Inside Out: what is "non-objective fragmentation"?

What it means is that things in the physical world are objectively real, like the Empire State Building. The stage before the building is non objective fragmentation as in it's the pieces of the building as it's being put together, the glass, the steel, the concrete. Each piece is a fragment. The stage before this is deconstruction. The pieces aren't even at the building site, they are not known to be heading there, they are in fragments in other places. The stage before that is two dimensionalisation which is the flat plan for the building, and the stage before that is just the space, the vague shape, the basic idea for some sort of building.

So the characters joy and sadness and Bing Bong enter the location of abstract thought as objectively real and end up as flat coloured shapes. So to reverse it, you might say, 'I want a coffee'. It's abstract. There is no coffee, there is no cup. It's all imaginary. It's non-figurative (not objective) because you haven't decided what your final drink is. You go to Starbucks. You order. Your order is like the two dimensional plan for your coffee but in words. You could write this down. Then the fragments of the coffee, the cup, water, milk and sugar, which had no prior relationship, the fragments, are put together. What you receive at the end is an objectively real cup of Starbucks coffee. This is the journey from abstract thoughts to objective reality.

Non objective fragmentation speaks to the aesthetics of the characters, they are being fragmented and their bodies are no longer objectively represented. Deconstruction comes from Derrida -- you could easily take an entire university course on this concept alone. The two-dimensional phase in my mind is a nod to the modernist tendency to draw attention to the flatness of a work of art. Up until modernism painters would try to paint something in a way that would make it look real; modernists emphasize that a painting is nothing more than paint on canvas, thereby calling attention to its two-dimensionality. The non-figurative stage is exactly that - the objects no longer resemble themselves in terms of figure (i.e. they are no longer recognizable). This section of the movie is completely brilliant as far as I'm concerned! Hope this helps.

I read that abstract thought develops in children around the age of 10 which is the age the girl is in the film. Bing bong, her imaginary friend has never been through abstract thought before as it was not active. So before his shortcut was 'safe'. I see it as the abstract thought is then made into objective reality using the pieces (fragments) to make up the object. (In reverse to what happens to them). The art is used to visually demonstrate the process. Non objective is 'not objective' therefore it's subjective so the fragments of the characters or whatever they are can be made into many different things....but once they are reality they are the object, they are the characters. Probably the same as the design of the characters initially before animation. I love the concept of the film and although it is quite deep and thought provoking for adults I would guess it's quite simplistic and fun for children who would perceive it differently and connect with the characters in their own way, depending on their age and understanding of it.