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Hello patrons and welcome to this Patreon exclusive episode of Beyond the Screenplay,
the podcast where each episode we do a conversational deep dive analysis into a film.
Today we are kicking off our sequel summer season with Inside Out 2,
the 2024 film written by Meg LaFauve and Dave Holstein, directed by Kelsey Mann.
I'm joined, of course, by the Beyond the Screenplay team.
So we're going to talk about inside out too, which I'm very excited about.
We have a whole season of sequels and prequels that will be coming of lots of varying genres and types.
It's going to be a really interesting spread.
I'm very excited to see what this brings.
I'm really hoping that just the twisters is surprisingly amazing because I loved that first one a lot.
Anyway, so it's going to be lots of fun.
And I'm excited to start with Inside Out, which I didn't know I was going to be.
So, inside out, the first movie is one of my favorite films of all time, like I would
put it in top five probably right now if you were to ask me,
and it was one of my favorite lesson from the screenplay videos.
I thought the premise was really clever and just access to very powerful emotions, if you want to, because it's about the emotions, right?
I like how they dealt with the premise.
It could have been exploitative, but instead it felt like a very generous thought.
exploration of psychology and what it means to be a human and expressed in a way that was accessible and gave language to everyone to talk about how they're feeling,
which is something I think we need more of in the world.
I love it for the story structure reasons.
It one of the movies that really helped certain story structures click for me.
There's a really great interview with Meg LaFave on the Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith where she talks about the structure.
And all the kind of challenges that came with writing inside out.
And I was just in awe of her and the structure.
And again, it's a great one to study because the structure is there on the surface.
Joy needs to learn to embrace sadness as the plot, that's the theme, that's the structure, it's all happening right there.
So when I heard they were doing it inside out too, I was worried.
because as we will talk about, I'm sure a lot this season, sequels are not always better than the originals.
Sometimes they really just did not have made a sequel.
So I probably would not have seen this movie.
I was Brian this before we went in.
I probably would not have seen inside out too, were we not doing this sequel?
And I'm glad that I did because I very much enjoyed myself.
I feel like while I could tell it was a sequel and it had a little bit of that like, yeah, it's the second one.
It's not quite as special as the original.
It's not quite as perfect and all these things.
I still feel like a lot of the things that I loved about the original.
including a very thoughtful approach to examining the psychology of humans using this premise of the emotions in the brain,
witty quips and puns and things that I'm sure we'll talk about.
And it also went to like dark places like anxiety,
I think as a really interesting character to be the antagonist and kind of go on a similar journey
that Joy went on in the first There is a panic attack that's kind of the finale that was very affecting,
and I thought it was really powerful.
And a lot of the lessons that are learned in this, I feel like, are...
Joy basically arrives at, I'm not going to be needed as much.
You experience joy as much as an adult.
And that sucks, but that's okay.
Again, a kind of bold thing to put into, ostensibly, like a kid's movie.
So the things that I really like about Inside Out, many of them, anyway, were here in Inside Out 2.
And I ended up really enjoying myself.
I'm curious to hear from you guys if we can hear from you guys Tricia.
Listeners will immediately understand that I have lost my voice and I'm here today.
I'm going to share thoughts with you and just everybody bear with me.
I really liked this movie.
Very little of it bumped for me on first watch like you know this movie is brand new we only saw a couple of days ago and
The experience in the theater was lovely like everybody was laughing everybody was here for it
I was sitting between Michael and Brian and like we just had a great time and like even
when even when I think there this movie hits some scripting problems in hindsight,
they didn't announce themselves to me in the moment or very few of them did like it was it was
a pretty smooth watch and I just thought it was really funny and clever and you know filmmakers
always have a lot of sympathy from me and we can talk more about this as the season continues
with delivering a sequel to something that was very successful and very novel at the outset, right?
This movie was so inventive and like so much of the first movie was the delight and surprise
of having ideas presented to you visually in a way that you never thought of them before.
And this movie was like...
something that couldn't be as surprising and couldn't be as delightful the second time around,
but still asked to give you some of the same experience.
And that's really, really hard to do.
And so I was very sympathetic toward the filmmakers for that reason.
And ultimately, yeah, I think it's very successful, and some of the imagery is so powerful.
When you're telling a story like this,
and so the way that you choose to symbolize and visualize these allegorical elements is crucial, and it has to be finessed and pitch perfect.
And so even when I think, hmm, I don't know if having...
movie be basically the same first act,
that same second act of the first movie where they get banished from headquarters we got a couple extra hangers on this time around but it's kind
We're back in imagination land and we're back over here and like these you know different parts of Riley's brain.
You're like, okay, well, I guess that's what the middle axis movie is going to be.
Even when you get into stuff like that,
I still think that the allegorical elements essentially hold up and they still manage to pull some surprises out.
with the way that they delved into different chapters of that little journey.
