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Rat Colony

The Rat Colony is a group of supporting characters from Ratatouille. They are a mischief of rats led by Django living in the French countryside.

Ratatouille

The rat colony is introduced at the beginning of the film, where Remy narrates that adapting to his life as a rat is difficult, despite Remy himself having a highly-developed taste of smell ranging from flour to eggs, to sugar and "vanilla bean with a small twist of lemon." Remy then introduces his brother, Emile, to the audience, followed by his father, Django, who is the leader of the colony. After looking at some rat poison, which Remy and the other rats must avoid, Django gives his son a job in smelling foods to determine whether they are clean or poisoned and whether or not they should eat it, which makes Remy's father proud of him for doing such a noble cause. Remy, however, explains to Django that the food the rats are taking is dirty, much to Remy's disgust, as he considers such food garbage. His father and the rest of the clan, however, have no qualms feasting on leftovers, since discarded food would mean that no one else but the scavenging rats would be interested in them. Django warns him that his rat clan does not do thieving acts while telling Remy to avoid the kitchens due to the area being patrolled by humans who try to keep the restaurant rat-free.

After Remy tries eating a fresh strawberry and a piece of cheese at an elderly woman's house, he decides to eat fresh food rather than dirty food being used as junk. Django, meanwhile, is present with his clan eating leftover food worried to know where Remy is. However, when Mabel, the elderly woman, sees Remy and Emile in her house, she attempts to hunt them down with her gun, just as the two dodge her shots. Mabel then fires at the chandelier, causing the ceiling to crash down with numerous rats, consisting of Django and his rat clan. Django alerts the rats to evacuate due to a human in the area they are at, just as Remy grabs the Anyone Can Cook book so he would know more about being a chef, just like the late Auguste Gusteau, while the rats continue escaping. Remy tries to catch up with Django's rat clan trying to escape from the elderly woman to which while planning to escape. The rats board makeshift boats made of everyday items to use for transportation to escape from the woman trying to hunt them down, while Remy uses the cookbook as a raft. As Remy attempts to get rescued by Django and Git using a spatula to help him, Mabel sees the rats attempting to escape into the sewers, and she attempts to shoot them with her rifle, causing Remy to become separated from the other rats. Surviving a wild chase in the sewers, Remy feels sad that he lost his friends and turns the pages of Gusteau's cookbook, just as a figment of Gusteau appears and tries to comfort a sulking Remy. Gusteau tells Remy that if he focuses on fearing what he left behind, he will never be able to see what lies ahead. Gusteau then advises Remy to look for an escape to fulfill his purpose in becoming a chef, which he does, and he ends up in the human world in the kitchen of a restaurant called Gusteau's.

After having adventures with a human chef named Alfredo Linguini, Remy encounters Emile who is about to eat a piece of trash, but after trying a fresh piece of cheese and other fresh morsels given by Remy, Emile decides to return Remy to the clan. He tells Remy that Django wants to talk to him, to which Django tells his clan that his son has returned, and it is shown that Django's rat clan has survived the chase. After Remy is reunited with the rat clan, the rats celebrate Remy's reunion. Django, meanwhile, discusses with his son that finding someone to replace Remy as a poison checker has been a disaster, explaining to him that, luckily, no one in the clan has eaten anything with poison, and the important thing is that Remy is home. During a discussion with his father, Django explains to Remy that as rats, they do not leave their nests; they make them bigger, to which his son denies, telling Django that he doesn't want to steal scraps of leftover food like the other rats do, and instead wants to learn how to cook like a human. Rather than denying, Django privately takes Remy out of the sewers into the human world to see why humans are a threat to rats. Django shows Remy to a store in which, upon looking at a window, he sees various rat carcasses hanging on steel traps with bottles of rat poison and rat traps displayed on the shelf, giving Remy a warning about humans being a threat to rats. Django then explains that whenever rats enter the real world, they must be very careful when they encounter humans, telling Remy that he should stick to his own kind and avoid finishing his final journey in the human world, so as not to end up just like the rats seen on the window.

