1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. MUSIC
5. PRODUCTION
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

Pixar has always been seen as the best in the world of computer animation, having hit after hit after hit for years, ever since they released Toy Story in 1995.

There has been the occasional misstep of course, like Cars (2006) – and then Cars 2 (2011). But for the most part, if Pixar say they are releasing a new movie, generally, people get excited, and have high expectations of what they’ll be viewing.

2015 was looking to be another good year for Pixar, as their summer release of that year, Inside Out, was seen to be incredibly clever, funny, and poignant. It was looking like Pixar were heading into their third decade of movie-making on a high.

And then came The Good Dinosaur, their November release of 2015. Given its initial concept of how would the world have looked had the dinosaurs not been wiped out by an asteroid millions of years ago, people were looking forward to seeing what Pixar did with this story. After all, Pixar rarely make mistakes.

However, many viewers found themselves bitterly disappointed after watching The Good Dinosaur. It was considered to be one of Pixar’s worst movies at this point in time, and to back up the negative criticism, it was seen to have flopped at the box office, with even Cars and Cars 2 performing better financially. The reasons why The Good Dinosaur was not good differs depending on who you talk to, however, there are some fans of the film.

So, what’s my opinion on The Good Dinosaur?

I remember watching it at the cinema with my family, and I believe we all came out of there thinking it was alright. It wasn’t what we’d expected to see but it was watchable. However, now I’ve rewatched it a couple of times, I have a different view on The Good Dinosaur. Now, I can honestly say that I really don’t like The Good Dinosaur, and I would personally rather watch Cars 2 – or WALL-E (2008), or even Turning Red (2022), these being other Pixar films I don’t like much. I would, however, rather watch The Good Dinosaur than Lightyear (2022) – but wouldn’t everybody?

Specifically, I find The Good Dinosaur too dark, lacking in humour, and overall, quite slow and boring to follow. I’ve never been interested in dinosaurs and I don’t like films about nature, as nature can be cruel and upsetting to watch. The Good Dinosaur is not a feel-good film, despite that being what we generally expect to see from Pixar. It’s just not for me.

PLOT

The Good Dinosaur begins 65 million years ago, as an asteroid rockets towards Earth. We watch as it hurtles towards the planet, seemingly going to make a direct hit. The dinosaurs that roam the Earth continue life as though nothing is happening. Suddenly, they hear a noise and look up to the sky – and see the asteroid fly right over them, not making contact.

Million of years later, having not died from an asteroid strike, the dinosaurs, and other creatures from that era, continue to roam the planet. On a patch of land, a dinosaur couple have managed to build and maintain a farm for themselves. They are waiting for their three eggs to hatch – and today is the day. First, they have their daughter Libby, closely followed by a son called Buck. Then, there is just the largest egg of the three to hatch, so the dinosaur couple, Henry and Ida, are expecting this one to be the biggest of their three children. Except, when the egg hatches, out pops a tiny, very nervous dinosaur. They call him Arlo. The parents tell their children about the family farm, located next to Clawtooth Mountain, and how, together, they will keep this farm going.

Some time later, Libby and Buck are shown to be actively involved in their farming chores, although Arlo, still quite small and weak compared to his sister and brother, is struggling to contribute his fair share of the work. His mother loads him up with some food and he is sent to go and feed their chickens. Arlo doesn’t like the chickens, and is nervous about entering the pen. Eventually he does though and befriends one of the chicks, but the mother is waiting nearby and chases Arlo out of the pen. Arlo runs so far and fast that he has to be caught by his father before he falls in the river at the edge of their farm. His father is filling a silo he’s built with crop from the farm, saying it should stop any critters from stealing their food. Henry and Ida then mark the silo with their footprints, telling their children they’ll have to earn their mark on the silo by doing something big.

The first of the three children to earn their mark is Buck, who does so by clearing a field. Libby follows shortly after by ploughing the field, whilst Arlo continues to be scared of everything. But determined to get his mark, Arlo marches into the chicken pen to feed the animals, coming across an injured Buck on the ground. Arlo tries to help him, but Buck pranks him with a chicken puppet on his tail, scaring Arlo again. Arlo’s parents tell off Buck for calling Arlo a coward and say Arlo just needs time.

That night, Arlo is woken up by his father and taken on a walk. He tells Arlo to walk into a misty field. Uncertain, Arlo begins to walk, but stops when he sees a bug on his nose. He calls to his father to get rid of it. Henry blows on the bug, and it begins to glow. It is a firefly and the field is filled with them. Arlo’s father tells Arlo sometimes you have to get through your fear to see the beauty on the other side. He says he has a new job for Arlo.

The next day, Arlo tells his father that his new job is to catch the critter that has been stealing food from their silo. They build a trap for it together, with Arlo told to kill it with a stick after it’s been caught. Arlo patrols the silo, determined to do his job right, but when he sees something actually caught in the net, he begins to panic, especially as the critter – actually a human caveboy – seems to try and attack Arlo; I think he actually just can’t breathe. Arlo frees it, but it comes too close to Arlo and his screams scare the boy off. Arlo’s father comes over, angry to see that the critter has escaped. Wanting Arlo to face his fear, he takes Arlo into the forest to follow the critter and finally kill it. A storm has started, and Arlo worries about getting lost. His father tells him as long as he can find the river, he can find his way home. The tracks of the critter begin to wash away in the rain, so Arlo’s father tells Arlo to hurry, but Arlo gets scared of the thunder and lightning and falls, hurting himself. Arlo’s father sees this was not a good idea, and says they should go home. However, as they head home, they see the river water rising, and a huge torrent of flood water coming their way. Arlo’s father gets Arlo to safety, but it is too late for Henry and he is washed away…

Back on the farm some time later, Arlo’s mother is struggling with the harvest without Henry, and tells Arlo he’ll need to do more to help. Arlo promises he will. He then sees that boy inside the silo, eating all their food. Angry, and seeing the boy as the reason for his father’s death, Arlo chases it, but the boy jumps on Arlo, scaring him and causing him to stumble into the river. His head hits a rock and Arlo is knocked unconscious.

Arlo wakes up on the riverbank, far from home. He climbs up a wall of rocks to see the boy at the top of it, but the boy runs off before Arlo can catch up to him. Arlo thinks he’s lost until he sees the river and remembers what his dad said: that if he can find the river, he can find his way back home. Arlo follows the route of the river. He then starts to get hungry and tries to eat some berries from a tree, except he falls and gets his leg trapped under a rock. Arlo has no choice but to stay there, overnight, fearing what might approach him.

In the morning, Arlo discovers that his leg is free, seeing that something dug it out for him. Arlo continues his journey, stopping to attempt to build shelter when the rain gets bad. As the rain continues, Arlo hears something in the bushes ahead of him. It is the boy again who has given Arlo a half-dead lizard. The lizard manages to run off, as does the boy. A little while later, the boy returns with a huge bug. Arlo knocks it away with a stick. The boy returns for a third time, this time with a stick full of berries. Arlo tries to tell the boy to stay away from him, but is too hungry to argue. He asks the boy to find more berries, but he runs off. Arlo follows him to a cliff. The boy bites Arlo so he can use him as a bridge between two ledges. Arlo sees tons of berries on a tree on the other side, and excitedly starts eating them, despite the boy signalling something is wrong. That “something” turns out to be a snake, which falls on Arlo, causing Arlo to slip off the cliff and fall to the ground. The snake goes to attack Arlo, but is fought off by the boy. Arlo then hears a voice from the woods. It is a dinosaur, with animals all over him. He asks Arlo why the boy protected him; Arlo can’t answer that question. The dinosaur explains that all his animal “pets” protect him in some way and now he wants the boy. The dinosaur and Arlo start naming the boy. Whoever’s name he responds to gets to keep him. Luckily, Arlo wins, by naming the boy Spot.

Arlo and Spot continue their journey together, making a brief detour to mess with some gophers, by blowing into their burrows and forcing them out of hiding. The gophers get angry and climb on top of Arlo though, spooking him and making him fall in a lake. Arlo panics, until he sees Spot swimming and joins in – although when Arlo gets out of the lake, he is covered in leeches…They continue on, where they eat decomposing berries causing them to hallucinate, and walk through a field of fireflies. That night, Arlo tries to talk to Spot about his family, using sticks to represent each member of his family, with a circle drawn around it, as Spot can’t speak. Spot then does the same, showing that both of his parents have died. Arlo shows that his father has died too.

The next day, they press on with their journey in a storm, but Arlo gets flashbacks to his father’s death and runs into the woods to hide. Spot eventually finds Arlo in the now destroyed forest, but they are not near the river anymore. Arlo goes to ask a pack of pterodactyls for help, naively believing they are searching the woods for survivors and want to help them. The leader of the pack is called Thunderclap and their motto is “the storm provides”. Thunderclap sees an animal stuck in a tree and asks Arlo for help in getting to it. Arlo gladly accepts, however, the pterodactyls then eat the animal. They have their sights set on Spot next, but Arlo runs off with Spot on his back, asking more dinosaurs for help, but these are two huge T-Rexes. The T-Rexes fight off the pterodactyls and slowly approach Arlo. Arlo thinks they want to eat him next, but they just want to help. These two T-Rexes are brother and sister Nash and Ramsey. Their father, Butch, says they can’t help Arlo find his way home as they are busy trying to round up their herd. Arlo says Spot could sniff out their herd and they follow Spot as he sniffs out the herd’s trail.

At the end of the trail, all they see is a bug that Spot is interested in. Butch is angry that this was all a waste of time, but the herd are just in the next field over. The T-Rex family discovers that rustlers have tried to steal their herd. Butch tells Arlo to get on the rock in the middle of the herd and scream to lure the rustlers out into the open. It takes Spot biting Arlo to get him to scream, but the distraction works, and the rustlers, a pack of raptors, approach Arlo. Arlo is scared, but he stands his ground as Butch told him to. Just as Arlo thinks he’s about to be attacked, Butch, Nash, and Ramsey launch their attack on the raptors. However, at one point the raptors attack Butch. Arlo shakes off his fear to get the raptors off him, headbutting them. The raptors are tossed into the air by Butch, with the others running away. The T-Rexes roar at the raptors to keep them from coming back; they encourage Arlo to join in. They continue to move the herd together.

That night, around a campfire, the T-Rex family swap stories of their great adventures and their injuries, with Butch having a great story about the scar on his face, saying he was attacked by crocodiles, and fought back against them all. Arlo says that these stories have inspired him not to be scared anymore, but Butch says that that isn’t the point. The point is that fear is always there, and you have to fight to get through it. They then see the first snow falling, and Arlo knows he needs to get home soon.

The next day, Arlo and Spot go with Butch, Ramsey, and Nash to continue moving the herd. Arlo is even tasked with ensuring a group of them don’t split off in the wrong direction – and he manages to do it. Arlo can see Clawtooth Mountain in the distance and leaves the T-Rexes to continue the journey home. Arlo starts running home, with Spot on his back. They see the mountain up ahead, but stop after hearing a howl in the distance. Spot communicates through howling, so he stops and looks around. Up ahead, they see someone who looks like a bigger version of Spot. Spot begins to walk closer to the figure, but Arlo puts Spot on his back, telling him he can live at the farm with the rest of Arlo’s family.

Another storm soon starts up again, and Arlo sees the beaks of the pterodactyl pack poking through the clouds. They attack Arlo and fly away with Spot. Arlo is pushed off the cliff and is trapped in some vines. As he tries to wrestle his way out, a rock falls on his head, knocking him out. Arlo begins to hallucinate that he sees his father. His father starts to walk Arlo home, in the opposite direction to where Spot was taken. Arlo’s father ignores Arlo’s protests to go back for Spot. Eventually, Arlo stops walking and refuses to go any further, realising that this isn’t real. Arlo says he has to go back and rescue Spot. His father says he knew Arlo had it in him because he is him and more. He is told to take care of that critter, these all being things Arlo heard his father say to him before his death.

Arlo wakes up and breaks free from the vines, racing to find Spot, despite the intense storm. Arlo howls to try and figure out where Spot is, eventually getting a response, and locates him by the river, where he is hiding in a tree whilst the pterodactyls try to get to him. Arlo headbutts the pterodactyls, with two ending up in the fast-moving river. Two others try to fly away with Arlo, as Thunderclap gets close to getting to Spot. Arlo sees the water rising, and the tree that Spot is in is almost covered. Arlo’s quick-thinking allows him to break a tree with his tail, sending the two pterodactyls into the water. Arlo roars, distracting Thunderclap, giving Spot the chance to bite a hole through his wing. Thunderclap tries to fly away, but Arlo throws a stick at him, knocking Thunderclap into the river. Arlo then sees a torrent of water heading right towards Spot in the tree. He runs towards Spot to try and save him, but he is too late and they are both hit by the wave.

Arlo tries to get to the surface in amongst all the debris, and sees Spot unconscious, still in the tree and heading for the waterfall. Arlo swims towards him and grabs him, just before they are both sent down the waterfall. At the bottom, Arlo swims to the bank with Spot still unconscious. Arlo lightly blows on Spot’s face, causing him to wake up.

Once recovered, they continue walking and Arlo sees how close to home they are. Except, they hear howling again, and see a family of cavemen heading towards Spot. Arlo sees that this is where Spot belongs, not with him and his family. Spot tries to leave with Arlo, not wanting to leave his friend, but Arlo refuses to take him, pushing him back towards his new family, and drawing a circle around them, as they did when they first bonded over their families, to show Spot this is where he should be. The two have a tearful goodbye, before Spot walks away with his new family, giving one final howl to each other as he goes.

Arlo continues the rest of his journey alone, finally making his way back to his family’s farm, where he is reunited with his mother, and his brother and sister. They go to the silo together, where Arlo is now able to put his mark on it, alongside the rest of the family.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Arlo is an Apatosaurus, and could be considered “the runt” of his family, since he is the smallest and weakest of his siblings. Arlo is terrified of the world and just generally has a nervous disposition. However much his parents try to understand Arlo’s fear, they are concerned about how he will fare in the future and how he will contribute to life on the farm. This is even more of an issue after Arlo’s father dies, something that impacts Arlo specifically as it makes him more afraid of everything, especially storms. Arlo wants to avenge his father by killing the “critter”, Spot, however, Arlo soon learns that he needs Spot’s bravery to get him through his journey home. Arlo also learns from others he meets on his adventures about how to cope with fear and move past it. Rescuing Spot is Arlo’s biggest test of his bravery, but he is tested once again when a human family comes to look after Spot. Arlo knows that Spot helps him be better, but Spot belongs with them, and Arlo must let him go, finishing his journey alone, with a much better understanding and appreciation of the world.

Arlo was voiced by child actor Raymond Ochoa, who had previously provided additional voices for another Pixar film, Monsters University (2013), and also voiced the character Dash Parr from The Incredibles (2004) in some Disney video games, like Disney Infinity, where he also reprised his voice role as Arlo.

Spot is the “critter” and caveboy that is causing Arlo’s family all kinds of problems by eating their crop, no matter how much they try and protect it. Spot is supposed to be killed by Arlo after he is caught, but Arlo can’t bring himself to do it, freeing Spot and allowing him to run away. This causes Arlo’s father to become incredibly angry with Arlo and drags him into the forest to “kill the critter” – but we all know how that ends. Spot doesn’t understand Arlo’s anger with him, as he can’t speak dinosaur, but does try to make amends by finding Arlo three different kinds of food, eventually realising Arlo is a herbivore and eats berries. Spot accompanies Arlo on his journey home, since he doesn’t have any family left and quite likes having someone to spend time with. Arlo needs Spot to be his protector initially, although Arlo has to protect Spot at times too, like from the pterodactyls. Spot can mostly take care of himself though, but shouldn’t have to, given he is so young, so it’s nice to see him being adopted by a family at the end of the film, even if he did mean saying goodbye to Arlo.

Spot was voiced by Jack Bright, who also provided additional voices for Monsters University, reprising his role as Spot in games like Disney Infinity too.

Henry is Arlo’s father, who Arlo calls “Poppa”. Henry is very patient with his son’s anxiety and fears, knowing that he will come into his own given some time. Henry tries to give Arlo advice during his life, taking him to see a field of fireflies to tell Arlo that sometimes it is worth pushing through the fear, before giving Arlo the job of catching the critter stealing their food. Henry shows a rare moment of anger towards his son after he sees Arlo did not do his job, making Arlo follow the critter’s tracks with him so they can kill it once and for all. After Arlo falls and gets hurt, Henry comes to his senses and decides this isn’t the time to use tough love on Arlo, heading home shortly after. However, it is too late for Henry and the storm waters wash him away. Henry later reappears as a vision that Arlo is having whilst unconscious, and he shows within that vision that he is encouraging and proud of his son for doing the right thing and going back for Spot, despite the fear he is obviously feeling.

Jeffrey Wright was cast as Henry. Wright has had a successful career in both film and television. In film, Wright played Felix Leiter in the Bond films Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008) and No Time to Die (2021). He also played Beetee in The Hunger Games film franchise, first appearing in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013). He had also previously portrayed Howard Bingham in Ali (2001), which starred Will Smith. More recently, Wright appeared as Roebuck Wright in Wes Anderson’s film The French Dispatch (2021), and later as General Grif Gibson in another Wes Anderson film, Asteroid City (2023). He was cast as Jim Gordon in The Batman (2022) and is set to reprise his role for the 2027 sequel. Wright also had much success with his role as Dr. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in American Fiction (2023), being nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and Critics’ Choice awards. In television, Wright played Dr. Valentin Narcisse in Seasons 4 and 5 of Boardwalk Empire (2010-14), going on to play Bernard Lowe / Arnold Weber in Westworld (2016-22) and narrate the Marvel series What If…? (2021-24) for Disney+. He also played Isaac Dixon in Season 2 and 3 of The Last of Us (2023-present).

Arlo’s mother is called Ida. “Momma” is also caring and supportive of Arlo, finding it quite amusing that her son is scared to feed the chickens! She seems slightly more bothered that Arlo isn’t able to pull his weight around the farm, leaving Henry to speak to Arlo to encourage him to be braver. After Henry’s death, Ida must ensure that the farm continues to run, carrying the weight of the responsibility on her own, leading her to ask Arlo to contribute more than he has been. Her work on the farm no doubt got harder after Arlo disappeared, but that won’t have mattered in the end, as she was relieved to be reunited with her son.

Ida was voiced by Frances McDormand, who had previously voiced Captain Chantel DuBois in DreamWorks’ Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) prior to The Good Dinosaur. Outside of that, McDormand has won three Academy Awards for Best Actress, one for her role as Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996); another for playing Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and then as Fern in Nomadland (2020). She also won the Critics’ Choice for her performance in all three of these films, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe wins for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Nomadland. She voiced Interpreter Miranda Nelson in Isle of Dogs (2018) and played Lucinda Krementz in The French Dispatch, both for Wes Anderson. McDormand also won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited series or Movie for her title role in HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014). On stage, McDormand won a Tony award for her role as Margie in play Good People on Broadway in 2011, having earlier received a nomination in 1988 for her role as Stella Kowalski in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Rounding out Arlo’s family are his brother Buck and sister Libby. They are both bigger and stronger than Arlo so they contribute more to the farm. They both have quite a lot of energy so they are able to tease each other as siblings do, whereas Arlo being the quieter one seems to be left out a lot of the time. Buck even goes so far as to torment his little brother by using a chicken puppet on his tail to scare Arlo, after he tries to be brave and feed the chickens on his own without running away. Buck and Libby are both happy to be reunited with their brother on his return though, as they can work together as a family now to keep the farm going in honour of their father.

Libby was voiced by Maleah Padilla. Buck was voiced by Marcus Scribner, who had much success in his role as Andre “Junior” Johnson Jr. in Black-ish (2014-22) on ABC, later returning to the character for the spin-off series Grown-ish (2018-24). Scribner won two NAACP Image Awards for his performance in Black-ish. Recently, Scribner has been playing Jonah Silver in the police drama series Boston Blue (2025-present) on CBS.

The pterodactyl flock are the first real villains that Arlo and Spot find themselves facing. They make it seem like they are some sort of rescue squad who save trapped animals after storms, but in actual fact, they only want to rescue creatures so they can eat them afterwards, something Arlo witnesses and is horrified by. The flock want to go after Spot next, but Arlo fights to protect Spot on two separate occasions. They are quite scary villains to see in a Pixar film. Thunderclap is the flock’s leader, and the one who thinks he gets first pick of the creatures they find, muscling everyone else off anything they get. He is the last one that Arlo faces as he saves Spot.

Thunderclap was voiced by Steve Zahn. Zahn had previously voiced Runt in Chicken Little (2005) for Disney, and cat Monty in the Stuart Little films. He has also acted in various movies and television series, such as playing Marvin in Daddy Day Care (2003), Tucker in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), and Mark Mossbacher in Season 1 of The White Lotus (2021-present). Zahn is set to reprise his role as Jimmy Conroy / Solo in Season 3 of the Apple TV series Silo (2023-present), after first appearing in Season 2. He also plays Jake Hudson in the Disney+ series Chad Powers (2025-present).

The rest of the flock consist of Downpour and Coldfront, voiced by two Pixar employees, Mandy Freund and Steven Clay Hunter, and Frostbite and Windgust, voiced by Hank Azaria and Alan Tudyk respectively. Azaria has had a long history with voice acting, voicing characters such as Chief Wiggum and Moe in The Simpsons (1989-present), as well as Bartok in Anastasia (1997) and Phil in Hop (2011). Azaria has also acted in films like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), where he played Kahmunrah; Run Fatboy Run (2007), playing Whit Bloom; and The Smurfs (2011), where he was cast as Gargamel. Alan Tudyk has had voice roles in various Disney films over the years, including King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Duke of Weselton in Frozen (2013), Alistair Krei in Big Hero 6 (2014), and Valentino in Wish (2023). Outside of voice acting, Tudyk was the voice for Sonny the robot in I, Robot (2004), and also appeared in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), as Steve the Pirate, and Trumbo (2015), as Ian McLellan Hunter.

The T-Rex family of Butch, his daughter Ramsey, and son Nash are ranchers, with this seemingly fitting well with Pixar’s ideas for how dinosaurs would have lived on the land, since Arlo’s family, as herbivores, became farmers, so it makes sense that carnivores would have been ranchers. Ramsey and Nash are only too happy to fight off pterodactyls to help Arlo, but their father isn’t quite so pleased to have such a little dinosaur bothering them whilst they are looking for their stolen herd. Butch would rather Arlo went on his way, but Arlo actually manages to help them, thanks to Spot’s tracking abilities, and using himself as a distraction with the rustlers. Butch comes to like Arlo in the end, telling Arlo not to try to erase his fear since everyone gets scared at times, even him, and together, the T-Rexes help guide Arlo and Spot in the direction of Arlo’s home near Clawtooth Mountain.

Butch was voiced by Sam Elliott. Recently, Elliott was cast as Shea Brennan in the Paramount+ series 1883 (2021-22), a prequel to Yellowstone (2018-24), winning the SAG award for Male Actor in a TV Movie or Limited series. He also plays Thomas “T.L.” Norris in the Paramount+ series Landman (2024-present). Elliott may also be known for such roles as Wade Garrett in Road House (1989); as Wild Bill Hickok in the miniseries Buffalo Girls (1995), which starred Anjelica Huston and Melanie Griffith; and as Thaddeus Ross in Hulk (2003). He also voiced Chupadogra in Marmaduke (2010), and Trusty in Disney’s live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp (2019). Elliott also played Beau Roosevelt Bennett in the Netflix series The Ranch (2016-20), and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Bobby Maine in A Star is Born (2018).

Butch’s son Nash was voiced by A.J. Buckley, who was cast as Adam Ross in CSI: NY (2004-13) from Season 2, and went on to play Percival “Sonny” Quinn in the series SEAL Team (2017-24). Buckley also played Jimmy Bottles in the Disney Channel Original Movie Motocrossed (2001). Butch’s daughter Ramsey was voiced by Anna Paquin, who was perhaps known for her roles Marie / Rogue in the X-Men film franchise, and Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood (2008-14), winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series in 2009, around the time of The Good Dinosaur. Paquin had also won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Flora McGrath in The Piano (1993) early on in her career. More recently, Paquin was cast as Peggy Sheeran in The Irishman (2019), as well as playing Joanie Lockhart in Season 5 of The Affair (2014-19). 

The raptor rustlers are another group of villains in The Good Dinosaur. Having stolen the T-Rexes herd, they then proceed to attack them and Arlo and Spot after they attempt to get their herd back. The raptors are quick, and aren’t easy to deal with, however, by working together, and with Arlo having the nerve to fight back against them, they manage to scare the raptors away, and the T-Rexes retrieve their herd.

There are four raptors in the pack. Bubbha was voiced by Dave Boat, who voiced characters in Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019) for Disney. He also voiced Jim Hall in the English dub of the animated film White Fang (2018). Lurleane was voiced by Carrie Paff, who went on to provide additional voices for Pixar’s Finding Dory (2016), with Pervis being voiced by Calum Mackenzie Grant, who went on to have a voice role in Pixar’s Soul (2020). Earl was voiced by John Ratzenberger, known for voicing characters in various Pixar films. Having previously starred as Cliff Clavin in the long-running sitcom Cheers (1982-93) early in his career, Ratzenberger went on to become a regular cast member in Pixar’s movies, beginning with his character Hamm in the Toy Story franchise, lending his voice to other characters such as the Abominable Snowman in the Monsters, Inc. films, and Mack in the Cars series. Ratzenberger has since voiced the parts of Rootie in Luck (2022) and Milo the Monster Handler in Spellbound (2024) for Skydance Animation.  

Finally, one other character to mention is the Styracosaurus that collects pets. His name is Forrest Woodbush, also known as the Pet Collector. He has so many fears that each animal he has “collected” and that lives on his body has a role to play in protecting him from something, such as a salamander that protects him from creatures that crawl in the night, and a now-extinct opossum who stops him from having unrealistic goals… His favourite pet is a red bird called Debbie, although she flies away from him at one point. Forrest Woodbush is not in The Good Dinosaur for long, and is seemingly only there for comic relief. I personally don’t find this character funny, and just find him creepy. Apparently, Pixar had toyed with the idea of cutting Forrest Woodbush out of the film, but had such a strong reaction to him due to the comedy aspect of the character that they felt they had to keep him[1]. Director of The Good Dinosaur, Peter Sohn, voiced this character.

MUSIC

There are no songs in The Good Dinosaur at all, not even an End Credits song, so the film is entirely reliant on its score.

The score was composed by Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna, with The Good Dinosaur being the first Pixar film they had worked on, although the brothers did return to the studio to work on the score for Onward (2020). They went on to compose the music for The Addams Family (2019) and its 2021 sequel. Mychael Danna also won multiple awards, including the Oscar for Best Original Score, for his music in Life of Pi (2012).

I did like some of the music within The Good Dinosaur, as it had a folk-music sound to it, especially at the beginning of the film, which reminded me of the music in Brave (2012).

Within the score, one track I liked was “Homestead”, from the opening sequence of the film. It introduces the family farm, making it seem like an idyllic place to be, out in nature, living with the land. It is also accompanied by the beautiful landscapes that the audience see much more of as the story progresses. I also like “Hello Arlo”, “Chores”, and “Make Your Mark”, all from the first few minutes of The Good Dinosaur, as they continue to set up Arlo’s family’s farming lifestyle and adds a country element to the music too. “Fireflies” is a pretty piece of music, which accompanies the scene of Arlo’s father showing Arlo the field of fireflies. Other musical moments like this reappear in the last few minutes of the film, such as through “Goodbye Spot”, as Arlo encourages Spot to go with the family of humans instead of back to the farm with him; “Homecoming”, when Arlo is reunited with his family back home; and “Arlo Makes His Mark”, showing Arlo getting to put his mark on the silo with the other members of his family. All three pieces make up the ending of The Good Dinosaur.

