VOTD: 'Inside Out' Without The Feelings In Riley's Head Will Still Pull At Your Heart Strings

This past summer, Pixar's Inside Out really turned on the waterworks for people of all ages, and the film has ended up on a lot of year-end Top 10 lists for the films of 2015 (including some of ours coming this week). It should come as no surprise that the movie about feelings really gets our own feelings stirring, but what might be a little surprising is that Inside Out without the feelings will still deliver a bit of an emotional gut punch.

A University of Utah film student has put together an Inside Out Outside Edition that uses only the scenes outside of Riley's mind, without the feelings to let us know what's going inside her head. And you might be amazed at how well these scenes still work. Check it out below!

Here's Inside Out: Outside Edition from Jordan Hanzon (via EW):

The magazine calls attention to co-director Pete Docter's inspiration to make Inside Out, which came from his daughter Ellie. Docter says his daughter went from being a mischievous little girl to being very quiet and reserved when she came into her pre-teen years, prompting him to say "Wow, that's so unlike her, what's going on her brain?"

And when you're watching Inside Out unfold without the emotions to really key you into what's going on inside her head, you're left wondering what's bothering Riley, just like her parents. It's not exactly a big mystery since we know that the family just moved to San Francisco, and that can be hard on any kid, but when you see some of these scenes strung together, it really illustrates what the roller coaster of emotions can be like from time to time.

And while we're on the subject of Inside Out, writer Jason Bailey at Flavorwire has dissected a scene from the film that he believes kept the movie from being great enough to make his year-end list. This is the scene in question:

As Bailey notes in his article on the matter:

"It traffics in the most tiresomely retro notions of gender roles, up to and including a goddamn toilet seat joke, operating under the assumption that all grown men are obsessed with sports and all women are obsessed with men from the covers of Harlequin Romances."

Personally, I think the movie overcomes the shortcomings of this scene in the long run, but his criticism is certainly valid. It's almost as if Pixar took the easy way out for the parents' emotions so they wouldn't have to get too complex with how adult emotions work. This is a kids movie after all, but as Bailey also notes, "The point is, this is a kid's movie, and these things influence the way those youngest of audiences see the world around them."

Feel free to sound off with your thoughts on Inside Out in the comments below!