Post by Shenzi on Nov 21, 2015 15:06:07 GMT -5
Wow, really? How has this thread not been moved from the Sneak Peeks yet?
Well, it took me long enough but a friend bought me the blu-ray as an early birthday gift earlier this month and last night I finally decided to give up on waiting for my mom to be ready and watched it (she is out of state for the weekend anyway).
Not only was the concept very unique but the personification of the emotional rollar coaster and even distress starting out in a new place where everything she knows is gone would cause a little girl, from her introduction at her first day of school to her complete emotional collaspe on the bus and just her emotional development in general was very convincing.
The conflict between Joy and Sadness had such depth and complexity that was both surprising and powerful.
The scenes where Joy watched in curiosity of how Sadness consoled Bing Bong and then when she was having that moment of revelation with the memory of Riley missing that winning hockey goal were amazing character growth. Paired with the other emotions' attempts to be Joy and the regret Anger developed over having initiated the idea to run away, even earlier when he softened at the airplane feeding manuver highlighted well how happiness does not have as many complex dimensions as our other emotions and how there is a limited amount of sadness that a child can understand. That Joy had to learn to find herself in sadness was an astounding multi-dimension concept and metaphor for how Riley was transitioning from child to teenager. Joy's relvelation and when she handed over the core memories to Sadness had me bawling, the most a film has made me cry in ages.
There were just a couple of things that didn't sit right with me about the film.
The biggest was in the beginning when Riley was born. While I understand that Joy being the first emotion and Sadness being the first to steal her thunder was an effective way to start Joy's discrimination against her (when Anger and Disgust should have been seen as equally as undesirable), that was the only portrayal that was NOT convincing.
A baby is born kicking and screaming because they are being taken from the comfort of their mother's body, the only home they've ever known where they have no idea where she is and this huge world is probably frightening to them. This is actually ideal as a sign that their lungs are healthy.
Ergo I believe Sadness would have been more appropriate as Riley's first emotion. The conflict would also make more sense this way because when Joy first comes in, she'd see sadness as getting things started wrong and could hold a grudge against her for causing Riley's first moments of life to be negative. This would better support how Joy was so against Sadness touching any of Riley's memories throughout her life, her belief, insistence that "Riley needs to be happy" and her lack of notion as to the significance of Sadness.
The other thing was the falling out between Riley and her best friend from Minnisota. After the video chat scene, Riley had supposedly "dumped her best friend" but I didn't percieve what we were shown, the angry words "I gotta go" and the slamming of the laptop lid as justification that the friendship was over with that. Having a fight is not an automatic end to a relationship, in a lot of cases fighting is even what keeps them strong. I understand that the storyline needed for every one of the personality islands to collapse, but there needed to actually be a solid establishment that the friendship had ended. Instead of saying just "I gotta go" Riley needed to give the other girl a direct kiss off, maybe something like this:
"I gotta go!"
"What? Why?"
"So you can go hang out with your new best friend!"
*slam*
This I would have bought as Riley dumping the friend.
Something else that kinda bothered me but is not significant was the broccoli pizza. Maybe it's just me but I've never heard of or seen Broccoli put on pizza in any culture and I frequently watch Food Network so I've seen my share of unique pizza toppings and it's absolutely rediculous that a pizza place would exist that only serves a single type of pizza. I happen to be an hour's drive from San Francisco and have been there though granted mostly Peir 39 and have never never known there to be any such resturant.
Just saying.
Overall though, I found the film to have been astounding. I'm looking forward to watching it again with the family.
Well, it took me long enough but a friend bought me the blu-ray as an early birthday gift earlier this month and last night I finally decided to give up on waiting for my mom to be ready and watched it (she is out of state for the weekend anyway).
Not only was the concept very unique but the personification of the emotional rollar coaster and even distress starting out in a new place where everything she knows is gone would cause a little girl, from her introduction at her first day of school to her complete emotional collaspe on the bus and just her emotional development in general was very convincing.
The conflict between Joy and Sadness had such depth and complexity that was both surprising and powerful.
The scenes where Joy watched in curiosity of how Sadness consoled Bing Bong and then when she was having that moment of revelation with the memory of Riley missing that winning hockey goal were amazing character growth. Paired with the other emotions' attempts to be Joy and the regret Anger developed over having initiated the idea to run away, even earlier when he softened at the airplane feeding manuver highlighted well how happiness does not have as many complex dimensions as our other emotions and how there is a limited amount of sadness that a child can understand. That Joy had to learn to find herself in sadness was an astounding multi-dimension concept and metaphor for how Riley was transitioning from child to teenager. Joy's relvelation and when she handed over the core memories to Sadness had me bawling, the most a film has made me cry in ages.
There were just a couple of things that didn't sit right with me about the film.
The biggest was in the beginning when Riley was born. While I understand that Joy being the first emotion and Sadness being the first to steal her thunder was an effective way to start Joy's discrimination against her (when Anger and Disgust should have been seen as equally as undesirable), that was the only portrayal that was NOT convincing.
A baby is born kicking and screaming because they are being taken from the comfort of their mother's body, the only home they've ever known where they have no idea where she is and this huge world is probably frightening to them. This is actually ideal as a sign that their lungs are healthy.
Ergo I believe Sadness would have been more appropriate as Riley's first emotion. The conflict would also make more sense this way because when Joy first comes in, she'd see sadness as getting things started wrong and could hold a grudge against her for causing Riley's first moments of life to be negative. This would better support how Joy was so against Sadness touching any of Riley's memories throughout her life, her belief, insistence that "Riley needs to be happy" and her lack of notion as to the significance of Sadness.
The other thing was the falling out between Riley and her best friend from Minnisota. After the video chat scene, Riley had supposedly "dumped her best friend" but I didn't percieve what we were shown, the angry words "I gotta go" and the slamming of the laptop lid as justification that the friendship was over with that. Having a fight is not an automatic end to a relationship, in a lot of cases fighting is even what keeps them strong. I understand that the storyline needed for every one of the personality islands to collapse, but there needed to actually be a solid establishment that the friendship had ended. Instead of saying just "I gotta go" Riley needed to give the other girl a direct kiss off, maybe something like this:
"I gotta go!"
"What? Why?"
"So you can go hang out with your new best friend!"
*slam*
This I would have bought as Riley dumping the friend.
Something else that kinda bothered me but is not significant was the broccoli pizza. Maybe it's just me but I've never heard of or seen Broccoli put on pizza in any culture and I frequently watch Food Network so I've seen my share of unique pizza toppings and it's absolutely rediculous that a pizza place would exist that only serves a single type of pizza. I happen to be an hour's drive from San Francisco and have been there though granted mostly Peir 39 and have never never known there to be any such resturant.
Just saying.
Overall though, I found the film to have been astounding. I'm looking forward to watching it again with the family.