Man, we really canāt do anything new, can we.
Nope!!!
Posted this on Cohost when the teaser first came out, so let me bring it back first
Inside Out 2 doing a power creep but with more emotions feels so odd. I guess its an easy way to bust out a sequel, and thereās barely nothing out yet, but thereās a ājust add more Sonic friendsā feeling that feels off on something thatās attempting to be personal
So, now that I actually know more, first of all: Iām absolutely not watching this because I canāt stand anything that focus on awkward high schoolers. Mostly because I donāt want to revive those years in my mind, but also because I have 0% in common with any media depiction Iāve seen.
Secondly, I still think that this is an odd movie to make a sequel of, especially with the ānow add more emotions!ā formula. Not just because it seems redundant (why canāt the ābasicā emotions develop into bi-dimension characters instead of adding more people?), but also how deeply affecting the first movie was, and trying to go ānow add more relatable sadness!ā is just soā¦unnerving?
I do enjoy - and will probably be the one thing I enjoy - the worldbuilding questions that are popping up. Like, why donāt the parents have the other emotions? Does that mean my anxiety will go away if I have children? Because Iāll go out and do it right now if thatās true
iāma be real with you, Disney, I aināt watching another one of those. My experience with the first was bad and thereās a guy I knew who would love it because itās his āitās all just chemicals, manā beat. No thaaaaanks.
Also agree with Adell; part of the first one was realizing that emotions and memories are so much more complex than they seem to us as children, so why the hell isnāt that just the arc and instead itās hostile anxiety takeover?
Iām usually a bit more willing to put up with that specific brand of Pixar Bullshit (I thought there was a good movie in, for example, Elemental hiding behind a fairly bland romance story) but I donāt find this one terribly compelling.
There was a specific moment in the trailer when I realized that I would get my ability to understand the reality of the movie would get compromised.
Anxiety is taking overā¦ and the other emotions are suppressed by literally getting bottled, but Fear is one of the emotions sheās suppressing? Surely sheād suppress the new positive emotion and let Fear help her out? Unless itās entirely because Fear already made it clear heāll only listen to Joy or something it doesnāt really make sense for Anxiety to suppress fear. Itās rooted in fear. As is embarrassment. Like the ideas they used for all the new emotions donāt even meaningfully distinguish themselves from the existing emotions or from the way we KNOW the existing emotions can mix together. Joy and Sadness combining at the end is Riley figuring out how to process nostalgia and the deeper ways love can be felt and expressed. Fear and Disgust and Fear and Anger could mix together to make Embarassment and Anxiety very easily. It just seems so unnecessary. And why are there only two explicitly positive emotions??
This is another aspect that bothers me about the Sonicās Friends formula, its like if the first movie had an emotion called Depression. There was a lot to be told in regards to how feelings can be complex and dealing with them involves recognizing that they exist in the first place and then working on understanding their intricacies, but this feels reductive and simplistic
Iām a huge proponent of the idea that thereās no such thing as a positive or negative feeling, love can be as harmful as hate, but theyāre definitely portrayed as being explicitly negative which is also so off lmao
Thatās a lot of thoughts on a 2 minutes trailer of a family friendly cartoon but dang I just kinda dislike this a lot
No no keep cooking
The only good thing about the designs is that Anxiety isnāt shaped like a human woman, sheās just as oddly proportioned as Fear is. But then the other girl from the new emotions is the same as the girls from the old emotions. Why do animators feel it so necessary to make female characters shaped like human women?
I canāt find the one meme thatās like
"Non-human Female character design: Normal human woman with a different color of the rainbow
Non-human male character design: Crash Bandicoot"