Channel Awesome
Is this the greatest Pixar movie to date? Doug checks out Inside Out.
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Obviously, this was a great movie. My only complaint is that parts of it were a little too cutesy for me, like most of the Bing Bong scenes. *Groan*
Eh, I would not say greatest. Given how the entire fiasco could be solved just by sending the core memories on that secret passage (like with the bubblegum song) and the fact that it broke the rules about how emotions work with Joy feeling both joy AND sadness, I would say that it drops down a few pegs.
Ok, that’s not breaking the rules, that’s the whole point of the movie. Riley is growing up, her emotions are becoming more complexe. Like Doug said, one of the points of the movie is showing how Joy and Sadness are deeply linked.
When you look at the adults’ minds during the movie, you see that the emotions there are not as clearly defined as Riley. Sadness is in charge of her mother’s mind but she’s not depressed and trying to get everyone down on anything that happens. Anger is in charge of the father’s mind but he seems quite happy until faced conflict.
I just find it odd there were all one gender and Riley’s emotions were composed of both male and female characters. Do some change gender when growing up?
Also what does it mean not having the amusement attractions? It’s that a profile for an insensitive individual? It’s that temporal or permanent?
Finally I do wonder why there weren’t more emotions crowding the control room. I mean wouldn’t some develop more will others develop less?
I know it’s just a movie. It just didn’t ring as strongly with me. Though the ending is good. Kinda wish the rest of the movie felt more meaningful to me.
I found that odd as well but after thinking about it carefully, I thought perhaps it meant that Riley inherited the male emotion characters from her dad and the female ones from her mother. Makes sense, right?
Actually with Joy feeling sadness, it’s actually part of her character.
All the only emotions are monochromatic, Joy is the only one that isn’t. She’s yellow sure, but her hair and eyes are BLUE… the color of sadness. 😉
You can’t experience Joy without experiencing sadness. It’s very much a case of “Show don’t Tell”
Also, Doug, I fucking LOVED this movie. I watched it 3 times in 3 days, and if anyone can get through this movie without getting at least a little misty eyed. YOU HAVE NO SOUL!
As per usual, you completely missed the point, the emotions getting more complex is the whole point.
Sorry you didn’t laugh harder, Doug, but I think the Pixar folks got the level of humor they were aiming for. As you pointed out, it’s about balance and securing the emotions of a young person at that fragile time of life. Asking this movie to be funnier would be like asking a Marx brothers movie to do a scene about the trauma of being immigrants in America around the turn of the century up through the 1930s.
The one joke I don’t get is “Cloud Town”. In the climax of the movie, one of the characters says, “It’s Cloud Town”, and everyone in the audience laughed at it except me. What’s the meaning behind “It’s Cloud Town”?
Reference to the movie CHINATOWN. Jack Nicolson as private eye Jake Gittes is advised, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown…”
You have to see the movie.
I believe the quote was “forget it Jake, it’s Cloudtown” which is most likely a reference to the 1974 movie Chinatown which has a character say “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” as one of the last lines in the movie.
I admit there was a problem for me. There should have been more positive emotions like Courage or Honesty. It’s still an amazing movie. It’s great to see Pixar make their first great film in awhile. Please do Homeward Bound and Swiss Family Robinson. I had no idea “Toy Story 4” was real! What will you do next year, every other Marvel movie?
The reason that there weren’t more emotions was because the movie was influenced by the theory of emotion put forward by Paul Ekman which theorized that there were six basic/universally recognized expressions which indicated emotion, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, and surprise. Surprise was originally going to be a character but was cut because they would have been too similar to fear. Ekman did propose and expanded list of emotions in 1990 but including all the extra emotions would have probably just resulted in having way too many characters to properly develop.
I agree on Homeward Bound (wasn’t there actually two movies of that?) and Swiss Family Robinson. Also, Pollyanna!
Those emotions are covered by the others, and the mixing of them.
All of the emotions,. actually represent a “good” and “bad” half.
Joy’s other side would be Mania
Saddness’ is empathy
Anger’s is protective instincts
Fear’s is concern for others
Disgust’s is (healthy) skepticism.
Emotions like Courage, could be a mix of Fear and Anger.
Honesty is Joy and Sadness (Like at the end when Riley’s admitted the truth she missed Minnesota)
Stuff like that.
Definitely agreed with everything Doug said here, with the exception of wanting more jokes in there (I think the movie has a good amount). That’s all I can say about this movie.
