Disney's new Dream Productions premiered this week but is this Inside Out spinoff worth watching?
Inside Out 2 has become one of the biggest box office hits of 2024, a fine return to form for Pixar. Meanwhile, a main complaint on the new hit Moana 2 is that it's quite obvious it was meant to be a TV show and retooled for a feature film. Those dual narratives cast an interesting light on the four-episode animated series Dream Productions, a new show by Pixar now airing on Disney+.
It's set in between the Inside Out movies as Riley is now 12 and growing. We get cameos from the main stars like Joy (Amy Poehler), but the focus is on Dream Productions, who entertain the emotions with dreams. So we get a "mockumentary" looking at this studio as they try to entertain their bosses (the "audience") with the best dreams for Riley.
Leading the pack is dream director Paula Persimmon (Paula Pell), who's long relied on her success crafting fantastic dreams since Riley was a toddler. She's still praised for being the one who convinced Riley to give up her pacifier when she was two.
The problem is that Paula can't accept Riley is growing up and the dreams of unicorns and such won't be as effective. She's also the classic case of a director who is so used to being in charge that the very idea of letting someone else try is anathema to her.
Aiding her is long-time assistant Janelle (Ally Maki), who has fresher ideas, but Paula won't give her a chance. Janelle gets her chance when studio head Jean Dewberry (Maya Rudolph) hires her to handle the dreams. Paula is put out and tries to keep going with the unwanted help of avant-garde director Xeni (Richard Ayoade), who only has a job because he's Jean's nephew.
The show does have a clever touch in how it imagines dreams as movies and putting them together. It's also clear Pixar is having fun with some meta messages on modern filmmaking, especially Disney. Paula keeps going back to what worked years before, reworking the old ideas and figuring it'll be as great as ever. Tell me that's not a shot at Hollywood's current obsession with reboots and regurgitating older IPs.
There's also how Jean's "advice" on how to handle things is Pixar noting their more than contentious relationship with Disney execs.
The show gets deeper as it goes as the conflict between Janelle and Paula builds to the point of Riley sleepwalking while suffering nightmares and adding to her anxieties over a big dance. "The camera is Riley" is a great idea that the show uses well, and it's fun to see the way dreams are set up like a movie shoot. It's bits like that that add more depth to this universe.
However, it seems lacking in the characters. On the one hand, it's fun to have a mildly unsympathetic lead in Paula, who simply cannot wrap her head around how a girl's beliefs and likes change as she grows older and perfectly fine coasting on past success.
It's also the fear of being seen as outmoded, an obvious take on Hollywood's treatment of older people. Yet her arc of understanding Riley's changes mirrors Joy in the first movie too much, down to the epiphany of "she's growing, have to accept it" moment in the finale. Her selfish nature and obsession with keeping on top is off-putting when she should be sympathetic.
Janelle has some promise in her desire to be her own person but doesn't feel like more of an original character, and the supposed conflict between her and Paula fails to materialize. She's supposed to be an important character but not quite connecting.
Xeni is less a real character and more a send-up of the ultra-pretentious filmmakers who can't seem to make up his mind if he's meant to sabotage Paula or help her. Rudolph is always fun in a role, but her part is a broad caricature of the self-centered studio chief blaming all but herself for problems.
The mockumentary approach is both a blessing and a curse. It can seem fun and fits the studio setting with some nice gags. The downside is that it feels a bit more distant from the characters so we don't get to really feel for them, only how the camera presents them. That means Paula is always "on," so while we see the truth behind the facade, she won't really let it show. A regular straight-up story focusing on the characters in their private moments might have suited the show better.
On the plus side, there are some fun gags and background details that still have that Pixar touch and it's interesting to see the studio workings. It does connect to Riley with her problems and worries on a dance and funny to bring back her Imaginary Boyfriend from the first film as a character working his suave "Canadian hunk" persona.
The four episodes flow well as Pixar smartly doesn't try to drag the tale out. It feels more like a direct-to-video movie split into four parts, and it wraps up nicely. Overall, Inside Out fans may enjoy this as it's a fun show at times, yet many of the meta jokes can go over younger viewers, and while not awful, it shows once more how TV spin-offs of hit movies have a tricky track record.
Dream Productions streaming on Disney+.