{"id":1179,"date":"2007-03-30T17:48:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T17:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/pixar-the-storytellers-part-4"},"modified":"2007-03-30T17:48:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T17:48:00","slug":"pixar-the-storytellers-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/pixar-the-storytellers-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Pixar: The Storytellers Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I present to you the 4th installment of Tyro’s series, Pixar: The Storytellers. This week looks at Monster’s Inc.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

Monsters, Inc.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/i>As I stated in my Toy Story article, credits sequences are the perfect place to position the audience for the film. Monsters, Inc. (herein: MI) doesn\u2019t use a Randy Newman song that virtually lays out the controlling idea of the story, rather, given we\u2019re expecting monsters, it sets us up for what kind of monsters, and what kind of world to expect. Firstly, monsters behind doors. Secondly, they\u2019re pretty stupid and scared themselves. But importantly \u2013 it\u2019s a fun world \u2013 it\u2019s telling the audience, don\u2019t worry, these monsters? They don\u2019t scare. It\u2019s all done to a groovy, toe-tapping inducing jazz number. We\u2019re relaxed, smiling \u2013 on the with the film . . .<\/p>\n

Read on<\/a><\/p>\n

. . . of course, what we\u2019re greeted with is a pretty scary opening few shots. Then the comedy comes, and we\u2019re laughing. Recall, if you will, my praising of the way Toy Story masterfully parsed out its opening exposition. It was all natural. Is MI\u2019s exposition done naturally? The trouble is that we\u2019re not just in a kid\u2019s bedroom, where toys come to life, we\u2019re in another world, where monsters live, and there\u2019s some place called \u201cMonsters, Inc.\u201d Other than that, we know nothing. So not only do we have to be shown the character relationships, dynamics and politics of this world, but we also have to be shown the rules of the world itself. We need to know that Monsters, Inc. is a power factory, it gets power from harnessing children\u2019s screams, which is achieved by scarers, and \u2013 importantly setting up the underlying plot \u2013 there\u2019s a scare shortage because children aren\u2019t that easily scared any more.<\/p>\n

All that, and the character information. Sci-fi films achieve this through an opening crawl, just laying out the information we need to get the world so we can just be thrown right into the fun from the off. How does MI achieve it? By trainees in a testing room . . . away from the principle characters. The first thing that normally means is that it\u2019s going to be a flat scene in terms of progressing the story (it neither changes the protagonist\u2019s values to the positive or negative) because they\u2019re not in it. But what MI does too is to get Waternoose to tell the required exposition to the trainees. He literally tells them what screams are for, how they\u2019re got etc etc. But if they\u2019re applying for a job at the factory . . . presumably they know already, and that\u2019s why they applied. It\u2019s not a drastic crime against storytelling by any means, and if you\u2019re going to have flat scenes anywhere in you\u2019re story, the start is the best place because the pace is usually pretty slow anyway, people are still finding their seats. The writers also made this scene a setup for when Waternoose is caught by Mike, so it does have a use, just not for progressing the story.<\/p>\n

We then cut to our two main characters, though note that it\u2019s Sulley who is really the protagonist. Though Mike joins in with Sulley, it\u2019s the latter who makes all the decisions, and goes on the emotional journey. And what happens in this scene? Again, nothing to turn the story. Instead, we\u2019re told yet more exposition via a TV commercial. Another flat way of telling us the information, though they got away with it by using the joke of Mike being covered in the advert. If you\u2019re going to give us exposition, and it\u2019s not going to turn the scene, then making us laugh is a good way to keep us engaged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThen, after that scene, the duo walk down the street, into the factory and end up in the locker room. These opening scenes are the first, after the credits sequence, real sequence of the story \u2013 a series of scenes linked by a dramatic unity or singular purpose, in this case to introduce us to Mike and Sulley\u2019s world. But still, the story hasn\u2019t progressed. Yet, the characters are so great and we\u2019re still getting used to the world that we don\u2019t really notice, or particularly care. Still though, that was ten minutes in which they could have told story \u2013 meaningful events that emotionally engage the audience by dramatically changing the values in a character\u2019s life \u2013 but didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

After this flat \u2013 yet fun \u2013 sequence, what follows is simply superb storytelling. Again, we\u2019re told about the scream shortage, further setup for Randall\u2019s plan. What MI does too, really for the first time in a Pixar film, is mix suspense and mystery in the story. Not only is there great fear running through the audience due to Boo\u2019s arrival, but we\u2019re also curious as to exactly what Randall\u2019s up to, and why Boo laughing causes a power surge. This duality of audience engagement is a great device to really keep them on their toes.<\/p>\n

After the inciting incident of Boo\u2019s arrival, the first act of the story climaxes with the first major decision by Sulley: get Boo back through her door. This basis of dramatic action then drives the telling for the second act \u2013 it\u2019s what all the action revolves around. Through this act things start turning really sour for Sulley. We learn of Randall\u2019s plan, Sulley sees for the first time the real effect his scaring has on the kids \u2013 and then they\u2019re banished (a concept which, too, we\u2019ve been unknowingly set up for). This climaxes the second act: they\u2019re efforts to get Boo back through her door have resulted in her being captured by Waternoose \u2013 a brilliant reveal of his involvement with Randall \u2013 and them being thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s important to note here is where the suspense\/mystery knowledge states of the audience are. Generally, you want you\u2019re final act, in this story the third act, to have a sense of acceleration and immense pace \u2013 climactic in every sense of the word. This generally means that it\u2019s all going to be action. No revelation. And that\u2019s where we are: every character in the story now knows everything, as does every audience member. (Of course, you can end you\u2019re story on a revelation, e.g. Empire Strikes Back). What makes this final act even more enriched with a sense of pace is that Sulley, just as Woody did, makes his \u2018crisis decision\u2019 at the start of it. Once he decides to risk his entire world \u2013 the scare record, his friendship, the factory, his life \u2013 to get Boo back (something he wasn\u2019t willing to do during the second act) he never makes another decision. Everyone knows everything. No more revelations. No more choices. Just action.<\/p>\n

