Deep Dive Pixar: Wes Looks at Monsters Inc.

Welcome back to Deep Dive Pixar, Deep Dive Disney’s non-union Mexican equivalent. Today we’re looking at a beloved fan favorite in Monsters Inc. While I wouldn’t necessarily put it on par with the Toy Story movies, this is still one of Pixar’s best films and introduced some timeless characters into the Disney pantheon. More than that though, it takes childhood fears and beliefs and creates a unique and fascinating world around them. Everyone has at one point or another been afraid of monsters under the bed or in the closet. I myself used to be scared of them coming through the window. Well, Monster Inc. gives us a world where those monsters are very real. However, these monsters are not scaring you out of any sort of malice, they’re just working stiffs doing their jobs. Welcome to Monstropolis, home to thousands of unique and colorful monsters as well as the biggest energy company in the Monster World, the titular Monsters Inc. See, the whole reason that monsters scare children, putting themselves at great risk since monsters believe children to be toxic to the touch, is because Monsters Inc. has found a way to convert the screams of children into usable energy that powers the entire city and presumably, the entire monster world. Monsters Inc. does great business, but Despite the efforts of the hardworking scare team of Monsters Inc., an energy shortage due to children being harder to scare than they used to be still looms over the company like the reaper’s scythe. James P. Sullivan, or Sulley for short, is one of the greatest scarers that Monster’s Inc. has ever seen. Alongside his diminutive best friend and scare assistant, Mike Wazowski, Sulley is close to breaking the all-time scare record. However, Sulley’s life is turned upside down when he discovers an active closet door on the scare floor after hours, something very unusual. While investigating, Sulley accidentally lets a little girl into the monster world. At first, Mike and Sulley are terrified of the small child, especially since its laughs and screams cause power surges, essentially making it an EMP generator with the mind of a two-year-old, Sulley eventually grows attached to the little one, giving her the name “Boo.” However, our heroes soon learn that Boo finding her way into the monster world was no accident, but rather part of a sinister plot by Randall Boggs, Sulley’s rival. See, Randall has thought of a way to solve the energy crisis, and it involves kidnapping and torturing children, Boo just being the first. Now, it’s up to Mike and Sulley to save Boo and stop Randall’s evil plot. It’s a wonderfully creative film with great characters and a unique story. Let’s not delay and jump right on in to, Monsters Inc.

Main Character:

While you can argue that Sulley is the true focal point character, I’m giving both Mike and Sulley the main character spot. The two are a package deal and you can’t have one without the other. Work colleagues, roommates and best friends since they were in elementary school (I don't care what retcons Monsters University tries to feed us), Mike and Sulley are a team to the end. We’ll start with Sulley. Like our old friend Pacha from The Emperor’s New Groove, Sulley is voiced by one of my all-time favorite actors, John Goodman, who’s booming voice and lovable demeanor is a perfect fit for the big friendly blue fuzzball. As the top scarer of Monsters Inc., Sulley is a bit of a rock star of sorts in his community. He seems humble enough, but also doesn’t seem to mind the praise and adulation he receives from others. His rivalry with Randall is very one sided in that regard since to Sulley, scaring is just another job that he happens to enjoy and be really good at, and as for Randall, well, we’ll get to that. However, despite Sulley being a terrifying enormous blue grizzly bear creature, Sulley actually has a heart of gold. When he first finds Boo, yes, he’s scared, but he also recognizes that she’s probably scared too and acts accordingly. I actually really do enjoy the attachment that Sulley and Boo form. Through Boo’s influence, especially an incident where a Sulley makes Boo cry during a scare demonstration, Sulley begins to question if the way monsters operate is right.

Now let’s move on to everyone’s favorite adorable little one-eyed green googly bear, Mike Wazowski! Voiced by the great Billy Crystal, while Mike may occasionally disagree with his best friend, he’s always got Sulley’s back and is his biggest cheerleader when it comes to Sulley’s career. Mike is also excited about being recognized, overjoyed to be featured in a Monster’s Inc. commercial despite his face being covered up by a logo. Despite being a complete dork who’s just the right amount of full of himself, Mike is actually quite the charmer when it comes to his girlfriend Celia. As a dork dating someone ridiculously out of my league myself, I relate. While Mike is loyal to Sulley, he still has his limits. There’s a brilliant scene towards the end in which Mike blows up at Sulley for dragging him into this. He never wanted anything to do with Boo and now, he’s lost everything he’s ever cared about because Sulley insisted on getting involved. Sure, they make up later, but it shows that Mike is more than just Sulley’s comedy sidekick. Still, at the end of the day, Mike and Sulley are pals through and through and they make one of the best pair of buddies in any Disney movie.

Villain:

There’s actually two villains in this movie, the aforementioned Randall Boggs and Henry Waternoose, the CEO of Monster’s Inc. Randall is voiced by another one of my favorite actors, Steve Buscemi and between him, John Goodman and a character whose surname rhymes with owski, we’re one Jeff Bridges away for a full-blown Pixar remake of The Big Lebowski. We can only hope. Sporting a creepy, chameleon like design and possessing the ability to turn invisible, Randall is definitely one of the most genuinely scary monsters in the film. Anywho, unlike Waternoose, Randall doesn’t really seem to care about the potential benefits to the community, he just wants to corner the energy market for the sake of power, show up Sulley by making him obsolete and, creepier even than that, seems to enjoy torturing children. Randall is a seriously twisted bastard. Frankly, his ultimate fate where he’s mistaken for an alligator by a white trash family who hopefully made a pair of shoes out of his skin is too good for him.

