Monsters Inc 2 : Randall's role/thoughts?

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

Apologies if this topic already exists in some form elsewhere, I’m just interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts about Randall in the sequel, whether you liked him or not.
Do you think he’ll return at all? Would he be out for revenge or would there be another “Big Bad” for Mike and Sulley to deal with instead?

My own thoughts; I think that Mike and Sulley will be entering the human world. I don’t necessarily think Boo has to be involved, but I think the Banishment issue would make a good plot point. I always thought it was clear that Randall’s reappearance in a sequel was entirely possible.
I want him to have to work with Mike and Sulley somehow, even if it’s a forced sort of truce. I don’t have high hopes he’ll be a force for good in any way, but I think it’s possible. I’m also willing to accept he might not make an appearance at all.

So thoughts, anyone? =)

#2

I think it would be a good idea for Randall to return. It would be possible for him to get back into the monster world. The door he was banished to may have been destroyed and he may have been shown being beaten up with a shovel, but he could have escaped from the trailer and found another wardrobe door somewhere else, getting him back into the monster world.

And like you said, maybe Randall could form a truce with Sulley and Mike helping them with a situation, but later betray them in a very evil manner. :smiling_imp:

#3

A truce would be good, but betraying them ‘in an evil manner’ would be incredibly generic and boring. I mean M.I. wasn’t perfect and they missed a lot of things, but that sort of thing from the people who gave us Waternoose? The antagonist who we didn’t expect but makes so much sense in context? I don’t think so. Or at least I really hope not. But with Lotso’s end in TS3, it’s unfortunatly possible.

If he betrayed them at all, I’d more like it to be because of the play of his probable mistrust of Sulley given his past actions such as the exile, and who he betrayed them to perhaps playing on his doubt on the alliance they perhaps had, which wouldn’t be difficult given what happened in the movie.

I mean Waternoose was simply pretending to be ‘the nice guy’ but he wasn’t it’s not to much of a stretch for me to think Randall would think the same of Sulley. ESPECIALLY as I said, given what happened in the end. Sulley’s nice act isn’t an act of course, he simply has a dark and bad side like everyone which we saw at the time, but of course Randall wouldn’t know this. I could see him at the very least doubting the validity of an alliance and at first at least contemplating the idea of Sulley (and Mike) stabbing him in the back in every turn. I could see that happening personally speaking, and maybe even a side switch, but hopefully in the end things would work out.

It would take time for trust to develop or perhaps Sulley even risking his life for him in front him before that kind of trust could maybe begin to properly take hold. Before such a thing, I could see issues.

But the thing is a measure of a true hero is one who save the people they don’t like or who don’t like them ( at least in the beginning), or those who won’t thank them. They do it because it’s simply the right thing to do. Heroes don’t get to choose who they help based on who wronged who but they aim to fix their own mistakes. I for one would like to see Sulley do this. I always felt Sulley’s hero journey was incomplete given how the movie ended, and as a fan of his, I want to see it completed.

#4

Everyone here knows that I’m hoping for Randall to return, and to undergo a character arc for the better, or rather, to prove that there are indeed two sides to every coin, and that individuals are NOT wholly “good” or wholly “evil”. Children need to be aware of that, and so too do many adults, who have placed themselves on a high pedestal of believing that they themselves are incapable of doing wrong, no matter what happens to them. It would be very nice to show things from Randall’s perspective, not just that of the “heroes”, and give some insight into that character’s background. Like MG said, if Pixar takes the “low road” and has him return, pretend to be “good”, and then turn on our dear perfect heroes in the end, showing that he really is, always was, and always will be Evil Incarnate, it would be following a formula that has been around forever for the purpose of entertaining the very, very young, who perhaps aren’t old enough to comprehend the world in terms of anything other that Good and Evil, Black and White. It would mean that Pixar has really, really run out of fresh ideas and has to resort to rehashing and repackaging the Same Old, Same Old. This was my gripe with TS3; they had a chance to do something different, to break out of a mold, and they blew it. It’s like the writers were sitting around saying,[spoil] “you know, we could have Lotso turn around and help the guys after Woody helped him, and show everyone that friendship and love are a more powerful force than bitterness and anger…NAWWWW, heck…let’s just do it the way everyone else has always done it, have him turn on them in the end despite what they did for him and just be totally evil and die this horrible, gruesome death! [/spoil] Why be original and come up with our own ideas when other people have already done all that work for us? The audience won’t care-they WANT the Same Old, Same Old!”

