Monster legends: make them fit with the movie!

Pixar's Feature Films Monsters, Inc. / University
#1

Yeah, basically take a monster from a legend/mythology, either well known or not and attribute why they’re in the human world, either why they got banished, exiled or perhaps they were simply a monster who couldn’t travel to the monster world or heck maybe they’re a hybrid of some kind!

Here’s an American one:

Emogoalekc.

(The myth):

Rumoured to have once been human. He fell in love with a slave girl as the son of a chief but was forbidden to marry her by his father. Upset, the boy then jumped into a lake and was transformed into a monster instead of dying.

A close friend came to him and recognised him despite his different appearance. He was sworn to secrecy.

However the truth came out and fearful the tribe decided he might take in his head to attack him, even though he had no interest in doing so. At first he thought his friend had betrayed him but then realised someone else had figured it out and he hadn’t. His friend helped him to escape the villagers and also he gave his still-human friend a promise that if anyone could catch sight of him they would become a chieftan themselves.

So how could you make this fit with M.I. if you wanted to? A part of me thinks the boy was always a monster but had morphing capabilities he found difficult to control- perhaps being a hybrid of some form. He perhaps was descended in some form to the monsters who never left the human world. In away he knew he couldn’t be chief and thus set up a way a chief could be chosen later. (Maybe his particular human friend or their descendants.)

Feel free to tell me if this idea is stupid or something, I’m just interested in the things people might come up with in terms of old myths and stories about monsters.

#2

Which part of American is that from? I’ve never heard of it, although the Native Americans had so many legends, many just variations on the same theme, under different local names.
This one reminds of one from the Chitimacha/Houmas tribe in southern Louisiana, of a tribe of people they called “Letiche”(also spelled “Leteche”), which were said to be part human and part reptile, with long, sinuous bodies and scaly skin and prehensile tails, who competed with the Houmas for hunting and fishing grounds. In one tale, recounted to me by a 90-year-old half-Houmas, half-Creole woman I was fortunate enough to meet, a Houmas girl fell in love with a Leteche warrior, which of course was forbidden. They would meet at a certain bend in the bayou to…shall we say, indulge their passions. Her brothers found out where she was sneaking out to, though, and plotted to ambush and kill her bf. They secretly followed her out one night, and as their sister and her beau were exchanging greetings, they fired their arrows, killing him and sending him falling backwards into the waters of the bayou. To their dismay, though, their sister jumped in after him, and both of their bodies were sucked down into the waters, which began to boil and writhe like a living thing. The Creator had taken pity on the two lovers, and to honor them, He changed the straight course of the bayou into a twisting, serpentine one, and cast out the Houmas from ever hunting and fishing there again. To this day the bayou bears the name, “Bayou LeTeche”, in honor of the fallen scaly warrior. What didn’t occur to me when I heard the story was the Garden of Eden analogy there, with the theme of the reptilian tempter(in this case, the Good Guy) who gained favor with a woman, and the whole “being cast out of Paradise” thing.

In Louisiana today, there are still reports of upright-walking scaly creatures that are called either “LeTeche” or “Tainted Keitre”(Cajun version), which leave three-toed footprints behind. One is supposed to live in the Honey Island Swamp Nature Preserve which is north of Lake Ponchartrain, although people who claim to have seen it disagree as to whether it is scaly or covered in long shaggy hair, more like a typical “Bigfoot”. They all agree on the three toed tracks, though. The “Honey Island Swamp Monster” is one of the fairly well-known denizens of American cryptozoology. Recently a deer hunter in Louisiana tried to get his 15 minutes of fame by Photoshopping a creature from a video game into stills taken with his deer trail cam, claiming that the spectral “monster” had been caught on film, but it didn’t take long for his buddies to snitch on him and a couple of kids with a bit of Photoshop savvy to show how he did it and point out where he’d used the “clone stamp” to blend the outline of the “creature” into the backdrop. The guy actually Photoshopped the image of the thing from the game over that of a very real deer that was on the film, using the deer’s back legs as the “creature’s” arms!

