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The 2010 animated movie Despicable Me may not have been the highest-grossing film of the year when it was released, and it may not have been nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars (Toy Story 3 is the answer to both of those, actually), but the film had an impact on pop and mainstream culture that went off like a bomb. Steve Carell’s Gru may have been the star of the film, and his journey in becoming a father may have touched hearts around the world, but it was the tiny, yellow, babbling “Minions” who stole the show. No one could have predicted that the Minions would not only provide Dreamworks with a full billion-dollar franchise in their own right, or that their antics would make them fodder for Facebook memes, but now, they have to answer moral quandaries.
The “lore” of Minions established over films, TV specials, and shorts has evolved over the years, but a key principle is that the minions “serve the most despicable master they can find,” a way to explain why they work for Gru in the first film. Their history has revealed other masters, like a T. Rex in prehistoric times, a vampire, and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Fans have long made the joke, though, about what the Minions may have been up to in the world from the years 1939 to 1945, when Adolf Hitler was serving as leader of Germany. Now, their creator has finally addressed it, with Minions creator Pierre Coffin telling Polygon, “I think they were in that cave.”
Minions Creator Finally Answers the “Hitler” Question
To Coffin’s credit, who directed the first three Despicable Me movies, the first Minions spinoff film, and this week’s Minions & Monsters sequel, this question was something that the team behind these bug-eyed freaks had already pondered. As he alluded to, the first Minions film from 2015 addressed the history of the Minions, revealing that after they failed Napoleon in a battle and thus went into exile in an ice cave, staying there for over a hundred years from 1812 to 1968, bypassing both world wars and the notion of who they would “work for” amid global tragedies that claimed millions of lives.
That said, Minions & Monsters adds a wrinkle to this, not only revealing that there are multiple “tribes” of Minions beyond the one that hid in the cave, but also showing that at least one tribe started working in Hollywood in the 1920s (conveniently between the two world wars).
When presented with this addendum, Coffin also had a reply, telling the outlet: “I was trying to avoid the answer…So the Minions that we know from Minions 1 were stuck in the cave. These ones, I don’t know where they were, but they were not part of the Big History.”
Despite the many attempts the Minions franchise has made to offer a reasonable explanation for why this animated franchise made for children that makes billions of dollars doesn’t simply address Hitler in any meaningful way, the truth is that some online denizens will always find a way to bring it up.
Coffin’s response above may mark the first time anyone has ever really answered the question, but as long as more and more Minions movies get made (especially ones set in the past like Minions & Monsters), fans are going to wonder. On top of that, the audience who were children and grew up with the original films are now entering young adulthood, meaning the cycle will only continue as the franchise carries on (and based on the box office, it surely will).
Minions & Monsters Rotten Tomatoes Score Sets Surprising Franchise Record
