Film Theory: The Inside Out 2 Emotions Are All WRONG!

Sneaking MatPat as sadness in the blue memory ball is crazy 💀

Suprise: existing Pixar:We can't have that happen

9:43 As someone who struggles with Anxiety... YES. ABSOLUTELY. Inside Out 2 pretty much portrayed Anxiety perfectly.

It's fascinating how much depth of psychology is carefully woven into Inside Out. The prospect of a more complex emotional structure in the forthcoming sequels truly underlines the inherent complexity of human emotions.

“Or the death of her parents” Pixar Executives: WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!

Honestly, I felt like Disgust was doing the job of "Love" in the second movie. Yes, there's the funny moments with the action character and her knowing Riley's crushes, but I thought it made sense with how she's described in the movies. She knows what Riley hates, dislikes, and is disgusted by. So of course she'd know the opposite; what Riley enjoys, likes, and loves. I think it'd be interesting for future movies if Disgust had to "switch jobs" or learn to handle more work, especially as Riley gets older and wants to have a more mature, adult relationship with someone.

I agree that incorporating a more complex structure of emotions in "Inside Out" sequels would make it even more relatable for an older audience. The Junto Wheel sounds like an interesting concept to implement. Looking forward to seeing how Pixar might consider these ideas in future installments.

Disgust dealing with her demotion would be an interesting side story, but I don't think Pixar will go for it since it made her so likable in both movies

Mario wasn’t having a Panic attack he was just trying to recover from being launched through a freakin building

Minor correction: from what I've heard, the emotions don't so much pilot Riley as they do just dictate how she's feeling at any given moment (which, go figure, is the purpose of emotions). Riley still retains her agency independent of them, and it's been shown her mind can accept or reject any of the idea lightbulbs the emotions give. Also at one point in developing the first movie, they did consider Surprise as an emotion but figured that it was too close to Fear, so they just kinda merged those ideas into Fear.

Noticing the absence of love made me think of a plot of a fading emotion, adding to the stress of the already set problems in the movies. Maybe as Riley distances herself from the ones she loves, like her parents when she wants to run away, or her friends when ditching them. Love can start to fade or get hurt every time Riley slips deeper away. Giving more worry and indication of how bad things are getting in headquarters.

I’m fittingly shocked at the consensus that surprise is an emotion. I think of it like how you describe anxiety, as a more intellectual condition. Your brain has a constant subconscious check of what it thinks is about to happen and when it ends up being wrong it stutters in getting back on track. There’s no passion behind it.

Something I noticed is that in the movie the adults are also controlled by just the "big 5", and at the end Riley's mom's anxiety is shown for a moment and her sadness says "Welcome back, Anxiety", which heavily implies that the emotions we met in Inside Out 2 are not permanent and adults actually get more numb again, and I do wonder if that is something we see in real life.

That’s not anxiety, that’s existential dread

I don't think it's completely right that young children can't feel complex emotions. Admittedly they might not be able to express it well, but as a rather anxious person myself I remember feeling anxiety as a little kid too.

I bet 100% that in Matpat's brain, LOOOOORE is it's own emotion. Imagine matpat getting ready for a loredump and then the Lore emotion steps right up front ready to lay it all down.

5:40 I just kept saying Anxiety since the emotions can be more than one thing like Envy is admiration and Anxiety is Vigilance

Pixar was originally planning to have a similar idea implemented in Inside Out. A room filled with different emotions was scrapped in the early stages of production even though they considered it pretty accurate to the science at the time.

I just kept saying Anxiety since the emotions can be more than one thing like Envy is admiration and Anxiety is Vigilance

I would agree that Ennui is an emotion. Here is my logic, I’ve been Numb and I’ve been Bored. When I’m bored I’d label it as a form of frustration tied to a lack of stimulation, whereas Numb is the complete absence of emotion. Ennui is still an emotion, just one that specializes in simulating the lack of emotion without shutting down.