This would suck, on so many levels, not just for Randall’s sake, but for Pixar’s, since basically it would mean that for most of their movies, they just used the same basic plot, changing the names of character and the setting and the reason for the conflict, but more or less just plugging in different names into blanks. Because MI2 is a sequel, and will not be the first sequel at that, and people are already questioning Pixar’s decisions to make sequels in the first place, that movie will really, really have to deliver on originality in terms of storyline, and 'break out of the box", so to speak, otherwise I certainly won’t be the only one who suspects that the “Pixar Magic” has stagnated. There would be absolutely NOTHING original about “Randall returns to Monstropolis and tries to get revenge on Mike, Sulley and Boo”, whether he does it openly or tries to pull a Waternoose and pretend to be nice and friendly at first just to deceive them and audience, which I don’t think people would buy, anyway. Randall would have to PROVE, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he DOES have a good side, since he’s already gotten a reputation for just the opposite, and he’s also got that uphill battle against that whole ridiculous “reptiles are bad” negative stereotype.

pitbulllady

EDIT- Please use spoiler tags when revealing spoilers about Toy Story 3, thanks!

-lizardgirl

#5

Well, Lotso didn’t so much ‘die’ as in get completely humiliated in the end by

[spoil]getting tied to a front end of a truck[/spoil], but you do have a point. While overall it was better than Up, the third TS wasn’t the best of the trilogy really or at least not for me. I love the heck out of the characters all the same.

Lotso is for me, a mix of Waternoose and Randall. He’s completely blinded by bitterness and anger like Randall and he also plays the ‘nice guy act’ at first before he’s revealed like Waternoose as well as having the power and being the one in charge. He also had potential.

You know I loved it at the point where[spoil] Woody saved him because Lotso seemed so AWKWARD over it afterwards. Like ‘Oh oh, someone whose life I made hell saved me’. Can we say socially awkward? Very! LOL. He acknowledged it seemed that Woody had done a good surprising thing even if he didn’t say it outloud…[/spoil] so I didn’t get why they chose that route for him.

… Yeah. It was pretty close to redemption. But it didn’t happen. I’d have loved to see that.

Plus the whole thing seemed pretty pointless really. He was pretty much done in the Nursery already, so it wasn’t like them surviving would have cost him or his postion. It was already gone anyway. He wasn’t even going to be in danger himself by pushing the button. It would simply have been a good thing to do. And easy for him too.

But yeah, people ARE questioning Pixar with all these sequels in the end. It’s an unfortunate thing for them, but it does look like they’ve run out of ideas if they continue doing this. They have to keep the sequels either of a similar quality or BETTER than the predecessors at the very least. People are calling Cars 2 a ‘cash cow’ which is unfortunate. People think the sequel is only for money it seems. And I get their point or they came to that idea. Cars merchandise is huge.

TS3 didn’t ruin the entire franchise, but it is one of the weaker ones I feel. But not just because of Lotso, because of various things. Overall I have more good things to say than bad, but still it could have been much better if but for that one moment.

The idea of Randall turning into an enemy again for a short while is okay for me (as long as it’s believable like I said, playing on the idea of distrust and whatnot himself given what happened with Sulley and his experiences with Waternoose), and things worked out eventually for everyone including Randall and they eventually made up, but that’s just my opinion. I mean the first example is where they have to team up and work together due to having little choice in the matter, and I would like to see that.

But if they did have him betray them at all, it would have to be because of his own distrust of them rather than just because he’s ‘evil’/ planned it from the beginning and that’s that. I mean given what happened in the FIRST movie, it wouldn’t surprise me if Randall wondered if Sulley just PRETENDED to be nice, rather like Waternoose did. Because seriously that kind of thing running through is mind would be very understandable in his own prespective and given what Sulley eventually chose to do.

EDIT- Please use spoiler tags when revealing spoilers from Toy Story 3, thanks!

-lizardgirl

#6

This is a tough one for me. In short, what I’d like to happen in the sequel is for Randall to meet up with Mike and Sulley again in some way (be it in the Monster or the Human World) and I want Randall to be incredibly angry and bitter, but as the film goes on, he works through these feelings and by the end of it, though he still has a sharp edge to him, he resolves the majority of these issues and moves on. This of course would be a minor side plot with whatever Mike and Sulley are doing as the main thread of the story. I would like Mike and Sulley to be reliant upon Randall at some point, and for Randall to do the right thing, much like the whole Lotso situation but [spoil]Randall would actually help, unlike Lotso[/spoil].

