An Incomplete Guide to Inside Out 2 and The Acolyte
In which we get emotional about emotions, and The Acolyte is unemotional
An Incomplete Guide to Inside Out 2
Can a sequel to a beloved film ever truly be judged on its own merits? asks Vanessa.
A couple of weeks ago, I tried to access a news article on Bloomberg: “Disney Is Banking On Sequels to Help Get Pixar Back on Track: After duds and missteps, the famed animation studio sees Inside Out 2 as key to restoring the magic.” If you can access that, and send me a copy of the content, I’d much appreciate it, as nobody else in my life seems to want to spring for a subscription.
The article is as much about Disney as it is about Pixar, I presume, given the slate of movies expected by the House of Mouse in the coming years: Moana 2 releases around Thanksgiving in the States; the prequel to the live-action version of The Lion King, Mufasa: The Lion King, releases just before Christmas. 2025 sees spin-off Tron: Ares and Zootopia 2 released.
We’ve already bemoaned the lack of bravery in cinemas plenty before - and sometimes sequels, reboots and the likes birth something strange and wonderful, like our retrospective of the Planet of the Apes demonstrates. But what does the spinning off and continuing and so on do to our memory of the original - our core memory, if you will?
Inside Out released in 2015. It was a year since I had graduated from university - the last time in my life that I felt carefree without consequences for my future. Maybe that was the wrong attitude to have at the time, but my life worked out alright. Watching Joy learn to embrace all of the emotions could have felt childish, but it tapped into the feeling that many adults seem to share: nostalgia (and no, us adults are not banishing her for another decade or so).
Truly, an emotional whirlwind. Credit: Jeremy Thompson
Psychologists lauded the framework of five emotions that, in truth, weren’t singular and easy to separate, but often enmeshed in our experience of the world. They shaded how we remembered things that were important to us.
Now you’re likely to say, ‘Vanessa, this is meant to be a review of Inside Out 2, and you’re spending valuable copy space on recapping its predecessor and context.’ You’re right. Because that’s a tough act to follow. Should it even have been followed?
It’s not like the ending didn’t warn us for what would lie ahead: the puberty console add-on gets dropped in on our 5 emotional friends, to their complete confusion. And yet this movie starts with the old console intact. At least the short film, Riley’s First Date, establishes part of continuity, with its featured character Jordan cameoing in one of the scenes. I’ll avoid saying more, but there are further things that puzzled me, based on my understanding of the first film.
Taking a pulse from the internet (spoilers abound on Reddit, reader beware), this movie seems to have really resonated with people who have personal experience with anxiety. From what friends have shared, it’s not a feeling I envy (film-related pun!) but it feels like that is the root of my disconnect with the film’s message. Without this understanding, it seems to me like every other character goes through the same beats as in the first movie, just with Joy being less of a protagonist as other characters step up (by necessity).
The other aspect that I seem to be missing is the parental recognition of this phase in their children’s life. That might or might not be something I’ll one day come around to, but it makes me wonder if I’m even the target audience for the film.
That, in turn, brings me back to the article from Bloomberg: why are sequels, and prequels, and reboots, and all of these formats, seen as the surefire source of income? I don’t know what Bloomberg argues, but my understanding is that it’s the folks with disposable income that would put bums in seats at the cinema. And who has the cash to splash and a hankering of nostalgia about 10 years after those teen memories? Yes, it’s Disney Adults again.
I have to admit, the movie is fresh on my mind, and that makes it tough to commit to words exactly all that I’m thinking, but I can’t help but return to one thing over and over in my mind: Inside Out 2 is doing extremely well at the box office, and I’m pleased about it: Pixar has given me many brilliant films with beautiful memories attached. I want them to have the chance to do so more often, and with creative freedom where it takes them.
But if there’s any Pixar movie I have to recommend that truly explains the emotional turmoil of a teenage girl torn between choices and reconciling who she really is, it’s Turning Red, not Inside Out 2. Dearest gentle reader, to borrow a phrase from another currently hot franchise, I implore you to watch both, if you can. There can only be room for originality where we make it, after all.