ANYHOO, given that one certain three-toed, scaly, serpentine member of the MI cast wound up right smack dab in the middle of the old Leteche stomping grounds, it would be very easy to work that into the monster legend here.

pitbulllady

#3

The book I got it from (it’s not very ‘official’ but interesting) states that it’s just American, the net gives only 4 sources of information (!) from regular google- from something called the Dictionary of Native American Mythology it’s from the North West apparently. I’m not sure if I get anything more out of it, it only gives that he became a ‘water monster’ and the version is slightly different- he doesn’t suspect his friend but simply goes to comfort him and tell him he’s not dead.

It doesn’t seem to be all that well know but apparently exists. But I can’t find say a specific tribe or people- it just says the North West (which probably doesn’t narrow it down too well…)

Oh dear, Randall has a few very distant cousins or ancestors who didn’t always behave. Why am I not surprised somehow? :laughing:

#4

And let’s not forget South Carolina’s own most-famous monster, “Lizard Man”, from right here in Lee County, my home county! According to the first eyewitness(whose credibility must be questioned due to him having been a crack dealer who was recently shot and killed by his own brother over a drug deal), when he stopped to change a flat tire on a remote country road that passes through Scape Ore(from “Escape Over”, a name given to the place by runaway slaves fleeing via the “Undergrown Railroad”) Swamp, he was charged by an upright, large scaly thing with sharp teeth, which jumped on top of his car as he tried to flee on the rim, leaving his spare and the flat behind on the road. This was in June of 1988. There have been numerous other alleged sightings of upright, reptile-like creatures with three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot(only two of each limb reported, though). The original witness, drug dealer or not, did pass two lie detector tests with flying colors. His car HAD been badly scratched by SOMETHING, though at the time, there was no DNA testing to determing just what might have caused it, but from the photos of the car, the marks were obviously caused by teeth set in a large mouth. The alligator theory does not work, since alligators don’t run/walk upright and can’t jump on top of a car, nor do they have three-fingered hands or feet. A man who was married to my cousin at the time owned a large farm nearby where the sighting occured, and had experienced a lot of problems with people stealing not only vegetables, but vandalizing his farm equipment, and had told his wife that he was going to basically create a monster story to scare the locals(who are still very supersticious people)away. His wife alleges that he had her fashion a suit out of butterbean hulls and a “Creature of the Black Lagoon” Halloween mask so that he could hide in the bushes to scare some passerby, but she does not know if he actually ever wore the suit. Even by that time, he was critically ill with cancer, and it’s doubtful that he was physically capable of doing all the things that the monster is supposed to have done, but he WAS a very tall man, nearly 7 feet tall, so he would have made for a rather scary sight coming towards someone on a dark country road even without a costume if you didn’t know who he was!
Lee County has made a LOT of money off the “Lizard Man” story, and Lizard Man is more or less our official symbol, being heard of as far away as Japan! Lizard Man images adorn just about everything in the town of Bishopville, where I work. Suffice it to say that if Randall showed up in that little town, he’d be given the keys to the city, be made honorary mayor and probably get elected to the school board(which would probably be a good thing), and given how most of our local politicians have behaved themselves, even with his checkered past, he’d be a BIG improvement!

pitbulllady

#5

The Lusca

The lusca is a monster from Bahamian folklore. It is a giant monster that is part shark, part octopus. The front of it being a shark and the back of it being an octopus. The lusca is said to live in deep dark blue pits in the seas around the islands of the Bahamas. It is said that if a boat of any size goes over these pits the lusca will drag it down and eat the people in it.

#6

How would you make it fit the movie Johnny_Boy? Would you say have it as a monster who never was able to get to the monster world- maybe abandoned, and went mad? Or perhaps a non-sentient creature from the monster world which went to the human world? Or something else?

#7

The Lusca was a monster that suffered from an eating disorder. He had to be fed something everytime he came out of a door. One day his partner couldn’t get his food quick enouh and the lusca ate him instead. Enraged by this, Waternoose banished the Lusca to the seas if the Bahamas. Strangely, the Lusca wasn’t bothered by this at all. The weather was nice all year round, an ocean was very fitting for him since he’s an aquatic creature, and he had all the fish (and people) to satisfy his hunger. And the Lusca still lives happily in the Bahamas to this day.