In reality, I realise that this is so, so, SO unlikely. If Randall’s coming back, he’s coming back as a bad guy. I really can’t see Pixar doing it any other way, despite their credentials. There was a lot of physical humour in Monsters, Inc., and Randall’s the perfect guy to stretch and squash and laugh at. It’s funny when he gets hurt because we, the audience, don’t like him much and good riddance all the same. Plus, with his ‘bad guy credentials’ already set in stone, those who have watched the original would be able to just continue on from there. There wouldn’t even need to be much of the build up that occurs in Monsters, Inc. (such as Randall pranking Mike and the conversation between Randall and Sulley on the Scare Floor). We already KNOW he’s a bad guy. This makes things a whole lot easier.

The above paragraph isn’t my own opinion. It’s not what I want, but what I think will happen. At the end of the day, Pixar does have an old school streak running through them. For every WALL-E, there’s a The Incredibles. They don’t mind letting villains have their comeupance. And I’ve always got the very strong vibe from Pixar that they consider Randall to be quite the villain. He may have his fans, but I know when I watch Monsters, Inc., I wear my ‘Randall Goggles’. I’m thinking about things more than the average movie-goer would. And Pixar is undoubtedly making their films for the average movie-goer.

#7

I don’t want to see Randall again. There was enough of him for me in the original. To me, he’s very irritating and bitter. I just don’t know what I want from the sequel(if anything), so I’ll just wait and see what actually happens.

#8

Randall is one of my favorite villians and one of my favorite Monsters, Inc characters! But as great as he is, I kind of want to see a new villian. That’s one thing I like about the Toy Story trilogy, each one had a new villian!

#9

Yeah, I think seeing Randall would seem repetitive, and(no offense to Lizardgirl) I don’t like Randall too well.

#10

That’s a shame, making movies for the lowest common denominator on the assumption that the average movie goer isn’t very bright or intutitive. It’s a sign of the “dumbing down of Pixar”; rather than make movies that make people pause and actually THINK, make 'em the way that everyone else does and hope their name hides that fact, for awhile, at least. Hope that no one notices that the Emperor is butt-naked as long as they keep saying that he’s got this FABU-LOUS new outfit on.
I can’t watch movies that way, sorry. I can’t just switch off my logic and put my brain in neutral. If a movie doesn’t give me something to think about, and something/someone to relate to, and situations that I can relate to, it’s not worth the cost of a ticket or a DVD. If I get the impression that movie makers do not WANT me to think, but want me to just to sit back and take everything at face value, then I have to question their quality as filmmakers.

pitbulllady

#11

Well Sullivan and Wazowski will probably be definete in the sequel. And probably would be focused on them. Now one question is is whether this WILL be a sequel or a prequel. But given Pixar’s wordings up till now, it’s leaning more toward the former.
As for the story, there are many options, but for the sake of this topic I’ll focus on Randall.

Lets see what is there…well there’s the fact that humans being toxic has been proven false. Though DESPITE that, MANY monsters WILL still believe that and aim to still stay away from them. And for the sake of the Monster world, meetings with humans wouldn’t be starting given the many issues that would arise. Randall, like Waternoose, were aware of this fact beforehand, so there were others who knew. It would be intersting for people to know why…
There’s Banishment of course. A punishment in court up there with the death penalty (if that exists there), and considered for the harshest of criminals. Randall’s is actually exile since he wasn’t tried in court, neither was he sent through one of the “Banishment Doors”. And that’s another thing, a wonder to how Waternoose got himself a hold of one of these doors. They are not publically handed out of course, or people would be banishing everybody all over the place. And take Abomindable Snowman…HE didn’t SEEM like the type to get such a punishment. So like all systems of law, it seems there are some innocents here.

As for Randall and his exile, not banishment…yes it is very possible he can make his way back…though from what was scene he got rather beaten harshly…and from what was scene a year later at the end of the film, he still wasn’t around. Doesn’t mean he hadn’t come back and nobody at Monsters Inc. knew about it…but for this instance one might say he’s been in the human world for a year. And being reptilian in the human world…well lets just say he’s not going to get the red carpet of invite…

I think it was a little OBSESSIVE to destroy the door he was sent through, afterall Sullivan broke it’s activator, which allows it to open into a human world closet. But regardless, just because the door was destroyed means in no way that Randall can’t come back. It was one door out of thousands he might be able to use.