There are also plenty of pieces within the score that accompany the perilous moments of the story, like “Swept Away”, which sees Arlo watch his father be washed away by a torrent of floodwater; “Sky Sharks”, signalling the return of the pterodactyls as they finally get their hands on Spot; and “Rescue”, as Arlo fights to rescue Spot.

The music in The Good Dinosaur was nominated at the Annie Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music in an Animated Feature Production, but it was won by Michael Giacchino’s score for Inside Out. Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna did, however, appear to win a BMI Film Music Award to recognise their work on The Good Dinosaur.

PRODUCTION

It is well-known that animated movies can take years to make, not even just from animating the action, but adding in story development discussions as well.

The Good Dinosaur originally had a different story to what we were presented with in 2015. It was meant to be directed by someone different as well, and its release date was meant to be about eighteen months earlier than it ended up being.

The Good Dinosaur was initially set to be directed by Bob Peterson. Peterson had previously co-written Up (2009), voicing the character Dug for it as well; having worked on the earliest Pixar movie, Toy Story (1995), within the animation department, and later co-wrote the screenplays for Finding Nemo (2003) and Cars 3 (2017). He also voiced other Pixar characters, including Roz in Monsters, Inc. (2001) and its spin-offs, and Mr. Ray in Finding Nemo. Peterson also wrote, created, and directed the animated short series Dug Days (2021-23), as well as reprising his voice role of Dug.

The release date for The Good Dinosaur was set to be 30^th May 2014, so it would have been Pixar’s only 2014 feature film release of the year, with Monsters University as the 2013 release and Inside Out as their 2015 release. Having one film release a year had been standard practice for Pixar from the 2000s, with only 2005 a notable omission up to this point. Further details of The Good Dinosaur were revealed at the D23 Expo in 2013, which showed concept art of Arlo and his family working as farmers, and that the other main character would be a human called Spot, who would not talk. The voice cast was also announced at this stage, with Lucas Neff, known for his role as Jimmy Chance in the sitcom Raising Hope (2010-14), voicing Arlo. Arlo’s father was set to be voiced by John Lithgow; Arlo’s siblings by Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, and Judy Greer; and Frances McDormand would voice Arlo’s mother. They even had the Pixar short film that would play before it in theatres lined up, Party Central (2013), which was set after the events of Monsters University and premiered at the 2013 D23 Expo[2]. It was later added to the theatrical release of Muppets Most Wanted (2014) because there were many changes afoot at Pixar.

By the end of August 2013, it was being reported that Bob Peterson had been removed from The Good Dinosaur, with a new director not immediately announced. This was not a rarity for Pixar at the time either, as they had replaced the original director of Ratatouille (2007), Jan Pinkava, with Brad Bird. Just a couple of years later, the same thing happened on Brave (2012), with Brenda Chapman being removed partway through production, and Mark Andrews was the one to replace her. Chapman was said to be devastated by this decision. In this case, there does not appear to have been any animosity caused by the removal of Peterson as he continued to work at Pixar after this.

But it did mean there would be changes to the story of The Good Dinosaur, as clearly, something was not right with it, with story problems and an approaching deadline being the apparent reason for Peterson’s removal. It is not clear exactly what Peterson’s original concept was, although we do know that Arlo and Spot did remain in the story, as did Arlo’s family being farmers. From an introduction to a deleted scene, which would’ve seen the character of Butch being attacked by raptors, and Arlo and Spot making a trap to save him, it would appear that The Good Dinosaur was meant to be an outright parody of Western movies early on. This did not end up being the case in the final version of the film[3].

It would also appear that Bob Peterson wanted the character of Arlo to be older in his version of the film. When Peter Sohn was named as the new director, although he kept the species of dinosaur the same – that Arlo and his family are Apatosaurs – he decided to age down Arlo to be about eleven years old, and chose to focus on the “boy and his dog” concept, with Arlo being the innocent boy and Spot being the dog. This meant that many of the casting choices that had been put in place needed to be changed, as the rest of Arlo’s family were being aged down as well. This is why Frances McDormand ended up being the only original member of the voice cast to remain in the final film[4].

Given all these story changes, to streamline it and make it less complicated to the original version of the film that Sohn had been tasked with fixing, it was decided that the best option was to delay The Good Dinosaur, to give the new team a real chance to make the new film a hit. It was delayed until 25^th November 2015, which was meant to be the date that Finding Dory would be released; Finding Dory was moved to Summer 2016. This meant that, for the first time, Pixar would be releasing two films in one year, as Inside Out was still sticking with its release date of 19^th June 2015[5]. Pixar have released two films in the same year various times since, including in 2017, 2020, and 2026.

The Good Dinosaur was Peter Sohn’s directorial debut for Pixar, and he said it was quite a steep learning curve for him, so he relied on advice from anyone and everyone working on the film. Sohn had worked as a story artist on Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Up prior to The Good Dinosaur, and had voiced characters such as Emile in Ratatouille and Squishy in Monsters University as well. He had also directed and written the short film Partly Cloudy (2009). After The Good Dinosaur, Sohn went on to direct Elemental (2023) and is set to direct Incredibles 3.

The screenplay for The Good Dinosaur was written by Meg LeFauve. LeFauve also co-wrote the screenplay for Inside Out, with Pete Docter and Josh Cooley, receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Screenplay for it, going on to write the sequel Inside Out 2 (2024) with Dave Holstein. Other story credits went to Peter Sohn and Bob Peterson, as well as Kelsey Mann and Erik Benson. Mann had previously written and directed the short film Party Central, and went on to contribute in the story department for Onward, before directing Inside Out 2. Benson had previously worked as a storyboard artist on Cars 2 and worked on the story for the short film Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation (2011).

There were still a few scenes that were cut from the final version of the film, mostly because they didn’t help explain Arlo’s nervousness and anxiety in quite the right away. One thing was that they had initially planned to have Arlo become so scared of the world because he was attacked by a dinosaur when he was younger. His parents would’ve been too distracted by Arlo’s siblings that they didn’t notice Arlo being attacked, and his father eventually had to fight the dinosaur off and come to Arlo’s rescue, but it was too late to stop Arlo from being traumatised for life. It was decided that they needed Arlo to have a deep-rooted fear that didn’t come from one specific incident though, so this was cut. Another scene would’ve seen Arlo, his mother, brother and sister waiting in their hut for Arlo’s father to return home, however, a nasty storm had brewed and they were waiting anxiously for him. Arlo thinks he can see his father coming but he is told by his mother to wait inside. He watches from the window as a group of dinosaurs tell his mother that her husband was killed after the floodwater took them all by surprise…Wow, I already thought The Good Dinosaur was dark. It looks like it could’ve been a whole lot worse!

It would seem that a new crew had been assembled for The Good Dinosaur around March 2014. Their objective was to turn the movie around and have it ready by November 2015. That’s not much time in the world of animation, so they had to get started. And what’s the best way to start any animated film? Go on a research trip for inspiration.

Director Peter Sohn grew up in New York so he didn’t have much experience of seeing the open plains that exist within the US, and these would be integral to the look of The Good Dinosaur because it is set in the American Northwest. Sohn loved the experience of going to places like Wyoming and Idaho to get a real idea of how expansive and stark, but beautiful, these areas could be[6]. Some specific areas that were said to be of inspiration were Salmon River in Idaho; and the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The Pixar crew learnt a lot from their guides in these areas, about living with the land, learning from it, and understanding how it behaves. This was also the case when the team went to meet a ranching family in Oregon to get some inspiration for their T-Rex characters. Here, the team experienced cattle herding firsthand, as they rode horses with the McKay family to move their herd from one meadow to another. They also were further inspired by what happened after the day’s work had been done, as they listened to the family tell stories about their lives. This moment was used to help create the campfire scene with Butch, Ramsey, Nash, Arlo and Spot, where Arlo and Spot hear about the T-Rexes adventures[7].

To get the backdrops of The Good Dinosaur just right, the crew actually used United States Geological Survey data from real-life locations to then build a 3D surface over the top of it, customising the area to work for each sequence, to make photorealistic environments for their animated characters to navigate and walk through. They added in hundreds of types of vegetation, and used volumetric geometry to add clouds to the film, which basically involved building a library of different types of cloud, and picking and choosing which ones to put together for the scene. The Good Dinosaur involves lots of different weather systems, like storms, mist, and mixtures of cloud and sun, so there were many opportunities to make the weather different in every scene.

With all this nature in The Good Dinosaur, it meant a busy time for those who worked in Effects, as there are various elements within this department that had to be created for the film. One was the amount of water that exists in The Good Dinosaur, be that from the large amount of rain that features, or from the river, which is in over a hundred shots of the film, and ranges from being a calm, gentle body of water, to being a cascading, raging river. Some of the crew went white water rafting to get an idea of just how Arlo would feel falling in the river, understanding that just because the river doesn’t look forceful doesn’t mean it isn’t still powerful. There were also weather effects, like lightning, as well as wind, to be added in, to create atmosphere and movement in the scenes[8].

Because dinosaurs aren’t able to be studied up close, in order to help animate the dinosaur characters in The Good Dinosaur, the animators went to Oakland Zoo to observe elephants, as they were roughly the same size as they decided Arlo would’ve been. It was also important to see such a large, heavy creature move around and carry itself. They also looked at giraffes and camels to see how Arlo’s neck could move. For the T-Rexes, as well as using inspiration from the CGI dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993), the animators wanted the characters to behave like cowboys, and had their characters be inspired by those from Western movies, portrayed by actors like Clint Eastwood and Jack Palance. For Spot, the team studied wolves, raccoons, and of course, dogs, as they wanted Spot to vaguely resemble a human, a prehistoric one, but move and act like a dog[9].

Pixar love to add Easter eggs to their films, and some of them appear in every film they’ve made. The A113, referencing the number of the CalArts classroom that some of the original Pixar animators studied in, is slightly easier to spot, as it was made in the fence posts that make up Arlo’s family’s chicken pen. However, the Pizza Planet Truck’s location seems to be in two different areas, and I don’t think either particularly resembles the truck! The truck is said to be in the opening shot of the asteroids as a truck-shaped asteroid, whilst it is also made up of the rocks on the silo, with the footprinted ones marking the outline of the shape. Pixar also like to reference their next film in some way, and in this case, you can see Hank the “septapus” from Finding Dory in the water that Arlo falls into following his gopher encounter. With this in mind, you can see a structure that resembles Forrest Woodbush in one of Riley’s memories from her car journey to San Francisco with her family towards the beginning of Inside Out, as the nod to the film that followed it.

After all that work, Pixar debuted some clips of The Good Dinosaur at the D23 Expo in 2015, meaning they could get some real audience reaction to their new film. They apparently showed the scene of Arlo and Spot talking about their families, and they showed a sequence with the T-Rexes as well. Many in the audience felt hopeful that The Good Dinosaur would do well on its release even with its production issues[10]. Yeah, about that…

RECEPTION

After years of production difficulties, The Good Dinosaur finally premiered in the US on 25^th November 2015, just in time for Thanksgiving Weekend, typically a good time for movie studios to release their films, especially ones aimed at children and families. It reached many international markets within a few days of its premiere date, if not at the same time.

Many had anticipated that The Good Dinosaur would not have a problem either financially or critically, based on clips of the film that had been released. After all, this was a new Pixar film, and Inside Out had only been released a few months before and had done exceptionally well in both areas. Pixar don’t have box-office disappointments – do they?

Well, in this case, they did. In fact, The Good Dinosaur is considered to be Pixar’s first box-office bomb. Ouch. If it helps, it wasn’t their last box-office bomb though. Actually, that’s not very helpful, is it? But it happens to everyone, so all it did was prove that Pixar wasn’t infallible and could make mistakes just like any other studio.

The Good Dinosaur did not have a strong opening weekend from the outset. On its opening weekend, it made $39 million in the US. Since this was a Pixar film, it was assumed that their figures would still improve in the weeks after. That turned out not to be the case as the film suffered a steep drop in takings, to just $15.5 million on its second week. There was hope that the festive period and global markets opening up might have been able to save the movie from becoming a flop, but that was not the case either. It was reported that Pixar needed $500 million to break even[11]. The Good Dinosaur did not make close to that.

By the end of its run, The Good Dinosaur had made $332 million worldwide, the lowest box office takings for a Pixar movie since A Bug’s Life in 1998, which took around $363 million. The Good Dinosaur was easily overtaken by Pixar’s own Inside Out, which finished 2015 at No. 7 in the Worldwide Box Office with $858 million, although both Pixar films were beaten by Minions, which took $1.1 billion, and sat at No. 5 in the list, showing what a strong year 2015 was for movies. The best-performing film of 2015 was Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, with $2.07 billion, so that meant Disney had done well at the box office, despite The Good Dinosaur’s disappointing results. They also did well with Avengers: Age of Ultron, making $1.4 billion, and even the live-action Cinderella, with around $543 million. To compare The Good Dinosaur to other animated films, Hotel Transylvania 2 also did better financially, with just under $475 million, as did Home with $386 million.

It could be argued that perhaps had The Good Dinosaur not been delayed for 18 months and stuck with its 30^th May 2014 original release date, then it wouldn’t have faced such difficult competition, because there wasn’t a good chance of putting up a fight against the revival of the Star Wars franchise, the final part of The Hunger Games series, or the newest Bond film, Spectre, in 2015, and there was a lack of “decent” animated films released in 2014, with Pixar’s biggest competition being Mr. Peabody and Sherman and Rio 2. But everything looks better in hindsight, and who knows what state the film was in in 2014, as it was almost completely rewritten from its original concept to what we got in 2015.

The Good Dinosaur did fare better in audience and critic reviews, although these were both less impressive than those of Inside Out and other Pixar films before it.

Some felt that the film was very episodic and lacked any cohesion, as it was just Arlo and Spot having different interactions with numerous new characters. Although other films have had a similar story, in terms of following our hero on an adventure, the episodic nature of these types of films was not noticed so much in films like Finding Nemo (2003) or The Jungle Book (1967). It was also thought that The Good Dinosaur was not original enough when compared to those two examples, or to The Lion King (1994), or The Land Before Time (1988), or even How to Train Your Dragon (2010), which uses the “boy and his pet” concept too. Others said the characters were simply uninteresting and that the film was boring, slow, and forgettable, which was a shame since many could see that the initial concept, of dinosaurs not being wiped out from an asteroid and seeing how they might’ve evolved, was interesting. The biggest issue for most with negative opinions of The Good Dinosaur seems to be that it was just a disappointing film to get from Pixar, and had it been released by another studio, it maybe wouldn’t have had as many negative critiques.

For me personally, I am not a fan of The Good Dinosaur, partly because I find it quite slow and boring as well, and I am not that interested in dinosaurs – I only like the Jurassic Park films to see them eat people, not because I’m fascinated by dinosaurs – so that does not help. But my problem with the film is that it is not pleasant to watch; it doesn’t make me feel brighter about the world, and it doesn’t make me forget about how horrible the world is, because it constantly shows a scared young dinosaur and his friend being attacked by various predators. I hated the pterodactyls, and it was horrible to see them trying to eat a little boy. And I know that’s nature and that’s what could’ve happened, but I don’t watch Pixar films to see that sort of thing. I want something feel-good and escapist, not something that only reinforces my hatred of nature documentaries and their prey vs. predator storylines.

However, I will also say that I did enjoy the music in The Good Dinosaur; I did like the first ten or so minutes of the family on the farm; and the final couple scenes did make me well up a bit, so I am happy to admit The Good Dinosaur is not all bad, even for me, and that it simply isn’t to my taste. But I can’t say it is a “bad” film.

The Good Dinosaur has plenty of fans who feel duty-bound to fight against the sea of criticism and negativity about the movie. They appreciate its great visuals, with the photorealistic backgrounds, and the animated effects, as well as focusing on the film’s heartwarming story. They also liked Arlo as a character, as did I, which is why I couldn’t deal with him being attacked by predators. Fans also point out that at least Pixar had released an original film again after too many sequels coming out before and after it, but this is something that “purists” seem bothered by, not the average family, because, as we continue to see, it is Pixar’s sequels that do well financially and the original movies end up struggling.

Due to its mediocre response, The Good Dinosaur struggled in awards season. The most obvious failure is that The Good Dinosaur was not nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards, which is quite rare for a Pixar original film. Unsurprisingly, Inside Out won the award. Elsewhere, although The Good Dinosaur was nominated for Best Animated Film at various ceremonies, such as the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Satellite Awards, and the Saturn Awards, it lost to Inside Out each time. It lost out on this award to Disney’s Zootopia (2016) at the Children’s BAFTAs too.

The Good Dinosaur was also nominated for a selection of Annie Awards, but Inside Out was once again tough competition as Inside Out won in the categories of Character Animation, Character Design, Production Design, Storyboarding and the all-important Best Animated Feature. The Good Dinosaur did, however, win the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animated Effects in an Animated Production. It also won three Visual Effects Society Awards, for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature, Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature, and Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature. The film was also nominated here for Outstanding Animated Performance in an Animated Feature, for Spot, but was won by Joy in Inside Out.

LEGACY

To promote The Good Dinosaur, the US Disney Parks put on an event for it.

Disney launched something called Dino Week, which ran from 14^th November 2015, in the run up to The Good Dinosaur’s release date on 25^th November 2015, as part of their marketing campaign. During that first weekend, Disney Stores across the US had dino-themed crafts for children to take part in, as well as selling the obvious merchandise. The merchandise consisted of things like themed clothing, play sets, and plush toys.

At Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, and at Downtown Disney at Disneyland in California, there was a Dinosaur Dance Party held between 21^st November and 22^nd November 2015, which had a live DJ set and lighting effects, with even the Rainforest Café and T-REX restaurants getting in on the action.

Inside the parks, specifically at One Man’s Dream in Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, and at the now-defunct Bug’s Life Theater at Disney California Adventure at Disneyland, a sneak peek of The Good Dinosaur was being shown from around October 2015 until partway through December 2015 to encourage guests to see the film[12].

After that campaign though, very little reference to The Good Dinosaur has been seen at the Disney Parks across the world in recent years. This will be because it simply was not popular enough, with a fair proportion of Disney Park guests probably not even knowing this film exists. It is a shame too, because had The Good Dinosaur been successful, then it perhaps could’ve found a home within Dinoland, U.S.A. at Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. However, that area has since closed and is now being rethemed to Tropical Americas, so the ship has really sailed on that idea. You can, however, see a few glimpses of the film during sections of the nighttime show Wonderful World of Animation at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This is the show where unloved and underrated films come to be remembered, even if only by a select few watching.

The Good Dinosaur was even left out of much of the celebrations for Pixar Fest at Disneyland in 2024, but you may be able to spot artwork from, or small nods to, the film at the Pixar Place Hotel at the resort, as this hotel revolves around Pixar and its films.

Outside of that, there doesn’t seem to be much merchandise still available to purchase on the Disney Store, but you might have more luck in the shops at a Disney Park, or it might be best to wait for a milestone anniversary.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Good Dinosaur is now remembered for all the wrong reasons. For not being one of Pixar’s best, and for failing them financially. It has become one of many unsuccessful films that Disney and Pixar don’t reference often, in order to highlight their more popular films instead. Either that or they’re hoping that if they don’t reference them, we’ll forget they exist!

The Good Dinosaur had a tumultuous production process, leaving the team to basically start from scratch again with an even shorter timeframe. You can’t fault them for trying something different, especially given the fact the movie has just as many good points as it does bad ones. It just sadly did not resonate with the majority of viewers.

But that does not mean The Good Dinosaur does not have its fans. Some absolutely love this film, and find it touching and heartwarming. Just because something has been deemed a “flop” does not mean it has nothing to contribute.

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Ryan Lambie, ‘The Good Dinosaur and Its Five-Year Path to the Big Screen’, DenOfGeek.com, 4^th November 2015.

[2] Credit: T.J., ‘The Good Dinosaur Sneak Peek Details From the D23 Expo’, PixarPost.com, 9^th August 2013.

[3] Credit: Pixar, “Deleted Scenes: Raptor Trap”, from The Good Dinosaur (2015), Disney+.

[4] Credit: Devan Coggan, ‘The evolution of ‘The Good Dinosaur’, Pixar’s long-in-the-works next film’, EW.com, 14^th August 2015.

[5] Credit: Jennifer Wolfe, ‘Pixar Feature ‘The Good Dinosaur’ Moved to 2015’, AWN.com, 18^th September 2013.

[6] Credit: Pixar, “The Filmmakers’ Journey”, from The Good Dinosaur (2015) UK Blu-Ray (2015).

[7] Credit: Pixar, “Following the T-Rex Trail”, from The Good Dinosaur (2015) UK Blu-Ray (2015).

[8] Credit: Pixar, “The World of The Good Dinosaur”, from The Good Dinosaur (2015) UK Blu-Ray (2015).

[9] Credit: Peter Scieretta, ‘How The Making Of ‘The Good Dinosaur’ Was Different From Other Pixar Movies’, SlashFilm.com, 8^th October 2015.

[10] Credit: Eric Goldman, ‘D23 2015: The Good Dinosaur Looks to Be Another Pixar Tearjerker’, IGN.com, 15^th July 2016.

[11] Credit: Brent Lang, ‘‘The Good Dinosaur’: Pixar May Suffer First Loss at Box Office’, Variety.com, 7^th December 2015.

[12] Credit: Kristin Ford, ‘Disney celebrates Dino Week with events at Disney Parks in advance of ‘The Good Dinosaur’ Movie’, AllEars.net, 17^th November 2015.

1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. PRODUCTION
5. MUSIC
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

Monsters, Inc. remains one of Pixar’s most creative and imaginative films. It will always be remembered as one of Pixar’s first movies as well, being a part of their animation legacy, back in a time when they were still proving themselves in animation.

The movie ended with Sulley finally reuniting with Boo, but we never got to see it. This led to some wondering whether Pixar would revisit Monsters, Inc. and allow the audience to see Boo, potentially all grown up and back in the monster world with Mike and Sulley. It’s worth pointing out that Pixar never seemed to be in the game of making sequels, at least not back in the 2000s. They’d only made one, Toy Story 2 (1999), before 2010, which is when Toy Story 3 came out. But we can forgive Pixar for those sequels.

Pixar was a studio that made original films, usually with a twist, but always with colourful and detailed animation. They made movies about fish trying to find home, about superheroes fighting evil, and rats wanting to cook. They didn’t seem to feel the need to go back and revisit any previous movie – until the 2010s. This decade has come to be known as “the sequel years” by some Pixar fans and animation historians, because in those ten years, Pixar made eight sequels or prequels to popular properties out of eleven films. These sequels can make a lot of money, using an audience’s love of an original film to immediately interest them in watching a new film with most of the same characters.

But in choosing to make sequels, Pixar inadvertently opened themselves up to a lot of criticism. Movie-goers don’t always like sequels, although some can be better than the original, so when they come across one that is particularly in bad, it taints the whole bunch. Pixar was recovering from one specific disappointment in the 2010s, Cars 2 (2011), panned by critics and viewers alike. It can be argued this is Pixar’s worst movie. So, just two years later, how would viewers take it when they chose to revisit Monsters, Inc. in 2013.

My family did watch Monsters University at the cinema, specifically whilst on holiday in Florida, one of only two or three times we did that. I personally prefer Monsters University to Monsters, Inc., probably because it feels more relatable and more rooted in real-life to me. I can understand the university setting and the emotional growth that Mike and Sulley go through during the events of Monsters University. I was at university at the time, so that probably helped me like it a lot too. But I am aware that some felt this film was an insult to Monsters, Inc. Others felt it was just ok.

PLOT

Monsters University begins during Mike Wazowski’s school days, as his class take a field trip to the renowned energy company, Monsters, Inc. After being embarrassed that he has be “buddies” with his teacher and that his roar was less impressive than his classmates, Young Mike finds himself in awe of the top scarers at Monsters, Inc. as the group watch the Scare Floor in action. One of these scarers, Frank McCay, talks to the class and tells them the best place to learn to be a scarer is Monsters University, or MU, despite a fellow scarer saying his alma mater, Fear Tech, is the best.

The class are told to stay behind a line on the floor whilst the Scare Floor is online, only being able to watch from a distance. However, Mike is so small that he cannot see as he gets pushed to the back of the crowd. His teacher is so pre-occupied with everyone else that it’s not until Mike has crossed the line already that she is alerted to him breaking the rules. The class watch as Mike follows Frank McCay into a child’s bedroom, so he can watch the scarer up close. As Frank leaves the room after a successful scare, he is surprised to find all of the students and their teacher looking concerned. He looks around to find Mike looking dazed but happy. Frank tells Mike what he did was dangerous, but he was impressed how quiet Mike was in there, not even realising he was anywhere near him. Frank gives Mike his MU baseball cap, and Mike’s dream of becoming a scarer takes flight.

After the title sequence, which shows Mike going through school and passing his scare exams to get into Monsters University, we see Mike getting off the bus at the entrance to the university, excited to get started. He gets registered and goes off on a campus tour, where they pass the Scaring School, the crown jewel of Monsters University, and where Mike will be studying since he got into the Scare Program. Mike later goes by all the society and club booths on the campus, hearing about the Scare Games. He then goes to his dorm and meets his roommate, who will be his lifelong best friend – or so Mike thinks. His roommate is actually Randall, but this isn’t the villainous Randall we know from Monsters, Inc. This is nerdy Randall, who just wants to fit in and do well at school. He even wears glasses, which Mike tells him to lose, so that when Randall goes invisible, nothing gives him away! The two are both on the Scare Program.

Randall and Mike go to their first Scaring Class together, taught by Professor Knight. The class is soon interrupted by Dean Hardscrabble, a legendary scarer who broke the all-time scare record at one point, with the canister from her record-breaking scare on display for all the students to see. The Scare Program is now “her” program because of it. She says there will be an exam at the end of the semester and anyone who fails will be kicked out of the Scare Program; she only wants the best here and if you don’t make the cut, then you’re out. Professor Knight is then left to give his first class. He asks about the properties of a good roar. Mike immediately puts up his hand and begins to answer, but he is interrupted by a loud roar from the back of the room. This is James P. Sullivan, also known as Jimmy – or Sulley to us – and he’s late to class, but he doesn’t care. Professor Knight hears the surname and asks if Jimmy’s father is the great scarer, Bill Sullivan; he is, making Sulley a celebrity on campus already. With people like him his competition to remain on the Scare Program, Mike vows to study hard to ensure he stays on the program.

That night, Randall tries to convince Mike to go to a fraternity and sorority party with him, but Mike wants to stay in and study, so Randall goes on alone. Suddenly, Mike hears a strange noise coming from his window and a random pig is pushed inside. Sulley follows the pig in through the window and is confused about seeing Mike there, thinking this is his own room; it’s not. Sulley says the pig is Fear Tech’s mascot that he just stole to impress the fraternities on campus, mostly Roar Omega Roar. The pig runs off with Mike’s MU cap and the two chase it all the way through the university, with Mike even riding it at one point. They end up at the party, and Mike throws a ball at a row of bikes, which fall over onto a bin, letting it roll in the path of the pig, so it is caught. Mike picks up the pig, and Sulley picks up Mike, to show off the mascot. Sulley is then wanted by all the fraternities and Mike is ignored. Johnny Worthington, president of the Roars, comes over to invite Sulley into their house. Mike tries to follow but he is told the party is only for Scare students. He says he is one so Sulley is told to talk to his “friend”. Sulley reiterates that they aren’t friends, but tells Mike the party is for Scare students who actually have a chance. The Roars point out the oddball fraternity of Oozma Kappa and suggests Mike joins them instead. Mike is now determined to be a better scarer than Sulley, to prove everyone wrong.

