Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and David Silverman; and was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton.[1]
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. It 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 utility in Monstropolis, a city inhabited by monsters. The company sends its "scarers," monsters employed to frighten human children, to children's bedrooms around the world through individually-loaded and activated teleportation doors. Each door precisely matches a closet door in an individual child's bedroom. The scarers then frighten the children badly enough to cause them to scream. The screams are then captured through the portals and stored for later use in power generation 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 even by their belongings, the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is immediately alerted to sanitize the affected being. With growing 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 a result, an energy crisis looms.
One evening, James P. Sullivan ("Sulley"), Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer, finds a loaded door on the scare floor after hours - a violation of company policy. Peering inside, the child's room appears empty, so he exits. Sulley then 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 sends her door back to the factory's door vault. Sulley quickly hides the child and gets hold of his work-partner and pal Mike Wazowski for help in figuring out the situation. At Sulley's home, they discover that being touched by the child is not harmful at all, and that when she laughs, nearby fields of 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 puts in a request for retrieval of Boo's door, but the doorkeeper, Roz, denies it, as Mike has failed to properly file the previous day's 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. This requires Randall to actually kidnap children and bring them to the monster world.
Sulley takes Boo and attempts to reveal Randall's actions to Waternoose, but is sidetracked by a demonstration of 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, and is 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 for use in the machine.
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. They find a nearby Nepali village and locate a door connected to Monsters, Inc.'s Scarefloor F, Mike and Sulley's daily workstation. They are just in time to save Boo from the extractor, and attempt to catch Randall, 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 triumph once Boo overcomes her fear of Randall and starts beating him with a Wiffleball bat. Sulley throws Randall through a door, and he and Mike then smash the door to pieces to prevent him returning.
Sulley, Mike, and Boo then lure Waternoose into a trap at the scare simulator, and force him to reveal his intentions on camera. Under arrest by the CDA, the executive furiously blames Sulley for destroying the company and exacerbating the energy crisis. As he is taken away, Roz (now revealed to be Agent 001 of the CDA) insists that Boo must return to her world and that her door be destroyed. Sulley conveys Boo to her room and bid her farewell, and watches sadly as her door is run through a door shredder. Mike retrieves one undisposed-of splinter, and gives it to Sulley as a keepsake.
Later, Sulley has become the new 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 monsters and children happy and ending all fears about the energy crisis. Mike then 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
- John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, a large, furry blue monster with purple spots, who, at the start of the film, is Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer. After Waternoose's plan is revealed, Sulley becomes the CEO of the company, overseeing the collection of laughter from children.
- Billy Crystal as Michael "Mike" Wazowski, a green monster that is mostly an eyeball with hands and feet. Mike is Sulley's best friend and runs his station on the scare floor. After Sulley takes over, Mike becomes one of the monsters that helps extract laughs from children, using his stand up comedy.
- Mary Gibbs as "Boo", a two year old human girl that is inadvertently brought back to the monster world by Sulley. She appears unafraid of any of the strange monsters, and tries to explore the world on her own.
- Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs, an anthropomorphic chameleon-like monster with the ability to change the color of his skin to camouflage himself. He is a direct rival to Sulley, attempting to earn the most Scares during shifts, and is in on Waternoose's plan to kidnap children from the human world.
- James Coburn as Mr. Waternoose, a monster arachnid and, at the start of the film, CEO of Monsters, Inc. This was Coburn's last role in an animated work.
- Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae, a Medusa-like monster with snakes instead of hair, Mike's girlfriend, and secretary for the company. She playfully refers to Mike as "Googly Bear".
- Bob Peterson as Roz, a slug-like monster that works as a clerk for the Scare floor, but secretly is the top agent of the Child Detection Agency (CDA) who were seeking evidence for Waternoose's plan.
- John Ratzenberger as the Abominable Snowman, a yeti banished to the Himalayas
- Frank Oz as Fungus, a three-eyed monster that works as Randal's assistant on the Scare floor, and while aware of the plan, is hesitant to help with its execution.
- Bonnie Hunt as Ms. Flint, a snake-like monster that trains new monsters in scaring tactics.
- Jeff Pidgeon as Mr. Bile, a monster, newly hired to Monsters, Inc., who tries, and fails, to impress Sulley and Mr. Waternoose with his scaring antics, but is able to use his clumsiness to extract laughs from children at the end of the film.
- Dan Gerson as Needleman and Smitty, two monsters that work as janitors on the Scare floor
- Sam Black as George Sanderson, a monster that runs afoul of the CDA's "code 23-19", contact with a human child, several times during the film, forcing the CDA to shave and scrub him to remove any trace of human contact.
Production
The idea for Monsters, Inc. started with a lunch in 1994. At this lunch was John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft. One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming session was a film about monsters. Docter started working on the script in 1996 and with Harley Jessup, Jill Culton and Jeff Pidgeon completed a draft treatment in February 1997. The initial story did not have the character of Mike Wazowski. He wasn't added until a story review meeting between Pixar and Disney in April 1998. The film went into production in 2000.[4]
The release of Monsters, Inc. was almost delayed by a lawsuit brought by Lori Madrid against Pixar, Disney and Chronicle Books. The suit alleged the defendants had stolen her story There's a Boy in My Closet, which she had mailed out in October 1999 to a number of publishers, including Chronicle Books. The plaintiffs had requested a temporary injunction against the release of the film. Judge Clarence Brimmer, Jr. had a hearing on the injunction on November 1, 2001, the day before the film was to be released. He judged against the injunction, and the entire suit was thrown out on June 26, 2002.[4]
Another lawsuit by Stanley Mouse, alleged that the characters of Mike and Sully were based on drawings he had tried to sell Hollywood in 1998.[5]
Music
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 and nominations
Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Song (Randy Newman, after 15 previous nominations, for If I Didn't Have You). It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature (lost to Shrek), and Best Music, Original Score (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).
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 film. Another is when Randall arrives in the trailer, it is the trailer from A Bug's Life, and the pizza delivery truck 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.
Alternative versions
One month after the movie's theatrical release (on December 7th, 2001) a version with alternative end credits was brought into theatres. There, the credits are accompanied by a "blooper reel", followed by the musical "Put That Thing Back Where it Came From or So Help Me", performed by the cast. This version can be found as a separate feature on the collector's Edition DVD and in the credits of the 4:3 fullscreen DVD version as well as the end credits of the R2-R5 widescreen version for Eastern Europe.
As common for Pixar movies, international versions differ in the contents. Many English inscriptions are either removed, or replaced by more generic symbols, especially in Monstropolis and at the Scarefloor. For instance, the "Stalk/Don't Stalk" traffic light is replaced by a green two-headed monster (for "Stalk") and a forbidding red hand (for "Don't Stalk"). Additionally, an animation of Sully telling Boo to go to sleep was changed for Non-English version, as in the US version, he holds up two fingers to illustrate "to" in "You - go - to - sleep". Several European DVDs contain only the "international" version, whereas the US DVDs and US/UK BluRay contain the "US" version. Some of the examples for alternative angles can be seen in the bonus material of the 2-Disc DVD and Blu-Ray of the film.
Other media
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 all home video releases of Monsters, Inc.
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.
Video games
A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the film, such as a film adaptation, Monsters Inc., developed by A2M on PS2, PC, Game Boy Color, and GBA consoles in 2001.
On ice
Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.
Theme park attractions
Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks around the world.
- 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.[6]
- In 2009, Monsters, Inc: Ride & Go Seek opened at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.
See also
References
External links
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