Stay Toon'd: Inside Out vs. The Minions
- by Lennon “LJ The Toy Addict” George
- Aug 8, 2015
- 6 min read
“Daddy! Daddy! We want to go to the movies!” is what I was bombarded with about a week ago. I of course had to oblige so to the drive-in we went. They were playing the Minions movie and Inside Out, both really great movies in my opinion. We watched the Minions movie first and it was hilarious!
If you are like me and ever wondered how the Minions became to be this movie hits the mark because finally we get a backstory on these mischievous yellow creatures. Produced by Illumination Entertainment for Universal Pictures and directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda. The film stars (as the minions) Coffin, Sandra Bullock as Scarlet Overkill, Jon Hamm as Herb Overkill, Michael Keaton (Batman) as Walter Nelson, Allison Janney as Madge Nelson, Steve Coogan as Professor Flux, Steve Carell as young Gru and narrated by Geoffrey Rush.
Apparently they have been around since the beginning of time, evolving from single celled organisms into beings that exist only to serve history’s most villainous masters. They go from master to master like the T-Rex, a caveman, a pharaoh, Dracula, and Napoleon, but some how some way they manage to kill nearly all of them and get chased by an angry mob.
After isolating themselves from the world and living in Antarctica inside of a cave in the mountains the minions become depressed. Kevin the Hero comes up with a plan to find a new master. He chooses Stuart a teenage guitar playing minion with big dreams, and Bob… who is only chosen because no one else wanted to go, but is totally to cute for words set out to find a new master.
After a long journey the trio end up in New York and learn about Villain-Con, a convention that takes place in Orlando, Florida where super villains from all over the world convene. Kevin figures it would be the best place to find a new master so they hitchhike a ride with a family of robbers who happen to be going to the convention. Once inside Villain-Con Kevin, Stuart, and Bob enter a contest and earn the right to become the henchmen of the villainous Scarlet Overkill, the world’s first female super villain and host of the evening.
Scarlet takes the Minions to her home and orders them to steal the crown from the Queen of England, threatening to kill them if they fail. Armed with some really cool gadgets provided by Herb (husband of Scarlet Overkill), the Minions steal the crown from the Queen, but are pursued by the police. Bob saves the day after he crash lands on the mythical sword and the stone and removes Excalibur to defend himself. The chase ends, the Queen gets the boot, and Bob aka King Bob is crowned the new Monarch of the UK.
Convinced the Minions betrayed her Scarlet attempts to kill them. Bob being King appoints Scarlet as the new Queen to appease her. Unfortunately Scarlet betrays the minions by locking them in the palace dungeon, left to be tortured by none other than her hubby Herb. To make a long story short they escape from the dungeon intent on making things right with Scarlet. I won’t spoil the ending for you guys just know that it is HUGE!
The kids couldn’t stop laughing and neither could I this is definitely a movie to enjoy with the family. Some of the humor may go over your kids heads as it is aimed at an older audience, but still a good watch never the less.
Onto Inside Out now by this time I was full from a monster tray of nachos and jalapenos fighting sleep, while the kids were full of energy ready for the show. I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the movie I did hear a lot of good things about it though, so I figure I’d give it a shot and not go home to the comfy bed I was dying to jump in.
This film is produced by Pixar and is released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by Pete Docter. Docter basically puts us the audience inside the mind of a young girl and seeing how her five personified emotions Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and my favorite Anger (Lewis Black) try to lead her through life as it changes.
The movie starts with the birth of a baby girl in Minnesota by the name of Riley. Inside of her mind five manifestations of her emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger – come to life. These emotions live inside of what is fittingly called headquarters, Riley’s conscious mind, where they influence her actions and memories via a control console with all kinds of buttons and levers.
Riley’s new memories are contained inside of colored orbs, which are then sent to storage at the end of every waking moment. The “core” memories are housed inside of a storage unit within headquarters, which power five “islands” (Family, Goofball, Friendship, Hockey, and Honesty) that each is a representation of Riley’s personality. Joy is the emotion that came first she is in charge of Riley’s happy state, but she along with the other emotions can’t seem to understand the purpose of Sadness.
Riley’s life gets turned upside down when her family moves to San Francisco due to her father getting a new job. Sadness is kind of weird at first and has a tendency to mess things up throughout the movie. You see Sadness can touch a memory orb and change it blue which is the color used to represent sadness. Joy doesn’t like that one bit and it causes her to try and keep Sadness away from the console and the core memories. Sadly Sadness (pun was so intended) made Riley cry on her first day of school when she was asked to tell her class a little about herself, which created a new sad core memory. Joy tries to fix the mess by disposing of the new memory before it gets to the central unit, but instead knocks the other core memories loose as she struggled with Sadness over the memory orb shutting down the personality islands. Before Joy could get everything back in order, she, Sadness, and the memories are sucked into the “memory tube”, a tube that the orbs travel through connected to the islands outside of headquarters. They end up in the storage area of Riley’s long-term memories, which just so happens to look like a labyrinth where they find Bing Bong, Riley’s forgotten imaginary friend who is a pink, hat-wearing elephant.
Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong try to get back to headquarters by way of the “Train of Thought”, while Anger, Fear, and Disgust try to hold the fort down in Joy’s absence to no avail. They mainly Anger make Riley depressed and home sick pushing her away from her family, hobbies, and friends which causes the islands of personality to slowly crumble. Anger gives Riley the bright idea to run away back to Minnesota and the plot thickens.
What happens to Riley? Do Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong make it back to headquarters? Do Anger and the other emotions destroy all the islands? Well to see if Joy gets to save the day you will have to check out the movie for yourself. I will say this one is a tearjerker my children and I both were saying aww that’s sad at a few scenes from this awesome film. Here is a weird fact this movie was created because the director saw how his own daughter changed, as she got older and with the use of real psychological data from studies created this film, can you say genius!
I give both these movies the thumbs up! But if you ask me what is the better of the two surprisingly I would have to say it is Inside Out! It is a great story that anyone young or old can relate to. It just touches your heart and makes you feel all warm on the inside. If you haven’t had a chance to see either of these movies I suggest you take the little ones if you have any if not kidnap one of your nephews or nieces and go see them I promise you will not be disappointed. I mean who can turn down a good bonding moment? Only deadbeats, the heartless and Satan, lol! But no seriously go give these two the once, twice, thrice, over and until next time Go Hard! Go Fast! Go Figure!
WHAT'S OUT THERE?: There are countless figures and toys on the market from these films but we recommend Minion Bob, Minion Mystery Minis, the Inside Out Deluxe Figurine Playset and Bing Bong Pop (also comes in clear from Hot Topic).
Sources: Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Disney Wiki
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