Plot hole: Joy and Sadness are stuck outside of the control center. They are trying to figure out how to get back, and encounter maintenance workers who are discarding old memories. The maintenance workers show that they have the power to send memories back up to the control center to be played. Why couldn't they send the core memories that Joy had back up the same way? Better yet, why not use that method to send Joy and Sadness back up to the control center? The director of the film is even aware of the plot hole, and said "Yeah, well then we wouldn't have a third act," before explaining how the idea of recalling memories was added in later, "box[ing] [the screenwriters] in a corner a little bit."
Inside Out (2015)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Starring: Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones
Joy and Sadness return to headquarters and stop Riley from going away. The emotions let sadness make Riley miss her family so she goes home. Then Riley turns 12 and they have a new console installed. There are also bigger and better core memory islands.
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Suggested correction: Even if they do send the core memories up to headquarters, they wouldn't be able to get joy and sadness through the tiny gap that the workers send the memories up. Joy has to be in headquarters for Riley to be happy.
This mistake is large enough that the director is aware of it. I think that more than qualifies it to be on this site.
Suggested correction: Joy is a control freak, she wants to return the memories herself. She doesn't even imagine that the workers can do such a thing.
Sadness: You could get lost in there!
Joy: Think positive!
Sadness: Okay, I'm positive you will get lost in there.
Question: How come Sadness was the only one who could change the emotion of the memory orb? Don't we sometimes look back at things we thought we were scared of or sad about, and laugh at them? How come the other emotions can't change them the way Sadness can?
Answer: Sadness can change the memories because of Riley's current situation: she has left the home she loved to move to a new city. This makes her happy memories more susceptible to being changed to sad memories. As she remembers things that used to make her happy they now make her sad because she hasn't accepted her new house as home yet. Presumably under the right circumstances the other emotions could do the same thing, just not all the time.
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