‘Inside Out’ trailer: Pixar teases its ‘emotion picture’

Remember all those times a Pixar movie made you laugh, made you cry? Because Pixar would like to remind you.

The Disney-owned animation house has released a teaser trailer for “Inside Out,” Pete Docter’s ambitious film set inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl, and it opens not with new footage, but a greatest-hits reel.

Featuring clips from beloved movies like “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo” and “Up,” the teaser (watch it above) recalls moments of joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness from throughout the Pixar canon. In doing so, it paves the way for the introduction of the main characters in “Inside Out”: a girl named Riley and her five personified emotions.

Set for release June 19, “Inside Out” tells the story an adolescent Midwesterner whose life is uprooted when her dad takes a new job in San Francisco. But in addition to being the protagonist of the film, Riley is also the setting. The other characters reside in her head: Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith).

As Riley struggles to adjust to her new life, her emotions run amok, and Joy (portrayed as a cheerful yellow fairy) tries to keep things positive.

If it all sounds a bit, well, heady, the teaser does feel like an attempt to reassure moviegoers, as if to say, “Trust us, emotions are our specialty.”

Pixar does have an impressive track record, consistently turning out critical and commercial hits, but “Inside Out” nonetheless represents a risky creative endeavor that could pose marketing challenges: It’s not based on an existing property, it doesn’t have a cuddly creature front and center (though the emotions are kind of cute), and the introspective concept is tough to distill into a sound bite.

Then again, the characters are an unruly group we can all relate to.

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