A universe analysis goes over the rules of the world(s) in which the characters exist. It looks at the rules and tools available to the characters to find plot holes, shortcuts the characters could have used to resolve the conflict sooner or more easily.
We already know what a plot hole is: It’s a missed opportunity for the characters to resolve conflict earlier through easier means. They could’ve taken a shortcut to the end credits. The fewer the plot holes, the fewer questions you’ll have while watching, the “Why didn’t they just take the shortcut?” type of questions.
Plot holes are the rules and tools the movie could have exploited to skip plot points.
In Inside Out, the context of the main conflict is Joy and Sadness trying to get back to headquarters through any means possible. For example, if you hear that headquarters is connected physically to the rest of the brain, and Joy and Sadness need to get back to headquarters, you’d say “OK, cool, they can just use that connection as an actual bridge and just walk back.” The movie says “nah.” and shows the bridges shatter one by one until there aren’t any left. So, no bridges, sorry. That’s not the story the movie wants to tell.
For example, there actually is one plot hole in Inside Out. Riley’s imaginary friend, Bing Bong, has a Radio Flyer wagon with a straw broom attached horizontally to each side, pretending to function as rocket boosters to propel the wagon. The wagon is functional, and when it’s introduced into the plot, the characters are aware of what it does. Unfortunately, they don’t talk about how it might not be a viable mode of transportation back to headquarters. So, the characters could’ve used Bing Bong’s rocket wagon to get back, but nothing in the plot shoots that idea down. And then we’re left with a shortcut, a plot hole.
As another famous example of a plot hole is in Lord of the Rings, both book and movie, where the main characters could’ve just hopped on the back of a giant eagle and flown the ring to Mordor instead of walking two books’ worth to get there. Both literary and fantasy nerds like to drop this fact every now and then. Even J. R. R. Tolkein missed closing a gap. Happens to the best of us. It’s understandable because he built an entire world – one large plot hole was pretty much guaranteed to exist.
The more complex a story’s universe is, the more likely plot holes exist. This makes sense; more rules means more combinations of rules. More combinations means more potential shortcuts.
What’s fascinating is that the universe in Inside Out is deceptively complex and, for all its complexity, Bing Bong’s wagon is the only plot hole I can identify. The rest of the holes were thoroughly patched.
How many plot holes did the movie fix?
Lots.
In the primary plot (the A plot), Joy and Sadness need to return to HQ. For various reasons, the universe contains multiple obvious shortcuts, and nixes every single one:
- Joy and Sadness could’ve walked across any of five bridges connecting HQ to the islands of personality. The bridges are all eventually destroyed.
- The two freighthop the Train of Thought to get back to HQ, but that gets derailed, literally.
- Joy and Sadness try to take the express route back by jumping into a pneumatic memory recall tube that delivers memory spheres to headquarters. The movie shatters the tube in spectacular fashion just as Joy was about to succeed in returning.
There’s even more in the secondary plt (the B plot), which we’ll get to later.
Those are the three big patches in the main plot. These opportunities existed to help the audience understand some of the very abstract concepts that were presented. HQ had to be connected to the islands because the Core Memories in HQ are what power the islands. The physical connection helps the audience understand this. Unfortunately, they also presented a route back to HQ. The story has a choice: remove the bridges as a means of explanation, or keep them in to help explain stuff and destroy them later. It chose the latter and just shattered them all. Similar devices exist, like the Train of Thought, which the movie derails.
On top of the potential holes in the A plot, the secondary plot (the B plot) risks several holes. Three of the five emotions remain back at headquarters, which means that despite the absence of Joy and Sadness, the structure of the universe provides the other three emotions with potential ways to fix the main problem of the movie: Riley not being happy. What are those holes?
- The three emotions could just pretend to be Joy, but all three of them fail in their own unique way.
- While the Core Memories are gone, headquarters is full of regular memories that could replace them at least in the short term, but we see that this plan quickly becomes a no-go.
- The emotions could just leave HQ before it’s destroyed through a recall tube, but this is also not an option as we see Fear gets rattled around inside and falls back out.
These holes are all plugged as well, and it consumes the first half of the B plot. It’s impressive how thoroughly the story challenges itself by looking for these holes and then working in a very effective, subtle way in paving over them.
Brief Aside – Primary plot and subplots
Stories can have multiple plots going on simultaneously. The primary plot is usually referred to as the A plot, and the secondary as the B plot, or subplot. It’s easy to add more subplots since we have more letters in the alphabet.
In lots of TV shows, each episode has an A plot and a B plot. Some series like to have season-long story arcs that are gradually advanced in each episode, which can be considered the C plot.
The show House is a good example of this. Each of 8 seasons presents a season-long conflict between House and a consequence of his addiction, such as season 3 where a speeding ticket turns into a police detective catching on to House’s highly illegal method of obtaining vicodin from the hospital he works at. That C plot is the detective slowly unraveling his secret and ultimately pressing charges, and elements of that plot are, impressively, spread across up to 24 episodes (maybe not all of them, but it’s been awhile since I’ve watched them, so don’t quote me).
