The Right Time

As humans, we try to be positive. And sometimes, that is a bad thing. Be careful of who is around you. Back in 2015, Disney/Pixar released a film called “Inside Out.” The film centers an 11 year old girl, and her 5 main emotions.

For the first scene, the audience has background information about Riley (Kaitlyn Diaz). Inside her head are the personified versions of joy (optimism), sadness, fear, disgust and anger.

Later in her life, Riley develops a personality. Inside her mind, they take the form of islands. From right to left, they are: Goofball, Friendship, Hockey, Honesty and Family.

These islands are powered by a very impactful memory. To simplify it, just read this quote from Joy in scene 1. “I don’t want to get too technical. But these are ‘Core Memories’. Each one came from an important time in Riley’s life.”

When Riley is 11, things go downhill. Scene 1 ends with Joy’s question, “What could happen?” What happened was Riley’s dad (Kyle MacLachlan) getting a job in San Francisco. And Riley having to leave her friend Meg in Minnesota.

I am going to give three scenarios where Joy needed to back off. As well as when she decided to step back. Two of the three are in scene 5, the other in scene 21. The last scenario is in scene 22.

The first scenario is right before Riley leaves for school. Joy (Amy Pohler) draws a circle with chalk and forces Sadness (Phylis Smith) to stay in the circle all day. This fails, and Sadness inadvertently creates a sixth core memory! Unlike the others, this one forms after Riley starts crying in class.

In the second scenario, Joy desperately tries to get rid of it. This backfires, and all of the core memories escape into Riley’s mind! And since those memories gave her her personality, she is not her usual self. Joy and Sadness get sucked out of Head-quarters, which is where the core memories are held.

In the third scenario, all except for Family Island have fallen into the Memory Dump. This is the abyss located under HQ. If a memory is forgotten, it fades, and then disintegrates. Back in scene 11, Joy and Sadness encounter Riley’s old imaginary friend, Bing Bong (Richard Kind), he is “part cat, part elephant, part dolphin.”

A row of memories near Family Island falls into the Memory Dump, and reveals another way back to HQ. A memory recall tube! Joy selfishly hops in first, however, the ground below the tube gives way, and she falls into the Memory Dump! The ground gives way under Bing Bong, too!

Here is the only time that Joy stepped back. In the Memory Dump, Joy happily cries over the good times that are no more. She wipes off a tear from the memory Sadness talked about on the train of thought (this is a literal train!). And realizes that Riley’s community comforted her when she was sad, which led her to be happy again.