A few months ago, it was brought to my attention that Pixar was brewing up yet another sequel, this one to the classic movie Inside Out.
Now, Inside Out is a unique case. It's an insanely sentimental movie with a core backbone made solely up of emotion. Inside Out is one of Pixar's most innocent, creative movies. It's the kind of movie that makes you want to cry every time you watch it. The kind of movie that makes you reflect on yourself.
The kind of movie that you would never want a soulless cashgrab sequel to take away from you.
And that's exactly what I thought Inside Out 2 was going to be! The marketing of the movie focused only on the new emotions. Now, to me, these new emotions looked like things Disney had simply told Pixar they had to include. I remember not liking the designs of the new emotions (especially Embarrasment) and thinking they looked like they weren't designed for anything but marketability. I was also just mad in general because to me the ending of Inside Out implied any emotions who were not personified were are a blend of the ones that were. This explanation not only ties up a lot of loose ends but also gives the universe a lot more breathing room. So to me, the new emotions were nothing but giant eyesores who had no reason to muddle what was a perfect film by itself, and at the time I was very vocal about this opinion to anybody who would listen.
I didn't give this movie a second thought when it was released. It wasn't good at all and clearly audiences would recognize that and not give it a second thought, right?
Right?
My first encounter with this movie came when somebody I look up to a lot started saying it was his new favorite Pixar movie. Brian Koch is one of the writers and directors of a show I respect a lot: Inanimate Insanity. In his spare time, Brian reviews media. He's a very critical reviewer who tends to favor creativity over everything else, so why would he be singing the praise of a soulless cashgrab? Brian loving the movie as much as he did, combined with a few ads boasting Inside Out 2's popularity changed my mind, so I caved. I went and saw the movie.
On first watch, I didn't really get it. I just thought "that movie was ok". But a song about the movie called Good Enough by artists JakeNeutron and KittenSneeze made me slow down and examine the character it focused on, Anxiety, more. This led to me watch an analysis video on Anxiety, and that led to me rewatching the movie itself. On second watch, I not only adored it, but also understandood why I didn't exactly get it the first time I watched it: because I was comparing it to and expecting it to be at least a little bit like the original in tone.
When you get down to it, the two movies are opposites. They both use the same universe and characters, but they are two entirely different experiences. Basically put: Inside Out is a very fantastical movie whose sole draw was portraying what people's minds look like. Pixar also didn't give Riley very many personality traits. In the original, she was just kind of a robot the emotions controlled. Anger says at one point it's up to Riley to take or reject any ideas the emotions bring to her, but it's one short line that could easily be missed or just forgotten.
Inside Out's message was also about how every single emotion was important and you should never repress them. Inside Out 2 essentially has the opposite message. It's a movie about the dangers of letting just one emotion rules your brain, essentially.
In the second film, the stakes are on the opposite side of the original It's made very clear from the start: here everything the emotions do affects Riley's life and what she does. Instead of needing to get back to Headquarters, the movie is about getting Anxiety away from Riley before she does too much damage to her. Riley is pushed much more as her own person with the new idea they contribute: the Sense of Self. Riley now has a Belief system at the roots of Headquarters and any beliefs planted there grow into a small, tree-like figure: the Sense of Self. As the name suggests, the Sense of Self is how Riley views herself. Having a device like this not only strengthens Riley and sets her apart as a more unique character, it's also a great way for the emotions to show affection to Riley while being stuck in her head. The final act of this movie has Riley at a crisis point and all the emotions hug the Sense of Self and it feels as if they're hugging her. Any emotion who tries to control the Sense of Self is in the end deemed wrong for doing this no matter who they are or what their intention is because, as they say in the movie, what goes there is up to Riley and nobody else.
Inside Out is also a movie with a premise that can be applied to anything and it encourages the audience to do so. Inside Out 2 is a very contained movie. It lets you know it's taking place at a Hockey Camp that will last for three days right at the start. And being a more contained film, Inside Out 2 naturally has a much more complex and intricate plot than the original. It's a film about growing up, so much so that I don't know if anybody who hasn't hit puberty yet will fully understand it. I would argue it's a movie for teenagers and I'd say even adults as well, which is a very brave audience to target, especially since Disney and Pixar both needed a win as badly as they did when this was released. I think a child would enjoy this film, but I really don't know if I'd want to show it to one as I just don't think they'd truly understand it.
