FINAL VERDICT
JUDGE JON: For me, these final three rounds came down to who presented their arguments the strongest and defended themselves the best. No one was a slouch in these regards. Abby scored a lot of points for presenting the best points about WALL-E through the filmmaker’s intentions and how the movie jives with viewers once the credits roll. Josh did this for Inside Out as well, to an extent, but he repeated himself a lot when talking about how Inside Out is useful to viewers.
That said, Josh’s chosen scene for Inside Out really pushed all his arguments ahead, notably when it comes to how the movie wraps up story arcs and provides catharsis in ways that WALL-E doesn’t even try.
It’s hard not to call this a draw, but I can’t drive one matter out of my mind. In a previous round, Abby pulled ahead of Toy Story because she said it was wrong to assume Pixar had peaked with their first movie. With this in mind, I found Josh’s attack against WALL-E‘s lack of a compelling story arc all the more persuasive. This was a hard-fought match, but Josh and Inside Out take the victory.
As for me, whew. I feel…tired. Emotionally?
VERDICT: INSIDE OUT
