Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film was released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. Monsters, Inc. was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. It was directed by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and David Silverman. [1]
Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 and was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.[2] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 95% approval rating.[3]
Plot
The story is set in Monstropolis, a 1930's retro city inhabited by monsters, and centers around Monsters, Inc., the city's power company. Monsters, Inc. sends its employees to human children's bedrooms to scare the children, through teleportation doors set up on the work floor. The screams of children generate electric power for the city. In addition, the monsters believe that human children themselves are toxic (part of the skill involved in scaring includes avoiding contact with the children). The chairman and chief executive officer of Monsters, Inc. is a crustacean-like monster called Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn).
The top scarer at Monsters, Inc. is James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman), a furry, blue, behemoth-like giant who is partnered with the short, green, one-eyed Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). The two of them are best friends and roommates. Sulley is a gentle and easy-going creature, while Mike is obsessed with his car and with marrying his girlfriend, the Medusa-like Celia Mae (Jennifer Tilly). Sulley's main rival as a scarer is the chameleon-like Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi), who possesses the ability to change the color of his skin to match his surroundings, and is second only to Sulley in the scarer ranks.
As Sulley and Mike go to work one day, they discuss Monstropolis's power shortage. Children have become desensitized to fear by over-exposure to television, and screams are harder to provoke. Just before they are about to leave after a long day, the secretary, the slug-like Roz, asks Mike to hand in his paperwork. Mike had forgotten about it, and leaves it to Sulley to fill up his papers and hand them in, since Mike is in a hurry to leave on a date with Celia for her birthday. As Sulley reaches the work floor to find Mike's papers, he finds a lone door on the work floor after hours, which is a violation of policy.
After inspecting the door, Sulley discovers a human toddler (Mary Gibbs) behind it. Because Sulley lacks the access card required to open the door, he cannot send her home. Frightened, he tries to hide the girl from coworkers, believing he could be blamed for her presence. After several misadventures, Sulley takes the girl to Mike, who is enjoying a romantic dinner with Celia at a sushi restaurant. The girl escapes from Sulley's grip at the restaurant, creating havoc amongst the monsters, and triggering the Child Detection Agency troops to take action; Mike and Sulley grab the girl and hurry home, trying to avoid the CDA.
The girl stays overnight at Mike and Sulley's apartment and is soon named Boo, for her habit of saying "Boo!" to surprise Sulley. The two find that she is not dangerous as they thought, but still plan to return her to her world the next day to avoid trouble from the CDA. They disguise her as a monster and sneak her inside Monsters, Inc., where they lose and regain track of her on two or three accounts. Eventually, Mike is caught by Randall, who offers to return Boo's door to the work floor. When Sulley mistrusts Randall, Mike enters the door himself to prove its safety and is mistaken for Boo by Randall, who places him in a box and takes him to a room hidden in the basement of the scream factory. There, Mike is shown a Scream Extractor, a large, vacuum-based device designed to drain energy from children. Sulley and Boo, who have followed Randall, distract him and free Mike from the machine, leaving Randall's assistant in his place.
Sulley decides to inform Waternoose of Randall's evil scheme, but is forced to participate in a scare demo to teach new scare recruits. Boo is frightened by Sulley's roar, and running away, she trips; the hood of her costume reveals that she is the escaped human child. Sulley, in his guilt, looks up at the images of the scare in action, revealing Boo's crying face. Sulley understands how children really feel when scared.
Mike quickly reports Randall's scheming to Waternoose before he can seize Boo. But it turns out that Waternoose is the mastermind of Randall's scheme. Because of the decline in productivity, he fears for the company's future, and sees Randall's machine as the only way of ensuring Monsters Inc's survival. Waternoose betrays Sulley and Mike, and banishes the two into the Himalayas through a one-way teleportation door.
