Pete and Repeat Were On A Boat: Sequels and a Short Note about Inside Out 2 (2024)
Or, How Many Black Girls Are Into Ice Hockey, Honestly?
May you live long enough to fear repeating yourself!
I kid. Sometimes, it’s good to repeat yourself. To be consistent. Say you’re a chef. People come in for your special steak.1 It’s the dish you made your bones on.2 Customer after customer lines up, begging on their knees for a little bit of your special steak.3 What are you going to do? Change up the recipe every month? Or keep giving the customers what they want? Are you going to be a Rush, or an AC/DC? Both approaches are perfectly valid, but Rush’s is better you have to know your audience. You also have to know what you’re good at.
Food, music . . . movies! They all go together, right? I have young kids and lately, on the days my wife is working and I’m not, sometimes take them to our local multiplex. It’s usually not too packed, which is a sneaky benefit of the movie theater industry dying.4 It’s also usually air-conditioned, which was very nice considering the swelteringly hot and humid weekend we just had here in New England.
This past trip, I took the kids to see Inside Out 2, Pixar’s sequel to their 2015 hit. It’s a movie that asks, What if emotions had feelings? Little versions of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust live in 11-year-old Riley’s head, controlling her . . . or do they? It’s just an abstraction, I think. I mean, our emotions control us to a degree and affect everything we do, but emotions aren’t the single factor driving human behavior. They have outsize importance, though, which is why the movie’s conceit works.
It’s an intriguing premise that takes the abstract idea of our emotions and gives them little lives, running each of us in our brain, depicted as a command center. If you haven’t seen it, I do recommend it—it’s a sweet movie and probably one of Pixar’s best of the past decade.5
Anyway, the sequel did great numbers at the box office. Carson Reeves of Scriptshadow posits that the desire of people to go somewhere air-conditioned might have played into this success, but that it likely also had something to do with the movie having no political messaging or social commentary.
No, Inside Out 2 didn’t have any overt political messaging or social commentary. However, for a movie that involves a white girl from Minnesota who loves playing ice hockey and now lives in San Francisco, there sure are a lot of black, Hispanic, Arab, and Asian girls on her ice hockey team. I know it’s San Francisco, but man, I did not know that ice hockey was so popular with females of the non-white persuasion. Even the coach is black! Further, most of the girls are visually lesbian-coded, including the only other white girl.
The whole thing was weird for two reasons:
It was like having a movie about a girl who was into basketball, and having like one black girl on the team; and
Given the amount of minority lesbian-looking girls, you’d swear this was a movie about women’s basketball.
Anyway, I’m not the only one who has noticed this. People are gleefully proclaiming Riley from Inside Out 2 as super-gay . . . or, alternately, not gay enough. So don’t come at me for being some paranoiac. Blame the people who made this movie for wanting to inject these sorts of questions into a children’s film.
For the record, I don’t care if black, Hispanic, Asian, and Arab girls really are into ice hockey. If they are, great! I must’ve missed this trend, though. If it is a thing, please enlighten me. Ice hockey is wonderful game.
The movie itself? It was well done. There were some funny gags, like the Cloud Strife stand-in, and Riley’s favorite cartoon character Pouchy. Lewis Black is always funny as the voice of Anger. The voice cast is generally good, even Mindy Kaling as Disgust. The new characters were entertaining—Anxiety and Ennui are the best, while Envy is pretty superfluous, and the entire film was quite poignant, all about growing up and finding oneself in the world.
However, narratively, it was basically the same thing as the first Inside Out. Riley encountered a stressful situation, except this time she’s a teenager, so Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment move into her brain. But much like the original movie where Joy and Sadness are stranded far away from headquarters while Disgust, Fear, and Anger try to run the show in their stead, this time the entire crew is exiled by the new emotions, led by Anxiety. It’s the same journey, the same stakes, the same everything. They even visit some of the same locations from the first movie’s.
It’s all okay. Acceptable, even. It’s like listening to a new AC/DC album. You know what you’re going to get, and you get it done well. But it doesn’t feel fresh or new. Usually not. AC/DC somehow manages to keep pulling it off. But I digress.
That’s the funny, schizophrenic thing about sequels: we want more of the same, except we don’t.
