- The first trailer for Inside Out 2 has been released, teasing the arrival of several new emotions as Riley begins to go through puberty.
- Following a somewhat patchy record with sequels, Pixar must ensure that it avoids the mistakes of past films.
- These include allowing new characters to overshadow fan favorites, straying too far from the heart of the original and retreading similar ground to the first movie’s plot.
Disney and Pixar have released some of the greatest animated movies of all time and 2015’s Inside Out stands tall as one of the best of the bunch. Now, the first teaser has arrived for a long-awaited follow-up and while this writer is beyond excited to see what director Kelsey Mann and writer Meg LeFauve have cooked up, there is a lingering doubt about Inside Out 2 thanks to the mistakes that have resulted in Pixar’s patchy record with sequels in the past.
Losing focus by letting new arrivals overshadow main characters
One of the most derided Pixar sequels to date is Cars 2 which abandoned the first movie’s central plotline of Lightning McQueen’s attempts to win the Piston Cup in favor of following Mater the tow truck on a James Bond-esque spy adventure.
It’s telling that for the superior Cars 3, the series put Owen Wilson’s character back into the spotlight and returned the focus of the franchise to his racing career.
For Inside Out 2 to succeed, the sequel needs to remember that its original characters, particularly Joy and Sadness, are what made the first movie such a success.
While the arrival of four new emotions is obviously a huge draw for the film, the sequel mustn’t let them push the established characters to the sidelines.
Not staying true to the heart of the original
The first three Toy Story films form one of the best trilogies in movie history while 2019’s Toy Story 4, while not necessarily a bad film – largely thanks to Duke Caboom, stands apart as an outlier.
That’s because the first three movies always placed Woody’s relationship with his child Andy at their center, giving viewers a point to latch onto – the connection between a child and their toys.
As Toy Story 4 focused almost solely on the relationship between the toys themselves, it lost sight of the human connection that made the originals so beloved and gave us one of the most tear-jerking final scenes ever, “So long, partner.”
It’s a similar story in Monsters University as the prequel put aside the connection between Boo and the monsters in her closet in favor of placing Mike and Sully in a teen comedy-inspired college setting.
Inside Out, by comparison, showed how the plight of the emotions impacted the life of Riley in the real world. As a result, Pixar’s sequel must stay true to that and not get lost in the melodrama between the original characters and Inside Out 2’s new arrivals.
Retreading previous steps
For the most part, Pixar’s past sequels have largely managed to find new ground to explore and Inside Out 2 needs to be able to do the same.
The reason being that retreading the plot of the first film is the biggest risk to the sequel.
Thanks to its premise of exploring the nature of emotions and mental health, it’s unlikely that Inside Out 2 will be able to stray too far from the formula of the first movie – as Riley grows older and is faced with new obstacles, she is likely to go through a period of strife which she and her increasingly complex emotions will have to come to terms with.
Of course, the added range of emotions that arrive as Riley begins to go through puberty will make for a fascinating exploration of one of the most emotionally chaotic periods of our lives but Inside Out 2 needs to ensure that it doesn’t start to go around in circles.
Added to that is also the potential that Inside Out 2 could find itself stepping on the toes of another Pixar movie in 2022’s Turning Red as both feature teenage girls going through similar stages in their lives which risks Inside Out 2 being derivative by covering similar ground.
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Inside Out 2 will hit movie theaters in the summer of 2024.
The post Inside Out 2 will be another Pixar flop if it follows these mistakes appeared first on HITC.
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