The two stay with the Abominable Snowman (John Ratzenberger) at a cave until the Snowman tells Sulley of a village far below the mountain. After an argument with Mike, Sulley sneaks back to the monsters' world through a closet door in a child's bedroom in the village; after some deep thought, Mike soon follows. The two confront Randall and attempt to rescue Boo from scream extractor. Mike, Sulley, and Boo then lead Randall on a chase through moving teleporation doors, before Randall seems to have the upper hand on Sulley. Boo, furious at Randall, attacks him until Sulley climbs out of danger and he seizes Randall by the throat. Then Mike and Sulley throw Randall (whom Boo is no longer afraid of) through a teleportation door that sends him to a remote motorhome in a Louisiana swamp, where he is beaten senseless with a shovel by the family living inside, who mistake him for an alligator. Mike and Sulley destroy the door Randall went through, thus ensuring that he doesn't return.
Upon returning to the scare floor, Mike distracts the CDA while Sulley and Boo run off with Boo's door. Waternoose, however, spots this and pursues them. Sulley lures Waternoose onto the company's scare rehearsal stage. At the stage, Sulley angers Waternoose to such an extent that Waternoose blurts out his despicable plans in a rage. But then, the curtain goes up and Mike has the CDA watching the truth come out. Waternoose's statement is caught on tape, and he is taken into custody by the CDA. It is also revealed that the secretary, Roz, was in fact the leader of the CDA and had been doing undercover work to trap Randall for the agency. She admits without Sulley getting caught in the incident, she had never known the company corruption went as high as Waternoose. Boo is soon sent home and her door is put through a wood chipper, and Sulley says one last goodbye.
During his time with Boo, Sulley has learned that children's laughter is much better than screams at generating power. Using this revolutionary approach, Sulley is made the new chairman and CEO of Monsters, Inc. and the company is redefined. Now the monsters enter through the teleportation doors and make kids laugh; in this way, ample power is created for Monstropolis, thus ending the power shortages in the city. Meanwhile, Mike has secretly reassembled Boo's splintered door, and the only part missing from it is the wood chip that Sulley had salvaged as a memory of Boo. Mike shows this to Sulley, and Sulley puts the wood chip in place and the door becomes functional. Then, Sulley enters through the door to take a peek inside. Boo is heard but not seen, and the movie ends with a surprised and pleased smile on Sulley's face.
At the end, several comical "out-takes" are shown where the movie's characters are portrayed as actors. There is also a low-budget musical put on for the employees based on their lie from earlier in the movie. These are also available on the 'bonus features' section of the DVD.
Voice cast
References to other Pixar films
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Other media
Manga
- A manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bon magazine in Japan; the manga was published in English by TOKYOPOP until it became out of print.
On ice
- Feld Entertainment currently tours a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour.
Video games
- A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie.
Monsters, Inc. Quiz Game
Cast
Playables
Math Game the playable is Sullivan. Quiz Game the playable is Mike and Boo.
Additional short film
References made in the movie
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Theme park attractions
Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks across the globe.
- In 2006, Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! opened at Disney's California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The dark ride was developed to boost the theme park's lagging attendance, and was quite successful in doing so, at least for a period of time.
- In 2007, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor opened at the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The show is improvisational in nature, and features the opportunity for Guests to interact with the monster comedians, and even submit jokes of their own via text message. The attraction has been praised on it being original but has been criticized for being in Tomorrowland.[4]
- In 2009, Monsters, Inc: Ride And Go Seek will open at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.
- In Fall 2011 an untitled Monsters, Inc. indoor roller coaster based on the door chase sequence will open at Disney's Hollywood Studios alongside Toy Story Midway Mania. [5]
Music
- For details, see Monsters, Inc. (soundtrack).
The score was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the song "If I Didn't Have You" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Awards
Trailers
One Pixar tradition is to create trailers for their films that do not contain footage from the released film. Trailers for this film include:
- Sulley and Mike stumble into the wrong bedroom. Sulley blames Mike for the mistake, and the two have a fight, which is quickly resolved.
- In a trailer shown before the first Harry Potter film, Sulley is shown playing charades with Mike, but Mike is unable to guess the phrase "Harry Potter". The clip never specifically mentions Harry Potter, but the end states that Monsters, Inc. is playing right next door. Afterwards, Mike attempts to charade by waving his arms in the air to make a star shape. A bored Sulley quickly and correctly guesses Star Wars. A bewildered Mike asks how he does it.
See also
References
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
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