The obvious sequel people point to as being better than the original is The Empire Strikes Back.6 And I get that. New characters! New locations! New stakes! New revelations! Whereas the original Star Wars had two primary narratives—a rescue mission, and then an assault on the Death Star—The Empire Strikes Back is more of a chase narrative—the rebels are forced to flee their base on Hoth, and spend the movie fighting through obstacles to meet up at a predetermined rendezvous point. The third movie, Return of the Jedi, revisits some locations and themes from the original, but it works because (a) it does something different with both the planet Tatooine (they visit a different part of it and encounter a new character only spoken about in the first two movies) and (b) raises the stakes (the new Death Star would be even more powerful than the first). It also brings the story of Darth Vader to completion.
You know, another popular 1980s property made with George Lucas’s involvement and also starring Harrison Ford didn’t do so hot in its second installment: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom wasn’t as beloved as the original, but it did something very different, so I give it credit for that. See also the video games Super Mario Bros. 2, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.
“Video games?” you say. “Did someone say video games?” We’ll get to those later.
But this isn’t a post about Star Wars. It’s about sequels. Watching Inside Out 2 just got me thinking about what makes a good sequel versus a retread. There is no handy bullet-point list you can follow to ensure a sequel is good, but there are a few commonalities between sequels that work and sequels that don’t.
For starters, you want to see the familiar characters change, develop, and face new challenges. This ties into the need to change the narrative structure. You wouldn’t have two movies in a row of Luke rescuing Leia from Darth Vader, right? If you’re series is, say, a bunch of novels centered around a fictional detective, each sequel could involve him trying to solve a mystery, but there’s still a lot of room to play around with that. Inside Out 2 did a good job developing the characters, and for that I give it credit, but narratively it was nearly identical to the first. But gayer. Or not as gay. It depends on who you ask, I guess.
Back to video games. Do you like video games? Sure you do. Everybody likes video games.
Everybody likes them so much, multiple sequels to multiples titles have spawned multiple franchises. You all know how it is: there are approximately 53 Mario games, 700 Mega Man7 titles, and 6,492 Calls of Duty8 If you were an adventure gamer Chad back in the day—and honestly, if you weren’t, what’s wrong with you?—you’re aware of all eight-dozen King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry games from the 80s and 90s. But listen, man, listen: there were only five Quest for Glorys.9
Yes, my tastes were Sierra-centric. I didn’t play a Monkey Island game until the early aughts, though I did play Loom and the NES version of Maniac Mansion, as well as the NES adaptations of the MacVenture titles10 back in the day. But Sierra was my favorite, and Quest for Glory did nearly everything right.
Designed and developed by husband-and-wife team Lori and Corey Cole, Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero (1989) is one of the best synthesis of adventure game and role-playing game mechanics. Yes, you move around a game world looking for items and other clues to solve puzzles, but you get to choose your character class (fighter, magic user, or thief), which gives the game a lot of replay value, as each class has different solutions for many puzzles. Even within the same class, some puzzles have multiple solutions. What’s more, each character has statistics and skills which increase through use and are needed to solve some puzzles. Want to get better at picking locks? You pick locks;11 you don’t kill monsters—killing monsters improves other stats and skills. Oh yeah—game had a combat system as well.
It was a hit. And naturally, it spawned a sequel—necessary, since the game ends on a bit if a cliffhanger (the hero leaves the alpine valley of Spielburg for the desert land of Shapeir with some of the characters he helped), and it allows the player to save their character and import them into the next game. Many minds were blown, let me tell you.12
But unlike other Sierra sequels, which were the same game with the same game engine in a different setting, Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (1990) took a different approach. Instead of being a relatively open-world game set in an explorable wilderness with only one small town and a castle, where quest objectives could be completed costly in any order, Trial by Fire is set in a gigantic city which serves as the hero’s base of operations. There is a desert, but it’s infinite, and only has a few unique locations. Further, the narrative is more linear, taking place over 28 game days with certain events occurring at scripted intervals. There is still room for nonlinear exploration and quest-completion, but it’s a more plot-driven game than the first. Also, the Arabian mythology inspired setting is very different than the first game’s leaning into the tropes of Germanic/Central European mythology, history, and folklore.
So naturally, the third game, Wages of War (1992), was also completely different. Not only was it the first in the series to use Sierra’s new mouse-based point-and-click interface, the game also featured enhanced graphics and sound. What’s more, we have a new setting, Tarna, inspired by African and Egyptian mythology and folklore with a healthy dose of 1930s pulp adventure, a new narrative structure combining much of the first two games but relying more on certain event triggers to cause certain events, and a new combat system (each game completely overhauled figuring). And as usual, there are more spells, more friends, more enemies, and more character development.
