Captain Conroy's Pixar 40th Anniversary Marathon (Week 9)

Written by Captain Conroy

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7 and Week 8 here.

This movie by far has to be the most Pixar in terms of its concept. Your emotions being little people inside your head that control you and everything you do? Oh yeah, that’s very Pixar. But naturally with every good concept has to come a good execution. And does this movie manage it? Oh yes, definitely. My joy is naturally going to be leading this review as I have a very positive one to give. So sit back and enjoy what’s going to be an emotional roller coaster ride. And before anyone says anything, yes I said I have a positive one to give but what I mean is how this movie is good at making us feel these emotions, you’ll see.

The story. This is the ultimate story about change, how nothing stays the same forever, how life can change at the drop of a hat. All this is what young Riley Andersen finds out after what was a simple and happy upbringing in Minnesota and then enters a new chapter of her life after her parents decide to make the move to San Francisco as her Dad takes up a new job over there. Naturally her emotions are on hand to help navigate her through these big new changes, which very quickly turns complicated after Joy and Sadness end up out of headquarters and have to get back while the other emotions try to handle things in their absence.

The story of this movie alone is Pixar at their utmost best. As the movie progresses, you can tell they were truly throwing everything at this one. They clearly did their research on how the human mind works and found all the creative spins they can do on things. The story is perfect from start to finish. Showing all the important aspects of Riley’s life from her birth to the point she turns eleven which is how old she is when all of these changes in her life happen and she finishes the movie as a twelve year old. Everything feels nicely paced and nothing is rushed. The only thing that moves fast is some of the action scenes as Joy and Sadness navigate Riley’s mind outside of headquarters and have to avoid some of the obstacles like whenever some of the islands that make Riley’s personality fall and break away.

Furthermore, this story pulled no punches whatsoever. What I mean by that is that it’s not a dark and gritty story, it’s in the sense that its not afraid to show that all of our emotions are good for us in more ways than one and that does even include our sadness. It was especially so clever how they did the scene where Joy realises that Riley needs Sadness just as much as she does her other emotions, we may all strive to be happy in our lives, but it’s perfectly fine to feel sad once in a while. It’s most definitely great to feel happy but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of disregarding our other emotions and god bless this movie for teaching that moral. It’s all of these aspects too which make for a proper emotional roller coaster ride, and I mean that in a good way.

You feel for Riley during her scenes of sadness, we all definitely feel like Anger once in a while and Fear sums up how we all get scared, Joy is the one emotion we love to feel and Disgust perfectly sums up whatever we all feel disgusted about. All of these five emotions shine perfectly throughout the story and each have their funny moments. Which brings us to another point of praise along with so many other points of praise I have to give to this movie. I feel it’s the perfect balance between funny and serious like for how many funny moments in this movie there are like lines of dialogue and slapstick moments, that’s also how many serious and heartfelt moments there are like any of Riley’s happy memories and when she finally breaks down after returning home from her runaway attempt.

Like damn, that scene! This well and truly whacks me right in the feels every time I watch this movie, I just want to reach right into that screen and give that poor girl a hug. Do I really need to say more, I have no complaints with the story and it’s truly a masterpiece of storytelling. It truly captures emotions perfectly, it’s a creative spectacle of the human mind and how it works and like I said earlier, the perfect blend of emotions as we see plenty of funny moments which are perfectly spread out and broken down by the serious moments too – plus once again Pixar works their magic very carefully to ensure the whole thing couldn’t be solved within five minutes. A job truly well done.

There is one word to describe the animation here, spellbinding. It’s definitely within this movie where the animation is at its absolute finest and some of its most creative too. The outside world looks so real in a lot of ways. I mean yeah you could say the characters still look a little cartoonish, but it’s definitely here where the world feels so immersive. Everything looks real thanks to the textures of everything like clothes, hair, even the wood on the floor in some shots look so real and during the opening scene alone:

I am still even now absolutely flabbergasted as to how much this looks like a real baby. It’s so unreal! Least of all can you imagine if they made Tin Toy in this day and age? The baby would look less freaky for sure. And even with the real world looking so real, the inside of Riley’s mind truly pushes all of the creative boundaries with the visuals. It especially helps by the fact that a lot goes on inside a child’s head and Riley is in fact still a child. All of the locations are emphasised by a lot of vibrant colours and once again you truly get the feeling through the way things look and are textured. Especially the emotions as they look so fuzzy and with Joy’s glow, I always get a warm feeling looking at it, yes she glows blue most of the time but it still feels warm.

Each location in Riley’s mind has its own unique creative look like how you get Dream Productions where the dreams come from and how it looks like a lavish and lush film studio and Imagination Land being anything and everything. You get the perfect visual representations as well like how grey and misty it looks at one point during the scene where Riley is running away and how some of the lights are on in the houses when she’s running back home which look like visual metaphors of hitting a low point in life and then finding light at the end of the tunnel. This animation is not to be faulted at all, like I said, if one word describes it, spellbinding, truly what one would call art in motion.