Next, there's the one who initially seems to be the lesser of two evils, Mr. Waternoose. Voiced by one of the original tough guys of cinema, James Coburn, and sporting a cool spider-like design, Waternoose, at first, doesn’t seem like that bad a guy. He’s a tough but fair boss who seems to genuinely respect and care for Sulley, regarding him as a sort of protégé if not surrogate son. Now, don’t get it twisted, Waternoose is still clearly willing to go along with Randall’s plan, a plan that involves the kidnapping and torture of children, but in his mind, he’s trying to do something good. He’s shown to find Randall’s methods distasteful and genuinely regrets having to banish Mike and Sulley but any moral issues he may have are overshadowed by his desire to solve the energy crisis and keep his family’s company, which employs hundreds if not thousands of people, afloat. What I’m saying here is, for Waternoose, the ends very much justify the means, even if those means are morally reprehensible. But that's what makes his actions all the more sinister. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Waternoose, more than any Disney villain we've covered in this retrospective, seems to embody that phrase. Randall’s plan was horrific to say the least and Waternoose clearly found it distasteful, but then, if Monster’s Inc. dies, hundreds will be without jobs and thousands more will be without power. Those people depend on Monsters Inc., on him. Waternoose can’t let these people down, so he looks the other way, fooling himself that the ends justify the means. Say what you will about Randall, at least he’s honest about what he is while Waternoose believes that the atrocities he’s complicit in are in service of a greater good. But really, nothing could ever justify kidnapping and torturing innocent children, but Waternoose either doesn’t realize this, or simply doesn’t care because, as he says himself, “I’d kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die.” And with that, Waternoose proves himself to be a monster in action as well as in species.

Side Characters:

Despite a world full of diverse and interesting looking monsters, there actually aren’t that many side characters of any real significance. We’ll start with Mike’s girlfriend Celia, voiced by the always amazing Jennifer Tilly. Not much to say about her, she’s just a sweet and supportive love interest for Mike. I actually got a few laughs out of their overly lovey-dovey relationship and Sulley giving Mike a hard time for it.

Roz is a pretty funny character and her perpetual surly attitude makes me laugh. The twist at the end where she was actually an undercover agent was also nice.

Finally, there’s Boo. Boo is just pure weapons-grade adorable. Fun fact about Boo, she was voiced by an actual two-year-old girl. Here’s a surreal thought for you, that little girl is in her 20’s by now. Still, any scene where Boo bonds with Sulley is so cute that it can melt even the most cynical heart, and my heart ached for her and Sulley during the infamous roar scene.

Memorable Scenes:

We previously alluded to Mike’s big blow up at Sulley earlier and I feel it’s worth elaborating upon here. Mike and Sulley have just been banished to the human world, apparently a common punishment in this reality which is how we ended up with The Yeti, Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster. While taking shelter from a snowstorm, Mike finally loses it with Sulley. Up until this point, Mike has gone along with everything Sulley’s done against his better judgement because Sulley is his best friend, but now, because he followed Sulley, he’s lost everything he’s ever cared about and everything he’s ever worked for and he can’t take it anymore. It’s actually a pretty powerful emotional moment

The scene where Mike and Sulley are riding on the closet doors is pretty exciting and very creative. I’m not sure if Disney ever made a roller coaster out of it but if not, it was a huge missed opportunity.

Story:

It was actually my father who pointed out the message of Monsters Inc. to me as we were driving home from the theater twenty years ago. Nothing is more powerful than laughter. If you can laugh in the face of fear, then that fear can’t hurt you. This is shown both figuratively, when Boo is able to overcome her fear of Randall, and in a creatively literal way when it’s revealed that laughter is ten times more powerful and efficient than screams when it comes to powering the monster world. Sulley uses this information to solve the energy crisis, revolutionize the industry and create several new jobs. Now, instead of scaring children, it’s a monster’s job to make them laugh. That’s pretty cool.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Hey, did I mention that the villain’s entire plan hinges on kidnapping small children and hooking them up to a big torture machine? That’s fucked up! There’s this one especially messed up scene where Randall’s assistant, Fungus, gets trapped in the machine and well… it’s not pretty. The poor little guy is turned into a pale husk. One can only wonder what might have happened to Boo or any other kids Randall kidnapped had his evil plan been successful.

Final Thoughts: Monsters Inc. is an absolute blast. It's funny, clever, creative, disturbing when it needs to be and adorable as well. It's a total package. Shame we never got a proper sequel, I'd have been curious to see how Sulley would have dealt with Boo growing up. But no, instead we get a crap prequel that's basically just Animal House with a PG rating. God, Monsters University is terrible. Anywho, in this movie, we saw a little girl bonding with a blue monster who was actually a big gentle teddy bear, but what if a little girl befriended a monster who actually was destructive and hostile. Well, next time we're going to find out as Deep Dive Disney looks at the beloved Disney classic, Lilo & Stitch.