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And it’s also quite interesting that we had to wait about TWO years since the release of “Monsters University” to see this movie! And when I mean two years, I mean two years since the release date of the last Pixar film: two years after the Summer of the last Pixar film. 2014 was the year without a Pixar film. And while I thought “Monsters University” was okay, mostly because I’venever seen any college movies, so it wasn’t as much a pain for me to watch as it was for Doug, as well as the fact that a lot of critics thought it was okay at most, I can completely understand that it wasn’t the best stuff for Pixar to do. So the fact that we had to wait a whole two years (or skip one Summer) until this new film was really something, for this was a great comeback for Pixar. And even with the release of “The Good Dinosaur”, which did less impressive, it’s films like “Inside Out” that show that Pixar can still do great films. They still have talent. They still have great material. There’s still hope for more great Pixar films. Sure, they may now be doing sequels, and there will be a “Cars 3”, but we shouldn’t lose hope for Pixar to do more great stuff, because this shows that after “Cars 2”, it can still do great movies. So, yeah, it may have downers and bad films, but Pixar still has enough talent to make films as great as these.
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Also, it’s no surprise that both “UP” and “Inside Out” were directed by the same guy, Pete Docter, who also directed “Monsters, Inc.”, a film Doug thought was merely okay. So if Doug was wondering why both his favorite Pixar films were his favorite, he should give thanks to Pete Docter, or at least ask him why they’re so great.
Up is still my favorite.
2:26 – 2:47 So in other words:
Sometimes you feel so glad,
sometimes you feel blue.
Trust your feelings, it’s not bad,
feelings are just you.
Herschel the Feeling Fairy my ass.
Really appreciated this Disneycember and how fairly you looked at a lot of this stuff, especially the sequels, which are not flat out garbage as many say. Often they are a mixed bag (some are garbage, but there are some real gems that could have been really good with a few tweaks; Bambi 2 for example, which was actually animated by Disney’s major feature animation guys and only had one problem to me, the modern music; much like with Return to Neverland, it just didn’t fit). It was awesome to see a Disneycember featuring Star Wars, Marvel and the Muppets, plus some Disney “cheapquels”. I still think it would be awesome to see you go back and look at more of the little-known, classic stuff in the future though. There is so much classic Disney live-action from the 40’s through the 80’s that newer generations should know about, and so much television stuff too. Heck, a couple of Disneycembers could focus just on Disney Afternoon shows and Saturday morning stuff. My bad if you already did that. I might have forgotten, and I know you’ve talked about some of them before. Also, there’s all those other sequels that are well worth talking about and could use a more in depth analysis rather than just the “It’s 100% garbage” treatment most people give them.
I had a conversation with my friend about this film asking her why she didn’t like it. She said it was because they had chosen four negative emotions and only one positive, while leaving out other important emotions such as love. While I respect her opinion, I had to disagree. I don’t think there is such thing as an inherently “negative” emotion because every one has the if own good qualities. Anger can be scary if you don’t keep him under control but without him you also wouldn’t have determination, passion or be able to stick up for yourself. Fear is an unpleasant feeling but whenever you are scared, the brain is evaluating potential dangers, so Fear is only there to keep you safe. I especially love what they did with Disgust and Sadness. Disgust isn’t there to whine and complain all the time, she’s concerned for Riley getting sick or poisoned. Sadness is a great emotion because she’s a shoulder to cry on. We all need a good cry once in a while, and Sadness is the perfect balance of sorrow and sympathy.
Joy was a good choice for the main character because her narration feels personal and warm, she is happiness, she wants to make the audience feel as happy as Riley but at the same time a balance is needed for her to learn a lesson about how important Sadness is in headquarters and tying both together is just another part of Pixar’s genius.
Oh and as for other emotions such as Love, Pixar did originally have 20+ emotions but they had to narrow it down to the five main. That and it got really confusing (Fear was originally Freddie and Anger was originally Ira which is anger in Spanish) However I’m starting to think that Pixar didn’t include love because in all truth, Love is a powerful thing, maybe even too powerful to be shown in a physical form such as Joy. Perhaps Love has no true form but rather drifts through the air like a Patronus.
The scene with Bing Bong really destroyed me. My Mum was holding my knees and hand in the theatre-I was a 16 year old crying and sitting next to sobbing 20 year olds. It’s not sadness from not being able to remember imaginary friends, it’s the idea of losing anyone, be they real or not. May they know you exist or not. It’s like having a favourite famous person die, or much much worse having those close to us die suddenly. Bing Bong was the last remaining evidence of Riley’s innocence. That’s why it is sad.
All in all, definitely one of Pixar’s best and if Finding Dory makes me sob this way, I can forgive Cars 3.
The best thing about this movie is that it DOES get better every time you watch! When I first saw it, I thought it was cute but not on par with other Pixar. But then when I watched it again, the brilliance just struck me more. The real psychology here is amazing.