The characters, what a cast! The emotions themselves may seem straight forward enough but there’s more to them than what their names say about them, especially Sadness. Not only is it realised later on by Joy what an important role Sadness plays, but she knows the mind so well what with reading the manuals and she shows how she isn’t so bad at the emotion side of things at all when she comforts Bing Bong. Bing Bong himself, I like him a lot, he’s really funny and I love how crazy he is in terms of character and design as he was Riley’s imaginary friend and kids to conjure up some weird things and we all know that. Also with the emotions, even when Anger is getting well angry and Sadness getting well sad and so on – what would usually be seen as flanderization in characters, in this case it’s O.K as they’re emotions, what else are they supposed to feel? And even then how can you hate any of these guys? You just gotta love them.  Plus the depth to them like again with Sadness and whoever would have thought that even Joy can hit a low point?

See what I mean right? But even so emotions wouldn’t be much of anyone without someone to pilot and Riley of course is that character. What is there not to love about Riley? She’s honest, kind, goofy, loves hockey and is one for family – as well as a little shy before she comes out of her shell and reserved as she starts experiencing these changes. Riley makes for the best character to focus on as we see what goes on inside one’s head and I love how she was based on Pete Docter’s daughter Elie. And to go with Riley we have her parents who of course feel the stress of the move more than Riley will, especially her father and they try coping with the hinderances and delays the best they can. I especially love how after her Dad sent her to her room he comes and tries to talk to her. I like that, shows he’s a good Dad even if he does seem a bit imbecilic. These are good parents, the both of them and they could certainly do with giving Horrid Henry’s parents lessons. And the best bit of the characters for me, not an annoying one in sight, all likeable ones here.

The perfect movie as we all know cannot and does not exist, but if it did, in my opinion it would look a lot like this movie. To me this movie is perfect, I have no complaints with it at all. If I did have anything to complain about, well, let’s just say it would be a fitting impression of a mardy guy on the internet who wants something to complain about and the more we distance ourselves from those people the better.

The story, incredibly well done, the animation, spellbinding and easily Pixar’s best work, the characters, lovable and you just want to visit them over and over again. This movie is just the perfect one to me and I genuinely don’t think it can ever be topped as my favourite one, even as more movies get released. However, there is still a sequel to look at in this rewatch marathon…

So, after such a powerful impact of a movie that could easily pose as the perfect movie in my eyes, how on Earth could they top this? Well, they could add new emotions as Riley enters the teenage phase of her life. Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what this movie does. However there obviously is a lot more to it than that as you can imagine what with it being an Inside Out sequel. There are certainly some big shoes to fill however so let’s take a look and see how this movie fairs up compared to the first.

The story: Ho boy this is a big one, Riley is 13 now – otherwise known as the teenage years. Big changes right? Hell yes, for better or for worse – those are the things we figure out for ourselves as we go along. In Riley’s case, a big change calls for new emotions, these being Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui (the boredom). But after Anxiety has the other emotions detained and sent down below, it’s up to Joy to lead the emotions on a whole new adventure as they have to restore Riley’s sense of self and stop Anxiety before she does any permanent damage to her.

It only seemed natural the story took this direction as Riley navigates a new chapter of life and they certainly did it well. A good execution is everything for a story and it certainly tried it’s damned hardest and did not disappoint. It takes creativity to a whole new level as Riley’s mind changes as the puberty alarm foreshadowed in the last movie goes off and sends everything haywire. We saw a brain freeze in the last movie? Well in this one we see a brainstorm, a sar-chasm, the deepest darkest secrets and all those funny little thoughts we get in our heads all in one movie. I especially love how the sense of self works, that is so genius. Especially as it leads to us learning that every little part of us makes us and it’s O.K to love ourselves, even if it means accepting that the mistakes and bad decisions we make can make us who we are and shape us. It feels like an equally strong lesson following on from how all of our emotions are good for us in the last movie.

This one is equally good at hitting us right in the feels as we once again feel each one of these emotions and particularly the scene where Riley has a panic attack. As a guy who has suffered from panic attacks in the past I can confirm that is done a lot of justice and isn’t just swept under the carpet. It was just so perfectly done. As far as the emotions go the depth to them continues in this movie. I especially love how Anger was written here, I mean fancy admitting he doesn’t just have to be the rage guy all the time. And I also love how there’s no character regression in this movie, what they learned from the first movie stays learned. It’s so sweet seeing Joy be more open with Sadness. But one thing I love most of all is how the Fire Hawk team (awesome name by the way) could easily have been jerks because they’re the cool team but they’re actually quite nice and they accept Riley even if she does act a little odd in front of them from time to time. (We’ll get more on that later). The first movie had such a perfect story and I am more than happy to confirm that this one is equally as good. It well and truly stands on its own legs as both a sequel and a movie by itself.