The next day, Remy encounters Emile who is calling to him just as Git, a muscular rat, asks how he is doing, and after asking Remy about what problem he has, Remy decides to enter the kitchen via a floor grate and into Gusteau's office to convince the rat clan that humans are not dangerous. Upon entering Gusteau's office, a portrait of Gusteau engages in a private conversation with Remy, where he discusses with Remy about how the rat clan wants him to steal food, to which he denies, just as various cutouts of Gusteau (including a drawing of a dog wearing a corn outfit in a chef hat) interrupt the conversation. Upon reading the document between the relationship between Linguini and Gusteau, and learning that Linguini is Gusteau's son, Remy escapes from Chef Skinner with the document in his mouth and tries to return to the rat clan to ask about Linguini being Gusteau's son, to which he escapes under a bridge where Emile and the other rats are hiding. Remy then approaches the colony who was well-fed, asking Remy for food, to which Remy decides to give them the morsels and taste the fresh food during the "Le Festin" sequence. Later, after Remy gives Linguini a hard time by puppeteering him under his toque while he is talking to the press about cooking for the customers, especially food critic Anton Ego (without revealing it to be Remy actually doing the cooking), Linguini becomes very furious with Remy, telling him to give him a break as Linguini decides to focus and prepare a dish for the food critic without Remy's help while Skinner overhears this. Remy then frustratedly kicks a can and smashes a wine bottle, to which Emile, Git, and the other rats react to his behavior. As Remy discusses with Emile, he tells him to convince their father, Django, to bring the whole rat clan.

Later, Remy and his father, Django, enter the kitchen, signaling the other rats to enter the cooler without getting noticed by Linguini. As the rats enter and work together to bring food to their sewers, Linguini enters the kitchen and approaches Remy. As Linguini attempts to apologize, the rats, including Emile, overhear him, to which Emile attempts to eat the last grape, but he falls on the floor while the cheese that Emile is standing on falls on him, causing him to shoot grapes at Linguini, interrupting the apology, just as he finds several rats in the kitchen cooler. Linguini is furious with Remy for betraying him, and he shoos the rats out of the kitchen, warning Remy that if they ever return, he will treat the rats the way the restaurant is supposed to treat pests. Remy sadly walks away from Django's clan.

With Remy caged by Skinner, he discusses with Gusteau's ghost about his hopeless plans, but Gusteau tells Remy that he doesn't need to pretend to be anything just as Emile shoves two gargoyle statues on the car where Remy's cage is at, to which he and Django enter the car to rescue Remy. After thanking them, Remy returns to Gusteau's despite their opposition, and they give chase, arriving just as the chefs grab their tools to kill him until Linguini appears and defends him, revealing Remy as the mastermind behind his talent. All of his staff resign in disgust, leaving both Remy and Linguini dejected. Django reconciles with Remy, and summons the entire colony to assist him. A Health Inspector suddenly enters, forcing Django and some of the rats to leave and intercept him while Remy gave out orders to the rest, reinvigorating Linguini, who goes out to wait tables as the rats work behind the scenes. The rats end up disgusting Colette Tatou, but Linguini stops her from leaving again and convinces her to help Remy prepare ratatouille as the Health Inspector is tied up and locked inside the food storage.

Ratatouille turns out to be a dish Ego fondly remembers from childhood, much to Skinner's disbelief. Skinner barges into the kitchen - not knowing his plan to ruin Linguini had fell apart completely - and is horrified by the rats. The rats lock Skinner with the Health Inspector to prevent them from interfering. The entire colony remained in the kitchen to clean it while Remy demonstrated his cooking to Ego after all the patrons have left. The next day, they celebrated their success with Linguini and Colette.

Skinner and the Health Inspector were presumably released by the rats, resulting in the shutdown of Gusteau's and Ego losing his credibility. Ego helps to establish "La Ratatouille", which remains popular with Remy continuing his cooking, and also served as the colony's new home.

Trivia