Over the next few weeks, Mike buckles down and aces all of his tests, whilst lazy and entitled Sulley doesn’t try and spends all his time partying. On the day of the final exam of the semester, Mike and Randall sit down to revise and wait their turn in the Scare Simulator, where they will be tested on their knowledge of scare theory as well as their performance of scares. Sulley is warned by the Roars that should he fail, since they’ve seen his failing test results, he won’t be allowed into their fraternity, and they watch and wait in the lecture theatre. Sulley decides to annoy Mike during his wait, telling Mike he doesn’t belong in the Scare Program and that is why he has to study so much, and the two start trying to outdo each other. They aren’t quiet about it though, and they are noticed by Dean Hardscrabble, Professor Knight, and the other students, especially when Sulley trips over and knocks into Hardscrabble’s scream canister. It sets off and the room goes silent. Dean Hardscrabble goes over to Mike and Sulley, saying accidents happen, and that she will test them on their Scare Program knowledge right now. Mike is given details of a child’s fears and asked what scare he should do. Mike gives the correct answer and is about to demonstrate it, when Hardscrabble cuts him off. She says she doesn’t need to see anymore because Mike is simply not a scary monster, and that is something that cannot be taught. Mike is out of the Scare Program. Now, it is Sulley’s turn. He just roars loudly at Hardscrabble before she finishes telling him about the child’s fears. She lets Sulley know that actually the child wasn’t scared of roars, so this would’ve made the child cry, not scream. This is also a fail and Sulley is kicked out of the Scare Program, and is also out of the Roars fraternity.

The next semester, both Sulley and Mike are stuck in boring Scream Can Design, with Mike sad and Sulley furious about how they’ve ended up here. In his room, Mike throws a book at the wall in anger, seeing a leaflet for the Scare Games behind him. That gives Mike an idea. He goes to the Scare Games kick-off party and asks to sign up his team, with fraternity Oozma Kappa. Dean Hardscrabble is surprised to find Mike fighting so hard to be in the games. Mike asks her to make a deal with him: if he wins the Scare Games, then she will let him back in the Scare Program. Hardscrabble agrees and even sweetens the deal, saying the whole team can enter the Scare Program if they win, but if they lose, Mike must leave Monsters University forever. The deal is agreed – but there’s just one problem; Mike’s team needs six people, and the two-headed monster there only counts as one. Mike desperately begs someone else to join the team, like Randall, but he passes Mike over to join the Roars, wanting to be popular instead. Only Sulley wants to join, to get back in the Scare Program, so, out of desperation, Mike allows Sulley on the team.

Mike and Sulley move into the Oozma Kappa house. They are introduced to their new “brothers”, who were all former Scare students, who didn’t make the cut. There is mature student Don Carlton; Art, a philosophical hippie-type character; the two-headed Terri and Terry; and Scott Squibbles, also known as Squishy. His mother owns the Oozma Kappa house. Mike and Sulley are taken to their room, which they will have to share. Sulley is concerned about this team’s lack of scariness but Mike says he can fix it. The lights go out, and Sulley and Mike head to the basement to see what’s going on. It is their initiation ceremony into the fraternity, although it is interrupted by Squishy’s mother doing laundry!

The next morning, Oozma Kappa get a letter about the first event of the Scare Games. That evening, they meet in the sewer, and are told their first event is called the Toxicity Challenge, where they will have to race through an obstacle course of sea urchins, that will cause swelling if touched. This is to match the toxicity of human children, of course. Cheered on by Squishy’s mother, Oozma Kappa nervously get ready for the race, but Sulley and Mike have chosen to treat this as a race against each other. They rush off without the rest of their team, laughing at the other as they each get stung by the sea urchins. They eventually cross the line after the Roars, but since the rest of their team has not made it across, it doesn’t count. Mike and Sulley see other teams finish, and then Oozma Kappa roll over the line – in last place. That appears to be the end of their Scare Games and Mike’s time at Monsters University, but they are handed a lifeline. Jaws Theta Chi is disqualified for using a protective gel that meant they could not be stung. Oozma Kappa are back in.

Not wanting a repeat of that incident in further events, Mike starts preparing Oozma Kappa with workouts and tests. Sulley chooses not to join in as he doesn’t feel he needs the practice in scaring. For the next event, Mike tells the rest of the team to follow him precisely. The challenge takes place in the library, where teams must retrieve a flag hanging up without being thrown out of the room by the scary squid-like librarian. Sulley gets fed up with Mike’s slow and steady approach, seeing only they and one other team haven’t got their flag. Sulley rushes ahead and slams to the floor after falling off a ladder. The librarian goes over to Sulley to throw him out, but Oozma Kappa make loud distractions and dodge the librarian’s attempts to throw them out the library. They gather up Mike and run out of the room. On exiting, Mike says they never got the flag – only to see Squishy got it during all the chaos.

With their surprise advancement to the next event, they are invited to a party for all the remaining teams at the Roars’ house. Sulley isn’t sure about it, but eventually gets in the spirit once they are there. Mike sees the Hall of Scarers and the Scare Games trophy in the house, and this makes him want to win even more. However, as Johnny Worthington proceeds to give a speech about Oozma Kappa’s surprise success, Mike and the others start to think something is wrong. Sure enough, they are pranked, covered in paint, glitter, and toys and teddy bears. A picture is taken, which the Roars use the next day for a charity fundraiser, selling t-shirts, and the picture is plastered all over campus. They are now being called Cute-ma Kappa because they aren’t scary. The Roars tell them they might as well quit now because they’ll never win. Dejected, they all seem to agree – except for Mike.

Mike decides to take them all on a field trip to Monsters, Inc. They sneak onto the roof and watch the scarers in action on the Scare Floor. Mike shows them that there is not one type of scarer, and that scarers come in all shapes and sizes. This encourages them to continue on with the Scare Games together, but vow to work as a team from now on – even Sulley. After a quick getaway from Monsters, Inc. security due to their trespassing, they start training together. At the next event, a maze where they must avoid scaring paintings of teenagers, Oozma Kappa manage to advance, with the sorority the Pnks being eliminated. The next event is a hide-and-seek style game, which Oozma Kappa also do well in, leaving the final two teams being them and the Roars. Their final event, the Scare Simulator, will be held the following night. Dean Hardscrabble witnesses this and Sulley goes to speak to her, to tell her she was wrong. Hardscrabble says she isn’t concerned because she knows for a fact one of their team is not scary enough to win, with that person being Mike. Sulley is aware of this and tries to help Mike be scary that night, telling him to dig deep and let the anger out. He tells Mike he’s done well, but actually, Sulley isn’t sure it’s enough.

At the final event, each member of each team must scare a robotic child in the Scare Simulator, using the scare reports to work out the most effective scare to do. Mike has prepared everyone for this and knows they are ready. He says he should be the first in the simulator, but Sulley thinks Mike should go last, because of all his hard work with the team. Their order is agreed, with Mike going last, and Don going first. Don does well in his simulator and Oozma Kappa take the lead as the Roars scarer trips over toys on the simulator floor. Next up is Terri and Terry, then Squishy, then Art. Their lead over the Roars diminishes each time. It is up to Sulley to bring back the lead. He goes up against Randall. Using what Mike taught him about other scares, not just roaring, Sulley manages to get an impressive scare, so much so that Randall’s own scare is sabotaged by both simulators shaking. Randall says that will be the last time he loses to Sulley, and a rivalry begins.

Finally, it is Mike’s turn to go against Johnny Worthington and they’ll need Mike to pull off a record-breaking scare to win. Mike prepares to scare the robotic kid, hearing all the mean things everyone said about him not being scary, and leaps up to deliver the record-breaking scare Oozma Kappa need to win. The crowd, the Roars, and Oozma Kappa are stunned at their win. After the event, Mike stands by the simulator and speaks to Sulley, not believing what just happened. As they are about to leave to celebrate, Mike says “boo” to the simulator and the kid screams, and a full scare is recorded. Mike investigates the controls and sees that his settings were lower than everyone else’s. He asks Sulley if he did this and he admits he did, because he didn’t want the team to suffer because Mike isn’t scary. Hurt, Mike walks off alone. The rest of Oozma Kappa overhear this, and know their win was not truly earnt. Sulley is invited back to the Roars, but he hands them the trophy and goes after Dean Hardscrabble. He admits his cheating. She expels Sulley and says he must be such a disappointment to his family. An alarm then goes off, because someone has broken into the door lab. Sulley rushes over, thinking Mike has done something stupid.

Mike has done just that. In a bid to prove how scary he is, Mike has entered a door that was being tested and finds himself at a girls’ summer camp. He tries to scare the campers but they aren’t scare at all, and he runs into the woods, sad and upset. Sulley gets to the door lab and asks Oozma Kappa to create a distraction so he can get in the door. They do that and Sulley goes in. The camp is empty, but rangers are around trying to search for the animal or intruder in the cabin. Sulley runs into the woods to avoid them and finds Mike by the lake. The two have a heart-to-heart, as Mike laments the fact his dream of being a scarer can never come true, and Sulley saying he’s a big failure. Still being hunted down, Mike and Sulley plan a way back to Monsters University. Mike decides they’ll have to create enough scare energy in the human world to power the door from the other side to let them back into the monster world. Sulley doesn’t think he can do it, but Mike says together they can. Back at the cabin, Mike starts to set the atmosphere for the scare, making strange things happen, and keeping hidden. The rangers come in and start to feel scared. Suddenly, Sulley appears in front of them and lets out a powerful roar. The roar terrifies the rangers and the scream energy starts to power the door, causing chaos over at the university. Mike and Sulley burst through the door and land back in the door lab just as the door explodes. Dean Hardscrabble is shocked to have witnessed all this. Mike and Sulley are taken away by the authorities, the Child Detection Agency and its No. 1 Roz.

The next day, Mike and Sulley apologise to Oozma Kappa and say their goodbyes; the two have been expelled from Monsters University. The Oozmas actually let them know that Dean Hardscrabble has let them all into the Scare Program, despite the cheating. We also learn that Don is engaged to Squishy’s mother Sheri, which makes Squishy understandably uncomfortable! Sulley and Mike then leave campus to wait for Mike’s bus. Mike gets on the bus to head home, but Sulley stops the bus and tells Mike that he is the one who actually achieved something at university, helping Oozma Kappa at the Scare Games, for example. He tells Mike he isn’t scary, but he is fearless. Dean Hardscrabble comes over to them and tells them to keep surprising people, like they did with her, and thanks them, in a way, for showing her that there is not one approach to teaching scarers. But that there is nothing more they can be taught here, and wishes them luck for their future. Mike then remembers that Monsters, Inc. are always hiring in the mailroom so they can join a scare company after all!

Just before the End Credits, we see Mike and Sulley’s journey through Monsters, Inc., working with The Abominable Snowman in the mailroom, before moving up to janitors, cafeteria workers, and then finally getting a chance to audition as a scarer and assistant duo, which is obviously where we see them during Monsters, Inc. Finally, in a mid-credits scene, we see the slug-like monster who is about to be late for class early on in the film finally arrive at his class, only to find it is the end of the year!

CHARACTERS & CAST

Mike, Sulley, and Randall are the three main characters to make a return from Monsters, Inc. in Monsters University. This time, instead of this being Sulley’s story, Monsters University focuses on Mike and his dream of being a scarer that cannot be fulfilled. Mike is determined to prove he can be a scarer, being dedicated to his studies and the theory of scaring, but learns that he cannot actually scare people, ending his dream at Monsters University. It’s a hard lesson for Mike to learn, that hard work doesn’t necessarily mean that everything will work out, but it’s a necessary and realistic lesson. But in his failure, another path opens up for Mike and things do work out. Sulley is not the same monster we meet in Monsters, Inc., coming across as quite arrogant and entitled, perhaps because of his family’s history in scaring. It is only with Mike’s help that Sulley becomes a real scarer, and the two’s initial rivalry turns into friendship due to this. Randall, on the other hand, begins his time at Monsters University as Mike’s roommate, seeming to be quite friendly and nice. However, he passes over the chance at friendship with Mike for popularity in the Roars fraternity, and his rivalry with Sulley begins after Sulley surpasses him in the Scare Simulator. Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi reprised their roles as Mike, Sulley, and Randall here.

Then we have the members of Oozma Kappa. One is Scott, mostly known as Squishy. Squishy is quiet and unassuming. He’s basically a little pink blob, which makes him easy to forget and easy to pick on! In the end, he uses his quietness to be a better scarer, thanks to Mike. Peter Sohn voices Squishy. Sohn is a Pixar animator and voice actor, having directed and written the short film Partly Cloudy (2009) and voiced Emile in Ratatouille (2007) prior to Monsters University. Sohn had also worked as a story artist on Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), and Up (2009). He later directed The Good Dinosaur (2015) and Elemental (2023), and voiced Sox in Lightyear (2022) and Ciccio in Luca (2021).

Don Carlton is a mature student, who seemed to work in sales before returning to his studies at Monsters University. Don has tentacles, which Mike teaches him to use in his scaring. Don Carlton was voiced by Joel Murray. Murray had previously been cast in the CBS sitcom Love & War (1992-95) as Ray Litvak and later the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg (1997-2002) as Pete Cavanaugh. More recently, Murray was cast in the recurring role of Freddy Rumsen in Mad Men (2007-15) and as Eddie Earl in Starz’ Heels (2021-23).

Terri and Terry are a two-headed monster, who seem to disagree on pretty much everything. Terri, for example, is a dance major, but Terry is not; that must be quite tricky to achieve when one half of your body won’t cooperate! Terri and Terry were voiced by Sean Hayes and Dave Foley respectively. Hayes is most known for his role as Jack McFarland in the long-running Will & Grace (1998-2006, 2017-20). He also has voiced other characters for animated movies, including Steven the devil emoji in The Emoji Movie (2017). More recently, Hayes has been cast in more dramatic movies, including Stu in Am I OK? (2022), which starred Dakota Johnson, and Gary Greenbacks, the TV host in The Running Man (2025). He also won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his starring role as Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar on Broadway in 2023. Dave Foley voiced Flik in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life (1998) and also played Mr Jonathan Boy/All-American Boy, the Hero Support teacher, in the Disney movie Sky High (2005). In television, Foley appeared in the recurring role of Dr. Fulton in The Middle (2009-18), and was cast as Pat Hein in the Ken Jeong-created sitcom Dr. Ken (2015-17). Foley was also cast as Danish Graves in Season 5 of the series Fargo (2014-24).

Then, there is Art, a chilled out, laidback monster, who majors in philosophy. He is like an upside-down “U” shaped purple furry monster, who uses his flexibility to scare. We also learn Art has been to jail before, when Oozma Kappa are dodging the Monsters, Inc. security – but we don’t know why! Charlie Day voiced Art. He is best known for playing Charlie Kelly in the comedy series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present), and later co-created the AppleTV+ series Mythic Quest (2020-25). Outside of that, Day also played Dale Arbus in Horrible Bosses (2011) and its 2014 sequel, and was cast as Dr. Newton Geiszler in Pacific Rim (2013), returning to the role in Pacific Rim Uprising (2018). He also voiced characters for other animated movies including Benny in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) and Luigi in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023).

There are also the two main teachers at the Scaring School. One is Professor Knight, who is a strict professor, letting Sulley know that just because he can roar loudly, that isn’t going to be enough to pass the Scare Program. He also seems impressed by Mike’s knowledge of scare theory, with Mike being the best in the class. We don’t hear anything negative about Mike from Professor Knight, despite the fact surely he doesn’t think Mike is scary either and clearly doesn’t have a future as a scarer. Professor Knight was voiced by Alfred Molina. Molina has starred in numerous stage and screen productions. Some of these include performing as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway from 2004 to 2005; Comte de Reynaud in the Academy Award-nominated film Chocolat (2000); Jack Mellor in another Academy Award-nominated film An Education (2008); and as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). For Disney, Molina voiced the roles of Double Dan and King Agnarr in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Frozen II (2019), and played the role of Maxim Horvath in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010).

Dean Hardscrabble is the intimidating and terrifying dean of Monsters University. All the scare students are obviously scared of her, and it would seem that Professor Knight would rather she hadn’t burst into his first class of the year! Hardscrabble warns the students on that first day that they will be thrown out by the end of the first semester if they don’t do well enough; it’s as simple as that, which isn’t exactly motivating on your first day at college! She continuously tells Mike that he is not scary, and will never be scary, so doesn’t deserve to be in the Scare Program. By the end of the movie though, after witnessing Mike and Sulley’s amazing scare in the door lab, she realises that she misunderstood Mike’s potential and skill, and tells both of them to keep surprising people, wanting them to do well in the future. I do wonder what the entry requirements to the Scare Program are, because surely they had to have some sort of practical assessment before they got into the university, so this would’ve filtered out students like Mike, who might know their theory but can’t execute scaring adequately. This is something Dean Hardscrabble really ought to think about!

Randomly, Dame Helen Mirren was cast as Dean Hardscrabble. Mirren’s career spans all kinds of different genres, so perhaps her casting here shouldn’t be such a surprise. It was a real win for Pixar to get her though. Some of Mirren’s film credits include being cast as Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George (1994), in which Nigel Hawthorne played the title character; Chris Harper in Calendar Girls (2003); and Madame Mallory in The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014). More recently, she played Betty McLeish/Lili Shroeder in The Good Liar (2019), alongside Ian McKellen. She also played Elizabeth Best in The Thursday Murder Club (2025) for Netflix. Mirren won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Actress, amongst many other award wins in her career, for portraying Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006). In series, Mirren starred as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect (1991-2006). Monsters University was not Mirren’s first time voicing a character for an animated film; she voiced Queen Tuya in The Prince of Egypt (1998) for DreamWorks.

There are other students that Mike and Sulley encounter on their journey through the Scare Games. Two of these come from the fraternity Roar Omega Roar. The first is president of the fraternity Johnny Worthington. He only wants the best scarers in his fraternity. That is a fact of most fraternities and sororities; it’s not always about being the nicest person, it’s more about how you complement the other members and what you can do for them. Johnny loves the idea of having Sulley in the Roars, probably because he is the son of a top scarer, and therefore has the potential to be great. However, Johnny isn’t afraid to drop Sulley when he flunks out of the Scare Program and replaces him with Randall, whose ability to go invisible and disguise himself separates him from other scarers. Johnny is mean to anyone who he sees as lesser than him, even going so far as to prank Oozma Kappa just to make himself feel like the “big man” on campus. Johnny was voiced by Nathan Fillion, well-known for his leading role as Richard Castle in ABC’s Castle (2009-16). He also had a recurring role as Adam Mayfair in Season 4 of Desperate Housewives (2004-12) before that. More recently in series, Fillion stars as John Nolan in ABC’s The Rookie (2018-present) and was cast as Alton West in Netflix’s The Recruit (2022-25). In movies, Fillion voiced Sterling in Pixar’s Cars 3 (2017), played Master Karja in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) and Guy Gardner / Green Lantern in Superman (2025).

Every jerk like Johnny Worthington needs a sidekick. In this case, Johnny’s sidekick is Chet, who is a bit of a bumbling fool. He sometimes thinks he’s engaging in smack talk, but actually just makes the Roars look stupid, like when Johnny tells Oozma Kappa that if they lose, no-one will ever remember then. Mike shoots back and says that might be true, but if the Roars lose, then no-one will let them forget it. Instead of coming back with something clever, Chet just agrees that’s true. I think Johnny might want to look at getting a new sidekick! Chet was voiced by Bobby Moynihan, who was both a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live (1975-present) from 2008 to 2017. He has also voiced characters for animation, including Mel in The Secret Life of Pets (2016) and its 2019 sequel, and Louie Duck in DuckTales (2017-21). For Pixar, he voiced Bobby in Inside Out (2015) and Inside Out 2 (2024) and is set to voice a character in Pixar’s new movie Hoppers, coming in 2026.

Finally, we have Claire and Brock, the two who run the Scare Games. Claire’s lack of enthusiasm and general surliness – she is a teenager, after all – is countered by Brock’s exuberance and general noisiness. Brock is excited by anything and everything, especially when commentating on the Scare Games events. Claire just doesn’t seem to care – at least not until Oozma Kappa seemingly win the Scare Games. Then, all of a sudden, it’s like she’s their biggest fan! Claire was voiced by Aubrey Plaza. Plaza is known for her role as April Ludgate in the mockumentary Parks and Recreation (2009-15), as well as her roles in comedy movies, such as Julie Powers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010); Lenore in Dirty Grandpa (2016); and Sarah in Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023). Tyler Labine voiced Brock. Labine recently was cast as Dr. Iggy Frome in the medical drama New Amsterdam (2018-23) and starred as Kevin Pacalioglu in Deadbeat (2014-16) for Hulu.

There are a few other names to mention as well. Bob Peterson and John Ratzenberger make their returns as Roz and The Abominable Snowman, respectively, but only in brief cameos. Roz makes her appearance after Mike and Sulley return from the normal world, saying she’ll be watching them, which is something she said in Monsters, Inc. The Abominable Snowman is seen working in the Monsters, Inc. mailroom, warning Mike and Sulley that tampering with the mail is a crime punishable by banishment. I guess we’ve figured out he got banished to the human world then! We also have Bonnie Hunt making a return to the monster world. This time, she voices Mike’s school teacher Karen Graves.

Other names in this movie include John Krasinki who voiced the scarer Frank McCay in the opening sequence of Monsters University. Krasinski became a household name from his role as Jim Halpert in the US version of The Office (2005-13). He went on to have roles in comedy films, including Ben Murphy in License to Wed (2007) and Harley in It’s Complicated (2009). He later co-wrote, directed and starred as Lee Abbott in the horror films A Quiet Place (2018) and A Quiet Place II (2020). He also starred as Jack Ryan in the Amazon Prime Video series Jack Ryan (2018-23). Julie Sweeney voiced Squishy’s mother, Sheri. Sweeney was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1994. More recently, she was cast as Vera Easton in Hulu’s comedy series Shrill (2019-21). Bill Hader voiced the slug monster running late to class. Hader was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 2005 until 2013. He also voiced Fear in Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), and voiced J.P. Spamley in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Featheringhamstan in Lightyear (2022).

PRODUCTION

We all remember the time when Disney were releasing direct-to-video sequels constantly, all based on previous popular Disney animated classics. Some of these are beloved by the kids who watched them. Others have been brutally ripped apart, perhaps unfairly, perhaps not.

There was once a time when Pixar movies may have been subjected to this fate, of low-quality animated sequels to some of their biggest hits being made, and it was all thanks to Disney. It has been reported that around 2004 or 2005, Disney tasked Circle 7 Animation, a division of Walt Disney Feature Animation that only lasted from 2004 to 2006, with making a Monsters, Inc. 2. They’d also planned to make a Finding Nemo 2 and a different version of Toy Story 3, as a way of using Pixar properties. Allegedly, Monsters, Inc. 2 had a storyline that saw Mike and Sulley visit Boo for her birthday, but on going through her closet door, they see Boo has moved and they go to find her. When they find Boo, Sulley and Mike discover she is too old to believe in monsters, and they must get her younger brother to convince her to help them leave the human world though her old door. They are also trying to save Celia, who has been captured by a monster-obsessed human wanting to prove monsters are real[1]. It sounds like a wacky story that probably wouldn’t have worked well, so lucky for all of us, that Circle 7 Animation’s plans never came to fruition and the division was promptly shut down. It was supposedly just a pressure tactic from Disney, because during this time, Disney were looking to buy Pixar. This deal was later completed in May 2006.

It wasn’t until a decade after Monsters, Inc. was released that Pixar confirmed they were actually working on a new Monsters, Inc. movie, with this being officially announced at the D23 Expo in 2011, by John Lasseter and voice of Mike Billy Crystal. It was confirmed that this movie was in fact going to be a prequel called Monsters University, making it clear to the audience that they were going to be watching a film about Mike and Sulley in college.

Monsters University was directed by Dan Scanlon, who was a 24-year-old storyboard artist at Pixar when Monsters, Inc. was released in 2001. Monsters University was his directorial debut of a feature film at Pixar; he had already co-directed the short film and Cars spin-off Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) with John Lasseter. Dan Scanlon had worked on Pixar features such as Cars (2006) and Toy Story 3 (2013) as a story artist prior to Monsters University. He later directed and co-wrote Onward (2020). Scanlon left Pixar in 2024. Scanlon stated that prequels are tricky and risky, because the audience already knows where the story is going, so they can feel quite predictable, but the plan was always to be to make the story relatable, whilst also turning the expected story on its head. It was decided the prequel was the way to go, despite its challenges[2].

Scanlon also co-wrote the story of Monsters University, alongside Dan Gerson and Robert L. Baird. Gerson had co-written the screenplay of Monsters, Inc. so no doubt his expertise from the original movie was invaluable when creating the prequel. He also co-wrote the Disney Animation movie Big Hero 6 (2014), alongside Baird, with the film going on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Film. Gerson sadly passed away in 2016 and was said to be working on Pixar’s Cars 3 (2017) at the time. Baird had co-written the screenplay for the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie The Thirteenth Year early on his career. After Monsters University and Big Hero 6, Baird co-wrote the screenplays for the animated films Ferdinand (2017), from Blue Sky Studios, and Nimona (2023) for Netflix.

Although we know that Mike and Sulley are going to end up working as a scaring team at Monsters, Inc., we don’t know how they get to that point. The title Monsters University obviously gives away the fact that the prequel will be taking us through their journeys at college, but outside of that, there are so many possibilities for the story to go. Initially, Sulley was still going to be the main attraction of Monsters University, since he was already the focus of Monsters, Inc. There were plans to give him some big emotional backstory, like having an absent father, in order to give Sulley more of a purpose and personality, because in Monsters, Inc., he spends much of his time with Boo, as her protector, so he needed something else to occupy his time in Monsters University. There was also an idea to have Sulley wanting to be a dentist, but that story element was quickly dropped as he was clearly always meant to be a scary monster with his huge stature.

After these ideas didn’t work, it was then decided that perhaps Mike should get his chance to shine in Monsters University, and he should be following his dream of being a scarer, which, before the opening titles even start rolling, we already know is not going to happen because of the events of Monsters, Inc. This eventual failure of his scaring dream is the message that audiences would take away from Monsters University, that although you can work hard in achieving a dream, it doesn’t always work out the way you’d hoped. This basically altered expectations about the film as we saw that the journey to Mike and Sulley ending up at Monsters, Inc. was not an easy one[3].

There were plenty of other sequences and scenes that did not make it into Monsters University. One was that Mike and Sulley were going to end up in Drama Class together after being kicked out of the Scare Program at Monsters University. During this time, the tension between the two and the rivalry would’ve been obvious as they attempt to prepare for the Scare Games and put on this play with their class about the history of scream energy. Over time, it was meant to show Mike and Sulley learning to work together and become friends, with Mike helping Sulley remember his lines during the play after forgetting them on stage. This play would’ve also given us important information about scream energy, that enough scream energy created on the opposite side of a door, in the human world, for example, can be enough to power it on the other side. This is something we learn during the big scare that Mike and Sulley do in the summer camp. It was decided that the Drama Class sequence, although funny, was not necessary since the Scare Games is where Mike and Sulley ultimately resolve their conflict, and it didn’t fit in well with the rest of the story. There was also an alternative prank by Roar Omega Roar on Oozma Kappa, which would’ve seen the Roars scaring them during a movie night, but this was deleted as it was decided that the whole point of this prank was not to show that Oozma Kappa were easily scared, but was meant to show that they are not scary so cannot be scarers. Another deleted sequence would’ve introduced a new college program to us, Recon, where monsters go into the human world to spy on kids and figure out what their fears are, to draft scare reports.