Three simultaneous plots of different lengths is an effective and not-uncommon story structure in a series. It’s common among some of the most popular series, as it uses each plot to appeal to a different kind of audience, ones that like stories about friends, love, or the mechanics of the universe. Lost is another example of this. Friendship is explored among some of the marooned, romance is explored between Jack, Kate and Sawyer, and the island presents a mechanical mystery.
There can even be a D plot, but the more plot lines that are added, the more care that needs to be taken to not lose the audience. A movie can reasonably have A and B plots, TV shows can afford A, B, and C plots. D plots… are tough to fit well.
In Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace: Semicolon, the plot diverged into four separate plots, A – D, and the climax jumps between all four. It gets pretty difficult to follow because not only as the climax creates fast action, there are a lot of characters doing pretty different things. One of its saving graces is that each subplot takes place in a unique setting, with different backgrounds consisting of different structures and different color palettes. They’re in very different places, so it’s easier to keep with all the plot jumps. Still, it’s a lot to take in due to the pace of action alone, forget all the characters and the overall structure of their plan.
The more plots, the more intricate the story structure can become, though it’s best kept within reason.
It’s only after closing all these gaps that the story is able to max out the tension, as the route back to HQ becomes very non-obvious, and the other three emotions start the clock, so to speak, counting down to the moment the main problem becomes irreparable.
If you take out all the scenes that patch holes, you still have the core story unchanged: Joy and Sadness still have to get back to HQ before it becomes a permanent problem, but the audience leaves the theater with a crap ton of questions. “Why didn’t they just take the bridge back?” “Couldn’t they have just used memories in HQ to stand in for Core Memories?” “Who cares? Just leave HQ.”
See? Lots of questions. There are even more than the ones ust mentioned. All but one question are answered in scenes that are clever and funny. Also important is that those hole-plugging scenes also advance the plot, which then gives the A plot more time to build out the relationship between Joy and Sadness.
There’s really a lot going on here.
The story has another option of fixing these plot holes: just remove the things that present them. Take out the bridges from the islands to headquarters. Obvious, right?
In the unique case of Inside Out, there’s a ton of abstract world concepts that need to be made very clear to the audience in order to understand the universe. The story places emotions in Riley’s brain, and to make that clear, there’s abstract concepts like one’s train of thought being represented by an actual train. Despite the representation being straightforward, it was still a good idea to introduce to make it clear that the emotions exist in Riley’s mind.
By keeping the Train of Thought, an obvious plot hole is created: Joy and Sadness could hop in to get back to HQ. The bridges connecting the islands to HQ, as well as the memory recall tubes pose similar risks, but are kept so that a thorough metaphor can be constructed and understood by the audience.
This is psychology with metaphors from both abstract psychological concepts as well as some physical brain structures. For example, how does someone remember something? A memory sphere is sent to HQ via pneumatic tubes, referred to as recall tubes. But those tubes are shortcuts, and that’s not what this story is about, so we gotta break ‘em.
Besides, things look cool when they’re shattered or wrecked, so let’s do it anyway.
So, looking back at the hole that is Bing Bong’s wagon, it’s commendable that it’s the only plot hole that exists out of the seven potential holes. In baseball, that’s batting an 0.857, which is so good it’s inhuman.
A universe presents more and more challenges the more and more complex it becomes. This should actually be seen as an opportunity, as covering holes provides opportunities to explore and deepen relationships between characters. Ideally, they also advance the plot. Inside Out definitely had a lot of opportunities, and it capitalized on pretty much all of them, and it creates a story that is almost entirely air tight. Since we don’t actually see Bing Bong’s rocket take flight before it is introduced, it’s easy for the plot hole to zip by before you even know it’s there, so honestly, it’s half a hole since it’s not entirely obvious.
So, if you want a complex universe, be prepared to look for holes. The more you patch, the more solid of a story, the more opportunities you’ll have to flesh out the characters and build tension.
Complexity can arise easily from how thoroughly you want to express a metaphor. Not enough concrete elements to represent abstract concepts, and the metaphor becomes more easily lost. Too many concrete elements, and you’ll have quite a time finding and fixing holes. It’s why Tolkein missed the eagles, and why Inside Out missed the rocket. Despite that tiny hole, Inside Out is still one of the most shining examples of a story that takes the challenge of the universe’s complexity head-on and fills in hole after hole. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, the scenes that do so also serve multiple other purposes to the story.
Few stories work harder to challenge its universe and also plugs the holes it finds in such an entertaining manner. It’s hard to spin the title into a clever closing, especially since the story doesn’t turn its universe inside out per se, it, but for all the holes the story plugs, the universe does end up being air tight.