Inside Out 2 is not a movie anything like the original and it's very clearly not meant to be held to it. The moral of the story is to show you that Anxiety, like every other emotion, is just trying to protect you. The problem is that Anxiety is a very surprisingly simple emotion. It's a fear-based emotion that's meant to be used in moderation, but is almost never. It's not trying to make you say "Society is wrong, this emotion is actually incredibly healthy to feel!" like the first. It's basically just saying everything I said. The character of Anxiety in this film (who is amazing by the way, she's my favorite from the movie) genuinely loves Riley like all the other emotions do. She adores Riley and wants nothing more than the best for her. The problem is, Anxiety seems to have tunnel vision and she puts everything she has into everything she does. Therefore, Anxiety is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Riley knows Anxiety wants to protect her. Most people think of Anxiety as an evil emotion, and after doing a bit of research, it seems the crew of the movie did too. I saw scrapped draft after scrapped draft where she served no purpose to help Riley at all. One member even admitted they too had to learn the problem with Anxiety is not that it exists. Fearing the future a tiny bit is normal and healthy. Anxiety never means to hurt at all; our brains just turn to it far too often.
The movie Inside Out 2, after the second watch, forced me to reflect on my own emotions. It forced me to stare the Anxiety that had slathered itself all over my brain face to face. For those who do not know me in real life: I have a lot of confidence, but I'm very anxious and kind of a mess. I have OCD, which is an anxiety disorder, and my brain is constantly wrestling itself over whether normal things happening to me are signs I'm doing everything wrong or not. I blamed Anxiety for ruining my life for the longest time; so when I saw the emotion personified and saw she never meant to cause any harm to Riley and loves her fiercely, it drew me close to her. Of course, finding comfort in a literal personification of Anxiety made me conflicted, though, as I had always blamed her for making me overthink every little thing that happened in my life. However, Inside Out 2 forced me to reexamine my life and I found that Anxiety had not been the true monster destroying my life. Of course, she didn't help at all, but the true monster was the epilepsy I have had since I was 2 years old. Throughout my life, its seizures have almost killed me multiple times and I've been in a lot of insanely stressful situations because of it. I then realized the Anxiety living up in my head simply couldn't let go. She was being overprotective because the world had tried to snatch me from her arms too many times. My Anxiety simply wanted to keep me safe and with the life I lead, it never trusted that she could. I could fall into a seizure or even just straight up die for no reason (Sudden Death in Epilepsy) And now that I was no longer having seizures as often, well of course my anxiety simply saw the situation as a trap! She'd learned over 18 years never to trust anything lest a seizure sweep me away from her. That was the real reason why I'd been a mess especially as of late.
It's quite a brave thing to do, I'd say, for a movie to force the viewer to stare their own emotions in the eye. To force one to face a part of themselves they hate with a burning passion and say "Look, it never meant any harm. It just doesn't want you to die."
Overall, the emotional core of Inside Out 2 strikes a chord with me as a young adult. It made me realize things about myself I think I needed to know. If you were looking for a more plot-based review of Inside Out 2, this is the wrong place to go because this one is simply, as the title reads, about how it affected me.
It's quite a hard thing to find yourself endeared to a character who represents the part of yourself you hate, you wish you could remove. It makes you see from that character's perspective and realize maybe this emotion never meant to hurt you at all. As human beings, we automatically tend to assume any force against us is purely evil, but that's simply not true most of the time. And especially not when it comes to emotions such as Anxiety. God put that in us for a reason, we're just using it as sauce when it should be salt. And that's not even our fault either, as life is so insanely scary, that a lot of the time we feel forced to. Life is diving headfirst into the unknown 99% of the time, and since it's unknown no, duh, the emotion designed to make us fear the future is going to try to protect us, whether it works or, more likely, falls apart and makes us feel worse.
Overall, this is a very deep movie and one that's very important to me personally. It forced me to look at my emotions and accept what I thought was the worst one at the time when I needed to the most and I'll always be grateful to it for that.
So thank you, Inside Out 2.
You deserve all the money you've earned, and more.
Comments
Post a Comment