Potentially the most interesting deleted sequence could’ve ended up being the most important sequence in the film, and would’ve helped with a major plot hole that was discovered by viewers. This plot hole revolves around the fact that Mike says to Sulley in Monsters, Inc. that Sulley has been jealous of him since the fourth grade, making it seem like Mike and Sulley already knew each other from school. However, Monsters University tells us that Mike and Sulley first met here, annoying some people because Pixar had ignored something in their own franchise’s storyline. This is something I noticed shortly after watching Monsters University too. But be assured, Pixar did plan to address this. In this deleted concept, Mike was meant to meet Sulley in the fourth grade. Jealous of Sulley’s instant popularity due to his size and scary nature, Mike proceeded to try to outdo Sulley with his knowledge of scare theory. This rivalry went on for years, until Mike and his family moved away. Ultimately, Dan Scanlon felt that this sequence just wasn’t working, so he was told by John Lasseter and Pete Docter, the director of Monsters, Inc., to focus on the college story and not let this one line from Monsters, Inc. affect the prequel. The filmmakers had probably hoped we wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care[4]. Sadly, some very much did, and still do, care! I like to think that perhaps it’s one of those cases where you can meet someone at school and not really remember them, reconnecting later in life and only realise you’ve met them before after talking about some really specific event. Since Sulley and Mike don’t talk all that much about their past lives in Monsters University, we could imagine that maybe they didn’t get talking about school until after they were expelled and then they remembered each other – but that’s a lot of “ifs” and “maybes”!

With this new college setting in the monster world, it was decided that the filmmakers had to do some proper research into college life, so naturally, they took a research trip, which consisted of tours of Ivy League campuses. It’s not exactly Mexico or South America, like the Pixar team went to for Coco and Up, but I guess it’s something! Some of the universities they visited were Harvard, MIT, and Berkley, so Monsters University became a mixture of all of these campuses. Many of these colleges had a gate entrance, so one was made for Monsters University, for example, and they tended to have buildings made of red brick, so this was incorporated into the design for Monsters University. The Scare School was created to be the focal point of the campus, as older buildings on real campuses were obviously built first, with others spreading out from it. The age of the building was also shown, not just architecturally, but also by the bronze statue outside with the faded paw, showing that many students even before Mike’s class at touched it for good luck.

Other details added to the campus include the use of flyers, with new ones stapled up on top of years of older, crumpled, disintegrating ones, on columns and boards across the area, and they also added bird poop to the buildings and statues to show the age of Monsters University, showing its history and prestige! Monsters University was designed to look like a normal US college campus, but the added motifs and decorations of teeth and eyes made it seem more “monster-like”[5].

Alongside design elements for the look of Monsters University, the team also had to figure out what experiences would need to be added to the movie to make it feel like a quintessential college film. Obviously one glaring omission from this film is alcohol. Pixar and Disney can’t be seen to advertise drinking, underage or not, in their films, but they tried to get across the party atmosphere with their heavy use of fraternities and sororities. This emphasis on parties was even seen in the teaser trailer, where Sulley pranks Mike by gluing bits of mirror to him to turn him into a disco ball!

These fraternities and sororities ended up being quite useful to the story, not only because they created ready-made teams for Mike and Sulley to go up against in the Scare Games competition, but also because they allowed us to see a wide-range of different personalities without the need to introduce us to too many minor characters. This was achieved basically by making each fraternity and sorority a sort of stereotype. For example, the Eeks are the athletic jock girls; the Pnks are the perfect sorority girls, who look sweet on the outside, but are vicious on the inside; the Roars are the cool, posh boys; and Hss are the emo/goth group. Oozma Kappa are the misfit fraternity[6].

There are hundreds of monsters within Monsters University, many more than were seen in Monsters, Inc. Although software had been created for Sulley’s fur for the first movie, this software had been developed so much that even more furry monsters could be designed and used in this movie, to go alongside other types of monsters of varying shapes and sizes, even ones that fly. These additional monsters enormously helped with the atmosphere of Monsters University, to make it feel like it was a place of diversity. Pixar has said to look at the backgrounds to spot all these different types of monsters. But monsters from the previous films who made a return would also need to be aged down for Monsters University. For example, Mike is skinnier, with a more vibrant colour to his skin and less pronounced horns. He also has a retainer. Sulley is skinnier and shaggier, and his fur is shinier[7]. Randall is smaller and punier than he is in Monsters, Inc. and his skin is more purple.

Another character design to mention is that of Dean Hardscrabble. Hardscrabble was going to be a typical, grumpy male dean, with an alligator tail, but after some thought, the filmmakers realised they hadn’t seen a great female scarer in this world so Dean Hardscrabble began a strict, authoritative female dean instead. The basis for her monster appearance is a centipede, and the Pixar team studied giant centipedes to see how they moved and behaved. Despite centipedes generally being considered to be gross-looking by most, the filmmakers said there was a graceful elegance to them, which they wanted to get across in Dean Hardscrabble’s character. I’m going to be perfectly honest and say I thought she was designed after a dragon; I’d never noticed her legs before[8]!

Rounding out the production of Monsters University, there are the usual Pixar Easter eggs and references to mention. The A113, the number of the classroom at CalArts where many Pixar animators studied, is on the door of Scaring 101 on the first day of the Scare Program. The Pizza Planet truck is parked in the driveway of the Jaws fraternity house on that party night when Mike and Sulley are chasing the pig. The Luxo ball from the Pixar short film is seen in graffiti on the wall of the sewer during the Toxicity Challenge of the Scare Games.  The next Pixar movie after Monsters University is The Good Dinosaur (2015), so this was referenced with dinosaur toys in the bedroom that Young Mike sneaks into during his school field trip to Monsters, Inc. Pixar Studios’ address of 1200 Park Avenue is also referenced, as Don Carlton’s business card shows his address as being 1200 Dark Avenue.

You can also see a few nods to Monsters, Inc. One of these is that George, the monster who is on the receiving end of the “23-19” alert is a member of the Jaws fraternity. There is also the Winds of Change poster above Randall’s bed, which refers to a line he says to Mike and Sulley in the original film[9]. At the end of Monsters University, you can see a picture of Sulley shaking hands with Mr. Waternoose, the CEO of Monsters, Inc., a main character in the first film, too. It is rumoured that Kelsey Grammer, best known for his role as Frasier Crane in both the sitcoms Cheers (1982-93) and its spin-off Frasier (1993-2004) was meant to voice Mr. Waternoose in an apparently cut scene. Celia, who also only appears in picture-form in this montage, in Mike’s locker, was apparently meant to return for Monsters University too, as was Randall’s assistant Fungus. For some reason, this did not happen. Finally, the title sequence of Monsters University even refers back to Monsters, Inc. as it is another 2D graphic-style title sequence, contrasting against the computer animation of the main film. This time, the opening titles follow Mike’s journey to being a scarer, through his school work and eventual acceptance to Monsters University.

MUSIC

For the score of Monsters University, Randy Newman made his return as the composer, after his work on Monsters, Inc., allowing for continuity between the two films. Newman is known for his frequent collaborations with Pixar over the years, including on A Bug’s Life (1998) and the Toy Story franchise.

Newman’s score had to consist of both bringing emotion to the story and giving the music that “collegiate” feel. This meant using the sound of marching bands and drums to express that university-style sound, where these instruments are used for pep rallies and events like that. Some examples of this sound can be found in the tracks “Main Title”, used for the title sequence, and “The Scare Games”, playing during a montage of some of the games’ events. To record some of this style of music, Pixar brought in the percussion group The Blue Devils Drum Corps, to give that authentic sound. There is also the track “Monsters University”, which is a chorus singing the university’s school song.

Another key point of the college atmosphere of Monsters University that comes across in the music is the mixture of music genres that can be heard across a university campus in the real world; this is mimicked in Monsters University. This can be specifically heard in a couple of tracks. One of these is “Scare Pig”, which is used for the scene of Mike and Sulley chasing down Fear Tech’s pig mascot that Sulley stole. As the two wreak havoc across various parties going on at the college campus, you can hear an acoustic guitar player in a casual get-together, followed by rock music playing at the fraternity and sorority party. Another is “Roar”, the name of the music playing at the Roar Omega Roar party where Oozma Kappa get pranked by the Roars. This is electronica party music, perfect to get people dancing. “Roar” was written and performed by Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso, from the Swedish House Mafia group, known for their electronic dance music.

There are a few other tracks in the Monsters University soundtrack that I also like. “First Day at MU” is one, as it feels hopeful and reflects how Mike is feeling on that first day at the Scare School, thinking his future is looking bright. Another is “The Big Scare”, which is used for the sequence of Mike and Sulley pulling off that scare at the summer camp with the rangers. It’s a huge moment for not just the history of scaring, but for Mike and Sulley’s friendship and teamwork, as they show that they work best as a scaring team rather than as individuals, with Mike’s attention to detail and Sulley’s natural scaring ability. I also like “Stinging Glow Urchin”, the music playing during the Toxicity Challenge and race in the Scare Games. One other track worth mentioning is “Field Trip”. This features during the moment where Mike takes Oozma Kappa to Monsters, Inc. so they can witness the Scare Floor in action. It uses some of the music from the Monsters, Inc. soundtrack, like the music used in the chase sequences, and the track “Enter the Heroes”, which is used as a slow-motion clip of the scarers arrive for a day of work, but in Monsters University, it is used whenever the factory’s exterior is seen, so both in this sequence for Oozma Kappa and in Michael’s field trip at school at the start of the film.

Newman has stated how happy is to compose music for Pixar’s high-quality animated movies. Director Dan Scanlon also stated how helpful Newman was during the composition stage and orchestral recording of the score, as he had admitted that the music was the part he knew the least about when directed a film. Scanlon said how affecting it was to see the music come together with the animation to make the movie feel complete[10].

Despite Randy Newman winning awards for his music on Monsters, Inc., namely for the song “If I Didn’t Have You”, which won an Academy Award and Grammy Award for Best Original Song, amongst others, the Monsters University soundtrack was not as widely acclaimed. Instead, it only received one nomination, at the Annie Awards, for Outstanding Achievement in Music in an Animated Feature Production. Newman and Pixar lost to the musical team of Robert Lopez, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, and Christophe Beck and their work on Disney’s Frozen. I guess Pixar had to just “let it go” on this occasion.

RECEPTION

Just a little less than 12 years after the release of Monsters, Inc., Monsters University was released in theatres, on 21^st June 2013 in the US, becoming Pixar’s first, and only, prequel.

Apparently, it was initially planned for release in November 2012, its date being moved to 2^nd November to avoid direct competition with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, a very popular film that year. Monsters University’s date later moved to June 2013. It would seem that Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph (2012) took the November 2012 position instead[11].

In theatres, Monsters University was released alongside the Pixar short film The Blue Umbrella (2013). This short followed the journey of a blue umbrella finding love with a red umbrella. After being separated by their owners, the blue umbrella breaks away and attempts to be reunited with the red umbrella, only to be hit by high winds and speeding traffic. The blue umbrella is later found damaged in the road, in a broken heap. It is picked up by its owner, and the red umbrella owner comes over to help. The owners of the blue and red umbrella walk away together, reuniting the two-coloured umbrellas. This short was directed and written by Pixar employee Saschka Unseld. Strangely for a Pixar short, The Blue Umbrella missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

But back to Monsters University. For the most part, Monsters University received positive reviews, although some of these positive reviews generally say that the movie is perfectly fine and watchable, so not exactly a glowing review! Some stated that this prequel was reassuring from Pixar, expanding on the Monsters, Inc. characters and its world. They liked seeing more backstory for Mike and Sulley, and the supporting cast was also memorable and funny. The message of Monsters University, about hard work not necessarily equating to a dream coming true, was an important one to state, as it goes against the general message of child-focused movies, and even parents’ motivation to their children, where we usually hear that being determined in the pursuit of a dream will mean that it happens. It’s not the most upbeat message, but it is more realistic to real life, where things don’t always work out as you’d planned. Personally, I liked the fact the film allowed kids to see that adults can be scared by monsters, with the giant scare Mike and Sulley plan and enact towards the end of the film. Monsters, Inc. had made it seem like only children get scared, but that’s not true; adults get scared too. Others said that they enjoyed the twists in the story, like how Mike didn’t actually win the Scare Games for his team, and that Mike and Sulley did get expelled, with Dean Hardscrabble holding firm on that after they broke numerous university rules. The surprise return of Roz and The Abominable Snowman was also welcomed. Monsters University was considered to be a great film for the family to enjoy.

On the other hand, there were negative comments given by audiences and critics. One of these was purely linked to the expectations, or lack thereof, that come from a sequel. Pixar had a very disappointing sequel with Cars 2. Monsters University was the next prequel or sequel to come after that, so although some felt it exceeded expectations, others felt it was disappointing and lacked an interesting story with heart, unlike its predecessor. With numerous other Pixar sequels already announced to be coming in the following years at this point, those being Finding Dory (2016), Cars 3 (2017), Incredibles 2 (2018), and Toy Story 4 (2019), it is possible that this had annoyed viewers and their annoyance affected their enjoyment of Monsters University, even before they’d seen any of it. It is also the typical “prequel problem” that the viewers know how the story is going to end, because they’ve already seen the original film, so that meant that excitment and tension was lacking. It was decided that Monsters University was simply not a good enough movie to come from Pixar, and the world was still waiting for them to come back and hit the heights they’d last achieved with Toy Story 3 – and pretty much every movie they’d made before then.

Despite the slightly mixed reception, Monsters University did well at the box office in 2013. In North America, it debuted with $82.4 million on its opening weekend, becoming Pixar’s second-best opening weekend for one of their films at the time, with Toy Story 3 the best opening weekend they’d had at $110 million. It also opened in the No. 1 spot at the box office. This meant that Pixar had had 14 No. 1 openings in a row, for all 14 of the feature films they’d made. Its worldwide debut came in at $136.5 million after opening in 35 other countries at this time, however, it was struggling against some tough competition. In Australia, Despicable Me 2 (2013) came out at a similar time to Monsters University. In the box office fight, Monsters University lost in that county[12]. By the end of August 2013, Monsters University had made over $700 million worldwide, making it the fourth-highest grossing Pixar film, behind Toy Story 3 with $1.06 billion, Finding Nemo with $922 million, and Up with $731 million[13]. It later ended its run at just under $745 million.

Overall, in 2013, sadly, Monsters University struggled against some movies that did exceptionally well in the later half of the year. One of these was Disney Animation’s Frozen (2013), which made over $1 billion worldwide. Frozen was in the top spot in the worldwide box office figures. This was followed by Marvel’s Iron Man 3; Despicable Me 2; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Monsters University ended the year at No. 7 in this list, however, it did just about reach the Top 5 in the domestic box office for 2013 and it easily beat out some other animated movie releases for the year, like DreamWorks’ The Croods and Turbo; and Sony’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.

Monsters University was not as widely acclaimed as Monsters, Inc., so naturally, it did not achieve much success during awards season. Monsters University was not even nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards; this award was won by Frozen. Frozen actually swept the Best Animated Film category at multiple awards ceremonies, including the BAFTAs, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Annie Awards and the Saturn Awards, where Monsters University was actually nominated. The Satellite Awards didn’t give this award to either Frozen or Monsters University, although both were nominated; the winner was Japanese film The Wind Rises (2013), directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Outside of that, at the Kids’ Choice Awards, Monsters University was nominated in both the Favorite Animated Movie and Favorite Voice From an Animated Movie – for Billy Crystal – categories, but lost out to Frozen, and Miranda Cosgrove as Margo in Despicable Me 2, respectively. Monsters University was nominated for various Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Character Design, Production Design, and Writing. Billy Crystal was once again nominated for his vocal performance as Mike Wazowski, but lost to Josh Gad and his character of Olaf from Frozen. Pixar did, however, win the Annie Awards for Storyboarding and Editorial for Monsters University. It also won the Hollywood Animation Award at the Hollywood Film Awards.

LEGACY

Mike and Sulley have continued to be popular Pixar characters, showing up on screen and at the Disney Parks. These are some experiences that appeared shortly after Monsters University, and in more recent years.

On screen, the short Party Central (2013) premiered at the D23 Expo in Anaheim in August 2013, just a few months after Monsters University’s release date. It later was attached to the theatrical release of Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted (2014). In this short, directed and written by Pixar director and storyboard artist Kelsey Mann, Mike and Sulley make Oozma Kappa’s first fraternity party one of the best parties ever. They do this by stealing items from Roar Omega Roar’s party, and leading guests through door stations, that go through a human couple’s bedroom, into Oozma Kappa’s house. Squishy’s mother walks in when the party is in full swing, and comes up with a huge stunt that involves jumping through the doors. The party makes students want to join Oozma Kappa – and traumatises the human couple who ask to sleep in their son’s room because they have monsters in their closet! The cast from Monsters University returned to voice their characters here.

Years later, a new addition to the Monsters, Inc. franchise came to Disney+. This was the Disney+ series Monsters at Work (2021-present), which followed the events of Monsters, Inc., specifically the transition of the factory from scream energy to laughter. It follows a recent graduate from Monsters University, Tylor Tuskmon, who comes to Monsters, Inc. to be a scarer, only to be told that job no longer exists. He is instead reassigned to work in the Monsters Inc. Facilities Team. The first series follows Tylor’s struggles as he adjusts to his new career path. The second series sees Tylor debating whether to take a job at rival company Fear Co. Some new characters were added to Monsters at Work, including Tylor, voiced by Ben Feldman, known for such roles as Jonah Simms in Superstore (2015-21) and Ron LaFlamme in Silicon Valley (2014-19). Mindy Kaling joined the voice cast as Val Little, having already voiced Disgust for Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), as well as had success with her own sitcom The Mindy Project (2012-17), as did Henry Winkler, Fonzie in Happy Days (1974-84) and more recently Gene Cousineau in Barry (2018-23). Other characters, and their voice actors, from Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University also returned for select episodes. Billy Crystal and John Goodman reprised their roles as Mike and Sulley too. The series has run for two seasons. One came to Disney+ in 2021 and the other came to both Disney+ and Disney Channel in 2024. Monsters at Work won two Children’s and Family Emmys, one for Individual Achievement in Animation in 2022 for Ron Tolentina Velasco, and another for Voice Directing for an Animated Series in 2025 for Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers. A third season of the show was confirmed in February 2025.

Outside of that, there have been questions around whether or not we should expect a Monsters, Inc. 3, especially now that Pixar have released Inside Out 2, which did exceptionally well financially, and later announced Toy Story 5, coming in 2026; Coco 2; and The Incredibles 3. It seems like it is only a matter of time. Back in 2016, Pete Docter said he could never say never when asked about a further Monsters, Inc. film, although did also state that the Pixar filmmakers purposely went for a prequel because they didn’t think a story about seeing Boo grown up and meeting up with Mike and Sulley again was particularly interesting[14]. It could also be argued it is too close to the plotline of the Toy Story franchise. This is, however, the story that Monsters, Inc. fans would want exploring in a third film. We’ll have to see what Pixar do, if anything, with the Monsters, Inc. franchise, but frankly, I think the Disney+ series is enough and we don’t need another film.

The Disney Parks also added experiences to its parks after the release of Monsters University, although some were only for a limited time. One of these was the “Monstrous Summer” event that came to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland Resort in California over the summer of 2013, as promotion for Monsters University. 

The kick-off to this summertime event was called the “Monstrous Summer All-Nighter”, where Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World and both Disneyland Parks were open from 6am on 24^th May 2013 until 6am on 25^th May 2013. This all-nighter was announced in April 2013, with Mike Wazowski and Sulley being projected onto Spaceship Earth in Walt Disney World’s Epcot. The actual event included special showings of parades, such as the Mickey’s Soundsational Parade at Disneyland, and two runnings of the Main Street Electrical Parade at Walt Disney World. There were also meet-and-greets with characters and dance parties throughout all the parks on both coasts. It would also seem that Monsters, Inc. was being shown in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom during this event, though why you’d choose to watch that instead of riding all the attractions that were open, I don’t know! Other limited time experiences for “Monstrous Summer” included the Walt Disney World Monorail being wrapped in images from Monsters University, in what came to be known as the “Monsterail”, and wake-up calls being available at resort hotels, where Mike could call guests to wake them up[15]. Both Walt Disney World and Disneyland also had two different Monsters University pre-parades, featuring floats, dancers, and Mike and Sulley.

Also at Walt Disney World, specifically at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, guests could meet Mike and Sulley in Monsters University costumes during that summer in a specially-designed area. They later met guests together at Walt Disney Presents, but now, Sulley seems to be the only character from either Monsters, Inc. or Monsters University still meeting guests here during normal park hours, at Pixar Place. In Magic Kingdom’s interactive show Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, an update was made to the show to include the Monsters University gates as a background for the comedian monsters, although characters from the film were not added.

Perhaps the most exciting of all to come to Walt Disney World though is that at the D23 Expo in 2024, it was announced that humans would once again be invited into the monster world, but this time into Monstropolis itself because Monstropolis is being built at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, taking over the area that was formerly Muppets Courtyard, home to Muppet*Vision 3D since 1991 – and the less popular but much loved by me PizzeRizzo. Fans were very sad to say goodbye to this area, but some interesting concepts are coming to the area, such as the former Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano becoming the Harryhausen’s restaurant, as seen in the first film, and the Monsters, Inc. factory is being constructed to house a ride through the famous door vault, with this set to be the first ever suspended coaster at a Disney Park. The area will not be open until around 2027 or 2028.  Muppets Courtyard closed in June 2025, but the Muppets will still be at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as they will be part of a retheme coming to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster sometime in 2026[16]. This area may see some small references to Monsters University but nothing major.

At Disneyland, there doesn’t appear to be much specific to Monsters University either, however, Mike and Sulley were characters spotted at Pixar Fest in 2024, meeting guests at Pixar Pier at Disney California Adventure. They also featured as part of the Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration! parade, and clips from the film played during Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular. At the renovated Pixar Place Hotel which opened in January 2024, you can see references to both Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University in artwork here, with one specific nod to Monsters University being in the fitness centre. Here, Mike and Sulley’s scene where they run on treadmills, competing against each other in the gym, has been painted as a mural on the wall.

Looking to the international Disney Parks, Disneyland Paris used to have an area with the Monsters, Inc. scream canisters in their Worlds of Pixar area, but these seem to have disappeared as part of the major changes coming to the Walt Disney Studios Park as it transforms into Disney Adventure World for Spring 2026. Also at this park, the stage show TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure, which opened in 2023, has a performance that features Monsters, Inc. There is also an interactive walk-through exhibit at Shanghai Disneyland called Pixar Adventurous Journey, which has a section featuring the Monsters, Inc. locker room and the door vault, as well as statues of Mike, Sulley, and Boo. Sulley may also be available to meet guests at Tomorrowland on occasion, alongside other Pixar characters. There will also be a new Pixar show coming to Hong Kong Disneyland, which will apparently showcase Monsters, Inc. An opening date is not yet known. But again, these are just newer Monsters, Inc. experiences, and are not themed to Monsters University.

Finally on the Disney Cruise Line, the Eye Scream Treats ice cream location on the Disney Magic, Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream, and Disney Wonder ships has an image of Mike on its signage. The new Disney Adventure Cruise Ship, set to set sail in March 2026, is said to have two restaurants that should reference Monsters, Inc. These are Mike and Sulley’s Flavors of Asia, themed to Harryhausen’s, and Pixar Market Restaurant.

Surprisingly, merchandise for Monsters University is fairly easy to find currently, as the logo has been added to various items of clothing that is on sale at stores around the Disney Parks. Items themed around Sulley, Mike, and Boo tend to be what you’re more likely to find globally and outside of the parks though.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We seem to be living through a time of “sequel fatigue” and it is only looking like this trend is going to continue at all movie studios. Sometimes, these sequels might be a surprise hit, like Toy Story 3, whereas others might be bitterly disappointing, like Cars 2.

Pixar did well from my point of view in making the second instalment of Monsters, Inc. a prequel, because this gave a fresh take on the story. We didn’t have much detail about Mike and Sulley’s lives prior to working at Monsters, Inc. in the first film, so for me, basing the story at university, and having the characters grow into the characters they become in the original film was the best direction to take the story.

I’m not sure a sequel where we just saw Boo again for the sake of appeasing audiences was ever going to be enough, so I can only hope that Pixar don’t progress with this idea, or even a third film in general. But given how their original movies have done at the box office of late, I can sadly see mostly sequels in Pixar’s future, and I would consider Monsters, Inc. 3 high up on their list of possibilities. 

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: The Disney Classics, ‘Circle 7 Animation (Pixaren’t)’, TheDisneyClassics.com, 4^th September 2021.

[2] Credit: Henry Fitzherbert, ‘Making of the Monsters University scream team’, Express.co.uk, 30^th June 2013.

[3] Credit: Pixar, “Story School”, Pixar Official YouTube Channel, 27^th September 2016.

[4] Credit: Pixar, “Deleted Scenes”, from Monsters University (2013), Disney+.

[5] Credit: Pixar, “Welcome to Monsters University”, Special Features YouTube Channel, 19^th April 2021.

[6] Credit: Pixar, “College Days”, Pixar Official YouTube Channel, 1^st October 2016.

[7] Credit: Peter Sciretta, ’10 Things You Need To Know About Pixar’s ‘Monsters University’ [D23 Expo]’, SlashFilm.com, 21^st August 2011. 

[8] Credit: Pixar, “Monthropology”, from Monsters University (2013), Disney+.

[9] Credit: Julie & T.J., ‘Monsters University – An In-Depth Look at the Hidden Items, References and Details of the Film’, PixarPost.com, 28^th June 2013.

[10] Credit: Pixar, “Music Appreciation”, Special Features YouTube Channel, 19^th April 2021.

[11] Credit: Jim Vejvoda, ‘Pixar’s Monsters University Pushed’, IGN.com, 8^th May 2012.

[12] Credit: Pamela McClintock, ‘Box Office Report: ‘Monsters U’ Zooms to $82 Million Debut; ‘World War Z’ Nabs $66 Million’, HollywoodReporter.com, 23^rd June 2013.

[13] Credit: Andrew Stewart, ‘‘Monsters University’ Crosses $700 Mil at Global Box Office’, Variety.com, 29^th August 2013.

[14] Credit: Marc Snetiker, ‘Toy Story 4: Pete Docter talks Pixar films, Monsters Inc 3 rumors’, EW.com, 1^st November 2016.

[15] Credit: Lex Mancini, ‘The Monstrous Summer All-Nighter in 2013: 24 Hours in Magic Kingdom’, WDWMagazine.com, 24^th May 2022.

[16] Credit: Blog Mickey, ‘Muppets Courtyard Blocked Off, Construction of Monsters Inc. Land to Begin Soon at Hollywood Studios’, BlogMickey.com, 8^th June 2025.

1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. PRODUCTION
5. MUSIC
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

2016 was a big year for The Walt Disney Company, in terms of their movies.

Disney Animation themselves released both Zootopia in March that year, and then Moana in November. Pixar’s Finding Dory, the long-awaited, but perhaps not requested, sequel for Finding Nemo was released in Summer 2016. Outside of that, Disney released other movies, like Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, their live-action The Jungle Book remake, and Lucasfilm’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

It was a busy time, but one that naturally benefitted Disney’s profits, and made them feel very confident in their movie-making abilities, although let’s not forget that by this point, Disney had purchased Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar, so really, their success was mostly down to other studios and directors, not solely themselves. Just trying to lower their ego.

Anyway, Pixar had needed a boost after their late 2015 film The Good Dinosaur, especially as 2016 was the 30^th anniversary of the studio. The Good Dinosaur didn’t feel much like a movie from Pixar, missing a lot of their warmth and generally just being too scary and strange. It flopped at the box office and critics were not kind to it, a rarity for Pixar.

There was also concern from audiences that perhaps Pixar were going a little overboard with their sequel-making, as Finding Dory became their fifth sequel or prequel. Disney was following a similar pattern, with Frozen II (2019) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) on the cards for them. Was this going to be an early sign of “sequel fatigue”?

