Claw game machines featuring a gauntlet resembling the Infinity Gauntlet can be seen in both an arcade and the tavern. This is the fifth Pixar film not to have humans in it, following A Bug's Life, and the Cars movies, and therefore making it the second one not from the Cars franchise. This is also the first PG-rated Pixar film not to have humans in it.

Onward was first announced at the 2017 D23 Expo as "The Untitled Pixar Film That Takes You Into A Suburban Fantasy World" and was described as a story about two brothers seeking to reconnect with their late father set in a human-free world of elves, sprites, trolls, dragons and "anything else that would be painted on the side of a van in the 1970s", with unicorns being depicted as common pests and dragons are pets.In the Manticore's tavern, a book with the logo of the kingdom of DunBroch can be seen alongside the Manticore's map. This is Octavia Spencer's second role for a Disney film after Zootopia, where she previously voiced Mrs. Otterton. This is also Pixar's second fairy tale and their first film (after Brave) to take on the fantasy genre (not counting Monsters, Inc. as Disney appears to treat it more as science fiction within the theme parks than it does urban fantasy). Visitation Spell - Revives a deceased relative (requires phoenix gem). - Only once is all we get, grant me this rebirth. Till tomorrow's sun has set, one day to walk the Earth

Julia Louis-Dreyfus would also later play a minor character in the MCU Disney+ miniseries, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Due to the MPAA's rebrand to the MPA in 2019, this makes the first appearance of the new logo in the end credits for a feature-length Pixar film. Onward is the ninth Pixar film to be rated PG by the MPA, the first being The Incredibles, the second being Up, the third being Brave, the fourth being Inside Out, the fifth being The Good Dinosaur, the sixth being Finding Dory, the seventh being Coco, and the eighth being Incredibles 2.But after an unimpeachable run of deeply emotional, visually daring hits, including four Best Animated Feature Academy Awards in a row for Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and Toy Story 3, Pixar repeatedly stumbled. Its original films Brave and The Good Dinosaur suffered troubled productions and a series of telling compromises. Its bigger creative gambles, Inside Out and Coco, both won Oscars and kept the creative flames burning. But they arrived amid a long string of sequels ( Cars 2, Monsters University, Finding Dory, Cars 3, Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4) that all had their charms, while still giving the impression that Pixar was losing faith in its own original storytelling. Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Chris Pratt and Tom Holland voice brothers Barley and Ian Lightfoot, a pair of purple-skinned elves whose lives have been defined by their father’s death. Barley only has a few bare memories of their father, but Ian wasn’t born when he died, and has no memories of him at all. He obsesses over his missed opportunities, up until his 16th birthday, when his mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) gives him and Barley a present: a magical staff and a spell that will resurrect their father for a day. But the spell only half-works, leaving the boys running around with their father’s disembodied legs in tow. They end up on a desperate quest to find a magical gem to power the staff and complete the spell before 24 hours are up and they miss their chance entirely. Toy Story (1995) • A Bug's Life (1998) • Toy Story 2 (1999) · Monsters, Inc. (2001) • Finding Nemo (2003) • The Incredibles (2004) • Cars (2006) • Ratatouille (2007) • WALL-E (2008) • Up (2009) • Toy Story 3 (2010) • Cars 2 (2011) • Brave (2012) • Monsters University (2013) • Inside Out (2015) • The Good Dinosaur (2015) • Finding Dory (2016) • Cars 3 (2017) • Coco (2017) • Incredibles 2 (2018) • Toy Story 4 (2019) • Onward (2020) • Soul (2020) • Luca (2021) • Turning Red (2022) • Lightyear (2022) • Elemental (2023) This is the second time for Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna to compose the music for a Pixar film since The Good Dinosaur in 2015.

In the deleted scenes, there was to be a tritagonist, a female satyr called Genevieve or Jenny for short. She would have helped the boys on their quest, however she was ultimately scrapped to follow the relationship of the two brothers. On their way to the spot where the Phoenix Gem would be at, Ian and Barley run out of gas for their van as the two stop at the Swamp Gas area to get their fuel refilled. After obtaining fuel for Guinevere, the two are chased by a hostile gang of fairies known as the Pixie Dusters who chase them via motorcycles. Eventually while escaping, Colt Bronco's police squadron members Gore and Specter notice this as they attempt to arrest Ian and Barley for speeding. Ultimately, they are able to avoid getting arrested by using a spell to disguise themselves as Colt Bronco just as Ian and Barley continue their journey via van. As it stands, it's 17th out of Pixar's 27 releases to date and three of those ( Soul, Luca and Turning Red) were only released in select overseas markets in the cinema where Disney+ hadn't yet launched. It is the first Pixar film to be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD two months after its theatrical release (and over one month after its debut on Disney+). This is the second Pixar film to feature a non-Pixar short, in this case, a The Simpsons short, the first being Coco, featuring Olaf's Frozen Adventure.

Take a Look at These Onward-Inspired Art Videos

This marks the second Pixar film to feature Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a voice role, after previously voicing Princess Atta in A Bug's Life in 1998. There’s nothing wrong with this model of film for Pixar. It’s exciting to see the studio finally creating a new world, and the brotherly team-up at the film’s heart feels like a new model for a collection of storytellers that have focused on unlikely found families as often as they’ve focused on flesh-and-blood families. Onward takes a few representation steps forward as well, with a female character (voiced by Lena Waithe) who casually mentions her girlfriend; a prominent role for Octavia Spencer; and a pair of middle-aged-lady characters who get some nice bonding moments together and some action scenes of their own — both a rarity in animated features. March 6, 2020 (Albania (Subtitled), Canada, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vietnam) Fireworks: Disney Enchantment • Happily Ever After • Illuminate! A Nighttime Celebration • Momentous This is currently the last Pixar movie to feature John Ratzenberger in the voice cast as he does not voice any characters in any Pixar films that followed, despite appearing as an animated caricature of himself in Soul.

It is also the only Walt Disney Pictures film to have a domestic theatrical release in 2020 (not counting Mulan, which had its theatrical release at the Dolby Theatre as a red-carpet premiere). Instead, some catalog Disney films were re-released in selected theaters that year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Inside Out, Zootopia, The Jungle Book, Monsters, Inc., The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, Toy Story, The Santa Clause, Frozen, and The Muppet Christmas Carol, while The Emperor's New Groove and Remember the Titans were also re-released in selected theaters in January 2021. Cars 2" is currently the lowest-rated Pixar film, but even critics who panned the movie still found a few things to like about it. This is the third Pixar film to be accompanied by a non-Pixar short film and also the fourth not to be an original one, but instead based on an already-existing property.This is the third time that Pixar releases two major films (both Onward and Soul) in the same year, after 2015's Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, and 2017's Cars 3 and Coco. This is the first Disney (and Pixar) film to have a digital release just two weeks after its theatrical release, due to COVID-19 concerns.