Happy New Year, Happy Pixar.

Yesterday, concept art for Pixar's three upcoming films was released. For us Pixar superfans, it was a great way to end 2012, and an excellent way to start 2013. Each of the stills are here. I am beyond stoked for each. The Good Dinosaur combines two of my favorite things; Pixar and dinosaurs. The Dia de Los Muertos film will offer a glimpse into Mexican culture, and I've always been curious about that particular celebration. Since it is Pixar, I expect humor, heart, as well as morbidity. (I'm really hopeful for that element too.) But as I previously wrote back in May, Pete Docter's mind film The Inside Out, formerly known as The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind, is the it movie for me.

Concept art for The Inside Out.

I've been waiting since October of 2011 for this! I'm not disappointed at all. It's a worthy teaser, and our young heroine reminds me a bit of Ellie Fredricksen, as drawn by Ronnie del Carmen, so I'm extremely happy. So the fact that we have a girl protagonist is enough reason for me to love this film, but the premise is also one that's been explored countless times, but Pete Docter taking it on means we should be expecting something quite different than anything else we've seen. And it is Pixar, of course.

And The Inside Out features a particular kind of character that Pete Docter's very fond of: the child character. Look at Boo in Monsters, Inc., and young Ellie and Russell in Up. There's also the unnamed girl in his student short film, "Next Door". (That one, as well as others by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton are included in the Pixar Shorts collection volume 2.)

 

This short is my favorite, because it's so sweet, and it takes you inside the imagination of a young child...kind of like The Inside Out. The two protagonists are a curmudgeonly old man and his loud, rambunctious next door neighbor, a direct parallel to Carl and Russell in Up.

The little girl next door.

Maybe "Next Door" is a preview of what we could see in The Inside Out. I'm very fond of kids and I work with them now so that's another reason why I love the idea of a Pixar film going into the mind of a child. This new character in Docter's upcoming film could prove to be just as memorable and endearing as his others.