Since we left the movie theater happy-sobbing at Disney•Pixar’s Up in 2009, we’ve wondered what writer-director Pete Docter would do for his follow-up. The studio has had him slotted in for “Untitled Disney•Pixar Inside The Mind Film” for years now, but finally they’ve confirmed that Docter’s movie Inside Out is indeed happening.
And as you might have guessed from this rad concept art, Inside Out is going where no Disney•Pixar film has yet explored… the human mind. But there’s even more to this project!
Although rumored details of the movie have been circulating since February, Disney•Pixar officially broke the news on Twitter earlier today:
We have an announcement! Inside Out, the new film from director Pete Docter, will open in US theaters June 19, 2015.
— Disney•Pixar (@DisneyPixar) April 17, 2013
In February, ComingSoon.net got their hands on a more detailed synopsis that adds an extra dimension to the film: Apparently the story will be “told from the perspective of the emotions inside the mind of a little girl.” This is what has me really fired up about this movie! It brings to mind varied casts like the fish in Finding Nemo or the arcade characters in Wreck-It Ralph—but there are added stakes because they’re all extensions of this little girl’s psyche.
As blogger Brandon JP Scott pointed out, this is a great opportunity for Docter and co. to delve into the psychology of a child’s mind without it being too dry and scientific. Plenty of Disney•Pixar movies feature kids, as loving friends (Andy in Toy Story, Boo in Monsters Inc.) or pint-sized torturers (Sid in Toy Story, Darla in Finding Nemo), but this is the first time that so much of the action and momentum will rely on one little girl. Also, how great is it that it’s a girl and not a boy as the protagonist?
John Lasseter has been talking about this project since as early as 2011. In June 2012, he explained more of the reasoning behind the movie to Bleeding Cool:
“Pete has this way of constantly trying to figure out something that we’re all familiar with in some way… he’s constantly looking for these kinds of things. You look at people oftentimes and they do something to make you go, ’What are they thinking?’ or it’s like how a song gets stuck in your head and you just can’t get it out. Little quirky things like this that we all do. Certain emotions just seem to take us over, anger or happiness, where you start giggling and laughing and you can’t stop.
”He thought, ’I want to take a look at that, explain that.’ His idea is that the emotions of this little girl are the characters and it takes place in the head of this little girl, and shows how they control things that go on. It’s very, very clever and it’s truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen, yet it explains things you’ve seen.”
I’ll be interested to see if they experiment with different animation styles for the action taking place inside and outside of the girl’s head. Hopefully in the next year or so we’ll see more concrete art to give us a better idea.
But if you’re thinking that 2015 seems so far away, consider all of the other great projects Pixar has lined up until then:
- The Monsters, Inc. prequel Monsters University (June 21, 2013)
- The Good Dinosaur, set in a world where an asteroid didn’t wipe out all the dinosaurs (May 30, 2014)
- Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo, which we know will be fantastic because of more Ellen DeGeneres (November 25, 2015)
Can’t wait!