The animation, actually doesn’t have a whole lot to live up to, because while we have witnessed nothing short of evolution with the Toy Story movies, being made in 2015 and 2024 is not a super huge time difference. They certainly keep it up though and gave us another beautiful movie to look at. Scenes like when we look at Riley’s sense of self deep down and seeing how the memories link up in order to make this is just beautiful and Riley’s mind continues to amaze as it’s ever changing and you never know where it will take the emotions next. I especially give so much credit to the scene where Joy, Anger, Fear and Disgust are swept away by the flood of memories, even in this day and age that cannot have been easy to animate, but yet they did it alright. In terms of animation there is just nothing that Pixar cannot do if anyone were to ask me. I may have said it before but just in case, I’ll say it again.

If all the stuff inside the mind isn’t enough, I also give the praise for how well the animation blends 3D and 2D when we learn Riley still likes a preschool show and when we learn about her crush on a video game character, just how flawless they mix the modern and up-to-date 3D with old-school video game style 3D and yet they still naturally blend together, just how do these guys do it I ask? And even outside of Riley’s mind, the outside world looks as real as ever. Not a whole lot changes in terms of looks, but yet I still feel there’s a bit of a difference.

I guess one could say the textures look a little more refined and they have stronger definitions like shines in their hair and the way the light shines on them in certain scenes. I don’t claim to be an animation expert and I am perfectly aware of all times I may sound like a broken record but this here is at least what I think. Nevertheless the animation is certainly just as spellbinding as it was in the first movie and even here it could be seen as maybe even slightly better. Both movies are just so well animated though, so I ain’t going to be picking any winners here, I’ll probably cover that more when we get to the conclusion.

The characters. Naturally our favourite emotions are back and taking in what I said from the story, again the lessons learned last time stay learned and we don’t see any signs of regression which is what I like to see. Too many great things have been ruined by character regression and I’m sure as heck glad it’s not the case here. Joy this time learns how every part of Riley is good for her, not just all emotions. Even the mistakes and bad choices, but of course all of these help shape Riley. I said earlier how I liked how Anger was done, it wasn’t just admitting he doesn’t have to be the rage guy. It’s his idea to use Pouchy and he’s the one who encourages Joy after her epic break down and admitting that it hurts how you may feel less joy as you go on and edges her on. Disgust and Fear each have their moments too like Disgust encouraging Riley’s video game crush and Fear just so happens to have a parachute – that’s just brilliant. You get the new emotions too and each has their own level to them – Embarrassment and Anxiety more so than Envy and Ennui. I was especially surprised the first time I watched this how deep Embarrassment went and how he was willing to help Sadness stay hidden while Anxiety was in charge.

Riley becomes pretty adorkable in this movie, I say that as you can still tell it’s our girl from the first movie, but yet it’s kind of fun watching her try and fit in with the Fire Hawks. It does though make her really relatable as we all know it’s good to be ourselves, but yet there is that strong urge and desire to fit in. Let’s be real guys, we’ve all been there at least one point in our lives. Not to mention we all may have had our moments of overreaction right?

“My gosh man, you have to criticise every little thing right?!”

Sheesh ease up! That wasn’t even a criticism! See what I mean guys? Anyway moving on. Like I says, Val and her team on the Fire Hawks were also a pleasant surprise too. Again one of them could easily have acted jerkish towards Riley or have big heads with being the cool girls but they’re really nice. Even when one of them says Riley is off to a rough start Val is quick to say like said one totally had it together when she started. And by the end they’re all Riley’s friends and even when she got the puck off one of them during the game despite being on the same team, it’s clear all is forgiven and they’re not ones to hold grudges. Roar Omega Roar could do with learning a thing or two from the Fire Hawks. One has to like Riley’s good friends in this movie, Brie and Grace. They help bring out Riley’s adorkable side and help Riley bring out her best self like when Riley helped Grace in class or how their resolve was strengthened after Riley accidently injured Grace during the big game – I mean it says a lot when they were the first to come to Riley after her panic attack. Riley’s parents have less screen time compared to the first movie but that’s OK as it’s a camp Riley is at and they don’t always have to be around in everything Riley does. The characters are all well done and much like the first, no annoying characters. Perfect.

Inside Out 2 is a very strong sequel to what was already a very strong movie. The story was extremely well executed, the animation s a spellbinding as ever and the characters are all well done both returning and new. In my honest opinion, it’s so hard to choose a favourite or which one I would even call best. I think I like the first movie just a little bit more but it’s not by a super huge margin. But as of present, both of these movies are joint first for me, we’ll see if anything changes but Inside Out 2, I highly recommend that you give it a watch, if you loved the first Inside Out movie, you will not be disappointed. Now after those very strong contenders in this rewatch, what on Earth could top it? Could Hoppers when that comes out at the time of writing? I don’t know? Toy Story 5? Well, there’s a lot riding on the trailer clearly. But will it top it? We’ll see.

But for now, I’m happy to accept the Inside Out movies as my favourites and next one the list, let’s say it’s funny we got this piece of foreshadowing in the first movie as going by actual release date, The Good Dinosaur came after Inside Out and that one is often considered the underdog of Pixar’s library and I’ll be looking at that next. And also next up along with it, Coco. But until next week, may you live long and prosper my friends.

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