In Ratatouille, main character Remy the rat has always dreamed of becoming the finest chef in France, following in the footsteps of late restaurateur Auguste Gusteau. “Anyone can cook!” Gusteau would proclaim on his cooking show, with Remy would sneak into an old woman’s cottage to watch on a black-and-white TV. Gusteau eventually died of a broken heart following a negative review by critic Anton Ego, but Remy would continue to rely on an imaginary Gusteau for guidance as he insinuated himself into the workings of Gusteau’s kitchen.

In Up, main character Carl Fredricksen has always dreamed of leading the life of an adventurer, following in the footsteps of missing explorer Charles Muntz. “Adventure is out there!” ran Muntz’s famous catchphrase, which he would deliver in black-and-white newsreels before stepping into his airship, the Spirit of Adventure, destined for uncharted lands. After the death of his wife Ellie, Carl would eventually meet Muntz in South America in a misadventure involving a Boy Scout, a talking dog, a colourful flightless bird, and a house carried by balloons. But Muntz was not the hardy explorer Carl had idolised in his youth; he had gone mad in search of the bird to the point of killing travellers he suspected of seeking the bird for themselves.

In Coco, main character Miguel Rivera has always dreamed of becoming a musician, much to the chagrin of his music-hating shoe-making family. Secretly he idolises the late famous musician Ernesto de la Cruz, whose old films he watches in his hideout, following along with de la Cruz’s playing on his own guitar. “Seize your moment,” de la Cruz would advise anyone who asked, how do I become a great musician?

Stop here. This much we know from the trailers. The natural question here is What will de la Cruz’s role in the story be?

de la Cruz turned out to be the villain. Later on I was discussing Coco with my roommate, who said, “I totally saw it coming! de la Cruz being the villain! It’s the same thing as Muntz from Up! It’s the Pixar formula!”

And I nodded. “Yup, I could see that too.”

But I was thinking, yes, I could see the parallels between how Muntz and de la Cruz were set up, but Gusteau from Ratatouille was set up the same way, and he did not turn out to be a villain. At the beginning of Coco I had asked myself, will this de la Cruz character be more like a Muntz or a Gusteau? This could go either way. So no, I’m not going to give myself credit for “predicting” that de la Cruz would be the villain. It was merely one of many possibilities that the plot could take, and if I guessed de la Cruz would be the villain, I could only do so through sheer dumb luck. It doesn’t count as solving a murder mystery if you guess literally every single character in the first fifteen minutes.

And I’ve wondered to myself, what does it mean for a movie to be “predictable”? Was the de la Cruz plot twist predictable?

It seems to me that film buffs like calling movies predictable. “Oh, that movie? It was so predictable, I could see everything coming from a mile away, I mean honestly.” In calling a movie predictable, the film buff asserts a mastery of genre conventions and tropes and the craft of film. Easy street cred. But I wonder if they’re just solving murder mysteries by guessing literally every single character.