Why don’t Riley’s emotions physically match her? (Yes his parents)

The success of ‘Intensely 2’ doesn’t only translate to money collection at the box office, but also to the discussions that the audience had about the film. On social networks, for example, hundreds of fans have shared their best memes about Riley, theories about her new feelings and asked more than one question about those details that seem to be overlooked. Such is the case with designing character emotions.

Why is Riley the only one on ‘Inside Out’ with feelings that aren’t hers?

In the first film, the audience was introduced to Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust, while in the second, Anxiety, Shame, Envy, Envy and Nostalgia.

Each of these emotions has its own color, as well as physical characteristics. However, when you travel inside the minds of other people, you can see that their emotions bear some distinctive resemblance to that of the character in question. In the case of Riley’s dad, it’s the mustache, while in Riley’s mom, it’s the red glasses.

Although this detail can be seen from the 2015 episode, the question of why Riley’s emotions do not physically resemble her has resurfaced with the premiere of the second one.

In an interview with journalist Jonathan Sim, Kelsey Mann, the director of “Inside Out 2” revealed the reason. According to him, it is not something profound, as many fans had thought, but rather a purely practical matter.

“Let’s look at the dinner scene in the first movie for example. There are four locations there: the real world, Riley’s head, mom’s head, dad’s head and you have to quickly go from one to the other, how are you supposed to know (where you are) fast enough to follow the step ?”. the filmmaker explained.

So the creative team of the first film thought to add characteristic elements of the characters to their emotions, so that the audience would recognize them more easily.

Why does Riley have feelings of a different gender if her parents don’t?

Another detail that fans of the film obsess over is the gender of Riley’s feelings. In the father’s mind all emotions are masculine and in the mother’s feminine, yet in Riley we see characters with both.

This led many to wonder if there was an underlying meaning, such as Riley not yet exploring her sexual identity or her feelings still being formed.

Unfortunately for them, the answer isn’t “deep” or “philosophical” at all, Pete Docter, director of “Inside Out,” revealed to HitFix in 2015: “It’s just for comedy.”

Let us know in the comments what you think about these weird details from the movie.