The Universal User's Manual is an algorithm featured in the 2025 Disney/Pixar animated feature film Elio. It is an omniscient entity represented by floating cards.
Background[]
Personality[]
The Universal User's Manual appears to have omniscient intelligence. It appears to answer every question an entity asks to the algorithm through a philosophical point of view. Despite this, it also seems to be helpful to Elio's overreaction while trying to answer its question. In spite of this, the Manual also appears to reveal secrets to Elio on how to deal with Lord Grigon.
Physical appearance[]
The Universal User's Manual is composed of several rainbow-colored cards consisting of various symbols written on them. The most default form it takes is an infinite symbol which are capable of shuffling and rearranging themselves. However, when disappointed, the Manual makes a disappointed pose and its pages collapse like dominoes falling. When talking, the cards move to resemble moving sound waves as a means of exaggeration. Through communication, the Manual's first step is when its pages fly back until an intergalactic communication is found, which form a closed prism shape and then shuffle together in a stack.
Development[]
According to set designer Valerie Kao, the Universal User's Manual was designed to make it resemble something shapeless but structured like origami by communicating with the answers it held to the universe consisting of infinite knowledge.[1]
Role in the film[]
When Elio approaches Ambassador Auva interacting with her most recent design: the Universal User's Manual, she offers him to try it, causing the Manual to introduce itself. The Manual also explains that it also contains the secrets of the universe from the meaning of life and evidence beyond the black hole. When Elio asks it about a gorilla with a baseball bat, the Manual tells him that none who fight are true winners, deciding to stick with Elio's answer.
Later after Ooooo sends a clone of Elio to Earth, the Manual appears again and asks Elio if he would like to learn the meaning of life, which he suggests if it has something to help him negotiate with Lord Grigon. The Manual agrees to help him on his quest, giving him a chapter called "Making the Killer Deal", which it instructs him to stay calm when dealing with the warlord.
During the end credits, the Universal User's Manual appears and brings in the credits recapping the events of the film. It is also seen again in the section where the credits scroll up moving across certain parts of the screen.
Trivia[]
- The tone that Bob Peterson uses when voicing the Manual is similar to that of Dug, a character from the Up franchise, as both are voiced by Peterson himself.
- In some scenes during Elio's interaction with the Universal User's Manual, some of its cards individually show letters spelling "PIXR" and "ANDY" respectively. The former is a reference to Pixar itself while the latter is a reference to Andy Davis from the Toy Story franchise.
References[]
- ↑ The Art of Elio (page 69)
External links[]
Universal User's Manual on the Elio Wiki
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