Monsters, Inc.
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Monsters, Inc. |
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 Monsters, Inc. movie poster |
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| Directed by | Peter Docter Lee Unkrich David Silverman |
| Produced by | Darla Anderson John Lasseter |
| Written by | Story: Jill Culton Peter Docter Ralph Eggleston Jeff Pidgeon Screenplay: Andrew Stanton Daniel Gerson Additional Screenplay: Robert L. Baird Rhett Reese Jonathan Roberts |
| Starring | John Goodman Billy Crystal Steve Buscemi James Coburn Jennifer Tilly |
| Music by | Randy Newman |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
| Release date(s) | November 2, 2001 |
| Running time | 94 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $115 million |
| Gross revenue | Domestic: $255,873,250 Worldwide: $525,366,597 |
| Followed by | Mike's New Car |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 film and the fourth computer animation 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.
The story for 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.
Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 with the best opening ticket sales ever for an animated film and the sixth best of all time. Rotten Tomatoes also gave the film extremely positive reviews and a fresh 95 percent. Monsters, Inc. is the 50th highest-grossing film of all time[1]
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[edit] 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 children's bedrooms to scare the children, through teleportation doors set up on the work floor. The screams of children then generate electric power for the city. The chairman and chief executive officer of Monsters, Inc. is a crab-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 are going to work one day, their discussion reveals that the city is suffering a power shortage because children have become desensitized to fear by over-exposure to television, making screams 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. 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 toddler human girl (Mary Gibbs) behind it. Because Sulley lacks the access card required to open the door, he cannot return her home. Frightened, Sulley tries his best to hide the girl from coworkers, as it is believed that humans are toxic to monsters. After several misadventures, Sulley finally takes the girl to Mike, who is enjoying a romantic dinner with his girlfriend at a sushi restaurant. The girl escapes from Sulley's grip at the restaurant, creating havoc amongst the monsters, and triggering the CDA (Child Detection Agency) troops to take action; Mike and Sulley grab the girl and hasten home, trying to avoid the CDA's attention at all times.
The girl stays overnight at Mike and Sulley's flat and is soon named Boo, for her habit of saying "Boo!" to surprise Sulley. The two come to know she is not dangerous as 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 and the film's viewers are shown a large vacuum-based device designed to drain energy from children, called a Scream Extractor. Sulley and Boo, who have followed Randall, distract him and free Mike from the machine, leaving Randall's assistant in his place.
Later on, Sulley turns up at the simulation room to teach new scare recruits what a good, loud roar is. Boo, who escapes from where Mike is hiding her, runs out in front of Sulley, giggling. Sulley pleads not to have to scare the simulation child. Waternoose forces him. As he roars, he inadvertently frightens Boo and causes her to burst into tears. After running away screaming, she trips; the hood of her costume reveals that she is the escaped human child. Sulley, guilty, 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 in favor 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 exiles 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; Mike soon follows. The two confront Randall and attempt to rescue Boo from his grasp. Boo, no longer afraid of Randall, attacks him. Then Mike and Sulley push Randall 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 soon.
Mike and Sulley then use Boo to lure Waternoose onto the company's scare rehearsal stage. At the stage, Sulley infuriates Waternoose to such an extent that Waternoose blurts out his heinous plans in a rage: "I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die!". 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 for the agency. Boo is soon sent home and her door is put through a wood chipper.
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 one more 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. These are also available on the 'bonus features' section of the DVD
[edit] Voice cast
[edit] Spin-offs
- 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.
- Feld Entertainment currently tours a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour.
- A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie.
- A short was made by Pixar in 2002 named Mike's New Car.
- In Cars, there is a scene at the end of the film when the characters are at watching movies at a drive-in theater. One is called "Monster Trucks Inc", where Sulley, Mike, and the Abominable Snowman appear as cars, a direct reference to Monsters, Inc.
[edit] 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.[2]
- In 2009, Monsters, Inc: Ride And Go Seek will open at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Awards
- Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Song (Randy Newman for If I Didn't Have You). It was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing and Best Music, Original Score.
- This movie, and Shrek are the first pair of computer generated (CG) animated movies to win Academy Awards in the same year. Monsters, Inc. won for Best Song of 2001, and Shrek won for Best Animated Feature of 2001.
[edit] 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 preview 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.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since May 2007. |
[edit] External links
- Information at Pixar's site
- Monsters, Inc. at the Internet Movie Database
- Monsters, Inc. at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Monsters, Inc. at Rotten Tomatoes
- Monsters, Inc. at Metacritic
- Monsters, Inc. at Box Office Mojo
| Preceded by For the Birds |
Pixar Animation Studios animated films 2001 |
Succeeded by Mike's New Car |
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