the new restaurant at the end of the story closed down?
  • How could he? He wouldn't have any proof that there's a rat cooking in the kitchen, and even if he tried to get the Health Inspector sent there without any evidence, the only reason that worked with Gusteau's is because there happened to be an entire colony of rats manning the kitchen at the exact time the inspector walked in. It would be child's play for a single rat like Remy to remain hidden long enough for the inspector to do his work at the new restaurant and conclude that it's sufficiently sanitary to remain open.
  • Also, why would he? Sure, he's a spiteful jerk, but that doesn't make him a vengeance-driven lunatic. Even if he had Gusteau's closed down to make sure that if he couldn't have it then no one else could, that doesn't mean he's either planning to or has the time, energy, obsession and clout to devote himself to ruining these people's lives forever and ever and ever and making sure that nothing they ever do is successful. At some point, he just moved on with his life as well.
  • It's very stongly implied by the last couple of scenes that rats cooking in their kitchen isn't a secret to the public like it was in Gusteau's, and that people are now open-minded enough to give the restaurant a shot and keep it running despite it. Said rats are obviously very intelligent and smart enough to not handle food unless they've been cleaned first, so there's nothing to expose the restraunt for.

Why Not Invite Him?

• When Anton Ego asked to see the chef, Linguini and Colette told him that he must wait until the other customers have left the restaurant. Why not just invite him into the kitchen to see the chef instead of letting him sit at his table for hours until everyone else leaves?
  • In case he takes it the wrong way. If the restaurant is full of people, those are all people he can go out and tell that their food was prepared by a bunch of rats. With no one around for him to tell, it gives Colette and Linguini more of a chance to explain the situation.

Inspect This Puzzle

• Why didn't they just show the inspector the rats cleaning themselves?
  • I don't think that would've been enough to dissuade him from reporting the incident.
  • Rats are still rats, and no inspector would ever pass a restaurant that had even a single one, regardless if they cleaned themselves off.
    • But I thought the whole reason rats weren't allowed was because of the germs, so if they're not dirty, why would they still not be allowed?
    • Because sanitary or no, it's still a instinctual human reaction to react with disgust at the sight of a rat. They shouldn't be in a gourmet kitchen whether they're going to infect anything or not.
    • Just because we have irrational instincts doesn't mean we ought to be making "should"s and "shouldn't"s based on them. Wouldn't it be better if we learn to realise that those instincts are irrational and ignore them?
    • Yeah, that's the whole point of the movie. We aren't discussing whether the inspector should have looked further into it, only whether it makes sense that he didn't. And for the record, I wouldn't care if you ran the rats through the dishwasher before letting them cook my meal, no matter how irrational you think I am.
  • His professional standing also needs to be considered. We see Anton Ego plummet from grace after endorsing Gusteau's right at the same time that the rat scandal broke. By the same token, what health inspector would want his peers in public service to know him as the guy who okayed a kitchen full of rats? Do you think he really wants to be protesting "But they went through a steam cleaning first!" as damage control for the rest of his career?
• 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.
  • Because it would have drawn out the film unnecessarily and didn't have anything to do with the narrative the makers wanted to tell. Do you really think Skinner and the inspector would've even stuck around long enough for Linguini and Colette to try convincing them of such a ridiculous notion, let alone that they could be convinced to believe it?
  • Additionally, in answer to both questions, Collette and Linguini maybe wanted to give themselves some form of deniability by being as detached from the captive situation as possible. The instant they were to try to convince the inspector of anything before releasing him, they could go from relatively innocent bystanders to complicit in the act of holding him against his will.

Soup Not Successfully Stopped

• How did the waiter not hear Skinner shouting "Stop that soup!" followed by a Big "NO!"? The waiter was still in the kitchen. Restaurant kitchens are surely noisy, but would they be noisy enough to block out someone shouting like that? The film's sound editing does not include a lot of kitchen noise in this scene so that we can hear the dialogue. Is this a form of Translation Convention? Would it really be that hard to hear Skinner shouting in real life?
  • Maybe he did hear him but defied his orders?
  • What possible reason would the waiter have for disobeying Skinner's orders? Skinner is his boss so he'd be naturally predisposed to follow his instructions anyway. And if he hears a panicked cry of 'Stop that soup!' he's going to immediately conclude that there must be a major problem with the soup he's bringing out and if he serves it to a customer he'll end up causing both personal embarrassment to himself as the waiter and damage to the reputation of the restaurant that he works for.

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 mediocre 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.
  • Sadly, Ego's style is Truth in Television. Look at YouTube. Look at just how many toxic and anger-themed movie and video game review channels that now infest the site after it became trendy to be immensely hateful towards any kind of media (and not in a satirical, tongue-in-cheek way). These channels work extremely hard at being Negative Nancies, calling everything a failure, wanting entire franchises to collapse just so they can be ravaged by lengthy essays and ragebait thumbnails. These videos get monstrous amounts of views and discourage opposing viewpoints due to their threatening, "us vs. them" tone. Some people absolutely love to slander things past the point of no return, usually due to the same insecurity and denial that Ego displayed throughout the film. That is, before he finally admitted to his readers he had been narrow-minded and selfish and learned to appreciate the art he continually defamed and respect the artist's efforts regardless of whether or not they succeed.

The Real Chef

• Why did Linguini and Colette feel the need to be honest with Ego about the meal being cooked by rats? He already gave them a way out by assuming that Linguini was the chef. And since Remy can't communicate with the humans, they'd have no reason to assume he'd want credit, especially considering the fate of the restaurant is at stake.
  • The fate of the restaurant wasn't at stake. At this point in the film, it's already doomed to be closed down because the health inspector had seen the colony in the kitchen and the other staff had all quit after seeing Gusteau's son with a rat obsession.^note  As Remy later points out, they had to let the health inspector loose eventually. As for the other staff, they'd obviously spread the word about why they quit, especially when news publications asked. Colette and Linguini would both be aware of this. Combine that with the fact that they both view Remy as a genuine friend by this point, and it makes all the sense in the world: Nothing would be gained by Linguini or Colette taking credit, and nothing would be lost by giving it to Remy.
  • Furthermore giving Remy the credit made it so Ego couldn't simply dismiss the evening later on; he might have thought he was just in a good mood and uncommonly forgiving that night and would have gone right back to being a nasty, impossible-to-please critic. By showing him that Remy made the meal, he was forced to change his entire worldview and learn the importance of appreciation and giving credit where credit is due to encourage improvement instead of deeming everything a failure. There comes a time for everyone where you stop being in denial about how you feel about something and change your mind, and the knowledge that a rat, not a human being, cooked a meal that made him openly happy and grateful did that.