As for a truce. I seriously doubt Randall would willingly work with the two. EVEN if it was to betray them. Depending on how long he’d been in our world, Randall would either be in a fit of rage at seeing them, or (despite how strong he can be) be in a depressional hopeless state.
It would depend on whatever the circumstances were. For instance, here’s one of my own. If Boo was involved. Say she was in trouble. Having been her scarer, Randall would have known a little about her, or that something that involves her being in trouble is related to him (but NOT him himself). Randall would definetly not help either of the two for what they did to him, even if he admitted that some of what he did was wrong. Randall can be stubborn. But when it pops up that Boo would be in trouble well…that’s a different matter. Seeing as Randall never intended to hurt her, and her being brought up would bring up some regret she was involved, he might help out, but NOT for them two, but for her.

It all really depends on how long Randall was in the human world, how his treatment was, and at what time the two come up, and with what situation. It’s a bunch of “add and test” sequences.

An intersting thing to note is that Randall did NOT betray them when he had the option to in the first film. He made a proposition to Wazowski, and Sullivan in retrospect, to put Boo back in her room and walk away, thus getting them OUT of the whole Extractor thing. He could have easily informed the C.D.A. to “got to Floor F and find the people who brought in the human kid”. In fact it was so easy an “evil” person would have done it. But he didn’t.

It would be intersting though with the mistrust issue. There could be allot of misunderstanding between the two. I would say “three”, but Wazowski would immediately distrust Randall regardless unless it benefited him greatly.
Randall would probably openly state it, while Sullivan tries to keep it under his fur. But when pressure comes down, the two would get violent. And though Randall could beat Sullivan in a fight if he was in good health, probably won’t be that in this circumstance.

Sullivan’s dark side usually comes out when he thinks he has good intentions, but it ends up satisfying a primal urge. This mostly focuses on to what he does to Randall. He THINKS he’s doing it to protect Boo, wherein it actually doesn’t (and might even be the opposite). By that time he’s already “out for the count” and even when pleading, isn’t heard. The primal anger disrupts the thinking process and aims to satisfy primal instinct, the basic of satisfaction.
Of course one thing to play off this…Sullivan is NOT a bad guy. He does NOT go around beating up people and tossing them through doors. No no. But one thing they SHOULD show…is REGRET for what he did. Wazowski probably won’t have it. But if SULLIVAN doesn’t? Now that’s just not him.

I wouldn’t say “blinded by bitterness and anger”…though Randall probably was at the end there when things screwed up with the Extractor being destroyed.

Of course there’s a 90% that Sullivan and Wazowski will be the focus. If they DO have Randall’s “incredibly angry and bitter” to “…eh sorta ok” as a side plot, that would be alright to. Doesn’t HAVE to be the focus of the story, but if it’s there…

Of course hopefully nobody from the Japan section of Disney gets involved and we see a Steamroller or the Garbage Compactor…

As for the “villain”, I honestly want to count Randall out on that one.
So I’m aiming for a new one. Lets see…Waternoose? Na…with James gone, it wouldn’t neccessarily be right. He’d likely just get a referrance (probably his court case. And boy, Randall WOULD be useful in that as a witness).
Uhh…a relative? Possible. Waternoose DID want to keep his hands on Monsters Inc. as CEO, and since it was three generations, he might have a son. But then again depends if Waternoose ever got the time, or wanted someone ELSE at the time to inherit his work…
So someone new? Hmm…the C.D.A. perhaps? Given that humans are said to not be toxic anymore what happens to them? Out of business? Reformed? How’s Roz handling that? Of course the C.D.A. CAN bend the law themselves (in relation to two individuals illegally banishing another).

Or perhaps…someone higher up who was involved in the Extractor incident…? Who would have approved giving a Banishment Door to Waternoose to use? Who would have pushed support for the Extractor when it was made public?..who knows hm hm. Well. Maybe Waternoose. And maybe Randall heard something shrugs

#12

That’s okay, IncredigirlVirginia, everyone has their own opinion and I can understand why you say that.

pitbulllady- Pixar want us to think. It’s just that when it comes to the topic of villains or characters portrayed as being not-so-nice, they fall into the trap of sometimes doing what others have done. (Not all the time, of course. But with Monsters, Inc., yes. It’s probably down to who’s directing the film and having the most influence over it.)

