Inside Out 2 is in the works, and the sequel can avoid repeating the arc of the Toy Story franchise with one specific path. Inside Out was a huge Disney-Pixar hit in the summer of 2015, following the young Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) as she adjusts to life in San Francisco and a new school, with Riley's feelings in her mind doing everything they can to help her. With how Inside Out 2 will pick up Riley's story, the general template of the Toy Story movies would be an easy one to fall into and one which Inside Out 2 should sidestep.
The Toy Story movies focus on a kid named Andy and his relationship with his toys like Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), before passing them onto Bonnie in Toy Story 3. It is easy to see how Riley's relationship with her feelings like Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) could follow a similar structure. This is not a story that Inside Out 2 needs to adopt, and it does not need to, because unlike Andy passing on his beloved toys like Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and others, Riley's emotions will always be with her.
With that key distinction, Inside Out 2 has plenty of room to follow up on Riley's journey without turning into Toy Story with anthropomorphized emotions. With Riley to be a teenager in Inside Out 2 and additional emotions to be involved in the story, Riley's arc already has plenty to differentiate itself from Andy's. What Inside Out 2 can do instead is focus on the impact of adolescent life on Riley and the feelings inside her head that change alongside Riley in their lifelong connection to each other.
How Inside Out 2 Can Avoid Repeating Andy's Toy Story Fate
Riley being in high school by the time of the upcoming Pixar movie Inside Out 2 makes the arrival of new feelings in her mind a natural element of being a teenager, and this is where the sequel should place its focus. Without directly following Andy's journey of growing up and moving on from the toys of his childhood, Riley's emotions are always going to be a part of who she is and a side of her personality that is expanding with the arrival of new ones. Riley's feelings themselves also have an indispensable part to play in that.
Inside Out is as much about Joy learning to care for Riley in a way that balances all of her feelings in a healthy way as it was about Riley's homesickness. With new feelings arriving, Joy, Riley, and her other feelings will have to deal with how this impacts Riley on a very different basis than Andy's growth in the Toy Story movies. Riley dealt with both depression and anger in Inside Out, but teenage life will cause all of her emotions to not only expand but change as both she and her feelings come to see more of life's nuances and grey areas.
Riley's story involving morphing emotions rather than her simply preparing for college and hockey life would put some needed distance between Inside Out and Toy Story in how each follows two kids growing up. The Toy Story movies taught both Andy and his toys about when the time had come to move on in life. Inside Out 2 can alternately teach Riley and her feelings that they will forever be a part of each other, giving her story its own identity unique from Toy Story's Andy, and by extension Woody, Buzz, and his other toys, in their shared story.