"Inside Out" Should Be Placed Higher in Imdb's Top 250 Movie List

The movie Inside Out was written and directed by Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen and was then released on June 19, 2015. On the movies opening weekend, it placed second in the United States behind Jurassic World’s one hundred and six million dollar gross rate. Inside Out was not too far behind at ninety million dollars (Inside 1). In the movie, a preteen named Riley is experiencing the good parts of life with the help of her emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. She is then faced with the challenges of life when she is forced to move from her hometown in Minnesota to San Francisco because of her father’s job opportunity. During the move, her emotions Joy and Sadness get lost along the way and she is left with Fear, Anger, and Disgust. The emotions that she is left with symbolize what she is feeling and going through now that she has left all of her friends and comfort behind. She fears the thought of adapting to new surroundings and she is sadden because she had to leave so many good memories (Plot 1). While Joy and Sadness are on their journey to finding their way back into Riley’s life, Anger, Fear, and Disgust attempt to control the situation when in all reality, they are only making it worse.

Inside Out is currently listed as number eighty four on IMDb’s top 250 movie list (IMDb 1). Throughout this essay I will explain why I disagree with its placement using three main reasons. The reasons that I will be using are relatability, an amazing storyline, and stunning visuals. I will be discussing how the movie relates to each and every human, how the story unfolds, and the visual elements that are used in the movie. It is always a well written and directed movie if it is relatable to everyone, if it isn’t then some people might not have an interest in it. The story line of this movie all comes down to one life lesson, there needs to be sadness in order for happiness to be created. Throughout the story, Joy learns that Sadness is the answer to Riley’s happiness and decides that Sadness is the emotion that needs to take control. After all of the sad times are over, happiness is brought back into Riley’s life with the help of her family, friends, and emotions. The visual elements in this movie are incredible, the use of color helps determine the mood of the film and overall makes the movie a stunning visual creation.

In the beginning of the movie, the human body’s emotions are introduced and shown how they work inside the body. As humans, we all have emotions and they are all working in our bodies throughout our everyday lives. We all have different emotions that impact us when we go through the hard or good times in life. Joy is the character that most represents us as humans because for the most part of life we are usually happy or at least content. Sadness is the character who is always thinking about the sad parts of life, being sad is unfortunately an emotion that we often deal with. The character Anger is used to represent our thoughts of being mad and sometimes livid. We all know the character Fear way much more than we should, fear takes place in multiple situations. We have fear when we are in trouble, scared, worried, and many more feelings. Lastly, Disgust is the character that helps girls survive their teenage years and is the emotion for the gross things in life such as broccoli, who would eat that?

Inside Out can be related to everyone because we have all of these emotions, and we have all had to experience them at some point in our life. The movie is also relatable to viewers because it focuses on the good parts of life such as making memories. It also focuses on the challenges of life such as moving schools, making new friends, or just going through a rough patch in life. In the movie, Riley’s father receives a promotion that requires the family to move from Riley’s hometown to a completely different environment in San Francisco. Most of us in life has have had to move into a different house or to a different school district, it can be exciting, scary and sad all at the same time. Big steps in life have the emotion of fear because it is one more step to growing older and starting a new, or part of life. Moving to a different school district means new friends, and that isn’t exactly easy in today’s society. We are often judged based on our appearance and background, therefore making it hard to fit in or find people who actually want to be your friend and not make fun of you. Both of these examples show how the movie Inside Out relates to a majority of its viewers and it also shows the reasons on why I disagree with its placement.

My second reason is that I believe it should be rewarded a higher placement for the movies amazing storyline. The brain has different functions and areas that are inside the body, in the movie these different areas are demonstrated by Riley’s islands. These islands are placed in her brain and they are named Family Island, Friendship Island, Hockey Island, and Goofball Island. Family Island stores all of the memories she has with her family and Friendship Island has all of the memories of friendship. Hockey Island has memories of all the achievements Riley has received through her interest in hockey. Goofball Island has the goofy memories that form the area Imagination Station. Riley’s childhood imaginary friend is named Bing Bong, he likes to go around Riley’s memory walls and collect the memories he has shared with Riley. This is a great factor of the storyline because it represents a stage of our lives as children. The stage where we were prepared to make real friends and create real things instead of imaginary.