Well, I’d say Pixar got a bit lucky because for the most part, audiences and critics enjoyed Finding Dory, despite the fact the story is largely the same as its predecessor, only that forgetful Dory gets to be the main attraction here, not the sidekick, and the location is moved from Australia to California. It may not have been a necessary film to make, but they just about got away with it.

I’m not saying that to be unkind because I’m one of few people that actually prefer Finding Dory to Finding Nemo. I’ve never been much of a nature person, not enjoying documentaries about that sort of thing, mostly because nature is cruel and makes me sad, so to have Finding Dory set in an aquarium made it more enjoyable for me, because I am familiar with that environment, whereas the ocean will always be a mystery.

PLOT

Finding Dory begins with young Dory, who I call baby Dory, learning how to talk to people about her short-term memory loss, with help from her parents. They seem to be getting her to practise playing hide and seek, however, Dory being Dory is told to count and forgets what she’s doing part-way through her counting. She sees a group of young fish playing nearby and swims out to them, but her parents tell her not to go over there because of the undertow:

A little while later, we see baby Dory is lost in the ocean, trying to ask other fish to help her find her parents. Most of them just ignore her, or claim not to be able to help her, but two kelp bass fish, Stan and Inez, do stop to talk to Dory. However, they are confused when she keeps restarting the conversation. Stan and Inez go to talk alone about how best to deal with the lost little fish, but by the time they turn back, Dory has gone…

Over the years, Dory continues to swim through the ocean alone, asking for help. As time goes on, she starts to forget exactly why she’s looking for help. At one point she sees a boat overhead, and then hits straight into Marlin, recreating a scene from Finding Nemo. Dory tells Marlin she knows where the boat went and tells him to follow her.

One year later, Dory is living next door to Marlin and Nemo. One night, she starts to remember something about her past, but she can’t quite figure out what. The next morning, Marlin and Dory swim Nemo to school, where Marlin continues to talk about his mission to rescue Nemo from the dentist, overexaggerating parts of the story, such as claiming he took on four sharks, when actually, he only met three. At the school grounds, Mr. Ray, Nemo’s teacher, arrives to take the class on a field trip to see the ray migration. Dory is looking forward to going along too, but Marlin is told by Mr. Ray that he’s going to have too many other fish to think about today, and having Dory along would be too much. Marlin tries to explain this to Dory; however, she misunderstands and says she’ll be Mr. Ray’s teaching assistant for the day to help out. It’s not worth the fight, so she sticks around.

Before heading off, Mr. Ray explains that the stingrays are heading home and that is why they migrate. Some of the kids ask Dory where her home is, which makes Dory question where she does come from, and where her parents are… before instantly forgetting what they were even talking about! But it’s time to go to see this migration.

At the stingray migration, Mr. Ray warns the kids not to get too close to the undertow, or they might be swept away from the group. This triggers something in Dory’s memory so when the rays come by – singing, of course – Dory becomes distracted and swims too close to the undertow. She is later found by Nemo and Marlin on the sand, where Nemo hears her mumbling something about “the Jewel of Morro Bay”. Dory comes round and Nemo repeats what she just said. This triggers a flood of memories for Dory and she finally remembers her family! Dory desperately wants to get to California to find them. Marlin says that’s too far away and she should accept her life as it is now. Marlin eventually reconsiders after thinking of Dory’s help on their journey to find Nemo, and he knows who can help.

We then see Marlin, Nemo, and Dory with Crush and the other sea turtles riding another current. This time, the current is heading to California. Crush tells them to get ready as their exit is coming up and they leave the current at some dark and scary place, full of wrecked ships and storage containers. This is the Shipping Lanes and Dory claims it is vaguely familiar to her. Dory starts shouting for help, asking if anyone knows her parents, Jenny and Charlie. Marlin tells her to stop making so much noise. He was right to be concerned because Dory inadvertently wakes up a big, glowing squid, who chases them through the area. Eventually, the squid is trapped in a container, but it still has use of one of its tentacles and grabs Nemo, slowly bringing him up to its mouth. Marlin and Dory try to get him back, and the squid lets go of Nemo when the box falls. Nemo is quite shaken by this near-death experience, and Marlin tells Dory, who is also concerned, to go away and just forget about it, like she does best. Dory decides to go and get help, with some plastic becoming stuck to her. Dory hears a voice, the voice of Sigourney Weaver, who leads her to a cove. As Dory surfaces to figure out where she is, Marlin and Nemo pop up too, just in time to see Dory being plucked out of the ocean and taken away in a boat.

It turns out Dory has been placed in the quarantine unit of the Marine Life Institute. She has been tagged on her fin. Here, Dory meets octopus Hank, although she quickly works out he only has seven tentacles, so is actually a “septopus”. Hank tells Dory where she is and explains that her tag means she is going to Cleveland Aquarium. Dory asks if he can help her find her parents in this institute. Hank says he will in exchange for her tag, since the institute is planning to release him into the ocean and he’d rather go and live in an aquarium alone for the rest of his life. Yeah, Hank’s a bit of a grumpy curmudgeon. Hank says he will take Dory to a map of the institute in a coffee pot, using his camouflaging and shape-shifting abilities to hide them from institute employees.

Meanwhile, Marlin and Nemo are trying to work out where Dory will be, with Marlin feeling especially guilty. They meet two sea lions sat on a rock and Nemo wants to ask them for help. Marlin fears these predators will pounce on them but these particular sea lions, Fluke and Rudder, are too lazy to do any pouncing. They tell Marlin and Nemo that the Marine Life Institute is a fish hospital and that Dory will be getting treated and then will be released back into the ocean. Marlin wants a way into the institute so Fluke and Rudder call for loon Becky – a loon being an actual type of bird. Marlin and Nemo watch confused as Fluke and Rudder make strange noises to call her…

At the map, Dory looks over it and tries to work out where to go. But Dory doesn’t know what to do, and Hank says she’s running out of time, because the employees are looking for the missing octopus, him. He takes Dory to a backstage area, where Dory sees a bucket labelled “Destiny”. Since Dory believes in destiny, she drops into this bucket, which is full of dead fish. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. At the tank, Dory and the other fish are poured in and Dory comes face-to-face with Destiny, a near-sighted whale shark, who hits into her tank’s walls all the time. Dory starts talking to Destiny, telling her she swims beautifully, and when Destiny thanks her “in whale”, Dory responds. This makes Destiny recognise that this fish is Dory. Destiny tells Dory that they used to speak through the pipes all the time as kids, dubbing themselves “pipe pals”. Dory realises Destiny must know which exhibit she is from and she sure does; Dory is from the Open Ocean exhibit. At that moment, Destiny’s neighbour, beluga whale Bailey, comes into the conversation. He’s in the institute for a head injury that he claims has damaged his echo location, where he can “see” his surroundings using echoes, but Destiny knows he’s fine. Bailey “attempts” to help, but it just won’t work. Destiny tells Dory she can easily get to Open Ocean through the pipes anyway, but Dory isn’t so good at remembering directions. Then, Hank arrives in the tank, demanding Dory’s tag. She says she needs more help first.

Back with Marlin, Nemo, and the sea lions, finally Becky has been called over. Fluke and Rudder tell Marlin he needs to look Becky in the eye and make a noise like “roo-roo” to get her attention. Then, she’ll take them straight to quarantine. Fluke and Rudder even convince fellow sea lion Gerald to give up his pale as a transportation device in exchange for a few seconds on Fluke and Rudder’s precious rock.

Dory devises a plan to get to Open Ocean without the pipes. Hank has commandeered a stroller and put Dory in a cup. Bailey looks over the top of his tank and waits for just the right moment. On his command, Destiny starts jumping in her tank to distract on-lookers. Dory and Hank get going, with Dory being tasked with following signs to Open Ocean. However, Dory gets distracted and they hit a small child on the way, knocking the cup with Dory over. The cup is returned to the stroller by a parent and Hank pretends to be a really ugly baby to avoid suspicion! But the kid dropped popcorn everywhere when she was hit and Becky the loon gets distracted this time, and leaves Marlin and Nemo in the pale on a tree branch while she eats. Marlin tries to get Becky’s attention again, but nothing works. Nemo tells him to just be patient, but Marlin pushes the pale closer to Becky, further down the branch. The branch snaps back and flings them into a gift shop tank.

Dory and Hank continue their journey, but Dory insists on following the sign to “The World’s Most Powerful Pair of Glasses”. Hank stops and demands Dory’s tag, telling her he’s done enough now. But Dory wants to remember more and tells Hank he’s being mean, despite octopuses – octopi? – having three hearts. As they argue, the stroller starts rolling down the hill with them inside and they crash into the Kid Zone, specifically the hands-on tank, where kids can grab at anything they want to grab at. Why would anyone think that was a good idea? Dory loses Hank in the tank and tries to find him. Hank is hiding and is absolutely terrified, since it would seem a child had something to do with him losing his tentacle. Dory tells Hank they should just keep swimming to get out. But to get out, they have to go through “Pokers’ Cove”. Just as they are about to leave, one kid pokes at Hank who freaks out and releases his defence mechanism: ink. Hank is embarrassed, but hey, it got all the gross children to go away! They also see they are right by Open Ocean.

In the gift shop, Marlin continues to try to get Becky’s attention, but she is too far away. Marlin and Nemo see her pick up the pale and fly to the roof of quarantine, proving that Nemo was right and they should’ve just waited. Nemo tells Marlin that this is just what he did to Dory; made her think she couldn’t do something she actually could. Marlin admits he was wrong to do that and says he could really do with her help right now. They start to think about what Dory would do to get out of this tank. Ahead of them, Marlin sees splash pad fountains. He tells Nemo they are going to jump out of the tank and use them to get across the park. They end up in a new pond, with a very loud, chatty clam. Now what?

At Open Ocean, Hank takes Dory in a cup to the roof of the exhibit. They say goodbye and Dory passes over her tag before being poured in. Dory swims in but can’t find help again. She starts to see shells in the sand and remembers that she was told by her parents to always follow the shells to find her way home. Dory does just that and she ends up at her home. However, the home is empty… Dory then remembers how she went missing. She heard her mother crying one night, concerned about how Dory was going to cope with her memory loss, and Dory decided to find a purple shell to cheer her up. But as she did, the undertow took her right into the pipes. Dory then hears two crabs ask how she got back to Open Ocean since all the blue tangs are meant to be in quarantine right now. Dory believes that must be where her parents are and asks how to get there. The crabs say to use the pipes, telling her it’s two lefts and a right to get to quarantine. Dory heads in.

Soon, she gets very lost and confused, as expected. Dory uses the pipes to contact Destiny, who convinces Bailey to use his echo location to locate her. They start to direct her but then “see” a big fish heading towards her. It’s too late; Dory heads right for this fish and Bailey and Destiny believe it has eaten her. But that’s not the case, because that big fish was just Marlin and Nemo; they’ve found her! Dory tells Destiny and Bailey she isn’t dead, to their relief, and the three fish all head to quarantine together.

In quarantine, they eventually locate the blue tangs, but as they attempt to jump there, they end up in a mop bucket. Luckily, Hank comes over to scoop them out and takes them to the blue tangs. Here, the blue tangs realise Dory is Jenny and Charlie’s daughter and have to give her the tragic news that they went to quarantine ages ago to find her and never returned. Dory is distraught, believing her parents must be dead. In the confusion, Dory is taken out of the tank by Hank just in time, but Marlin and Nemo are left in there. Suddenly, Hank is discovered by the workers and Dory is tipped down a drain. Once again, she is lost and alone in the ocean. Not knowing where to go, she sinks down to the sand, and then sees lines of shells in the sand. Following them, she comes to a house and two fish. Dory goes to ask for help, but the two fish rush up to hug her. It’s Dory’s parents! Dory apologises for forgetting them, but they say she didn’t forget them because she’s here, and they’ve been leaving shells for her in the hopes it would help bring her back to them. They went into the ocean to look for her, as they couldn’t find her in quarantine all that time ago.

Her parents ask what has happened over the years, which is when Dory remembers she hasn’t been alone all that time, because Marlin and Nemo were there for her, but now they need help. Dory and her parents go outside the institute and call to Destiny. They want help locating the van with the blue tangs heading to Cleveland. Bailey uses his echo location and tells Dory where it is. Bailey then convinces Destiny to jump out of her tank into the ocean to help Dory more. Destiny is concerned but Bailey reminds her there aren’t any walls in the ocean. They jump out and join Dory and her parents. Fluke and Rudder, the sea lions, also leave their rock to watch the commotion, with Gerald taking their place!  

The truck is heading away at speed so Dory knows they need to stop traffic. Dory involves a group of otters, who Destiny catapults with her tail onto a nearby bridge. Dory is tossed up there too and caught by an otter. Dory tells the otters to cuddle and the cuteness overload causes a pile-up. The otters then approach the institute’s truck and open the door. Hank quickly puts Dory into the tank with Marlin and Nemo. The otters are chased away by the van drivers, so Marlin calls for Becky. Becky comes over but only takes Marlin and Nemo out of the tank, not Dory. She’s still in the van with Hank. Becky returns but is too late, and the doors close. Dory comes up with a new plan: Dory and Hank get out via the sunroof of the van, and Hank throws himself onto the windscreen, making the drivers leave their seats. Hank then takes over the steering wheel with Dory in a cup beside him. She directs him, badly, through traffic. Eventually, they come to a police road block and Dory knows they’ll have to fly over it, sending the truck into the ocean. Dory convinces Hank that the ocean is the right place for him, and he agrees to do this. All the fish tumble into the sea.

We then see Marlin, Nemo, and Dory have returned home, with their new friends Destiny, Bailey, and Hank, who is substituting as the teacher at Nemo’s school whilst Mr. Ray is away on his migration, along with Dory’s parents, Jenny and Charlie. As Nemo heads off for school, Dory says she’s going to the drop-off on her own. Concerned, Marlin follows her, only to see that Dory just wanted to take in the view. They sit together and watch.

In a post-credits scene, we also see that the “tank gang” from Finding Nemo, still in their plastic bags, have made it to California and the Marine Life Institute. As they work out their next move, they are picked up by institute staff and taken inside…

CHARACTERS & CAST

Unlike in Finding Nemo, Dory is no longer the funny sidekick in Finding Dory. She’s still funny, still has short-term memory loss, and still acts impulsively, but this time she gets to do more of it as the whole story revolves around her! Throughout Finding Dory, Dory is getting flashbacks of memories from her childhood, slowly allowing her to piece together who are parents are, where she is from, and how she ended up so far away. This leads Dory on an amazing journey to find her family, taking her all the way to California. After Dory becomes separated from Marlin and Nemo, she then relies on Hank to help her find her parents in the Marine Life Institute, and adds Destiny and Bailey to that support system because Dory being Dory needs some help remembering exactly what she’s doing from time to time! Dory goes through a whirlwind of emotions on this journey but Dory finds she’s more capable than she thought and she manages to bring everyone together again, just like in Finding Nemo.

Ellen DeGeneres returned to reprise her role as Dory. This time, Dory also had two other voice actors, to voice baby Dory and teenage Dory. Baby Dory was voiced by Sloane Murray, who is the daughter of Pixar producer Lindsey Collins. Collins produced Finding Dory and went on to produce Turning Red (2022) and Elio (2025) for the company. Teenage Dory was voiced by Lucia Geddes.

At the start of the film, Marlin is perfectly content with how everything has worked out for him. He’s back with his son Nemo and he’s found a new friend in Dory. Marlin doesn’t want to go on another epic journey like he did the year before, believing Dory should just be satisfied with how life is right now, like him. But Nemo guilts Marlin into going on this journey to help Dory because that’s what friends should do. Nemo has to be the voice of reason a lot of the time in this film, telling Marlin he shouldn’t have gotten annoyed at Dory for being concerned after the squid attack, and that he needs to be more patient with people, like Dory and Becky, instead of thinking they’re going to ruin things all the time. His “relationship” with Becky the loon is quite funny actually, because she seems to like him. Marlin must have a way of attracting strange women into his life! In the end, Marlin admits that he does appreciate Dory and her “Dory ways”, especially when she comes back to save him and Nemo from ending up in Cleveland.

Albert Brooks returned to voice the character of Marlin, however, the voice actor for Nemo changed. Because of the 13-year gap between Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, it was only expected that Alexander Gould, voice of Nemo in the original movie, would not be able to reprise his role for the sequel since his voice would have changed. Alexander Gould is given a small voice cameo as one of the workers in the institute’s truck, Passenger Carl, to make up for this. Hayden Rolence was cast as Nemo.

Then, we have a collection of new characters. Hank is a grumpy octopus, sorry, septopus, who has some unresolved trauma after the loss of one of his tentacles, which he seems to suggest had something to do with an incident with a child but it’s not clear how this happened. Like everyone, Hank finds Dory and her memory loss particularly irritating, just wanting to get her tag so he can go to Cleveland. Dory takes so long to find her parents that he can’t ever have thought he was going to get that tag, but she does and Hank is left to go on his merry way. However, when Dory comes back to quarantine, Hank knows he has to help her, finding that he does like her, even with her strange quirks. I think he was actually pleased to see her come back. After stealing the truck, Hank is convinced by Dory that he doesn’t actually want to be alone forever, and that he should live in the ocean with her and her friends. He decides that would be the best option for him.

Ed O’Neill was cast as Hank, having previously voiced the character Mr. Litwak in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) for Disney. He reprised this role in the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). O’Neill is known for his roles in television series, such as starring as Al Bundy in Married…with Children (1987-97), and more recently, as Jay Pritchett in ABC’s Modern Family (2009-20). O’Neill is set to appear in All’s Fair (2025), a new legal drama series for Hulu, starring Kim Kardashian and Naomi Watts.

Destiny is a whale shark who was childhood friends with Dory, communicating through the institute’s pipes. She stills like Dory even after all the years. Dory and Destiny pick up right where they left off with Destiny being a huge help to Dory in finding her parents, knowing exactly what exhibit she is from. Destiny also overcomes her fear of the ocean, having been in captivity for most of her life, if not all of it. She then returns home with Dory and the others to start her new no-walls life.

Destiny was voiced by Kaitlin Olson, who rose to fame with her role as Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds in the comedy series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present). Olson currently appears in the recurring role of DJ Vance in the series Hacks (2021-present), and stars as Morgan Gillory in the ABC drama series High Potential (2024-present) for ABC. In movies, Olson was cast as Tatiana in The Heat (2013), which was led by Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, and as Ms. Nielsen in Netflix’s Incoming (2024).

Destiny’s neighbour at the Marine Life Institute is beluga whale Bailey, who seems to be a hypochondriac as he had a head injury ages ago and became convinced his echo location was gone forever. Because of this, Destiny and Bailey have a bit of a contentious relationship, as Destiny thinks Bailey is just making a fuss and needs to get it together! She manages to convince him to try to use his echo location to get Dory through the pipes and much to Bailey’s surprise, it works. His echo location comes in quite handy in this movie. Bailey is also the one to encourage Destiny to jump out of their tanks together and leave the institute, so they both encourage each other.

Ty Burrell was cast as Bailey, and he is also known for his role in Modern Family, like Ed O’Neill. Burrell played Phil Dunphy on that show, winning Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2011 and 2014 for his role, as well as a Screen Actors’ Guild Award in 2013. Outside of that, Burrell also voiced the character of Peabody in the animated movie Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014), and was cast as Jean Pierre Napoleon, the French Interpol agent, in Muppets Most Wanted (2015).

For Charlie and Jenny, Dory’s parents, they spent much of Dory’s childhood trying to prepare her for life with short-term memory loss, which can be a struggle, as well as the fear that Dory may end up forgetting them because of it. After Dory goes missing, her parents search for her, but despite the length of time that has passed, they never lose hope that Dory may return to them, doing the smart thing and staying in one place instead of scouring the ocean for her. They leave out trails of shells like they used to when Dory was little, to help lead her home. They are ecstatic when Dory does come back to them and they return home with her, ensuring that they will never be separated from her again.

Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton voice Charlie and Jenny. Both have had incredible careers, so here are some highlights from their acting careers. In more recent years, Levy is known for being the co-creator and actor behind the character of Johnny Rose in Schitt’s Creek (2015-20), winning Emmy awards for Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Comedy Series in 2020. His son, Daniel, also co-created the series and played David Rose. Levy played a version of himself in Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building (2021-present), and currently hosts the travelogue series The Reluctant Traveler on AppleTV+ (2023-present). Other past roles Levy may be known for are his recurring role as Noah Levenstein in the American Pie film series, and as Dr. Walter Kornbluth in Splash (1984).

Diane Keaton’s earlier roles include playing Kay Adams-Corleone in The Godfather series, as well as starring in the title roll of Annie Hall (1977), for which she won the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She also starred alongside Steve Martin as Nina Banks in Father of the Bride (1991) and Father of the Bride Part II (1995), which Eugene Levy also had small cameo roles in. She was later cast as Erica Barry opposite Jack Nicholson in the romantic comedy film Something’s Gotta Give, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress. In more recent years, she played Diane in Book Club (2018) and its 2023 sequel, with Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen.

There is also Fluke and Rudder, the lazy sea lions who sit on a rock outside the institute all day, protecting this rock from odd sea lion Gerald. They are very protective of their rock, and only use it as leverage to Gerald’s pale being shooing him away. I wonder what Gerald ever did to them to make them react in this way? Gerald gets his own back though, because when Fluke and Rudder do decide to leave the rock to watch Dory’s plan with the truck in action, he takes over the rock – although I’m sure Fluke and Rudder were able to get it back from him!

Fluke was voiced by Idris Elba, who voiced characters for two other movies for Disney in 2016: Chief Bogo in Disney’s Zootopia, and Shere Khan for The Jungle Book live-action. Elba has continued to voice act, for example with his role as Knuckles in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. On television, Idris Elba appeared as Stringer Bell in The Wire (2002-08), and starred as DCI John Luther in the BBC series Luther (2010-19), for which he won a Critics’ Choice Television award, a Golden Globe award, and a SAG award. Elba also portrays Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Dominic West voiced Rudder. He had previously played Detective Jimmy McNulty in The Wire, and portrayed Fred West in the British TV movie Appropriate Adult (2011), winning a BAFTA for his role. He was cast as Noah in the series The Affair (2014-19), winning Satellite Awards for Best Actor in a TV Series – Drama in 2015 and 2016. West was also cast as Prince Charles in Seasons 5 and 6 of The Crown (2016-23) for Netflix, and currently plays Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke in SAS: Rogue Heroes (2022-present). Other recent roles include Dr. Chris Cox in comedy-drama series Brassic (2019-25) and Guy Dexter in Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) and The Grand Finale (2025).

Other characters who return in Finding Dory include Crush the sea turtle, who guides Marlin, Dory, and Nemo to California, still voiced by Andrew Stanton, director of both Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, and Mr. Ray, Nemo’s teacher, who takes them to the ray migration, also still voiced by Pixar story man Bob Peterson. Another Pixar employee to voice a character here is Torbin Xan Bullock, an editor for Pixar, who voiced Gerald.

There are many cameo roles in Finding Dory too. One is Sigourney Weaver who provides the voice of the public messages at the Marine Life Institute, such as the aim of the institute to “rescue, rehabilitate, and release” creatures to the ocean. Weaver won Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her role as Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (1988), and for Best Supporting Actress as Katharine Parker in Working Girl (1988). Weaver is also known for playing Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise, as well as Dr. Grace Augustine in the Avatar films, and even Dana Barrett in the Ghostbusters movies. For Pixar, Weaver was the voice of Axiom computer in WALL-E (2008).

Then, we have Stan and Inez, the two kelp bass who try to help lost baby Dory at the start of the film. They were voiced by Bill Hader and Kate McKinnon, both former cast members of Saturday Night Live (1975-present). Hader was there from 2005 until 2013, and McKinnon from 2012 to 2022. Hader also voiced a few characters for Disney and Pixar movies, such as Fear for Inside Out (2015); J.P. Spamley in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018); and Featheringhamstan in Lightyear (2022). He voiced the main role of Flint Lockwood in Sony Pictures’ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and its 2013 sequel; and Guy Gagné in DreamWorks’ Turbo (2013). McKinnon is no stranger to voice acting either, having voiced Stella and Eva in The Angry Birds Movie (2016). She was also the voice of Miss Frizzle in The Magic School Bus Rides Again (2017-21). Both actors have appeared in numerous comedy movies, such as Hader playing Dr. Aaron Conners in Trainwreck (2015) and George Custer in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009); and McKinnon for her roles as Weird Barbie in Barbie (2023) and Morgan Freeman – not the actor – in The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018), alongside Mila Kunis.

The whole “Tank Gang” from Finding Nemo also reprise their voice roles for a special post-credits scene in Finding Dory, where they are “rescued” by employees at the Marine Life Institute after being spotted in their plastic bags, now covered in algae. This includes Willem Dafoe as Gill; Brad Garrett as Bloat; Alison Janney as Peach; Austin Pendleton as Gurgle; Stephen Rott as Bubbles; and Vicki Lewis as Deb. The voice of Jacques the cleaner shrimp was replaced by Jerome Ranft, the brother of Jacques’ original voice actor Joe Ranft, and also an employee at Pixar.

Finally, John Ratzenberger, who voiced a character in every Pixar movie up until Onward (2020), including Hamm in Toy Story franchise, and returned as a voice cameo for the studio in Inside Out 2 (2024), voiced Bill the crab in the Open Ocean exhibit.

PRODUCTION

Given the 13-year gap between Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, it might be assumed that Pixar never intended to make a sequel to Finding Nemo, at least not initially. However, it has been reported that around 2005, Disney tasked Circle 7 Animation, a division of Walt Disney Feature Animation that only lasted from 2004 to 2006, with making a Finding Nemo 2. At the time, they’d also planned to make a Monsters, Inc. 2 and a different version of Toy Story 3, as a way of using Pixar properties. Allegedly, Finding Nemo 2 was meant to see Nemo and his long-lost twin brother go on a mission to rescue Marlin from an aquarium[1].

Luckily, once Pixar and Disney came to an agreement for Disney to acquire Pixar in 2006, this animation division was shut down and these ideas were scrapped, allowing Pixar to leave the decision of what happened with Finding Nemo in the capable hands of Pixar employees, namely the movie’s director Andrew Stanton.

Stanton has admitted that rarely does he watch the movies he’s made after their release, because during the development process, movies have to be screened and watched so many times to make sure they are on the right track.

But around 2010, Stanton had to watch the 3D version of Finding Nemo to sign it off for its release. Finding Nemo in 3D was available for a limited time at theatres during 2012, for Finding Nemo’s 10^th anniversary. Whilst watching, Stanton started to wonder how easily Dory could get lost again, and he began to feel worried for this character, that she might forget about her new family with Marlin and Nemo because she’d seemingly already lost her actual family. All the backstory that had been given to Dory for Finding Nemo was that she had been swimming alone in the ocean for many years before she met Marlin, and that she was probably overly optimistic and positive because her memory loss problem had caused some to abandon her, meaning Dory puts on a façade to get fish to like her and stay with her. That’s a clear reason why she got upset whenever Marlin said he wanted to continue his journey to find Nemo without her. Now, Stanton was wondering where Dory was from, what happened to her parents, and just how much could her memory deal with.

Stanton began to discuss this idea privately with co-workers, not wanting to cause mayhem at the Pixar studios with talk of “Finding Nemo 2”. Once he’d thought it over more and had a story together, focusing on Dory’s emotional memory, instead of her memory of names, locations etc., Stanton pitched it to John Lasseter, then Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animation, around early 2012. Lasseter was happy to greenlight this endeavour so Stanton hired a writer to work on the story further. I assume this writer was Victoria Strouse, credited as co-writer of Finding Dory’s screenplay. Strouse went on to co-write the movies Let It Snow (2019) and Family Switch (2023), both for Netflix[2].

