While Pixar is still the king of animation, their gears are showing a little bit of rust. “Cars,” “Cars 2,” “Brave,” and even “Monsters University” ranged in quality from good (but not great) to “meh,” leaving fans of the animation house wondering if they’d ever be able to rise back up to their heyday of 7 or 8 years ago, when virtually everything they would crank out would be solid gold both commercially and critically.
They are hoping to do just that with their latest effort, “Inside Out,” which breaks down the mind of a human into distinct personalities based on emotion. There’s one for joy (named, oddly enough, “Joy”), sadness, anger, and so on. Each of the emtions collaborates inside the head of the person, in this case young Riley.
While Pixar films are known for their imagination, so too are they known for their aping of other, older ideas: “Toy Story” has similarities to a Jim Henson special from the 80s called “The Christmas Toy,” “Monsters, Inc.” is more than a little like the Fred Savage/Howie Mandel film “Little Monsters” from the same era, and the narrative of “Cars” is almost identical to that of the Michael J. Fox flick “Doc Hollywood.” Even “Brave” apes the plot of Disney’s own “Brother Bear.” Inside Out is no different, taking the “many minds within one” concept from the crummy flick “Osmosis Jones.”
Still, Pixar takes those ideas and runs off in new directions, and most often creates final products vastly superior to the source (which is in itself rare). All signs are pointing to “Inside Out” being more a return to form for Pixar than a return to mediocrity, so for fans of the company and movies this is good news. 
