Summary
- Inside Out offered thousands of theories as to how the world, and characters within it, worked
- Inside Out 2 not only destroys those theories, but fails to replace them with anything interesting
- Neither the movie nor the new emotions feel all that worthwhile
The world 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disney’s Inside Out creates is simple yet compelling. Though the idea of us being controlled by little beings inside our head is not particularly new (The Numbskulls predates it by several decades), making them into the living embodiment of emotions is the sort of intelligent schmaltz Pixar excels at. Given the studio's whole deal is 'what if X had feelings', it's also kinda smart to ask 'what if feelings had feelings'. Unfortunately, Inside Out 2 tears this clever world building down.
In the original Inside Out, we spend most time in Riley's head, where her feelings are governed by Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness, with Joy the captain of the ship. Riley is a happy and mostly carefree child, so it stands to reason that Joy is her chief emotion. But we also see into her parents' heads, which is where you can start to have a little theorycrafting fun.
Riley's Mother And Father Are Led By Different Emotions
Riley's mother has the same five emotions, but Sadness is in charge. It may be that her mother is somewhat depressed with her humdrum life in the suburbs, where none of her dreams have come true, and where she is married to a husband who is nice but ultimately uninspiring. The few times we see him interact with Riley, he doesn't appear a particularly attentive or useful parent.
Meanwhile inside his brain, the five emotions are governed by Anger. Clearly none of his actions paint him as a violent abuser, but it might be that he has somewhat stunted emotions and so is more prone to getting frustrated. Given that he reruns old sporting highlights playing in his head to escape the monotony of family dinner, he too seems to be somewhat unhappy at his listless life. But rather than depression, he has turned to repression, bottling his emotions up. Together, they paint the picture of a quaint and cliched couple, who despite being slightly dysfunctional, raise a hapﷺpy and well-rounded chil𝓀d who has Joy in her heart (and at her emotional command console).
One of the major theories to emerge from this world-building is that Riley is trans. Riley's mother's emotions all look like her mother, with long brown hair in a ponytail. Her dad's all have his manly moustache. But Riley's are a mix of masculinity and femininity, with three women and two men as their voice actors. However, I've never been that convinced by the plausibility of this theory.
The New Emotions Of Insider Out 2 Don't Justify Their Presence
We see all of Riley's most intimate thoughts in Inside Out - that's the entire point of the movie. None of these thoughts hint at discomfort in her body, a sense of being different, a yearning for a life outside of hers, or a particular affinity for masculinity, non-conformity, or queerness. Rather, I always thought that your emotions grow to match you - Riley's dad's emotions surely weren't sporting moustaches while he was potty training. In time, Riley's sense of self would grow, and these emotions would change with her.
Now wouldn't that be a solid plot for a sequel? Instead, the whole world building is brought crashing down in service of a fairly empty plot about joining the hockey team and yet another cartoon rendition of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the ol' Realistic Panic Attack Waltz. As you might be aware, in Inside Out 2 Riley gets four new emotions: Anxiety, Env💎y, Embarraꦆssment, and Ennui. But really, she gets one new emotion (Anxiety) and three background cameos.
The arrival of these emotions fundamentally transforms Inside Out's worldbuilding from something relatively concrete and consistent into plot conveniences in which Riley is the special snowflake at the centre. In fact, we even see inside the heads of her two best friends, who both have emotions that look exactly like them, right down to the hairstyles, while Riley's remain cartoon weirdos. So, do everyone's emotions look like their person besides Riley? If so, what's wrong (or right) with her?
Given the fact the first movie establishes the body as a fairly metaphorical place, free of the Fantastic Voyage-style microscopic action, there's not room for anything particularly interesting to happen with puberty. The emotions get caught in a 'brainstorm', complete with thunder and lightning, while Ennui creates a sar-casm, but nothing else is really done with the fact they are supposed to be living inside a human body. The imagination and memories angle explored to good effect in the first movie is also largely abandoned, and we're stuck in there here and now, where the focus is if Riley makes the hockey team this year, or has to wait until she's a sophomore like most students do. Not exactly edge of the seat stuff.
The movie even tries to retcon Anxiety's existence in Riley's parents, popping up for a single scene before being told to calm down. The other emotions aren't there, and let me tell you - two unfulfilled suburban parents governed by depression and buttoned up rage are not going to be that successful at combatting their inner anxiety.
Inside Out 2 blows up the core principles that made the universe cool to tell a fairly generic story where the moral seems to be 'don't let anxiety run your life', a theme explored better elsewhere, including in Pixar's own canon. It's a decent enough movie thanks to some interesting animation and terrific voice work, but not one that seems to have any reason to exist. Now, let me check how much money it made at the box - oh. That's why.
An American multinational media and entertainment conglomerate, The Walt Disney Company covers everything from movies to television, theme parks to comics and merchandise, as well as owning the Disney Plus streaming platform, ESPN, Marvel Studios, Lucas♑film, and ABC.