The fourth game, Shadows of Darkness (1993), widely considered to be the best in the series, uses the same interface and engine as the third game, but with some tweaks and additions, and not just to the combat system. Shadows of Darkness brings the hero to the valley of Mordavia, a land inspired by Slavic/Eastern European folklore and the H.P. Lovecraft mythos. Mordavia is twisted by dark magic, and nobody trusts the hero at the outset. Narratively and structurally, it’s very much like the first game, but different enough given the sheer scope of things to do and narrative complexity. Shadows of Darkness, bugs aside, is a really enjoyable game with a totally different feel than the first three.
And it ended on another cliffhanger! And then the series got discontinued due to Sierra’s financial and corporate woes! Much like King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and most egregiously Space Quest, the Cole’s magnum opus was destined to be unfinished . . . until a massive fan campaign persuaded Sierra’s new corporate masters to bring the Cole’s back for one more go-round.
Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire (1998), is hardly a masterpiece. The late-90s 3-D visuals, clunky real-time combat, and telegraphed villain are hardly the stuff of legend. But the land of Silmaria, based on Ancient Greece, is fun and unique, the music is gorgeous, and the writing and characterization maintains the Cole’s standards of high quality. What’s more, the story actually gets resolved, bringing in many characters from past games and bringing many outstanding arcs to a mostly satisfying conclusion. It’s really fun to see your character grow through all five games, and maybe even get married.
Structurally, Dragon Fire reminds me of a cross between the second and third games, using the city of Silmaria as a hub while the hero goes on assigned quests at scripted intervals, but containing an expansive overworld and islands to explore that opens up as the game progresses, along with side-quests that can affect the game’s ending.
Above all, I appreciate the Cole’s willingness and desire to do something new with each game, story-wise as well as gameplay-wise. Subsequent games never feel like a rehash of the first, and that is not an easy task to accomplish.
And that is the thing I fear as a writer and a creative in general: repeating myself. Falling into a routine. Having all of my stories, my novels, my posts, become formulaic, rote, stylistically or narratively interchangeable. I think what the greats do is look at what works, and be willing to change that as much as being willing to work on what doesn’t. That takes guts, right? But no guts no glory. Pun totally intended.
- Alexander
Thank you for reading this. We covered a lot of ground and I sincerely hope you found it interesting, even if you don’t care for obscure old video games. If you did find this post interesting, you can support me by buying my books on Amazon, or buying me a coffee at Buy Me A Coffee. Two of my books are sequels—read them and let me know how I did by my own standard! You can also support this endeavor by sharing and subscribing to this publication. Thank you, and God bless!
Keep your mind out of the gutter, perverts.
I’m warning you, keep it clean.
Okay, I’ll stop now.
I haven’t seen them all, but I will say The Incredibles 2, Inside Out, and Onward were good. Luca and Elemental were not.
Apologies in advance for bringing up laser sword franchise, which is beyond dead at this point.
Mega Man is a special case, since the first six games, as well as the retro-inspired ninth and tenth, are really the same thing with different levels, but they do just enough to make each title stand out. Yes, I disagree with the popular opinion that IV through VI are boring retreads.
Man, that duty keeps calling.
I was. Sierra kid. Here are what I consider to be their top five best series (that I’ve played):
Quest for Glory
Space Quest
Leisure Suit Larry
King’s Quest
Police Quest
And here are their top five best individual games:
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Conquests of the Longbow
Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero
Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon
King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella/King’s Quest VI: Absence Makes the Heart go Yonder (tie)
Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and The Uninvited.
Or your nose.
A remake of the first game would be released in 1992, featuring updated graphics and sound and using Sierra’s then-new point-and-click interface instead of the text parser. Independent game studio AGD Interactive released a remake of the second game in a similar style in 2008 for free, and it’s really quite excellent.
Yeah man! Sierra made such good games.
I too caught the subtle, not so subtle queer coding in “Inside Out 2.” When they referenced Riley’s “darkest secret,” I thought to myself, “Aha, a coming out plot line in the third installment.”
I couldn’t get past how Quest For Glory 2 requires you to type in your actions. Somehow I’m terrible at guessing at the phrasing the devs want. I enjoyed the others in the series though.