Pixar's Inside Out 2 Almost Included A Complicated German Emotion – Here's Why It Got Cut
When Pixar released "Inside Out" back in 2015, the studio introduced us to five core emotions inside the mind of Riley, an 11-year old girl leaving her hometown of Minnesota and moving with her parents to a new home in San Francisco. That came with a lot of complicated feelings, and the emotions of Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) helped Riley worked through all the hurdles, allowing the feelings to learn something about themselves and the girl they've nurtured over the years.
"Inside Out 2" is about to make Riley's life even more complicated by introducing some new emotions. Though Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are all back (with Fear and Disgust now voiced by Tony Hale and Liza Lapira, respectively), they have to deal with the arrival of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). Funnily enough, some of those emotions were actually considered for the first "Inside Out" (via USA Today), but director Pete Docter and the filmmakers at Pixar decided to simplify the roster and go with the five aforementioned core emotions, in an attempt to avoid the chaos of having too many characters and losing focus of the story.
However, just as the original "Inside Out" tried to include too many emotions at first, director Kelsey Mann and the rest of the crew of "Inside Out 2" originally had nine new emotions making their debut in Riley's mind. /Film attended an early press junket in March for the movie, and after screening 35 minutes of the film, we sat down for a press conference with director Kelsey Mann (a story supervisor and short helmer making his feature directorial debut) and producer Mark Nielsen ("Toy Story 4"), both seen below. During our chat, the filmmakers mentioned some of the other emotions that were considered for "Inside Out 2," including a complicated German emotion that could have made things interesting.
'But my first pass, my first screening that we did, nine new emotions showed up'
Early on in development for "Inside Out 2," Kelsey Mann sat down to rewatch every single screening of the original "Inside Out." That means he went back to the earliest versions of the movie, which were much different from the final version that ended up in theaters. Pixar Animation's process allows for significant story changes to evolve their movies at various points throughout the roughly four-year production journey. There are often entire storylines and characters who are axed as the filmmakers figure out what the primary focus of the movie should be.
Mann explained, "I just wanted to see if there was any gems that were like in there that I could bring back in. One of them is the emotion of schadenfreude." As Mark Nielsen described the emotion, it's basically, "Joy at someone else's expense, really." Apparently Pete Docter had the idea to include Schadenfreude in the original movie, and Mann wanted to try it again. However, Schadenfreude didn't end up joining the ranks of the new emotions. So what happened? Mann broke it down:
"But my first pass, my first screening that we did, nine new emotions showed up. I really wanted Joy to feel overwhelmed by all of these new emotions that showed up. And I was like, well, let's have a lot show up. And then you couldn't keep track. There were so many emotions and they all canceled each other out, because you couldn't keep up with everybody. And my first note from the first screening was: simplify."
So how did they determine which emotions would be the most integral to this new chapter in Riley's life? They brought back an expert consultant who helped out with the original "Inside Out."
'Which ones feel right for a teenager?'
Mann (pictured above left with Mark Nielsen) revealed that Pixar brought back emotions expert Dacher Keltner, who is a professor at Berkeley, to work through what emotions would be the most important for Riley to experience as a teenager. This was back when Mann was still developing the movie by himself, early on in Pixar's production pipeline. As Mann recalled:
"I brought Dacher in, and I had a list of emotions, and he saw them over my shoulders. I had written them all down on the wall, and he's like, 'What are those?' I go, 'Oh, those are the new emotions I'm thinking about options of what I can do.' And I go, 'Which ones feel right for a teenager?' He looked at the list, and he's like, 'It's all the ones that are the self-conscious emotions.' All the ones, at this age, you start — we're hard-wired at this age to start to become really self-conscious."
The director elaborated a bit more:
"In part, we're doing it because when you're a kid, you've got your parents, and your caregivers taking care of you. Eventually, you're gonna have to take care of yourself. That's why we're hard-wired to push our parents and our caregivers away, so that we can become independent people that can take care of ourselves. So that's why you worry so much about, 'What you all are thinking of me? How do I fit in? Do you like me?' It's all about fitting in at that age. And it's part of our design of who we are, because if you don't like me, you're gonna banish me, and I'm gonna go out into the woods and die alone. That's why we kind of worry so much about what others think about us at that age. It kinda turns on and it kinda never goes away. You kinda have to manage it, which is a big reason why I'm making this movie. So that's why we ended up going towards the emotions that we have in the film now."
'The baggage that Anxiety has came from Guilt'
Even though Kelsey Mann and the Pixar crew ended up with just four new emotions, also cutting characters like Guilt and Jealousy (which feels like it probably evolved into Envy), there's at least one element of one of the axed emotions that still made it into the movie. Mann explained:
"The baggage that Anxiety has came from Guilt. Remember the nine? Guilt was one of 'em. Actually, I wanted a giant luggage cart like at a hotel. You know, when you go to Disneyland, you got all your kids' stuff, it is just filled with luggage, and they're like, "Whoa!" Joy kinda slammed into that, and they're like, "Whoa, what the? Whose is this?" And then this little character came out, and he was like, "Hi, I'm Guilt. Sorry, I got a lot of baggage." It was such a good gag, and then we ended up cutting Guilt, 'cause it didn't really add to the story. [But I thought,] 'Oh, I think Anxiety's got a lot of baggage too.' And so we gave her all the baggage. That's in the teaser."
It's probably for the best that "Inside Out 2" only has four new emotions. After all, there are a couple other key characters who are introduced in the movie that aren't emotions, so limiting the number of new emotions feels like a smart decision in order to avoid losing control of the narrative. However, production designer Jason Deamer (a character designer and art director on films like "WALL-E" and "Ratatouille") was apparently a little miffed about a certain character being cut. During his presentation, Deamer accidentally included some older production art that included a character we hadn't met in any of the footage shown to us. When asked about the character, Deamer candidly responded:
"That's a really interesting story that I'm not allowed to tell, unfortunately. Trust me, it pissed me off."
Even after we pressed for details on the emotion in question, which looked like it possibly could have been Schadenfreude, Deamer couldn't provide any more details. So maybe that's something we'll learn about after the movie is released.
However, there is one additional emotion you'll meet in an amusing little gag in the first act of the movie, but we'll let you discover that one for yourself when "Inside Out 2" hits theaters on June 14, 2024.