{"slug":"elio","type":"movie","title":"Elio","year":2025,"releaseDate":"2025-06-18","franchise":"pixar","genres":["Animation","Family","Adventure","Science Fiction","Comedy"],"creators":["Madeline Sharafian","Domee Shi","Adrian Molina"],"url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio","hook":"A113 is stitched onto Elio's backpack as \"Area 113\", the Luxo ball is printed on his underwear, and Carl Sagan speaks in the film using real 1985 tape.","intro":"*Elio* is the most reference-dense Pixar film since *Soul*, and it is unusually generous about it — most of the plants sit in the foreground for several seconds rather than flickering past in a background plate. The studio signature arrives about five minutes in, embroidered on Elio's camouflage backpack as **AREA 113**: A113 and Area 51 folded into one badge, on a boy who wants to be abducted.\n\nThe **Luxo ball** placement is the funniest in the entire run. It is not on a shelf or in a pool — it is the **fabric pattern on Elio's underwear**, revealed during the alien scanning sequence at 22:13. In the same shot, the Universal User Manual spells out **ANDY** in alien script, which is either a nod to *Toy Story*'s owner or a joke about what aliens think humans name things.\n\nAnd then there is the layer that is not a joke at all. The film uses genuine archival audio of **Carl Sagan**, drawn from a 1985 radio conversation with Studs Terkel about *Contact*, and builds its whole premise on the **Voyager Golden Record** — the disc Sagan curated and NASA launched in 1977 as a message to whoever finds it. **Kate Mulgrew**, Captain Janeway of *Star Trek: Voyager*, narrates the Voyager museum exhibit. Below: every documented plant, with timecodes.","identifiers":{"tmdbId":1022787,"tmdbUrl":"https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1022787","imdbId":"tt4900148","imdbUrl":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4900148/"},"counts":{"eggs":11,"confirmed":11,"community":0,"theory":0,"sources":8},"postCredits":{"status":"yes","verdict":"Yes — Elio has 1 post-credit scene.","scenes":1,"description":"Yes — in the US release, a short teaser for Pixar's next film Hoppers plays after the credits. Reporting on this stinger is specific to the US theatrical release, so it may not have been attached to every territory's print.","detail":"**Elio has a post-credits stinger in its US release**: once the credits finish, a brief teaser for **Hoppers**, Pixar's next feature, plays.\n\nA caveat worth stating plainly, because it affects whether you should wait: the reporting on this scene is specific to the **US theatrical release**. Pixar and Disney have attached territory-specific promotional material to prints before, so if you are watching outside the US — or on a home release, where promotional teasers are frequently stripped out — the stinger may not be present. It is a trailer rather than a story scene, which is exactly the kind of content that gets swapped or removed between versions.\n\nWhat it is not is a continuation of Elio's story. Nothing about Elio, Glordon, Olga or the Communiverse is added or resolved after the credits. The film's story ends where it ends.\n\nIf you want *Hoppers* material inside the film itself, it is already there and it is better hidden. At **11:19** a file called **Hop_Script** sits on Melmac's computer desktop — the script for the next Pixar movie, filed on a character's machine. And at **26:34**, **Tom**, the lizard from *Hoppers*, appears in the Golden Record imagery and stays on screen for an unusually long stretch by next-film-tease standards.\n\nSo: stay if you are in a US cinema and want the teaser. The two in-film teases are the more interesting find either way.","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio/post-credits"},"eggs":[{"id":"area-113-on-the-backpack","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-area-113-on-the-backpack","title":"A113 is on Elio's backpack as 'AREA 113' — and again on Olga's screen","description":"At around **05:17**, Elio's camouflage backpack carries an **AREA 113** patch — Pixar's CalArts signature spliced with **Area 51**, the classified Air Force site that anchors most of American UFO folklore. It is the perfect merge: an in-joke about a school, disguised as an in-joke about aliens, on the bag of a boy trying to get taken. A second A113 turns up at **17:50** on the computer Olga uses to track space debris. The backpack also carries an **E.T.** finger doodle.","scene":"05:17 — Elio's camouflage backpack; and 17:50 — Olga's space-debris tracking computer","timestamp":"00:05:17","episode":null,"types":["visual","reference"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"CalArts — Vulture Video Tackles the Meaning of 'A113'","url":"https://blog.calarts.edu/2016/05/24/vulture-video-tackles-the-meaning-of-a113/"}],"motifs":["a113","recurring-hidden-signature"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"luxo-ball-on-elios-underwear","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-luxo-ball-on-elios-underwear","title":"The Luxo ball is printed on Elio's underwear","description":"The most undignified placement in the thirty-year history of the gag. During the alien scanning sequence at **22:13**, Elio is stripped to his underwear — and the fabric is patterned with the **Luxo ball**, the yellow-blue-and-red-star prop from *Luxo Jr.