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
Monsters, Inc. is the power company in the city of Monstropolis. Monsters, Inc. sends its many monster employees, skilled in scare techniques, to human children's bedrooms around the world at their local bedtime to scare them, through individually-loaded and activated teleportation doors set up on the “scare floor”, each of which precisely matches a closet door in the individual child’s bedroom. The screams of the suddenly-awakened tots, captured through the portals, generate electric power for the monster world. It is understood, however, that the children themselves are toxic, and the company goes to great lengths to prevent contact with them; should a monster be touched by a child, or simply their belongings, the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is immediately alerted to sanitize the affected being. With increasing numbers of children becoming desensitized by mass media, Monsters, Inc. CEO Henry J. Waternoose is finding it increasingly difficult to harvest enough scream to meet the power demands of Monstropolis, as their energy crisis looms.
One evening, James P. Sullivan ("Sulley"), Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer, finds a loaded door on the scare floor after hours - in violation of policy. Peering inside, the child's room appears empty, but Sulley finds to his horror that a human girl has followed him through the door, thinking him to be a giant kitty. Terrified of contamination, he tries to return her, but is forced to hide when Randall Boggs, a competitive co-scarer, emerges from the child's room and surreptitiously returns her door to an unseen door vault. Sulley quickly hides the child and gets hold of his work-partner and pal Mike Wazowski, to figure out the situation. Together at Sulley's home, they discover that being touched by the child is not harmful at all, and that when she laughs, surrounding electrical power surges to unusually high levels. Sulley nicknames the child "Boo" and becomes her caretaker until they can get her back home.
Sulley and Mike disguise Boo as a baby monster and return to Monsters, Inc. the next morning. Mike attempts to get the correct door to return Boo, but the doorkeeper, Roz, refuses his request: Mike has failed to properly return his paperwork. Boo wanders off into the plant, with Sulley giving chase. They accidentally stumble upon Randall and his "scream extractor", a device that extracts the screams directly from a physically restrained child, which requires Randall to actually kidnap one and bring them to the monster world. Sulley takes Boo and attempts to reveal Randall's actions to Waternoose, but is forced to demonstrate his scaring skills to new employees assembled at the plant’s scare simulator before he can do so. When he scares the robot subject, Boo becomes frightened of him, and is revealed as a human. Sulley tries to explain the situation to Waternoose, but comes to realize that Waternoose is actually in on the scream extractor plan, allowing Randall to develop it in order to keep Monsters, Inc. from going out of business. To keep them quiet, Waternoose orders Sulley and Mike exiled to the human world, and gives Boo to Randall to extract her screams to generate more power.
Sulley and Mike, now stranded in the snowy Himalayas in Nepal with its local monster inhabitant, an ever-gleeful Yeti, realize that Boo's life is in danger, and find a nearby Nepali village where they locate a door connected to Monsters, Inc. Scarefloor F (Mike and Sulley's work station). They are just in time to save Boo from the extractor, and attempt to catch Randall, eventually leading to a chase on, across, and through the myriad traveling portals within the cavernous automated door vault, all now activated by Boo's reverberating screams of delight. They eventually triumph once Boo overcomes her fear of Randall and starts beating him with a Wiffle bat. Sulley throws him through a door, and then they smash the door to pieces to prevent him returning. The door is revealed to reside in a trailer in a Southern swamp, and Randall's silhouette is shown passing by the trailer window. A boy and his mother then knock Randall senseless with a shovel, mistaking him for an alligator. Sulley, Mike, and Boo then lure Waternoose into an ingenious trap, forcing him to reveal his intentions on camera at the scare simulator. Waternoose furiously blames Sulley for destroying the entire company as he is arrested, but Roz (revealed to be Agent 001 of the CDA) insists that Boo must return to her world and that her door be destroyed so that she cannot return. Sulley and Mike return Boo to her room and say goodbye to her, and watch sadly as the CDA put her door through a door shredder, reducing it to splinters. Sulley holds onto one undisposed-of splinter as a keepsake.
Later, Sulley has become the CEO of Monsters, Inc., and has changed the company's approach - instead of scaring children, they make them laugh. This generates ten times more power, making both the monsters and children happy. Finally, Mike reveals his own special project to Sulley - he has managed to rebuild Boo's door save the one piece Sulley has kept, and invites him to finish it. Sulley places the last piece and enters the door, where an unseen Boo instantly recognizes him.
Voice cast
References to other Pixar films
There are numerous references to other Pixar films to be found in Monsters, Inc.; one example is that near the end of the film, Boo hands Sully a Jessie doll from Toy Story 2, the Luxo ball, and a plush of Nemo from Finding Nemo. Since Finding Nemo was the Pixar film that followed Monsters, Inc., it was presumably a sneak peek to the upcoming movie. Another is when Randall arrives in the trailer, it is the trailer from Bug's Life, and the pizza delivery car from Toy Story is seen sitting next to it.
Also, in the bloopers of the film, Rex from the Toy Story films makes a cameo appearance.
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 toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.
Video games
- A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie, such as a movie adaptation, Monsters Inc., developed by A2M on PS2, Game Boy Color, and GBA consoles in 2001. The game received 5.1 from Gamespot and 2.0 from IGN for repetitive gameplay and poor graphics.
Monsters, Inc. Quiz Game
Cast
Playables
Math Game the playable is Sullivan. Quiz Game the playable is Mike and Boo.
Additional short film
- A short was made by Pixar in 2002 named Mike's New Car, in which the two main characters have assorted misadventures with a car Mike has just bought. This film was not screened in theaters, but is included with the VHS and DVD release of Monsters, Inc.
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 & Go Seek opened at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.
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[citation needed]. 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. A different version has Mike using a hula hoop, and Sulley correctly guesses Saturn.
Blu-ray Release
Monsters, Inc. will also become available on Blu-ray in September 2009.
See also
References
External links
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