What follows is simply breathtaking. Taking a break from focusing on storytelling a second, the chase through the doors and rooms is just one of the most brilliantly realised uses of 3D animation yet. It just wouldn\u2019t have worked quite as well with 2D. At the end of this third act, we get to the climactic scene, which is one of the most touching of all of Pixar\u2019s scenes, as Sulley finally puts Boo back in her room. I don\u2019t think I can debate that. What I do want to analyse, though, is what happens after this scene.<\/p>\n

First though, lets look at the meaning of the film as it is. Sulley, risking everything, got Boo back. Try not to think about scaring versus laughter just yet. As ever, we must go into the deepest values of the story. I see it as this: we change our world for the better when we are willing to risk its entire future. Sulley just wasn\u2019t willing to risk all that much during the second act. He kept Boo hidden, he himself was scared. When he made his crisis decision, he more or less said \u201cscrew it, nothing else matters now\u201d. And because of that decision, he got Boo back, who by this time had come to mean much more than restoring his world to normal, but saving it from something worse. So by risking everything, he changed his world for the better. Then there\u2019s a resolution scene when we see laughter is being used to generate power instead . . . then there\u2019s one more scene.<\/p>\n

My problem with having Sulley reunited with Boo comes down to the playing out of the consequences of our choices that I alluded to earlier. In a way, the final scene wipes away the film\u2019s meaning \u2013 purely because the climactic, irreversible change that Sulley actively chose to carry through on, turns out not to have been worth anything. He wasn\u2019t risking anything. The world\u2019s still changed for the better, but it\u2019s now meaningless because the sacrifice that climaxed our emotions wasn\u2019t paid. People\u2019s first reaction is \u2013 \u201cbut then it would have been a sad ending\u201d. But the climax wasn\u2019t sad \u2013 it was ironically transcending. Sulley had to make a sacrifice \u2013 an ultimate choice \u2013 to change his world for the better. He had to lose to ultimately gain. A mixture of both negative and positive, but more the latter. This would have been sad: Randall killing Sulley and Mike, getting Boo, and starting his scream extraction regime. That\u2019s a sad ending.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNot only is MI\u2019s climax not sad, it\u2019s a fundamentally important message for children to learn. Sacrifices must be made. As you go through life, you won\u2019t always be able to keep everything, have everything your own way. More than that, sometimes you\u2019ll be presented with a path: the easy way, leading to the \u201cbad world\u201d (falling in the wrong crowd, crime etc), or the hard way, but leading to the good life. And what we\u2019re saying to the child is that you don\u2019t have to consign yourself to that bad world \u2013 but to break out of it you must be willing to risk it all. And going through this struggle itself is an overwhelming growing process. It\u2019s a rites-of-passage, a maturation event. People grow as a result of making this choice. And I feel, and I\u2019m aware many people will disagree, that tacking on the final scene stole this meaning from the audience.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go into it here, but it\u2019s a similar problem with Brad Bird\u2019s The Iron Giant. At climax, that film is saying to us we save humanity when we sacrifice our destructive self. And people said that was a sad ending. How? How on earth is that meaning for a child sad? It\u2019s transcending, it grounds the child in the universality of being a human. Still, they tacked on an ending.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, we can only grow, we can only be as strong, as the forces of antagonism we overcome. And if we have to make a sacrifice along the way, then we\u2019ll learn even more, be even stronger at the end of it. A possible defence to this argument is that at the time of making the decision, the characters really were risking it all, and so there is meaning. But what I\u2019m saying is that the result of that decision is still being played out, and is still answered in the final scene. So when Sulley is reunited with Boo, the learning experience he\u2019s been on actually means nothing at all. \u201cI\u2019ve risked it all \u2013 but it turns out it doesn\u2019t matter! Yey!\u201d Force feeding our youth and adolescents to grow up by only nourishing them with one half of life, namely the happy, results in a grossly underdeveloped human being.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate I end this analysis on a downer, and it must seem that I don\u2019t actually like Pixar films all that much. Well, just to reiterate, I love Pixar films. But we all know their strengths, it\u2019s by looking at the weaknesses of a work that you really learn. In saying that, next time it\u2019s Finding Nemo, and there doesn\u2019t appear to be a great deal wrong with. Still though, there\u2019s plenty to discuss\u2026<\/p>\n


\n<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I present to you the 4th installment of Tyro’s series, Pixar: The Storytellers. This week looks at Monster’s Inc. Monsters, Inc. As I stated in my Toy Story article, credits sequences are the perfect place to position the audience for the film. Monsters, Inc. (herein: MI) doesn\u2019t use a Randy Newman song that virtually lays …<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nPixar: The Storytellers Part 4 - Upcoming Pixar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pixarplanet.com\/blog\/pixar-the-storytellers-part-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pixar: The Storytellers Part 4 - Upcoming Pixar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I present to you the 4th installment of Tyro’s series, Pixar: The Storytellers. This week looks at Monster’s Inc. Monsters, Inc. 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