During Joy and Sadness’s journey Riley’s islands begin to shut down because of events that are happening in her life. Anger, Fear, and Disgust are not helping the journey back to headquarters, in fact they are only making it worse. They do not know how to make Riley happy because that isn’t what their emotion controls. Anger, finally comes up with an idea to make a last attempt to try and help Riley, he decides to “plug in” the idea of Riley running away. He plugs in this idea buy inserting a light bulb into the control board of Riley’s brain. This idea includes Riley stealing her mother’s credit card and purchasing a train ticket back to Minnesota. This was the final event that caused Family Island to shut down, break apart, and then fall into the memories that will be destroyed and forgotten. Shortly after this event, Joy realizes that Sadness is the answer to getting Riley’s life back in control. In order for there to be happiness, there has to be sadness first because friends and family comfort you when you are sad and when you are comforted, you become happy once again.

The last reason for disagreeing with the placement are the visual elements of the movie. The movie consists of every color you could ever imagine and uses them through the process of pathos. Pathos is used to appeal to ones emotions by the use of colour, text, and descriptions (Pathos 1). The majority of the colours used in the movie are shades of blue, this is one of the most popular colours because of its tendency to attract viewers. The character Sadness is blue in colour because when we think of the colour blue, we often think of the emotion sadness. Blue is not only used for representing sad in the movie, it is also used in happy scenes. The other ways that colour is used in the film is on Riley’s Islands, they are all very colourful and represent each Island in their own way. Family Island has more warm toned colours to represent the comfort a family has with each other, while Goofball Island has crazy bright colours to represent the goofy aspect.

While I do believe that Inside Out should be higher up on IMDb’s list, I can see why it isn’t. Inside Out was released in 2015 therefore it hasn’t been around long enough to be noticed for its amazing film experience. The majority of the movies that are high on the list are older movies and have been released for a while now. These movies are placed higher because they have been around longer for more and more people to be able to see them. I still believe that Inside Out should be higher up but not too high enough to where it would replace older movies who deserve to be placed higher on the list. This doesn’t mean that I am contradicting my counter argument, it means the movie has been seen by more people and that is why it is higher on the list. I believe that the movie will eventually make its way to a higher placement and maintain its spot on IMDB’s top 250 list for a long time.

Although Inside Out is currently not higher up on the list, it will be overtime. I believe that the movie will become an ideal classic with time because of its amazing storyline. The movies that are higher up on IMDb’s list are considered classics, it’s the type of movie that will be always be well known. I believe that Inside Out is a classic and will be viewed as one when it has been released for a longer period of time. The film was released in June and therefore it hasn’t been able to be awarded for its creditability. Hopefully the movie will have the chance to be listed as high as the twenties on the list. If it doesn’t move up that high, it will certainly move up to a much higher position over time.

Inside Out is overall one of the best movies I have ever experienced and will always be a favourite of mine. In my paper, I discussed the three main reasons why its placement should be higher. I discussed its relatability which is one thing a movie should always have, that alone makes it a better movie. I also told the story line which is more than likely everyone’s favourite part of the entire movie. It shows the challenges in life and in the end, reveals that in order to have happiness, there must first be sadness. I believe that this is a good way to look at life because it is empowering and encouraging. Lastly, I discussed the visual elements of the movie, the producers did an amazing job with the use of pathos. Capturing the tone or mood of a scene with colours can make a difference and create stronger impacts on the audience. It helps them connect more with what is occurring within the movie and helps them better understand the actions or events. Inside Out is more than just a movie and deserves to be higher on the list and I believe that it will overtime.