Now that Finding Dory was happening, the story needed some work before locking that in and moving on to animation. This required many rewrites as well as numerous areas of research. It also required the team to push away the fear of making a sequel, which is deemed to be even harder than making an original movie because most of the characters are already there, and parameters have been set in terms of their characteristics and behaviours, so these cannot be changed. The team working on Finding Dory said they had to forget they were making a sequel and just try to make the best film they could[3].

The initial concept for Finding Dory was always going to be about Dory finding home, but how could they make that happen for a character who has short-term memory loss? This concept came from the fact that goldfish memory apparently only lasts around five seconds. Goldfish can’t “cure” their “memory loss”, so why should Dory? But not being able to remember your home is quite an obstacle to finding it, so there had to be a way of triggering Dory’s memories. In the final film, we see that Dory’s memory of her past is triggered by certain things, like seeing a shell, or hearing about an undertow. Nemo then manages to trigger a whole flood of memories when he mentions “the Jewel of Morro Bay, California”, the phrase Dory was mumbling when she was in shock from being swept away by the undertow at the ray migration[4]. This was going to be something Nemo heard while Dory was “sleep swimming”, with this sequence being completely finished and even used in the Finding Dory teaser trailer before being cut. The idea of a flood of memories is quite accurate to real-life because our memories can be recalled through something simple, like a smell or a song.

But how would Dory find her home? She’d have to cross the whole ocean to get there, and where would she even be going? In a deleted scene, an initial idea for this was that Dory would have a migratory instinct, where her fins would guide her home, this being something that Nemo had learnt about at school. Nemo and Marlin would’ve been right with Dory as she began her journey, simply following her fins. There was also a big-mouthed clam in this deleted scene who was meant to be Marlin’s nosy neighbourhood, who would tell Dory that her memory loss must be linked to some sort of childhood trauma. In the end, the character of the clam was added to the final movie, in the pond that Marlin and Nemo get into via the institute’s splash pad fountains, who just talks about himself and his sad love life! This clam was voiced by director of Finding Dory Andrew Stanton.

Another idea that appeared in an early scene that was later cut but appeared in the final film was the ray migration. Originally, Dory was meant to take Nemo to the ray migration alone, something Marlin isn’t sure about but feels guilted into agreeing to. He tells Dory to be hyperaware of her surroundings and if either she or Nemo gets separated, they should wait under a ledge. On the day of the migration, Nemo and Dory arrive together, but Dory gets distracted after seeing two blue fish who she thinks are her parents. She chases after them and then forgets what she was doing. She goes home with some other fish. Once home, Marlin asks where Nemo is and is furious to see Dory forgot about him. She couldn’t even remember taking him to the ray migration. Luckily, Nemo did as he was told and waited under a ledge until Marlin and Dory find him.

One of the more annoying character points that was quickly removed was that Dory’s parents were also going to have memory loss. This came from a line in Finding Nemo where Dory explains her short-term memory loss, saying it runs in her family, or at least, she thinks it does. This meant that Dory’s parents also forgot about her, so when Dory did eventually find home in a cut scene, she saw no-one there, and swum out to sea. Dory’s parents were told to use their fins to find their home via this homing instinct that was used in another deleted scene. They would eventually find home and Dory, with the parents apologising for not remembering her. However, it soon became clear that having three characters with memory loss was irritating, plus, having parents who can’t remember their child is not ideal! Because Dory only says she thinks memory loss runs in her family, this element of the story could be removed, simply accepting that Dory was wrong on this fact[5].

Something that Andrew Stanton had initially wanted to do with Finding Nemo was tell Marlin’s backstory about his life with Coral through the form of flashbacks, but this concept didn’t work and just made Marlin a difficult character to like. But for Finding Dory, Stanton got to experiment with flashbacks once more, for Dory’s backstory.

There were multiple different prologues that were made to open the story, revolving around Dory’s childhood. The first would’ve seen Marlin bumping into Dory as per their meeting in Finding Nemo, going all the way up to them meeting Bruce. Marlin would’ve then beaten him up and caused all the sea mines to explodes. Obviously, that never happened in the original movie and that is because this is Marlin’s parent presentation at Nemo’s school, talking about his journey to rescue Nemo. A kid asks about Dory’s family, confusing her and making her think. Marlin says Dory is part of their family and there’s no need for further questions. This led Nemo to become concerned that Dory might leave to find her family.

Another prologue showed young Dory getting lost and floating out to sea, before going to the scene from Finding Nemo of Marlin bumping into Dory whilst searching for the diver’s boat. There was also a third prologue that involved Dory’s parents’ memory loss, apparently something that affects all blue tangs. The three go on a walk together and repeat the same conversation over and over again, but when Dory chases after a fish, she gets lost. Dory kept swimming until she bumps into Marlin like in the first film. A fourth version was closer to the final film but gave away too much of Dory’s backstory, showing instantly how she got lost, i.e., by being sucked into the pipes by the undertow in her exhibit.

Finally, another set of deleted scenes was meant to include the “tank gang” from Finding Nemo, who were meant to help Marlin and Nemo get into the institute to save Dory via a series of complicated military-like plans, including riding on flying fish and loons[6].

Research in the real world was also helpful in cementing the story of Finding Dory. For example, Pixar spent a lot of time at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, south of San Francisco, and based their Marine Life Institute on the layout of this aquarium, as they’d explored public areas and backstage areas. The Marine Life Institute was decided to be the setting of Finding Dory based on clues given about Dory’s character in the first movie, like being able to read showing that she had to be somewhere near humans, and how she can speak whale, meaning she needed to be around whales at some point in her life. New characters were also added to match the location of coastal California, which is why there are otters and sea lions here[7]. Other places they went to include the Vancouver Aquarium and the Marine Mammal Center in California to get further information on what a place like the Marine Life Institute would look like.

It’s also been said that the documentary film Blackfish (2013), about orca whales in captivity and their behaviours, with a particular emphasis on SeaWorld’s duty of care, or lack thereof, to their orcas and personnel. Blackfish was a sensational documentary, containing many claims and questions that were quite damning, and was very popular on its release. The Pixar team watched Blackfish and John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton sat down to discuss it with Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite. It has been assumed that Pixar adjusted their Finding Dory story based on this documentary, suggesting that perhaps it was meant to be set in an aquatic theme park but was later changed to a rehabilitation centre, to avoid too many comparisons with parks like SeaWorld. It’s also been said that releasing the sea creatures back into the ocean was added in to the story based on this documentary[8]. Pixar hasn’t commented on exactly how Blackfish impacted Finding Dory, only saying that it was just one area of research that they undertook during the development process.

With a concrete story in place, work could begin on animating it. One thing to note is that all the work done on Finding Nemo is not simply stored in Pixar’s computers, ready to use again if needed. Everything had to be rebuilt and recreated again, however, the benefit of a 13-year gap between movies was that there had been many improvements to technology around imagery and rendering, such as Pixar adopting the new technology RIS, the next-generation of RenderMan, Pixar’s core system to render animation and visual effects. This helped deal with light in more sophisticated and accurate ways[9]. Since they knew they were going to use a replay of the scene of Dory and Marlin meeting in Finding Nemo as part of the opening sequence of Finding Dory, this was a good test to see how much could be changed from the original film[10].

There were also plenty of new sets to create as well as new characters. One of these new characters that particularly benefitted from new technology was Hank the septopus, although even then, making a flexible character on a computer was a challenge. Hank was the most complicated character that Pixar had ever made. Drawings of the character looked good but having to animated him on computer filled animators with a mixture of excitement and dread! It was exciting to see how he could camouflage and move around on land, solving the logistical problem of Dory making her way through the human world, but with all those tentacles and that squishy body, shapeshifting and changing colour, it took a while to figure him out. It apparently takes between six and nine months to create characters at Pixar, but it took over two years to work out Hank!

To research the character, Pixar workers went backstage at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to feed and interact with an octopus. They found that the suckers on their tentacles are incredibly strong, and that they like to escape in real-life, by using their tentacles to open hatches and lids, sometimes just creeping their tentacles up and over the lip of their tanks. The animators also looked to Kaa from Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967) as a reference point for animating Hank’s tentacles.

Randomly, Hank was meant to be addicted to hot sauce, and would drink it all over the park, but this became distracting, so was removed. No doubt that would’ve made the animation even harder as well! Another thing that was removed was Hank’s eighth tentacle, which helped with the animation, since they had one less tentacle to work with[11].

Pixar can’t have a movie without Easter eggs so naturally, these were included in Finding Dory. For example, A113, referencing the room at CalArts where some of Pixar’s animators studied, can be seen on Fluke and Rudder’s tags, with one saying “A1” and the other “13”. It is also on the licence plate of the institute’s truck, as “CAL A113”. The Pizza Planet truck can seen rusting away in the Shipping Lanes scene. In reference to Pixar’s next movie, a Lightning McQueen plaster can be seen on the hand of the truck driver; the Pixar movie to follow Finding Dory was Cars 3 (2017). In The Good Dinosaur (2015), the movie preceding Finding Dory, Hank was spotted in a pool of water that Arlo the dinosaur falls into.

Some other Easter eggs include the Marine Life Institute’s motorboat reading “1200 PA”, referring to the address of Pixar’s headquarters, 1200 Park Avenue. In quarantine, there is a pipe with “Seawater Supply TL59” written on to it. This is a nod to a similar pipe in the Disneyland attraction Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, which itself refers to 1959, the original opening date of Submarine Voyage, and Tomorrowland, its location.

MUSIC

The Finding Dory soundtrack consists of mostly instrumentals from another ocean-inspired score, composed by Thomas Newman. Newman composed the score for Finding Nemo (2003), as well as WALL-E (2008) and Elemental (2023), also for Pixar.

Within the score, there is a mixture of pieces that evoke the excitement of a long-awaited journey, as well as the perils and dangers of that journey. “Finding Dory (Main Title)” is a stand-out piece within the score, as it manages to capture some of Dory’s child-like spirit and joy, and uses abstract vocals to get the feel of marine noises travelling through the sea[12].  “Lost at Sea” also has similar elements to it, as it continues Dory’s journey through the sea as a child, desperately trying to remember her parents and where they are. Elements of “Main Title” appear again in “Quite a View” for when Dory and Marlin sit at the drop-off and just take in the view at the very end of the film. Some of the music that is used for scenes at the Marine Life Institute are quite calming, matching the feeling that we get at the aquarium, where everything seems slower and more relaxed as we watch fish swimming around in their tanks. This is felt during pieces like “Sigourney Weaver” and “Open Ocean”. I also like “…Shells”, which plays when Dory reunites with her family.

I like the calmer, more emotional pieces of music in any score, but others that have a sense of threat include ones like “Hands!” for when Dory and Hank get trapped in the Kid Zone, and “Okay with Crazy” as Dory and Hank hijack the institute’s truck.

There are only two songs credited in Finding Dory and only one of these features on the official soundtrack. This is the End Credits song “Unforgettable”, written by Irving Gordon and performed by Sia. It is a cover of the song which was previously recorded by Nat King Cole in 1951, and featured on his 1952 album of the same name. I don’t really understand why Pixar chose to use “Unforgettable” as their End Credits song, other than it is a clear reference to Dory’s memory, where she has memory loss, but did not forget her family. However, I find Sia’s version of this song quite haunting, as many of her songs, especially the slower ones, tend to be. Not that I have a problem with that normally; I like a lot of Sia’s music, but I don’t think her version of “Unforgettable” fits here. I was expecting a more upbeat, positive song to end the movie, like Finding Nemo’s “Beyond the Sea”.  

The other song credited in Finding Dory is “What a Wonderful World”, written by Robert Thiele and George David Weiss, and performed by Louis Armstrong. This song was originally recorded in 1967. Here, the song is used to accompany the slow-motion sequence of the Marine Life Institute’s truck tumbling into the ocean, spilling all of the marine creatures back to their home. The song is naturally quite relaxing and calming, so it’s fun to see it combined with a scene that would actually be quite disturbing and shocking to see in person; I suppose that was the joke!

There is another small song that shouldn’t be forgotten and that is the rays’ migration song, “O, We’re Going Home”. It is sung by the group of rays as they pass by the field trip on their way home as part of their migration journey. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it lets us in on just why Mr. Ray sings so much! It is unclear who specifically performs this song, but the lyrics were written by Finding Dory screenwriters Andrew Stanton and Victoria Strouse, and Pixar story man Bob Peterson, voice of Mr. Ray.

Finding Dory’s soundtrack was not nominated for as many awards as the Finding Nemo soundtrack, not even at the Annies. However, it was nominated at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards for Best Original Score in an Animated Film, but it did not win; Alexandre Desplat’s work on The Secret Life of Pets (2016) did. Newman himself was nominated for Soundtrack Composer of the Year in 2016 at the World Soundtrack Awards, for his work on Spectre (2015), Bridge of Spies (2015), and Finding Dory, but lost out to Carter Burwell, for his music on movies like Hail, Caeser! (2016) and Carol (2015).

RECEPTION

At the 2015 D23 Expo Panel for Pixar, they spoke about The Good Dinosaur, which was to be released in November 2015, originally the release slot for Finding Dory, but both were pushed back. Finding Dory was obviously mentioned too, with Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane, co-director of Finding Dory, on stage to discuss it. Angus MacLane had worked at Pixar since 1997, working as an animator on some of their biggest movies like Up (2009), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Finding Nemo (2003). He later directed the Toy Story spin-off Lightyear (2022), and was subsequently let go from Pixar in 2023 as part of a company restructuring. MacLane and Stanton introduced the voice actors on stage, Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O’Neill, Ty Burrell, and Kaitlin Olson, and their characters were discussed, with some footage from Finding Dory being shown to attendees.

After a premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on 8^th June 2016, Finding Dory was widely released in the US on 17^th June 2016, making its way to other countries over the following months. Unlike Finding Nemo, Finding Dory was released in both IMAX and 3D at the time of its initial release. The new short Piper (2016), about a little sandpiper trying to balance eating with a fear of drowning, learning how to act like a hermit crab in the process, was released alongside Finding Dory. It is one of three shorts at the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival attraction in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort.

Finding Nemo has made around $940 million at the box-office worldwide, over two releases. It was the most successful animated movie of all time until Toy Story 3 in 2010. How would Finding Dory do? Early signs were incredibly positive as Finding Dory raked in $136.2 million in its domestic opening weekend. The global opening for that weekend increased the figure to $186.2 million, and the movie had $200 million by the end of its first week, with many international markets, like the UK and Germany still waiting for the movie.

Finding Dory broke records for: the opening weekend for an animated movie; the largest single day for an animated movie; and the largest opening day for an animated movie. It also beat the domestic opening weekends of all previous Pixar movies, including Toy Story 3 with $110.3 million and 2015’s Inside Out with $90.4 million. It even beat Disney Animation’s recent hits of Zootopia (2016), with $75.06 million, and Frozen (2013) and its $67.39 million[13]. Finding Dory crossed the $1 billion mark on 9^th October 2016, becoming only the second film in Pixar history, after Toy Story 3, to reach this figure. It settled at $1.029 billion. Finding Dory was only the fifth animated film to take $1 billion of box-office revenue, after Frozen (2013), Minions (2015), and Zootopia, and Toy Story 3[14]. It peaked at No. 4 on the list of highest-grossing animated films at the time.

With help from Finding Dory, as well as a whole list of other movies Disney released in 2016, including Captain America: Civil War, Zootopia, and the remake of The Jungle Book, the studio crossed the $2 billion mark at the domestic box office on 16^th July 2016. A week earlier, Disney surpassed the $5 billion mark globally, and crossed $3 billion in international grosses on 6^th July 2016. In the second-half of 2016, they also released Pete’s Dragon, Doctor Strange, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Moana, so even more money was awaiting them by the end of the year[15].

Finding Dory was met with mostly positive reviews, who enjoyed the beautiful animation, and the new characters and voice cameos. Hank was considered to be a fun new sidekick, and many liked how the movie had deepened Dory, making her more of a sympathetic character with those adorably cute childhood scenes. It was funny, moving, charming, and warm, as we’d all expect from Pixar. It was considered to be a sequel that worked for the majority of viewers.

But you can’t please everyone, and this being a sequel meant it was always open to scrutiny and comparison. It is no secret that Finding Dory follows a similar story to that of Finding Nemo, and for some, that simply isn’t enough to warrant a sequel. That didn’t bother me with Finding Dory because I liked the new setting, but I can understand this opinion. Others said it was just not as good as Finding Nemo and was pretty unnecessary.

This sentiment could be seen as being reflected in awards season as Finding Dory did not receive as much acclaim as Finding Nemo did. For example, Finding Nemo won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film, and cleaned up at the Annie Awards. In comparison, Finding Dory was not even nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars, although Disney’s Zootopia and Moana were, with Zootopia winning. Piper, the short Pixar film that accompanied Finding Dory in theatres, did, however, win Best Animated Short Film here. At the Annie Awards, Finding Dory was nominated for Best Animated Feature but once again lost to Zootopia. It was also nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Character Animation, and Storyboarding, but lost to Jan Maas for Kubo and the Two Strings, and Dean Wellins for Zootopia, respectively. Piper once again won Best Animated Short Subject though. But, at the Saturn Awards, Finding Dory did win Best Animated Film. 

Finding Dory won other awards, including Favorite Animated Movie at the 2017 Kids’ Choice Awards and Ellen DeGeneres won Favorite Voice for Dory. The ensemble cast won the #Squad award here. At the Teen Choice Awards, Finding Dory won Choice Movie: Summer, and Ellen DeGeneres won for Choice Movie Actress: Summer. The film also won Favorite Movie and Favorite Family Movie at the People’s Choice Awards. DeGeneres won for Favorite Animated Movie Voice once again. I guess this shows that Finding Dory was not considered the amazing animated feat that Finding Nemo was but that it was still popular.

LEGACY

After Finding Dory was released, a short movie called Marine Life Interviews was released exclusively on the Finding Dory Blu-Ray. It is similar to Aardman Animations Creature Comforts, where the animals are being interviewed, answering questions about their time with Dory. Outside of that, there have been some other short episodes of Disney+ series themed to Finding Dory. One is an episode of Pixar: In Real Life, released in 2019, where the scene of Hank and Dory using a stroller to get round the Marine Life Institute is recreated in real life. Another is a Pixar Popcorn episode, from 2021, where Dory finds different trinkets on the ocean floor; and a LEGO Pixar: BrickToons short, titled Field Trip from 2024, showing LEGO versions of the characters going on a school field trip to a shipwreck. There is also talk of a National Geographic series called The Real Finding Nemo, announced at the end of 2024. This will follow in the footsteps of the A Real Bug’s Life series.

The Disney Parks have been representing the characters of Finding Nemo ever since its release in 2003, in parades, shows, and attractions. So, some of these experiences already existed before Finding Dory was released in 2016, but others opened later, and there are some experiences that were revamped to include characters from Finding Dory.

For example, at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, The Living Seas pavilion at Epcot closed in August 2005, reopening as The Seas with Nemo & Friends alongside a new attraction and updated aquarium space in January 2007. Here, there is the interactive show Turtle Talk with Crush, which opened in 2004. It uses a mixture of digital puppetry, image projection, and improvisation by an actor in real-time to make guests feel like they are having a conversation with fan-favourite Finding Nemo character Crush the sea turtle. Children can even ask Crush questions. A version of Turtle Talk with Crush exists at Disney California Adventure Park at Disneyland, opening in July 2005, and at Tokyo DisneySea in October 2009, which opened in October 2009. A similar show also exists at the Animator’s Palate restaurant on the Disney Cruise Line, and Walt Disney Imagineering even donated a Turtle Talk with Crush unit to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California in 2013. Ahead of Finding Dory’s June release date, characters like Dory, Destiny, Bailey, Hank, and Squirt were added to the shows at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland[16]. Due to the live nature of this show, Turtle Talk with Crush will be different every time you watch.

At Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World, Finding Nemo – The Musical opened at the Theater in the Wild on 24^th January 2007. Finding Nemo – The Musical was a roughly forty-minute show, featuring live actors and elaborate puppetry. Finding Nemo – The Musical closed in 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic closures. When it reopened in June 2022, the show reopened as Finding Nemo: The Big Blue…and Beyond! This show is now about 25 minutes long, and includes an opening sequence relating to the Marine Life Institute in Finding Dory, complete with Sigourney Weaver’s narration. Here, we see the Tank Gang from Finding Nemo getting ready to be released back into the ocean after a stay at the institute – they were picked up by institute workers at the end of Finding Dory – and them explaining how they got there, taking us back to the events of Finding Nemo. Some songs were cut from the original musical, including my favourite song, and more of the story was condensed. The ending of the musical sees the Tank Gang released from the institute and finding Nemo to see how he’s getting on at home. There is also a golden statue of Nemo and Dory at this park, as part of the Fab 50 Character Collection installed throughout Walt Disney World for the resort’s 50^th anniversary in 2021.

There is also a Walt Disney World hotel that features suites and courtyards themed to Finding Nemo, alongside those themed to The Lion King (1994), Cars (2006), and The Little Mermaid (1989). This hotel is Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, which officially opened on 31^st May 2012, becoming Walt Disney World’s 26^th resort. The Finding Nemo suites opened first on 31^st May with décor to match the movie’s settings and the main pool area of the resort is based on the film.

Speaking of hotels, at Disneyland, their newly renovated Pixar Place Hotel opened in January 2024, along with a new pool area, which is themed to Finding Nemo and Finding Dory and their characters. It consists of a splash pad area called Nemo’s Cove, and Crush’s Surfin’ Slide. Pixar Place Hotel itself is themed to Pixar and its movies, so you may find some Finding Nemo or Finding Dory artwork or Easter eggs when exploring the space.

Outside of that, Pixar Pier, which opened at Disney California Adventure in June 2018 as a retheme of Paradise Pier, has a few references to Finding Nemo and Finding Dory including a billboard featuring Gerald, Fluke, Rudder, the sea lions, and Dory. The Pixar Pal-A-Round Ferris wheel attraction here also has character-themed gondolas, with Dory and Nemo just two featured Pixar characters. At the Lamplight Lounge restaurant, you may also see some small references to the artwork of Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. Sadly, since the characters of these movies cannot walk around the park unlike other Pixar characters, they were not referenced much at Pixar Fest here in 2024, but they were included as projections for the Together Forever fireworks show during this festival.

At Disneyland, along with Turtle Talk with Crush, the biggest Finding Nemo addition to Disneyland was the reimagining of the Submarine Voyage ride at Tomorrowland in the original Disneyland Park. Submarine Voyage opened in 1959. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage opened in June 2007. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage now follows the story of visitors helping Marlin and Dory find Nemo once again and characters from the movie are projected into the water scenes, similarly to The Seas with Nemo & Friends attraction, at points throughout the ride[17]. Dory and Nemo were also added to it’s a small world here.

Outside of the US, there are some other Finding Nemo and Finding Dory attractions and experiences. At Disneyland Paris, specifically at the Walt Disney Studios Park – soon to reopen in 2026 as Disney Adventure World – in the Worlds of Pixar area is Crush’s Coaster, a thrilling, spinning rollercoaster, taking you through moments from the film, including the sharks’ shipwreck and a ride through the EAC. It opened in June 2007. At Shanghai Disneyland, there is a play area called the Junior Explorers Camp at Adventure Isle with an area themed to Finding Nemo. Two other areas are themed to The Lion King and Up (2009). At Tomorrowland in Shanghai Disneyland, there is an interactive exhibit called Pixar Adventurous Journey, with exhibits themed to different Pixar movies. One is Finding Nemo.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, there used to be a Turtle Talk with Crush attraction, however, it was only open through the summer of 2008, and did not return. However, you can see Nemo, Dory, and Peach the starfish within the it’s a small world attraction there. At the Disney Explorers Lodge Hotel, there is also a children’s indoor play area themed to Finding Nemo called Nemo’s Recreation Reef. At Tokyo Disneyland, along with their version of Turtle Talk with Crush, a new attraction, Nemo & Friends SeaRider opened at Tokyo DisneySea in 2017, taking over the space previously used by StormRider. This ride is a simulator attraction and takes guests through the Marine Life Institute in a submarine, experiencing moments from the movie and new scenes. You can also see Nemo, Marlin, and Dory within the it’s a small world attraction.

For parades and shows at the Disney Parks, Finding Dory specifically has been used less frequently than Finding Nemo, although a clip of baby Dory with her parents was used in the revamped nighttime show for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Rivers of Light: We are One back in 2019. This show no longer exists. This same image is used for the Momentous nighttime show at Hong Kong Disneyland, which seems to still be running. Finding Nemo characters are still used in Disney Stars on Parade at Disneyland Paris, with a whole float featuring the characters of Finding Nemo, including Crush, Dory, Bloat, and of course, Nemo. Previous versions of World of Color at Disney California Adventure included clips from Finding Nemo, and Nemo even flew over Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty castle during the Disneyland Forever fireworks back in 2015 for the park’s 60^th anniversary celebration.

On the Disney Cruise Line, there is the Nemo’s Reef water play area on the Disney Fantasy and Disney Dream. On the Disney Wish, Disney Treasure, and Disney Destiny, “Go with the Flow”, from Finding Nemo – The Musical, is performed as part of the Disney Seas the Adventure musical stage show. You can even experience a version of Turtle Talk with Crush at Animator’s Palate on some ships.

Pieces of merchandise have been available over the years since Finding Dory’s release, including toys, clothing, and pins. Finding Dory has not yet reached a milestone anniversary, with its 10^th anniversary being in 2026, so Finding Nemo merchandise is more frequently available.

As Pixar continue to announce upcoming sequels to popular properties, I’m sure many are expecting the announcement of a third Finding Nemo movie. Initially, director Andrew Stanton joked that he was too tired to think about making a third film, whereas Ellen DeGeneres said she would consider it if the story for a third movie was good enough. She thought it could be something about new character Hank the septopus. However, in 2024, DeGeneres was asked about whether she would do a third Finding Nemo movie and she categorically said she would not. Yet Pixar said around this time that there were some ideas for a third film. Many fans don’t think there is anywhere they can go with this franchise now, as Finding Dory was incredibly similar to Finding Nemo, and if Dory isn’t going to return with Ellen DeGeneres, they may as well not bother, in my opinion.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Back in 2016, after an amazing year for The Walt Disney Company and their movies, Pixar apparently made an announcement saying they would not be making any more sequels. Since Disney’s record-breaking year encompassed a variety of sequels alongside original movies, this announcement was a bit of a surprise, and is even more surprising to us now, because all anyone wants to make is sequels!

In this case, Pixar said they were misquoted, and simply meant that they had just done a couple of sequels and they had lots of original movies in the works. They reiterated that they only make sequels if the story is good enough and the studio want to do it[18].

Now, I don’t have a problem with the occasional sequel, and Finding Dory was a pretty great one for me, but sequels at Disney and Pixar are getting just a little bit silly now. They’ve actually only made four since Finding Dory, but with the difficult movie-going landscape right now, studios are taking comfort in sequels to bring in those audiences, so they can make some decent profit from these very expensive animated films.

It seems like 2016 was really the start of this sequel-making world we live in, and it has only increased after the COVID-19 pandemic and economic troubles caused many of us to rely on streaming services instead of movie theatres to watch new films.

Finding Dory might have seen Dory reconnect with her family, but it seems to have signalled a disconnect between studios, filmmakers, and their audiences. Sure, sequels make a lot of money if promoted well and have the backing of an audience already, but do too many, and you risk alienating the public.

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: The Disney Classics, ‘Circle 7 Animation (Pixaren’t)’, TheDisneyClassics.com, 4^th September 2021.

[2] Credit: Marina Draskovic, ‘Director Andrew Stanton Brings Dory Back’, D23.com, 17^th June 2016.

[3] Credit: Zach Johnson, ‘The Making of Finding Dory: Why It Took 13 Years to Make the Finding Nemo sequel’, EOnline.com, 18^th October 2016.

[4] Credit: Pixar, “What Were We Talking About?”, from Finding Dory (2016) UK Blu-Ray (2016).