Inside Out 2 is out now in cinemas
The Acolyte
When did Star Wars get so boring?
It’s kind of crazy to think that it’s been less than five years since Star Wars ended forever with The Rise of Skywalker. The immortal words ‘somehow Palpatine returned’ sealed that film’s fate in many people’s eyes, but also, it was somewhat overshadowed by the beginning of Star Wars’ entry-proper into live-action TV, having only previously been committed to animation on the small screen.
In 2019, The Mandalorian was the flagship show with which Disney+ was launched, (2020 for most of the world, just in time for lockdown, the related conspiracy theories we might explore in another issue). Since then we have had three seasons of The Mandalorian, related spin-offs The Book Of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, the limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the downright incredible Andor (set in the years building up to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). The first three shows, now colloquially called the Mandoverse, are all supposedly building towards a movie from Dave Filoni, and the fourth season’s finale is set to be simultaneously the TV finale and a movie: showing confidence that the global audience for these shows has been massive. There have also been three seasons of The Bad Batch, a follow-up to The Clone Wars Season 7 and a few anthology shows. It’s been a busy five years on the small screen for Star Wars.
The results have been mixed, but pretty consistently in the 7 or 8 out 10 territory. Some of the shows have built on previous animated series’, most notably Ahsoka basically serving as the fifth season of Star Wars Rebels. Andor in particular won extremely high praise for its gritty and politically driven machinations.
So this year, we have The Acolyte, set a hundred years before the films, in an era previously only featured in novels and comic books (of the rebooted continuity since 2014); The High Republic. The Jedi are at the height of their powers, in finer garments and fully trusted by most of the citizenry. We get to see them at their most contemplative, and with sophisticated detective mission work after a former Jedi, Osha (Amandla Stenberg), is accused of murdering a Jedi Master (Carrie-Ann Moss). Her former master, Sol, (Lee Jung-jae) and a group of Jedi come to investigate and help her clear her name.
Unfortunately, it’s really boring. Normally I would hesitate to review a show, especially a serial, before viewing it in its entirety, but honestly, it’s not captivated me. For a show about a group of witches and space wizards, it’s lost the magic. Everything feels slow, clunky, and perfunctory.
Amandla Stenberg has a tough role in this, and she’s convincing but uncharismatic. Lee Jung-jae is fantastic, bringing weight and authenticity to the show; the kind of wise but rebellious Jedi that Qui-Gon Jinn was hinted at being back in The Phantom Menace. You have some real stars trying to elevate the scripts, but it’s the prequels all over again with lots of scenes of characters sitting in rooms talking about mythology and explaining the plot to each other rather than projecting interesting character and story.
Most confusingly of all for me is that this comes from Lesley Headland, who co-created Russian Doll for Netflix (and directed one of my favourite rom-coms, Sleeping With Other People, criminally under-seen). Russian Doll was so captivating, witty, original, and profoundly moving, transitioning from its first season being a timeloop black comedy to a World War II family drama adventure in its second season with ease and grace.
Some of the reaction from the usual loudmouths on youtube and twitter have bemoaned the show for doing crazy things to the canon, and the worst ones have been derisive of the excellent diversity in the show. Honestly, I think they’re just looking for clickbait-y ways to say that they’re bored.
If you want to see Jedi doing Jedi things and being cool, then, for about 20 minutes or so, you will love the Acolyte. Maybe I’ll return to it in a few weeks if they pull it back by the finale. Maybe it’s good that occasionally that Lucasfilm can try something different and fail, but this feels like coasting.
The Acolyte is streaming on Disney+ with 6 episodes releasing weekly from June 4th - July 16th. Both seasons of Russian Doll are on Netflix and utterly fantastic.
Is Star Wars on TV losing its magic? Are Inside Out 2’s emotions emotional enough? Let us know in the comments!