* (1986). Pixar has hidden this object in a pool, a hallway, a bedroom floor and a career parade. Here it is underwear, on screen, in front of an entire alien council.","scene":"22:13 — the Communiverse scanning sequence","timestamp":"00:22:13","episode":null,"types":["callback","visual"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Pixar Ball","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pixar_Ball"}],"motifs":["luxo-ball"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"carl-sagan-speaks-from-1985","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-carl-sagan-speaks-from-1985","title":"Carl Sagan appears in the film, using real archival tape","description":"*Elio* does not cast a Sagan impersonator. It uses **genuine archival recordings** of **Carl Sagan**, drawn from a 1985 radio conversation with broadcaster **Studs Terkel** about his novel *Contact*, and threads them through the film — closing on Sagan asking the question the whole story is built around: whether we are alone. Sagan curated the contents of the **Voyager Golden Record**, the disc NASA launched in 1977 as a message for anyone who finds it, which is the object the film's entire plot depends on.","scene":"Throughout — the Voyager material and the film's closing passage","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["cameo","reference"],"difficulty":2,"difficultyName":"Second Watch","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia — Voyager Golden Record","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record"},{"label":"Pixar Post — 'Elio' Blasts Into Space With Friendship and Heart","url":"https://pixarpost.com/2025/06/elio-movie-review.html"}],"motifs":["cameo-by-source-creator"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"kate-mulgrew-narrates-the-voyager-exhibit","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-kate-mulgrew-narrates-the-voyager-exhibit","title":"Captain Janeway narrates the Voyager exhibit","description":"The voice guiding visitors through the museum's **Voyager** display belongs to **Kate Mulgrew**, who spent seven seasons commanding the USS Voyager as **Captain Kathryn Janeway** on *Star Trek: Voyager*. Casting the captain of the fictional Voyager to explain the real one is the kind of joke that costs nothing and rewards exactly the audience most likely to be sitting there. The film carries a **Vulcan salute** at 32:13 as well.","scene":"The Voyager museum exhibit; the Vulcan salute at 32:13","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["cameo","meta"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"TV Tropes — Elio","url":"https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Elio"}],"motifs":["casting-in-joke"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"domad-is-the-directors-names","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-domad-is-the-directors-names","title":"The ham radio brand is the directors' names welded together","description":"The ham radio set carries the brand name **DOMAD**, which is **DOM**ee Shi and **MAD**eline Sharafian, two of the film's three directors, compressed into a single fictional electronics manufacturer. Crew signatures usually hide in a licence plate or a background credit; branding the film's key communication device with the people who made it is a considerably bolder version.","scene":"The ham radio equipment","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["visual","meta"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"TV Tropes — Elio","url":"https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Elio"}],"motifs":["crew-tribute"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"hoppers-teased-twice","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-hoppers-teased-twice","title":"Hoppers is teased twice, and one of the teases is a file on a desktop","description":"Pixar's next feature gets two plants. At **11:19**, a file named **Hop_Script** is visible on Melmac's computer desktop — a screenwriting in-joke, since it is literally the script for the next movie sitting in a character's file system. At **26:34**, **Tom**, the lizard from *Hoppers*, appears within the Golden Record imagery, and unusually for a next-film tease he stays on screen for a substantial stretch rather than flashing past.","scene":"11:19 — the Hop_Script file on Melmac's desktop; 26:34 — the lizard in the Golden Record imagery","timestamp":"00:11:19","episode":null,"types":["reference","foreshadowing"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"Pixar Post — 'Elio' Blasts Into Space With Friendship and Heart","url":"https://pixarpost.com/2025/06/elio-movie-review.html"}],"motifs":["sequel-tease"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"andy-in-alien-script","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-andy-in-alien-script","title":"The Universal User Manual spells ANDY in alien letters","description":"In the same scanning sequence that exposes the Luxo ball underwear, the **Universal User Manual** displays alien characters that resolve into **ANDY** — the name written on the boot of every toy in *Toy Story*. Reading it as a joke about naming is the fun part: the manual is explaining what humans are, and the example it reaches for is the word a child writes on the things he owns.","scene":"22:13 — the Universal User Manual during the scanning sequence","timestamp":"00:22:13","episode":null,"types":["reference","visual"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Toy Story Trivia","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Toy_Story_Trivia"}],"motifs":[],"referencesSlug":"toy-story","referencesWork":null},{"id":"pizza-planet-truck-at-melmacs-garage","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-pizza-planet-truck-at-melmacs-garage","title":"The Pizza Planet truck is parked outside Melmac's garage","description":"The streak continues. At **1:15:04**, during the space-debris sequence, the **Pizza Planet truck** is visible parked outside **Melmac's garage**. It is a standard background placement in a film that otherwise puts most of its references in the foreground, which makes it one of the harder finds here rather than one of the easier ones.","scene":"1:15:04 — parked outside Melmac's garage during the space-debris