[5] Credit: Matt Singer, ‘Andrew Stanton And Lindsey Collins On ‘Finding Dory’, Making Sequels, And What They Learned From Steve Jobs’, ScreenCrush.com, 14^th June 2016.

[6] Credit: Pixar, Deleted Scenes (2016), Disney+.

[7] Credit: BFI, ‘Pixar directors reveal Finding Dory animation secrets’, BFI.org.uk, 19^th July 2016.

[8] Credit: Amy Kaufman, ‘‘Blackfish’ gives Pixar second thoughts on ‘Finding Dory’ plot’, LATimes.com, 9^th August 2013.

[9] Credit: Disney, ‘Technology Enhances “Finding Dory” Filmmaking Process’, TheWaltDisneyCompany.com, 21^st June 2016.

[10] Credit: Matt Singer, ‘Andrew Stanton And Lindsey Collins On ‘Finding Dory’, Making Sequels, And What They Learned From Steve Jobs’, ScreenCrush.com, 14^th June 2016.

[11] Credit: Pixar, “The Octopus That Nearly Broke Pixar”, from Finding Dory (2016) UK Blu-Ray (2016).

[12] Credit: Pixar, ‘Dory’s Theme I Finding Dory (2016) Bonus Feature’, Capivaronator YouTube Channel, 28^th May 2024.

[13] Credit: Simon Thompson, ‘Why ‘Finding Dory’s Massive Box Office Makes A Third Film Inevitable’, Forbes.com, 23^rd June 2016.

[14] Credit: T.J., ‘‘Finding Dory’ Crosses $1 Billion in Worldwide Box Office Revenue’, PixarPost.com, 10^th October 2016.

[15] Credit: Disney, ‘Disney Hits 2016 Box Office Milestones in Record Time’, TheWaltDisneyCompany.com, 18^th July 2016.

[16] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Turtle Talk with Crush’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[17] Credit: Pixar, ‘Reinventing the Submarine Voyage I Finding Nemo’, Special Features Archive YouTube Channel, 16^th March 2025.

[18] Credit: BFI, ‘Pixar directors reveal Finding Dory animation secrets’, BFI.org.uk, 19^th July 2016.

1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. PRODUCTION
5. MUSIC
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

“Do you ever look at someone and wonder: what is going on inside their head?”

These are the opening words of Pixar’s Inside Out, the 15th movie to come from the studio, twenty years after their first movie, Toy Story, was released in 1995, becoming the first-ever computer-animated feature film.

Whereas Disney Animation is known primarily for animating fantasy and adventure stories, usually with some sort of children’s story or novel as inspiration, Pixar tend to base their movies simply in the relatability of human experience.

Although this is usually done with a fantastical twist, like the existence of monsters, or rats that can cook, or a little fish going missing in the ocean, there is still something about the plight of these non-human characters that us as people can connect with.

In the case of Inside Out, Pixar chose to actually look inside humans, basing their whole movie on how we think and feel. What would that look like? What is going on in our heads when we face conflicting emotions?

As well as chronicling the trials and tribulations of an 11-year-old girl during a particularly difficult move away from her hometown of Minnesota to the city life of San Francisco, Pixar took us inside the mind, personifying emotions, giving them responsibilities, and showing how memories are created.

When I first watched Inside Out, I remember thinking it was a very clever movie from Pixar. They showed us how memories might be stored, how thoughts are categorised, and what our imagination looks like in a way that was fun, colourful, and meaningful.

It was also very poignant, as it proved how useful sadness can be, trying to move us away from thinking that happiness is the only emotion people should feel, and that if they don’t, there must be something wrong with them. We now have a word for that: toxic positivity, a very unhealthy attitude to have.

Pixar rarely get a foot wrong when it comes to their films, though they have not always been perfect. However, Inside Out felt like a turning point for Pixar, as they’d made something not only entertaining, but significant. But it is worth noting that Inside Out might’ve been highly praised simply because it was released after the disappointing sequel Cars 2 (2011) and the prequel Monsters University (2013), with more sequels coming afterwards.

PLOT

Inside Out begins with the birth of its main human character, Riley. We see Riley as a baby and then go inside her mind to see Joy appear. Here, Joy can see through Riley’s eyes, watching her delighted parents. This moment creates Riley’s first memory, which Joy sees roll into Riley’s mind like a glass ball, and stack itself on nearby shelves. Joy is excited to help keep Riley happy throughout her life, expecting it to be just the two of them now.

But just a few seconds later, Sadness shows up as Riley cries for the first time. Over the coming days, other emotions join Joy and Sadness inside Riley’s mind. First, Fear, who keeps Riley safe from tripping over a cable whilst playing in the house; then Disgust, who saves Riley from being poisoned by broccoli; and Anger, who shows up to get Riley to voice her displeasure at being refused dessert if she doesn’t eat that broccoli!

As the years go on, Joy is pleased to find that the majority of Riley’s memories are all golden and happy, since memories match the colour of the primary emotion in that memory. At the end of each day, these memories are taken down to Long-Term Memory to be stored. Riley’s Core Memories are also golden and these power Riley’s personality, forming personality “islands” inside her mind, like Family Island, Friendship Island, Hockey Island, Honesty Island, and Goofball Island. As Riley has grown up though, Joy has been at odds with Sadness, not knowing what she is actually in “HQ”, as in Riley’s mind, for.

Joy knows that Riley is 11 now so doesn’t expect much to happen in her life. And yet Riley’s parents have packed up all their belongings and moving from Minnesota to San Francisco. The journey is long, so the emotions review some of Riley’s favourite daydreams about what their new house will be like. Riley is excited to see it, but when they arrive, she finds it is nothing special and is in fact very rundown and kind of dirty… Riley is horrified, but Joy tries to keep her spirits up. However, the more Riley sees of the house, the more her other emotions push Joy aside, creating bad memories of the place. To make it worse, Riley’s mother then tells her the moving van won’t be coming for days, and when Riley tries to lighten the mood by playing hockey in the house with a balled-up piece of paper, her dad is called out to work. Riley and her mother go out for pizza but discover that San Franciscans apparently have a love for broccoli on pizza. That is so wrong.

Riley’s emotions are struggling with what is going on, but none more so than Sadness, who keeps feeling the urge to touch happy memories, which turns them blue. Joy tells Sadness not to touch any more memories, but Sadness goes to touch a Core Memory and it falls out. Sadness cries she thinks she’s having a breakdown. Joy pushes the Core Memory back in to place, because without these, Riley’s personality “islands” will stop working and she’ll become a shell of her former self. Sadness is sent to read manuals and stay away from the main console of HQ. Joy is also concerned that many of Riley’s memories for that day are a mixture of Fear, Anger, and Disgust. That’s new.

That evening, Riley is sleeping on the floor of her new room in a sleeping bag, much to Disgust’s…disgust. Her mother comes upstairs to tell her that her dad is very busy with work and that the moving van is going to be even later, but she appreciates Riley taking it all in her stride and still making an effort to be happy. Despite Riley’s fear and upset at being forced to move here, she continues to put on a happy face. Now it’s time for sleep and Joy is on “dream duty”, excited to see what Dream Productions is putting on for the night. Joy is unhappy with their choice so puts on a memory of Riley ice skating with her parents instead.

The next day, Joy wakes up with even more enthusiasm than usual, waking the other emotions playing the accordion. It’s Riley’s first day of a new school and Joy wants it to be perfect. She orders Fear to write a list of all possible worst-case scenarios for the day; tells Disgust to choose a great outfit for Riley; and Anger is tasked with unloading daydreams from the Train of Thought in case Riley’s lessons are boring. Sadness, on the other hand, is confined to a circle which Joy drew on the floor, telling her not to step outside of it.

At school, Riley is immediately asked to introduce herself to the class by her teacher, something that Fear calculated was the worst-case scenario. Joy isn’t concerned though and Riley starts to talk a bit about Minnesota and how great it was living there… The emotions then see that Riley has started crying in front of everyone. Horrified, they turn around to find Sadness has stepped out of her circle and touched a memory, making it sad. They then notice that a Core Memory has been created – and it’s entirely blue. This is Riley’s first-ever sad Core Memory. Joy and Sadness fight over it, with Joy wanting to dispose of it, but as they fight, all of Riley’s Core Memories are knocked out of position, Joy picks them up but her, the memories, and Sadness are sucked into one of the tubes that transports Riley’s memories around the mind. They are thrown out of Headquarters, and dumped in Long-Term Memory. Joy and Sadness discover that none of Riley’s personality islands are working without the Core Memories, so they know they have to hurry back to HQ.

Joy and Sadness’s departure has left only Fear, Anger, and Disgust in HQ. It’s already apparent that Riley’s personality has changed as she sits slouched eating dinner with her parents. Her mother tries to ask about school but thanks to Disgust, Riley’s answer comes out sarcastic. This leads Riley’s mother to become worried and try to get Riley’s father involved. As we can see inside both of their minds now too, we know Riley’s father wasn’t paying attention, exasperating Riley’s mother. Riley’s father tries to contribute to the conversation but makes everything worse, inflaming the situation instead of calming it. This makes Riley angry and she is sent to her room. Riley’s father is pleased with how he put his foot down, but Riley’s mother knows it was a disaster… Riley’s dad tries to cheer Riley up later by acting silly but Riley is having none of it.

This brings us back to Joy and Sadness who are trying to navigate their way to HQ by walking along a thin bridge between Goofball Island and Headquarters. As Riley refuses to act silly with her dad, Goofball Island breaks away and Joy and Sadness run back to Long-Term Memory. Riley then falls asleep so Joy wants to be back in HQ by morning, but this means a long walk round to Friendship Island. Sadness doesn’t feel like moving but knows Joy will get lost in the maze that is Long-Term Memory. Sadness then shows she knows the route through so Joy drags her along with her. The next morning, they are still walking and Joy is annoyed to find that Sadness has touched all the bottom row of the Memory Shelves turning them blue. Joy sees some Memory Workers getting rid of old, faded memories, sending them to the Memory Dump to be forgotten forever. One of these that will never fade is the Triple Dent Gum jingle, which the workers like to send to HQ just for fun! Joy asks them for directions to Friendship Island but they walk away, ignoring her.

Back with Riley, she video calls a friend from Minnesota who tells her about this new girl on their hockey team and how amazing she is. Naturally, this upsets Riley who bluntly ends the call. This event causes Friendship Island to collapse just like Goofball Island, so Joy and Sadness cannot take that route now. They are back to walking again… Joy notices something pink seemingly taking some of Riley’s memories. Joy goes to confront him but he runs away, scared. It turns out Joy knows exactly who this. It’s Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend. Bing Bong says he’ll help them get back to HQ, with Joy promising she’ll get Riley to remember him, as he is being forgotten, once they’re back.

Bing Bong tells them the best way to get back is to catch the Train of Thought which has a station in Imagination Land. Bing Bong takes them through a “shortcut” which is actually Abstract Thought. Some workers turn the area on as Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong are walking through and they start to transform. First, they become fragmented, then deconstructed, then 2D, then simple shapes. They manage to jump out of Abstract Thought alive but have missed the train as they wait to regain their actual forms. There is another station through Imagination Land, so they keep walking, through French Fry Forest, Cloud Town, the House of Cards, where Bing Bong’s magical rocket/wagon has been left, and the Imaginary Boyfriend machine. At Pre-School World, Bing Bong’s rocket is taken by workers who are demolishing the whole area. Bing Bong is devastated to find that Riley is moving on from him. Joy tries to boost his mood, but it doesn’t work. Sadness then sympathises with him and they talk about Bing Bong’s sadness at things changing and him being forgotten. Joy is amazed to find that Bing Bong’s talk with Sadness has actually made him happier…

At HQ, Fear, Anger, and Disgust see Riley breaking down further. At hockey try-outs, without her Core Memory and Personality Island, Riley plays terribly and storms off upset, causing Hockey Island to collapse. Anger thinks he has a way of fixing this whole situation: by running back to Minnesota and creating new Core Memories. Disgust and Fear aren’t so sure, so they put a pin in that idea.

Back with Bing Bong, Joy, and Sadness, they have boarded the Train of Thought, but it stops soon after as Riley falls asleep. Luckily, they stopped right by Dream Productions. They decide to infiltrate the dreams to wake Riley up. On set, Sadness says they should scare her awake, but Joy doesn’t want to do that. Instead, they dress up like a dog and run onto the Dream Productions set. Joy and Sadness’s costume breaks apart though, so it looks like the dog has been cut in half. Bing Bong rushes on to set too to try and talk to Riley, and Dream Productions Security carry him out. This whole dream was being watched by Fear who was on Dream Duty too. He was unimpressed to say the least.

Joy and Sadness then go to the Subconscious where Bing Bong has been put in a cell. As the two try to enter the area, two guards see them and throw them inside. They follow a trail of candy wrappers to find Bing Bong in a cell made of balloons, sitting on top of a clown. This clown is Jangles and he is terrifying, which is why he is in the Subconscious; this is where all of Riley’s darkest fears live. Joy releases Bing Bong and then decides Sadness was right about scaring Riley awake, so they wake up Jangles and lead him to Dream Productions. Riley does wake up and they jump on the train. But at HQ, Anger decides they must take action and puts the running away thought in Riley’s head, by placing a literal light bulb in the console. Riley decides to do it, buying a bus ticket home, and stealing her mother’s credit card to pay for it, which breaks down Honesty Island.

On the train, Bing Bong picks up a memory of Riley playing hockey. Joy remembers that it was a day of celebration with her hockey team, but Sadness remembers that Riley actually was very sad that day after missing the winning goal in a big game. Honesty Island’s collapse causes the Train of Thought to derail and the three are pulled to safety by Memory Workers. They tell Joy Riley is running away. Sadness and Joy rush over to Family Island, the last personality island standing and go to a Recall Tube to get back to HQ. But as Sadness enters the tube, Riley’s Core Memories start to turn blue. Joy tells Sadness Riley needs to be happy and goes off without her. But the tube breaks, and as Bing Bong tries to help, he too falls, both of them heading right to the Memory Dump.

As Bing Bong loses hope that they’ll get out of there, Joy starts to cry and picks up the memory that they were just talking about. As she wipes a tear off it, she sees that this memory started off sad and then became happy. This shows to Joy that memories can have mixed emotions and that Sadness alerted others to how Riley was feeling so that they could come and comfort her to make her happy again. Joy knows she can’t just stay here, and finds Bing Bong’s rocket, powered by song power. The two get in the wagon and start to sing. They rise higher and higher…but it’s not enough. They keep trying but just can’t seem to get out of there. Bing Bong then realises he might be too heavy so at the last moment, he jumps out, causing Joy to make it back to Long-Term Memory. Looking down, she sees Bing Bong waving and then he fades away forever…

Back in San Francisco, Riley’s parents have discovered Riley is missing and so Family Island starts to fall. Joy quickly finds Sadness, who is floating on a cloud of tears, believing Riley is better off without her. Inside HQ, the emotions have discovered that Riley’s console is turning grey, and they cannot do anything to reverse Riley’s decision to run away. Joy then goes to the Imaginary Boyfriend machine and prints copies of the boys. She pushes Sadness towards Family Island. Using these boys, Joy basically makes a tower to stand on. She then tells them to fall forward, and she jumps onto the trampoline of Family Island before it falls, catching Sadness on the way. The two slam into one of the windows of HQ. Anger, Disgust, and Fear rush towards them, with Disgust winding up Anger so she can use his fire to break the window open. The three tell Joy to fix Riley, but she passes that responsibility over to Sadness. Sadness takes a deep breath and takes out the light bulb from the console, removing the thought from Riley’s head. She immediately gets off the bus.

At home, Riley’s parents are relieved to see she’s back unharmed. Sadness returns Riley’s Core Memories, turning them blue, which allows Riley to tell her parents that she misses home. It turns out her parents miss home too. The three comfort each other with a big hug. This creates the first mixed emotion memory for Riley. Family Island is restored.

One year later, Riley is twelve, and has begun to accept her new life in San Francisco, making friends, and joining the hockey team, with new Personality Islands forming too, like Boyband Island and Tragic Vampire Romance Island. Joy has also begun to accept Sadness in Riley’s mind, and more mixed emotion memories have been created. They soon find that the Memory Workers have expanded their console, with a new red button marked “Puberty” on it. Joy tells them not to worry about it; it can’t be that important.

In a mid-credits scene, we get to see inside the minds of others, including Riley’s teacher, who is counting down the days until she can go on vacation, seemingly to meet up with the same helicopter pilot that Riley’s mother once knew; a cool girl from Riley’s school who is finding it exhausting keeping up this façade that she’s too cool to care; and even a cat’s mind, where its Fear emotion plays about with the console, making the cat randomly go crazy in the real world. Oh, so that’s why cats do that!

CHARACTERS & CAST

Joy believes herself to be the leading figure of the five emotions that reside in Riley’s mind. She was the first one to be there to support Riley and she has vowed to keep Riley happy for the rest of her life. Happiness is the key emotion that many people strive for, however, that does not mean that you have to spend every day and every minute of your life feeling happy. That’s unrealistic and not even sustainable. So, on this journey through Riley’s mind, Joy has to accept that she cannot be the driver of Riley’s life all the time, and that even though she perhaps views the other four emotions, particularly Sadness, with scepticism over how much they improve Riley’s life, Joy has to accept that Riley can’t always be happy and that sometimes Sadness is necessary to help Joy do her job. Because Joy is enthusiastic and positive, she was designed to be a constant glowing spark, her light shining on to those around her, with a big sunny smile to match. Joy’s shape was based on a star.

Joy was voiced by Amy Poehler. Poehler was a cast member on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (1975-present) from 2001 until 2008. After that, Poehler was cast as Leslie Knope in the popular sitcom Parks and Recreation (2009-15), for which she was nominated for numerous Primetime Emmy and SAG awards, winning a Golden Globe in 2013 for her role. She is also known for her collaborations with former SNL writer and performer Tina Fey, being cast as Regina George’s mother in Mean Girls (2004), written by Fey, and appearing alongside her in other movies like Baby Mama (2008) and Wine Country (2019), with the latter being directed by Poehler. Poehler won a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award, a Women Film Critics Circle Award, and an MTV Movie Award for her voice role here.

Sadness is the least confident of the emotions, being quite insecure and unsure of her purpose in Riley’s mind, probably because Joy has spent eleven years trying to keep Sadness away from Riley’s memories and the HQ console so she doesn’t mess anything up. After helping Joy journey through Riley’s mind, Sadness is “rewarded” with Joy ignoring all of her ideas, like scaring Riley awake which turns out to work, and is then left behind by Joy as she tells Sadness Riley needs Joy more than her, causing Sadness to fly around on a cloud, crying her eyes out, believing she is useless and harmful to Riley. Joy has to convince Sadness that she was wrong all along and that Riley needs to feel sad at times to improve her mood. In the end, Sadness is the hero who makes Riley feel again. Sadness was initially going to be a male character named Bud who looked like a big blue blob. Sadness was then redesigned by artist Albert Lozano, who drew Sadness to look more like his mother. Sadness is shaped like an upside-down teardrop[1].

Phyllis Smith was the voice of Sadness. She is perhaps best known for her role as Phyllis Vance in sitcom The Office (2005-13), as well as her appearances in comedy films such as Bad Teacher (2011), alongside Cameron Diaz. Smith won the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Voice Acting in a Feature Production for her role as Sadness.

The next emotion to mention is Fear, the one who alerts Riley to real-life physical threats, like tripping over things or getting hurt, as well as the emotionally-charged dangers, like being laughed at on her first day of school. Fear is incredibly neurotic, getting worked up at the smallest thing, and catastrophising everything, but hey, I guess that’s his job. Fear was shaped to look like a nerve.

Bill Hader was cast as the voice of Fear. Hader was a cast member on Saturday Night Live (1975-present) from 2005 until 2013, also appearing in comedy films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) as Brian Bretter and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) as George Custer during this time. He had also voiced roles in animated movies prior to Inside Out. These roles include the main role of Flint Lockwood in Sony Pictures’ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and its 2013 sequel; and Guy Gagné in DreamWorks’ Turbo (2013). Hader has voiced characters in other Disney and Pixar movies too, including J.P. Spamley in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Featheringhamstan in Lightyear (2022). Hader also co-created, partially directed, and starred in the dark comedy series Barry (2018-23), for which he won two Critics’ Choice Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards for his acting role, and three Directors Guild of America and three Writers Guild of America Awards for his creation of the show.

Another emotion we meet is Disgust, who was initially designed to be disgusting herself, before the animators decided that wasn’t an appealing character design. Instead, she ended up being shaped like a piece of broccoli, which she ironically despises, albeit a well-dressed piece of broccoli! Disgust is first introduced to tell Riley not to eat the broccoli she is about to be fed, but her disgust spans more than just food, moving into fashion choices and even Joy’s suggestions about just going up to cool girls and talking to them!

Disgust was voiced by Mindy Kaling. Kaling was also cast in The Office (2005-13) in the role of Kelly Kapoor, before creating her own show, The Mindy Project (2012-17), where she starred as Dr. Mindy Lahiri. She has also appeared in comedy films, such as Ocean’s 8 (2018) where she was cast as Amita, and Late Night (2019), playing the part of Molly Patel. Kaling recently co-created a new show for Netflix, Running Point (2025-present), which stars Kate Hudson in the main role. Kaling is no stranger to voice acting either, having voiced the characters of Taffyta Muttonfudge in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Val Little in Monsters at Work (2021-present) for Disney; and the title role of Velma in the animated Scooby-Doo spin-off series Velma (2023-24).

The final emotion to mention is Anger, who is obviously the one who gets angry at everything, wanting things to be fair for Riley and not wanting to feel disrespected by anyone. Anger is the primary driver behind the idea to get Riley to run away and go back to Minnesota, something that he felt was a good idea after being annoyed at their lack of progress in creating Core Memories without Joy. He was basically at the end of his tether, but even Anger accepts that this was not the way to fix Riley in the end. Anger is rigid and immovable, so his character design was shaped to be like a brick[2].

Anger was voiced by Lewis Black. Black began his career in stand-up comedy, later appearing on The Daily Show (1996-present) to host a segment called Back in Black with Lewis Black, humorously commenting on news stories, which he still does today. Black also had his own series on Comedy Central titled Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil (2008).

The other main character in Riley’s mind is Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend, a creature that is part cat, part elephant, part dolphin, made of cotton candy and cries candy! Bing Bong has found himself living out the rest of his days in Riley’s Long-Term Memory but fears he will be forgotten soon as Riley is growing up and no longer needs an imaginary friend. He hopes that by helping Joy and Sadness get back to HQ that they’ll be able to get Riley remember him, but that never happens. Instead, Bing Bong sacrifices himself to the Memory Dump to allow Joy to return to HQ and make Riley happy again. It’s a heart-breaking moment, seeing Bing Bong fade away in that place…

Bing Bong is the most lovable and likeable of all the characters in Inside Out and I think that has a lot to do with his voice actor, Richard Kind. On stage, Kind has appeared in a variety of plays and musicals, including as Max Bialystock in The Producers Broadway production from 2004 to 2005, and at the Hollywood Bowl in 2012; as Andre Thibault in a 2005 Broadway production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; and as Marcus Hoff in The Big Knife, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor, and won the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. On screen, Kind was recently seen in Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building (2021-present), playing the part of Vince Fish, and as Caroll Mintz in the Hulu series Mid-Century Modern (2025). He also appeared in Tick, Tick…Boom! (2021) as Walter Bloom, and portrayed Rudy Giuliani in Bombshell (2019). Kind had also previously worked with Pixar prior to Inside Out, having voiced Molt, Hopper’s brother, in A Bug’s Life (1998) and Bookworm in Toy Story 3 (2010).  

For the human characters, we have Riley and her parents. Riley is initially a very happy child, having a keen interest in hockey, getting on well with her parents, and having lots of friends. Even when they move to San Francisco and things aren’t looking so great, Riley tries her best to make the most of the situation, although it is difficult. It’s not until Joy and Sadness depart HQ that Riley really struggles, losing parts of her personality and slowly becoming emotionless, to the point that she feels like running away is the best option. Thanks to her acceptance of how she feels about the move, and Joy and Sadness returning to HQ, she is able to go to her parents and tell them how she feels. Her parents are non-judgemental, caring figures so they listen to Riley’s thoughts, and tell her that they feel the same way, missing home and feeling a little bit scared too.

Riley was voiced by Kaitlyn Dias, who apparently pictured her cat dying in order to cry on cue for the recording of Riley’s most emotional moments. Talk about commitment to the role[3]! For Dias, this was one of her first roles, winning a Young Artist Award in 2016 for the category Best Performance in a Voice-Over Role – Young Actress. Diane Lane voiced Riley’s mother, having roles in a variety of movies including as Cleo Trumbo in the 2015 biopic Trumbo (2015); and as Martha Kent in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), reprising the role for Justice League (2017). Kyle MacLachlan voiced Riley’s father, who had roles in many television series, including as Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks (1990-1991; 2017); and as Trey MacDougal in Sex and the City (1998-2004).

Those are all the main characters, although there are some other fun voice cameos. Two of these are Frank Oz and Dave Goelz who voiced the guards who guard the Subconscious. Oz and Goelz are well-known for their puppetry work and collaborations with Jim Henson on the Muppets; Fraggle Rock (1983-87); and Sesame Street (1969-present). Oz has also directed movies such as The Dark Crystal (1982), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1998), and Little Shop of Horrors (1986). Goelz voiced Figment in the 2002 version of the Epcot attraction Journey Into Imagination with Figment.

Then there is Rashida Jones, known for her roles as Karen Filippelli in The Office (2005-13) and Ann Perkins in Parks and Recreation (2009-15), amongst many others, who voices the Cool Girl’s emotions, and of course, John Ratzenberger appears as Fritz, the Mind Worker who installs the updated console in HQ at the end of the movie. Ratzenberger had voiced a character in every Pixar movie up until Onward (2020) but would not return as a voice cameo for the studio until the release of Inside Out 2 (2024).

PRODUCTION

The basic premise of Inside Out came from the personal experience of Inside Out director Pete Docter and his daughter, Elie. Elie was the inspiration for 11-year-old Riley, with Elie Docter having previously been the model and voice actor for Young Ellie in Up (2009).

It is not unusual for parents to notice a change in their children, especially as they enter adolescence, and this was the case for Docter, who said his daughter had been outgoing, energetic, and goofy, but she all of a sudden became quiet, self-conscious, and moody, getting panicked about school sometimes. Docter wanted to understand what might be going on inside Elie’s head, so he made a movie about it!

Docter was interested in that weird place between childhood and adulthood, where the mood can switch between wanting to be a kid and play around and wanting to be treated like an adult, seemingly at random. Though Elie Docter adjusted to becoming a teenager, being sixteen at the time Inside Out was released, Docter wanted to show what it might be like inside the mind of the child when the parents see the light go out in their child’s eyes, and they become emotionless and difficult to reach.

Docter also used some of his own experience growing up in Minnesota, like Riley. He had found middle school particularly stressful, being labelled as a “geek” for not being good at sports, with this causing some social anxiety. Docter even had his own imaginary friend like Riley. Docter’s imaginary friend was a small elephant called Norma who drove a car[4]!

Docter, screenwriter Meg LeFauve, who also wrote the screenplay for Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (2015) around this same time, and Josh Cooley, who had worked as a story artist on Ratatouille (2007) and Up prior to Inside Out, began writing the story for Inside Out around 2010. However, as is the case with the majority of movies, although the basic idea of Inside Out was there, it took some time to properly decide on the overall plot of the film, with ideas being thrown in and tossed out over the coming months and years of development.