And yeah, I think this is great.
Like, I think, how could I have done it differently?
Like, I don't know how they could have done it differently, right?
Under the circumstances with the nine years that have elapsed, these nine years, these particular nine years that have elapsed, what do you do?
And right now, if you're trying to make insight out to, and I think it's this.
Yeah, I Brian, what about you?
Yeah, I mean, I very much enjoyed this movie as well.
I was a weird kind of journey where I was so on board for the first maybe 20 or so minutes or something.
It was like the Pixar logo showed up and the music started and I was like the movie hadn't
even started yet and I was just like, hell yeah.
And then, you know, just seeing the emotions back, seeing Riley back, everything she's going through.
doing this part of life, which we've all been through.
And then the puberty alarm and the new emotions, I was just like, yep, yep, yep, this is all 10 out of 10 for me.
I like that the new emotions were the more complex emotions and the sort of specific like anxiety is more complex than fear and embarrassment is more complex than sadness.
You know, I thought that was all really smart.
this movie is really smart and this movie is really funny and this movie has a whole lot of heart as you would expect from a Pixar movie,
but also from an inset out sequel.
And then the only thing Once the plot started going, I started to feel a little disengaged.
at least relative to where I was for the first act.
Michael, you were saying everything feels, I mean, both of you were just saying, like, oh yeah, we're doing this and we're doing this.
And it's, and I think I started to be like, oh yeah, we are just doing the first movie.
It's like, okay, now we gotta go through the same kind of area and get the thing.
And then like the character arc for both Joy and Riley is gonna be pretty similar.
And the sort of theme of instead of Joy embracing sadness, it's Joy has to embrace, you know, anxiety, essentially.
And like the simple emotions have to, emotions.
everything was done really,
really well, I think, like the sense of self and the sort of new sense of self that anxiety creates and everything.
But I think there was something where I walked out of the theater feeling like that was really good and not like,
oh my gosh, like, I can't believe they pulled it off, right?
And like the worst thing I have to say about the movie is just it didn't,
it didn't like knock it out of the park in a way that that blew my mind.
So I think that with within this package of something that feel,
maybe familiar and maybe like the,
but like maybe like the stakes weren't high enough or the payoff wasn't quite big enough or like the emotional pay, something about that.
Just it didn't do all of the things I wanted.
I still thought everything was fantastic and looking forward to seeing it again,
knowing that that's what I'm in for because a lot of times when you watch a movie a second time,
you can just relax and be like,
I already know what this movie is and I can just enjoy everything that it does well within that.
Yeah, and I think that that's a thing as you were saying Trisha too.
I to I think we'll come back to a lot It's like when you're designing a sequel or prequel
The impossible ask of I want the same thing, but I want different.
Yeah, what do you do with that?
It's such a fascinating just a fascinating creation process to look at
You get this with like music fans and stuff to where it's sort of like oh it sounds first album, right?
And then it's like, and it's like, oh, that doesn't sound anything like what I want you guys to tell.
And it's like, well, like, how do they do about those things?
Well, first of all, viewers may have heard Trish's impediment today.
Viewers will notice it looks like I got into a bar fight and a black eye.
Anger got the best of me.
No, I think I mowed the lawn and now my eyes are missing.
It's the real, my real reality.
We're just, we are the inside of Riley's mind.
We're just an absolute man.
But yeah, I really enjoyed this movie as well.
And agree with everything that's been said essentially across the board.
I think it's a good sequel.
It's not a sequel that transcends the first or surpasses the first or becomes its own separate thing.
solid sequel and I think it's a great way to kick off the sequel summer because it almost feels like
like this is normal sequel territory of like how you do sequel good and don't f it up.
But but you're not like making an aliens or a you know something where it's like a whole new
evolution of a franchise it's it's It's the first movie again, but pushing it forward into a new new ideas, a new age for Riley.
The movie is a good sequel in my mind because it is justified.
There is a reason to make this movie.
There are other ideas about psychology, about growing up to explore that weren't in the first movie.
And this premise of personifying aspects of the mind, you can carry forward.
I don't think you can go beyond this age
because then it gets into adulthood and you can't make really kids movie about the adult mind.
I would love to see a movie where it keeps going.
It wouldn't be great for kids, I don't think.
And Pixar made soul, I feel like, if they can turn that off, you know.
They find a way to make it still accessible to kids, but really be about, you know, early twenties or something, that'd be great.
But think, yeah, there is something about this IP, this franchise that we can grow with as the character to make.
grows up because psychology changes and emotions change,
and I think this movie did do the thing that the first movie did so well, which is just fine.
Like, as you said, Tricia, beautiful poetic allegories that add visual sound, you know,
texture to these internal amorphous experiences, sense of self, you putting things out of your minds, suppressing emotions.
It's really delightful to see them, you know, keep pushing this premise further and further with new ideas.