sequence","timestamp":"01:15:04","episode":null,"types":["visual","callback"],"difficulty":4,"difficultyName":"Deep Cut","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Pizza Planet Truck","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pizza_Planet_Truck"}],"motifs":["pizza-planet-truck"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"half-the-pixar-catalogue-is-in-the-set-dressing","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-half-the-pixar-catalogue-is-in-the-set-dressing","title":"Five other Pixar films are hidden in the props","description":"The background is stacked. **Toy Story 4** contributes a **blue casserole dish** and a **lemon** from the antique shop (56:17) plus a toy rocket from Ducky and Bunny's game in Elio's room (13:56). **Coco** supplies ofrenda decorations and an **Ernesto de la Cruz** T-shirt. **Turning Red** leaves graffiti — a **6** on a porta-potty — and kitten-box wallpaper. **Inside Out**'s fictional **TripleDent Gum** has expanded into toothpaste. And *A Bug's Life* is represented by a **four-leaf clover** in the Golden Record imagery.","scene":"Elio's bedroom, Olga's home, and background dressing throughout","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["reference","callback"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"TV Tropes — Elio","url":"https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Elio"}],"motifs":["product-of-the-fictional-universe"],"referencesSlug":"coco","referencesWork":null},{"id":"et-and-alien-back-to-back","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-et-and-alien-back-to-back","title":"An E.T. homage and an Alien chestburster gag land one second apart","description":"At roughly **1:11:10** the film stages a parody of the **chestburster** from *Alien* (1979), and at **1:11:11** — the very next beat — it pivots into a homage to the **containment sequence** from *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial* (1982), the plastic-tunnelled quarantine that traumatised a generation. Running the two most famous opposite images of alien contact in cinema back to back, one horrifying and one heartbreaking, is a deliberate compression of the entire genre into two seconds.","scene":"1:11:10 to 1:11:11 — the containment sequence","timestamp":"01:11:10","episode":null,"types":["reference","visual"],"difficulty":3,"difficultyName":"Freeze Frame","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":true,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"TV Tropes — Elio","url":"https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Elio"}],"motifs":["restaged-famous-shot"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null},{"id":"a-luxo-lamp-in-olgas-bedroom","url":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio#egg-a-luxo-lamp-in-olgas-bedroom","title":"A Luxo lamp is standing in Olga's bedroom","description":"Separate from the underwear, the film also plants the **lamp**. A Luxo desk lamp — the hopping star of *Luxo Jr.* and the mascot that crushes the I in Pixar's logo — stands in **Olga's bedroom**, alongside Elio's own shelf of sci-fi and space trinkets elsewhere in the house. Getting both halves of the Luxo joke, the lamp and the ball, into a single film is rarer than it sounds.","scene":"Olga's bedroom","timestamp":null,"episode":null,"types":["callback","visual"],"difficulty":5,"difficultyName":"White Whale","verification":"confirmed","spoiler":false,"sources":[{"label":"LaughingPlace — A Guide to the Easter Eggs in Pixar's 'Elio'","url":"https://www.laughingplace.com/disney-entertainment/pixar-elio-easter-egg-guide/"},{"label":"Pixar Wiki — Pixar Ball","url":"https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pixar_Ball"}],"motifs":["luxo-ball"],"referencesSlug":null,"referencesWork":null}],"faq":[{"question":"How many easter eggs are in Elio?","answer":"We have catalogued 11 documented easter eggs and hidden details in Elio, including the AREA 113 patch on Elio's backpack, the Luxo ball printed on his underwear, real archival Carl Sagan audio, Kate Mulgrew narrating the Voyager exhibit, the DOMAD ham radio named after two of the directors, two Hoppers teases, and props borrowed from Toy Story 4, Coco, Turning Red, Inside Out and A Bug's Life."},{"question":"Where is A113 in Elio?","answer":"Twice. At around 05:17 it is embroidered on Elio's camouflage backpack as 'AREA 113', merging Pixar's CalArts classroom signature with Area 51, and at 17:50 it appears again on the computer Olga uses to track space debris. The backpack also carries an E.T. finger doodle."},{"question":"Is that really Carl Sagan's voice in Elio?","answer":"Yes. The film uses genuine archival recordings of Carl Sagan, including material from a 1985 radio conversation with broadcaster Studs Terkel about his novel Contact. Sagan curated the Voyager Golden Record that NASA launched in 1977, which is the object the film's entire premise rests on."},{"question":"Does Elio have a post-credits scene?","answer":"In the US release, yes — a short teaser for Pixar's next film Hoppers plays after the credits. Because that reporting is specific to the US theatrical release, the stinger may not be attached to every territory's print or to home releases. It is a teaser rather than a continuation of Elio's story."},{"question":"Where is the Luxo ball in Elio?","answer":"Printed on Elio's underwear, revealed during the alien scanning sequence at 22:13 — the most undignified placement in the thirty-year history of the gag. The film also plants the other half of the Luxo joke: a Luxo desk lamp standing in Olga's bedroom."}],"publishedAt":"2026-08-19","updatedAt":"2026-08-19","source":{"name":"The Things You Missed","page":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/movies/elio","api":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/api/titles/elio","methodology":"https://thethingsyoumissed.com/about"}}