Joy was the most challenging character in Inside Out, because she represents the simplicity of childhood, but how does that relate to a girl who is quickly growing up? Initially, it was thought that perhaps Joy just wanted Riley to be happy so the whole story revolved around making Riley enjoy every day of her life, but that quickly became monotonous and superficial. So, the filmmakers thought: what if Joy is so passionate about keeping Riley in the safety and joy of childhood that she becomes nasty? Some of the Inside Out deleted scenes shed light on what this might have looked like. For example, there were moments when Joy was being self-centred and blind to the world, like not understanding why Riley would have to do chores and do homework at her age, and why she shouldn’t still be playing with her food or messing about during concerts. There was another scene of Riley at school where Joy was trying to get Riley to forget about making friends, something that the other emotions were actively wanting for Riley, and to go play on the monkey bars instead, and even said she wanted Riley to spit in these girls’ faces. Riley refused to listen to these “voices in her head” and made friends anyway, much to Joy’s surprise.

This idea didn’t work because it made Joy a difficult character to like. It was then decided that Joy should be paired up with another emotion through Riley’s mind, because then she’d have someone to bounce off and learn things from. Initially Joy was paired with Bud, an early design for Sadness, but the characters didn’t work together. Joy was later paired with Fear, with some of this storyline present in the deleted scene “Imagination Park”. Here, Joy was trying to get back to HQ, but Fear thought Joy was heading back to take it over, presumably to make Riley stay a child forever. Joy managed to outrun Fear who was chasing her with a Mind Worker, and get into Imagination Park. Joy continues to run through the area, still being pursued by Fear until she leads him into a room where a monster tries to get him. Fear sucked the monster up into a memory tube, but accidentally sucked himself into it too. Joy picked up the gun with Fear inside, with Fear apologising for his actions.

Joy paired up with Fear didn’t work either, so she was eventually paired up with Bing Bong, who was made to be Joy’s tour guide through Riley’s mind, but was also a type of radical non-conformist, dead set against the demolition of Imagination Park and expansion of the area to include areas about boys, sarcasm, and swearing. Bing Bong took Joy into this area and encouraged her to throw bricks at the workers. They ran out of the area to catch the train, despite the fact Joy was aware they were not even being chased.

There were other story ideas that just didn’t work. One deleted scene showed Joy looking for a Core Memory she had dropped in some water, and swimming to a beach where she found the memory broken. On the beach was a big house. Joy went inside and saw a young Riley dancing in a room. Young Riley wanted Joy to dance with her forever, but Joy finally accepted that she had to let go of Young Riley and allow her to grow up. Another early draft saw multiple emotions residing inside Riley’s mind, each with their own name that wasn’t just their emotion. For example, Fear was once called Freddie and Anger was called Ira. Preston, the Pride emotion, was a core member of the group initially, later replaced by Disgust, and other emotions such as Ennui and Schadenfreude made cameo appearances[5].

It’s evident that many different ideas were bounced around during early development on Inside Out, but a couple of years into the making of the movie, Docter found himself overwhelmed by this struggling story and uncertain of whether this was the movie he should be making. Joy was unlikeable, trying to resist Riley growing up, and there was no concept of Riley adjusting to a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Docter knew something wasn’t right with his story, and went for a walk to try and figure out how to fix it.

Through this walk, Docter contemplated the relationships in his life and the fact that they were the most important thing to him. Docter recalled all the happy moments he’d had with family and friends, but he also knew that he had been through many sad, troubling times with these same people. It appeared to be a real light-bulb moment, where it became clear that this movie had to be about Sadness and Joy, with Sadness teaching Joy the lesson that happy moments can sit alongside sad moments[6].

With this new plan in mind, Docter knew the whole movie would have to be re-storyboarded and would mean going through the producers, Pixar president Ed Catmull, and Chief Creative Officer at Pixar John Lasseter, to approve as this would affect the movie’s production schedule. Despite Docter’s worries, they were very understanding and allowed the film to go through some major re-writes[7].

There was also additional help from scientist and psychologists, who explained the nature of emotions and the science of memory to help the Pixar filmmakers with their story. According to psychologist Paul Ekman, there are six key emotions: Anger, Fear, Disgust, Joy, Sadness, and Surprise. Obviously, Pixar made their core team around five of these emotions, with Surprise being considered too similar to Fear and being dropped. It was also decided that different emotions would drive characters’ minds in Inside Out, so Riley is driven primarily by Joy in childhood, however, during the dinner scene where Riley gets in an argument with her father, you can see that Riley’s mother’s mind is headed up by Sadness, whilst Riley’s father’s mind is driven by Anger. This wasn’t meant to be a stereotyping of male and female adults, but instead, was meant to show that Joy likely will not be leading Riley’s console into adulthood, but another emotion will.

Emotions are heavily linked to memories, both in Inside Out and in the real world, so discussions about memories were also necessary for research. Pixar talked to the Mind Brain Behavior Institute in Columbia, who said that the most emotionally charged memories are the ones that are most likely to be remembered. They also stated that when we recall a memory, we are actually making a copy of that memory, not remembering it as though it has just happened. This creates some reliability even in eye witness accounts as not only can emotions alter facts, but memories change and can be altered based on conversations with others and outside influences, meaning they aren’t all that reliable[8].

This idea of memories not being overly reliable isn’t particularly relevant to Inside Out, since Riley isn’t a witness in a court case or anything, however, the memories being emotionally charged is relevant to the movie, as we see when Sadness and Joy are discussing the same memory about Riley and her hockey team, but are remembering it differently, with Joy remembering the happy celebratory mood of Riley’s teammates and parents, and Sadness remembering the guilt and upset at not scoring a winning goal.

Other mind-related topics were explored and researched too. Dacher Keltner, psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, discussed what makes people happy with true deep happiness not being about material things, like wealth and expensive things. Dreams are another factor of the mind present in Inside Out. The use and meaning of dreams are debated heavily in science, with some saying they are the brain’s way of working out issues, whilst others reckon they are just random firing of neurons and mean nothing much at all[9]. For Inside Out, to avoid this debate, the filmmakers chose to make dreams a form of entertainment, being created and filmed like a movie, with Dream Productions being reminiscent of a working movie studio.

In terms of animation, we get to see a representation of the real world, complete with landmarks of San Francisco, like the Golden Gate Bridge. Alongside that, we see a colourful, cartoony version of the human mind. If Pixar had chosen to visually represent the brain, it would’ve been fairly simple, as we have access to scans of the human brain, what it looks like and how it works. But this is the mind, not the brain, which is much less easy to understand and even more difficult to represent.

Pixar made the mind a bright, colourful place, with clever ways of representing turns of phrase or metaphors we use when discussing the inner workings of our minds, such as the Train of Thought being an actual train, and Abstract Thought getting its own space, where Sadness, Joy, and Bing Bong are broken down from their 3D forms down into basic shapes, like they are being “de-animated”. We also see that memories are created in what seem to be glass balls, with these being stored in shelves in HQ before being unloaded into Long-Term Memory, where memories are stored again on shelves, with faded or useless memories being disposed of in the Memory Dump, where the mind then forgets them. Pixar even thought about how we get random songs pop into our heads, like the Triple Dent Gum jingle. In Inside Out, the Mind Workers like to send the memory up into HQ where it then plays. There are so many other clever ideas in Inside Out that you can sometimes get caught up in the cleverness of the film and forget about the emotional core of the story.

Every Pixar movie has to have a list of Easter eggs and Inside Out is full of them. For instance, when Riley is video chatting her friend, there are a list of Riley’s contacts on the left-hand side of her screen. These include DocPete, Ronnify, and Domeeeee. These names relate to Pixar employees who worked on Inside Out. DocPete is obviously Pete Docter, the director; Ronnify is likely Ronnie del Carmen, who was co-director and co-creator of the story, having been a story artist on other Pixar movies such as Ratatouille (2007) and WALL-E (2008) previously; and Domeeeee is Domee Shi, a storyboard artist on Inside Out, going on to direct the feature films Turning Red (2022) and the upcoming Elio (2025).

There are also references to other Pixar movies. The Chinese takeaway boxes that Riley and her parents are eating from resemble those of Harryhausen’s in Monsters, Inc. (2001); the memory of Riley sliding down a slide looks just like the one in Sunnyside Daycare from Toy Story 3 (2010); and that memory of Riley and her parents taking pictures by dinosaur statues on their drive to San Francisco are a reference to the movie release that came after: The Good Dinosaur (2015), with those dinos matching Arlo, the main character, and the eccentric Styracosaurus Forrest Woodbush.

For the necessary Pixar Easter eggs that appear in every Pixar film, A113, the number that represents the room that many of the original Pixar animators studied in at CalArts, is the number of Riley’s classroom door, and can also be seen in graffiti on the streets of San Francisco. The iconic Pizza Planet truck is pictured in two memory balls, one during the scene of Joy chasing Bing Bong through Long-Term Memory and the other whilst they are on the Train of Thought.

In 2013, at the D23 Expo, the logo of Inside Out was revealed as were the five emotions that the movie would focus on, although the logo did become something very different in the end. The original logo seemed to be the outline of a human head with “Inside Out” written inside it. About a year before Inside Out’s release, Pixar screened the movie to children, concerned it was too confusing and complex. They were delighted to find that kids did in fact understand it, and used information from the film to help them open up to their parents about how they were feeling[10].

Disney Parks fans might have noticed after viewing the movie that Inside Out is quite similar to a now-closed Disney theme park attraction. This attraction was Cranium Command which opened in the Wonders of Life pavilion in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort on 19^th October 1989. It consisted of a short-animated pre-show, followed by a theatre experience. In this pre-show, guests saw General Knowledge talking to a group of recruits about their important job of piloting human brains. A small, young recruit named Buzzy is late to this meeting, annoying General Knowledge, who then forgets to assign him to a brain to pilot, meaning Buzzy is left with the most difficult brain: the brain of a 12-year-old boy! Guests were then led to a theatre, where they saw a stage of control panels and screens and were reunited with Buzzy, now in full Audio-Animatronic form. With this animatronic and screens, we saw Buzzy interact with different parts of the body, like the Stomach and the Bladder, to get Bobby, the boy whose brain is being piloted, through a day at school where he gets in trouble for fighting and meets new girl Annie. Cranium Command ran until 1^st January 2007, when the Wonders of Life closed permanently as a pavilion, becoming used as an Epcot Festival space for a few years. I loved Cranium Command and remember watching it a lot when I was younger during my trips to Walt Disney World. My mum and I would go and see that whilst my dad and older sister went on the simulator ride Body Wars which was too gross and intense for me!

Strangely enough, the closing of Cranium Command was not the end of Buzzy’s story because around 2018, when “urban exploring” was all the rage – especially for those with YouTube channels – many liked to break into the Wonders of Life pavilion, since it was no longer being used. The Buzzy animatronic was stolen around this time, with only the animatronics’ clothing being tracked down, to NBA player Robin Lopez and his friend who had bought the clothing, unaware that the items had been stolen. The Buzzy animatronic has never been found…

Cranium Command was not stated as a specific source of inspiration for Inside Out, however, the similarities are clear if you know of this attraction. Pete Docter had interned as an animator at Disney early in his career and was sent to work on the animated sequence for Cranium Command. Docter did not initially notice these similarities between the attraction and his film until they were pointed out to him, though he did admit it must’ve been in his subconscious somewhere[11]!

MUSIC

The soundtrack for Inside Out had to evoke feelings of imagination and wonder, alongside big emotional moments.

The iconic theme for Inside Out can be heard in the opening track “Bundle of Joy”. This piece of music sums up the whole style of the movie. This theme is repeated in different places throughout the movie, usually in scenes of HQ and more familiar parts of Riley’s mind, like Long-Term Memory.

However, there are other parts of Riley’s mind that are very unfamiliar to Joy and Sadness, such as Abstract Thought. It initially looks like Bing Bong, Joy, and Sadness are just going to walk through an empty building but when it is turned on, Abstract Thought becomes a strange place. The piece “Abstract Thought” mimics the terror and confusion that these three characters feel as they begin to deconstruct and try desperately to get out. Another area with its own piece of music is “Imagination Land”. This sounds just like the music you’d hear in an amusement park; it’s bouncy and cheerful.

The track “The Subconscious Basement” had to feel scary and like something bad could happen at any moment, to match the dark corners of Riley’s mind where her greatest fears are held. At this point, Joy and Sadness have had to go into the Subconscious to rescue Bing Bong who was dragged there by security. Whilst there, they encounter a huge, creepy clown called Jangles. “We Can Still Stop Her” is another scary moment, but this time it takes place in the real world, as Riley goes to catch a bus back to Minnesota on her own. Again, it feels like something bad could happen to Riley, and is almost more terrifying because it’s a scene from the world we know, so we are aware of what could’ve happened.

In amongst those moments, Giacchino’s score also had to match weighty emotional moments, however, instead of turning to big orchestral sounds, he went small on these pieces, knowing that when someone needs help with their feelings, it’s better to be quiet and supportive, just taking in what they’re saying. This is evident in “Joy Turns to Sadness/A Growing Personality”, which can be heard when Riley returns home to her parents and tells them she’s miserable being away from Minnesota. The main theme returns here too, as the end of this piece becomes happy, and we learn that Riley is slowly adjusting to her new life.

There are also two other “songs” that appear in the film. One is the catchy Triple Dent Gum jingle, which is meant to resemble those annoying, little tunes that you can hear on television adverts that then get stuck in your head for days, and Bing Bong’s song about his magical rocket that is powered by song power. This is a silly, rhyming song, but naturally, it had to be, as a very young Riley would have written it herself.

The music for Inside Out was composed by Michael Giacchino, who was no stranger to Pixar, having already composed the music for The Incredibles (2004); Ratatouille (2007); Up (2009), for which he won the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Score; and Cars 2 (2011) by the time of Inside Out. Giacchino continued to collaborate with Pixar after Inside Out, composing the scores for Coco (2017); The Incredibles 2 (2018); and Lightyear (2022). Outside of Pixar, he has composed music for the most recent Spider-Man films and for the series of Disney television Christmas specials, Prep & Landing (2009-11). Giacchino was also nominated for Primetime Emmy awards for his work on the series Lost (2004-10), winning one for his underscore of its pilot episode. He even composed the music for Disney Animation’s Zootopia (2016).

Giacchino was contracted to writing the music for two other movies, alongside Inside Out, with all three set to be released in 2015. These very different films were Disney’s science-fiction live-action movie Tomorrowland, which starred George Clooney, and the action film Jurassic World, the first movie in a three-part reboot of the Jurassic Park trilogy[12]. Another movie he worked on which was also released in 2015 was Jupiter Ascending.

Inside Out’s soundtrack ended up winning the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Music in a Feature Production. It also won Best Original Score for an Animated Film at the International Film Music Critics Association. Giacchino himself won the Film Composer of the Year award at the World Soundtrack Awards. The movie’s soundtrack was also nominated for Best Original Score in an Animated Film at both the Satellite Awards and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

RECEPTION

Inside Out debuted at the 68^th Cannes Film Festival on 18^th May 2015, before having its official premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on 8^th June 2015.

Inside Out then debuted in theatres in the US on 19^th June 2015, reaching theatres across the world in the days and weeks that followed. It was released alongside the Pixar short Lava (2014), an all-singing short about two volcanoes who fall in love. This is one of my favourite Pixar short films. The musical track that accompanies the whole story was written by James Ford Murphy, also the director of the short film, and performed by Kuana Torres Kahele and Napua Makua.

Because of Inside Out being a specific expression in the English language, in non-English-speaking countries, the title was changed for its release in those countries. For example, in Portuguese, the film became known as Fun Mind; in Italian, as Intense Mind; in French as Vice-Versa; and in Cantonese as Fun with Brain Friends[13].

Inside Out was highly praised on its release by critics and audiences alike. Many said this was Pixar at their best after the disappointment they felt at Cars 2 (2011) and Monsters University (2013), with this being a new story from Pixar, not just another sequel or prequel to add to an ever-growing franchise. Yeah, more on that later… Inside Out was both heartfelt and inventive with a good message and plenty of laughs. Some even claimed it was already a Pixar classic.

However, there were a few less-than-positive comments. Some said it was a bit too fast-paced, not allowing enough time to enjoy the areas of the mind, and that it was simply not entertaining enough for small children. It was also felt that Riley was not developed properly as a character of her own and that the number of obstacles that Joy and Sadness kept facing to get back to HQ became annoying and endless. I can agree with both of these to some point. At the beginning, Joy and Sadness’ journey is quite interesting, but then it does become a bit stale and boring. At these moments, I found myself wanting to get back to Riley and the other emotions, but there weren’t too many scenes of that. There are also those who think Inside Out is just overrated.

Inside Out ended up making just under $860 million at the box-office, putting it in the No. 7 spot of the highest worldwide grossing films of 2015, behind movies like Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens; Jurassic World; and Furious 7. These were the top three spots, with each of them being reboots of beloved franchises or continuations of current ones. Inside Out was the second highest grossing animated movie of 2015 though, with Disney Animation not releasing a movie that year. Minions topped the list though, with $1.1 billion as its worldwide gross, but again, this was a spin-off of a popular animated franchise.

But that was not all because there were of course awards that Inside Out won. Inside Out won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at this ceremony too. This was also the case at the BAFTAs and the Critics’ Choice Awards. At the Annie Awards, it once again won Best Animated Feature, along with a list of others awards, including Outstanding Achievement for Directing; for Production Design; and for Writing just to name a few. Inside Out also won Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe Awards, the Satellite Awards, and the Saturn Awards, amongst many others. It was named as the Best Animated Feature by the National Board of Review too.

LEGACY

The first screen spin-off to come from Inside Out was the short film Riley’s First Date? (2015). It was first released as part of the Inside Out digital release, before also being featured on its Blu-Ray release in November 2015. It was written and directed by Josh Cooley, with the voice cast from the movie returning to reprise their roles.

In this short, which follows the events of Inside Out, Riley’s father answers the door to find the teenage boy from the end of the film stood there. This boy is named Jordan and has shown up to go skating with Riley. Riley’s dad instantly doesn’t like this, nor does Riley’s mother, believing she’s much too young to have a date. Riley’s mother decides to try and figure out if this is a date by trying to be “cool”. Riley and her emotions are confused by what her mother is trying to do, but reiterate it is not a date; they are going skating with friends. Meanwhile, Riley’s father’s mind wants to try and intimidate Jordan by staring him down but Jordan isn’t even paying attention as we see from his mind, where his emotions are skateboarding around his mind. In the end, Riley’s dad and Jordan bond over guitars and rock bands, since Jordan is in one and Riley’s dad used to be in one. Riley goes downstairs, horrified to learn that Jordan was left alone with her dad, and sees the two air guitaring. Riley and Jordan quickly leave the house. Riley’s mother and father’s minds then decide whether one or the other is going to lean in for a kiss. They do kiss – and then go back to their day!

After that, there were comparisons between the concept of Inside Out and that of the 2020 Pixar release Soul, with many elements of the Great Before seemingly at least partially inspired by the ideas of the mind in Inside Out.

Then, in September 2022, at the D23 Expo – because where else do Disney and Pixar announce things? – it was confirmed that Inside Out 2 was coming, despite the fact Pete Docter had said shortly after Inside Out’s release that Pixar were committed to making more original films…Hmm, yeah, that worked out! Inside Out 2’s release was set for Summer 2024. Meg LeFauve was back as the screenwriter, with Kelsey Mann replacing Docter as director of the sequel. It was revealed that Inside Out 2 would take place inside Riley’s now-teenage head with new emotions coming[14].

Also on screen, but this time on Disney+, the series Dream Productions premiered on the platform on 11^th December 2024, having first been announced in 2023, with further details being released in 2024. It consists of four episodes, at roughly half an hour each, and is set between Inside Out and Inside Out 2. It sees the Dream Productions dream director trying to create amazing dreams for Riley in amongst studio politics.

At the Disney Parks, Disneyland has the most references to Inside Out, most notably at the Pixar Pier location in Disney California Adventure Park. Here, you can find the spinner ride Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind, where guests spin around in colourful mini-hot air balloons, designed after Inside Out characters. This ride opened in 2019, and is a repurposing of a different ride that once appeared at Disney California Adventure: Flik’s Flyers from A Bug’s Land, which closed in 2018 to make way for Avengers Campus. Also at Pixar Pier, there is the Angry Dogs food stand, with Anger being featured on the stand’s signage. This stand obviously serves hot dogs. Then there is a sweet shop named Bing Bong’s Sweet Stuff, which has a statue of Bing Bong inside. The Pixar Pal-A-Round Ferris wheel, redesigned to match the new area of Pixar Pier, includes gondolas with different characters painted on them. Joy and Sadness are two of these. Joy and Sadness have been available to meet in Pixar Pier for a while, and Anger was spotted recently too.

Prior to Inside Out’s release in June 2015, there was also an Inside Out pre-parade at Disney California Adventure during Summer 2015 in order to promote the film. It involved one float with all five emotions on it. These emotions were mechanical figures but they did move their mouths to speak random lines, such as having conflicting opinions on babies and Sadness talking about kids dropping their ice cream cones! There were also dancers ahead of the float dancing with memory balls.

Pixar Fest was a big event for Disney California Adventure, running from 26^th April all the way until 4^th August 2024. This event helped to promote Inside Out 2, meaning that the main emotions from Inside Out were visible during Pixar Fest. For example, Joy and Sadness were two characters to get involved in the Pixar Pals Playtime Party stage show that ran a few times a day. These two, along with a statue of Bing Bong, were also featured on a float of Bing Bong’s rocket during the Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration Parade. Scenes and music from Inside Out were also included in the Together Forever – A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular fireworks show.

Finally, the Pixar Place Hotel, which opened at the Disneyland Resort on 30^th January 2024 contains references to Inside Out. There are small references to the movie “hidden” in murals and paintings throughout the hotel and in rooms. You also might be lucky enough to meet Bing Bong at Pixar Place Hotel, as he has been meeting guests in the area since the hotel opened.

This time at Walt Disney World, the first Inside Out reference seems to have been the Inside Out Emotion Garden which was a small exhibit of plants linked to the five emotions of the film. This was installed as part of Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival which began in March in 2015, so a few months prior to the release of the film. There was also an exhibit in the now-closed Magic of Disney Animation building in Disney’s Hollywood Studios showing development sketches and maquettes of the five emotions, which was apparently also available to guests around March 2015. In terms of meet-and-greets, Joy and Sadness used to have a meet-and-greet location at the Epcot Character Spot back in 2016, in a recreation of their home inside Riley’s head, however, this area was closed when Epcot was redeveloping around 2019 and 2020. Joy could then be seen at the ImageWorks, the exit of the Journey into Imagination attraction in Epcot in the early 2020s, in front of an Imagination Land background, but in 2024, when Figment became a meet-and-greet character, it seems Joy was moved to having a scheduled meet-and-greet at Pixar Plaza, the area next to Toy Story Land, in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Outside of the US Parks, at Disneyland Paris, in the Worlds of Pixar area of Walt Disney Studios Park, Joy was meeting guests in the summer of 2024, as was Anger, seemingly as promotion for Inside Out 2, but Joy was still there in December of that year. It is unclear if she is still there. In shows, Joy appeared as part of the A Million Splashes of Colour parade which ran from February 2024 until the end of September that year. Music from Inside Out and scenes from the movie are currently part of the Disney Tales of Magic nighttime show at Disneyland Paris.

At Tokyo Disneyland, Joy and Sadness have been spotted by guests as recently as 2021. At Hong Kong Disneyland, Joy and Sadness were first meeting guests only at this park in an area set up to look like the inside of Riley’s mind, complete with the console, around July 2015, shortly after the movie was released. It wasn’t until a few months later that they were seen at other Disney Parks. In recent years, characters from the movie, like Joy, Sadness, and Anger, were included in the Pixar Water Play Street Party for Summer 2024. It is possible they will return if this parade returns in 2025. The Inside Out theme and clips from the film were also used as part of the Momentous Nighttime Spectacular show at this park. Lastly, at Shanghai Disneyland, Joy and Sadness are a part of the Disney ColorFest Street Party, as well as Mickey’s Storybook Express Parade. Moments from Inside Out can also be seen in the projections of ILLUMINATE! A Nighttime Celebration.

On the Disney Cruise Ships, specifically on the Disney Wish, is a sweet shop named Inside Out: Joyful Sweets. The characters may also be seen as part of Pixar stage shows and parties that take place on other Disney Cruise Ships. The five emotions of Inside Out were also a part of the Disney on Ice show from 2015. 

Plenty of merchandise has been released featuring the characters of Inside Out, including plush toys, book, clothing, mugs, and playsets. These have only increased with the release of Inside Out 2.

There is even an interactive exhibit called Emotions at Play with Pixar’s Inside Out, which was developed by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, focusing on the five core emotions of Anger, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear. It has been touring since 2023, with dates going as far out as 2028 to come to other US museums.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Pixar really impressed the public with the creativity and inventiveness of Inside Out. The filmmakers had managed to represent the mind in a fun, educational, and smart way.

Although the message of Inside Out is only too clear – that there is a need to feel a whole range of emotions including sadness – there continue to be those who don’t believe in this idea. They want to only show a positive, happy view of their life to the outside world. I’ve known people like that and it can make you feel like there’s something wrong with you if you don’t feel or act in the same way.

I’m not about to tell anyone how to feel, but I will say that it is much healthier to embrace your sadness, fear, anger, whatever in order to work through feelings and moments of difficulties. It’s much better to do that rather than bottle things up and try to deal with them internally with no-one to support you. I’m sure that many children and teenagers got a lot out of Inside Out and found ways to voice their feelings to their friends and parents to get through that transition from childhood to adulthood.

We see Riley struggling to be 11-years-old, adjusting to a whole new life away from friends and in an unfamiliar city. Little did she or her emotions know what was still to come, because being a teenager comes with even more inner turmoil!

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: D23, ‘The Ins and Outs of Inside Out’, D23.com, date unknown.

[2] Credit: Pixar, “Mixed Emotions”, from Inside Out (2015) Blu-Ray (2015).

[3] Credit: Ben Sherlock, ‘Meet The Little Voices Inside Your Head: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Inside Out’, ScreenRant.com, 9^th June 2020.

[4] Credit: Lisa Miller, ‘How Inside Out Director Pete Docter Went Inside the 11-Year-Old Mind’, Vulture.com, 16^th June 2015.

[5] Credit: Pixar, “Deleted Scenes”, from Inside Out (2015) Disney+.

[6] Credit: Pixar, ‘Story of the Story I Inside Out I Disney•Pixar’, Pixar YouTube Channel, 17^th October 2016.

[7] Credit: Carolyn Giardina, ‘Making of ‘Inside Out’: Which Emotions Didn’t Make the Cut’, HollywoodReporter.com, 21^st December 2015.

[8] Credit: Tasha Robinson, ‘Pete Docter on the goals and milestones of Inside Out’, TheDissolve.com, 23^rd June 2015.

[9] Credit: Alex Godfrey, ‘Pixar’s Pete Docter on the story (and science) of ‘Inside Out’’, Wired.com, 20^th July 2015.

[10] Credit: Lisa Miller, ‘How Inside Out Director Pete Docter Went Inside the 11-Year-Old Mind’, Vulture.com, 16^th June 2015.

[11] Credit: Logan Kelly, ‘‘Inside Out’ Was Inspired by a Disney World Attraction – Even If the Director Didn’t Realize It’, Collider.com, 27^th July 2024.

[12] Credit: Kara Warner, ‘Michael Giacchino on Making the Music of ‘Inside Out’ & ‘Jurassic World’’, ScreenRant.com, 17^th June 2015.

[13] Credit: Ben Sherlock, ‘Meet The Little Voices Inside Your Head: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Inside Out’, ScreenRant.com, 9^th June 2020.

[14] Credit: Matt Grobar, ‘Inside Out Sequel Plans Confirmed By Pixar At D23’, Deadline.com, 9^th September 2022.