To say that just because a ‘villain’ in a film is discarded rather than accepted or acknowledged makes the film one that is not worth thinking about can be very untrue. Monsters, Inc. had plenty of other things for the audience to think about. Even the entire idea that it’s based upon is all about reversing what we usually think of and considering it from someone else’s point of view. Pixar’s a master of that. Mike and Sulley have to confront something they’d usually find disgusting and learn to accept it (or rather her), and even build up a relationship with it. Sulley also finds out that things aren’t always as they seem, as the father figure he has previously relied upon is discovered to be false and with an ulterior motive.

Considering all of this, I can almost forgive them of their treatment of Randall. (Almost, not quite.) It’s as though Pixar are incredibly original up to a certain point, and then any further and they find it difficult to go SO far out of their safety zone that they resort to things that have been done before. Randall is an expendable character, a device used to push the film along. We see a lot in him because someone at Pixar did want to go that extra mile, and they gave us some clues and we, naturally curious, couldn’t help but follow that path. I just hope they don’t abandon it entirely, but I still feel that they’re probably going to come up with some cracking ideas for the sequel, some really original stuff, but will still resort to the safety net of a villain (perhaps someone different from Randall, perhaps Randall again) just in case.

#13

Isn’t it a bit early to be discussing this?

I think there’ll be a new villain that better suits the story, ala the Toy Story sequels.

#14

Haha, The Chicken Man, that’s the problem with all of us fanatical Pixar fans- give us a bit of news, like “Monsters, Inc. to have a sequel!” and we’ll start speculating like there’s no tomorrow. :laughing: Plus it’s a lot of fun to think about what might be, even if we get it hideously wrong.

Thinking of a new villain, I wonder in what circumstances a new villain might be created. Could we even see a Human villain this time round? Someone who’s an antagonist to Boo in particular, in some way?

#15

I’d actually prefer a human antagonist, someone who is not necessarily a “villain”, other than from the monsters’ perspective, but who perhaps wants to do the same thing to monsters that Randall wanted to do with human children, NOT because he or they are “evil” or “mean”, but because of lack of knowledge. Randall, like all the other monsters, simply saw humans, and children especially, as nothing more than lower animals-VALUABLE and useful animals, but also dangerous and disgusting animals. He had no opportunities, unlike Sulley and Mike, to find out otherwise, so he could not have been expected to feel guilty about using a human child to test a new piece of technology, anymore than a doctor or scientist from OUR world would feel guitly about using a rat or Guinea pig to test a new medical procedure. By that same token, a human scientist, upon discovering the Monster World, or a monster trapped in OUR world, would not at first see them as sentient, sapient beings on a par with us, insofar as intellect, ability to reason and create, and ability to make decisions based on moral or ethical considerations. They’d be just strange, and possibly dangerous animals to a human scientist, at least until that human had the chance to find out otherwise, as Sulley did with Boo. From the monster perspective, that would make such a human seem very “evil” and certainly threatening, even though the human would not think of himself as such at all, and would probably figure he’d be doing science and biology a great service by collecting and describing, scientifically, this unknown animal, just as Randall figured he’d be “revolutionizing the Scaring industry” in developing the Scream Extractor and testing it.

pitbulllady

#16

Oooh i am loving reading everyone’s thoughts on this!!

Since Randall is still my favourite Pixar character I am going to agree with a lot of you Randall fans of course…

I have always hoped for this, ever since the end of the first film I was curious about humans discovering the human world. And with the advance in technology on human characters I believe this could be even more likely an idea!

Yes, definitely a scenario I’ve imagined for a long time now. I like how you put the human pov of the monsters. They probably would be thought of as more “animal” to begin with. And we still don’t really have any clue if humans would even understand monster language, do we? I remember in the MI commentary they talked about Boo sounding like a Charlie Brown teacher to Sulley. Although that might just have been because what she was saying was actually gobbledygook :laughing:

Yeah Nexas, I don’t believe Randall would form any sort of truce with Mike and Sulley in the beginning at all, no way. I was thinking about circumstances beyond any of their control, I think they could make some kind of unstoppable team in times of trouble, and need to rely on each others strengths to get out of it. With Sulley’s strength, Randall’s invisibility and Mike’s wise-ass mouth…a strange monster version of Incredibles perhaps :laughing: but yeah I only see this happening if it was forced upon all parties.

The whole issue with Randall still being the “villain” is tricky for those of us wanting some character development and change of sides with him…But I still think it’s possible to do. A reason for this is the apparent pattern with Pixar villains, as others have mentioned with the likes of Waternoose, Stinky Pete and [spoil]Lotso[/spoil] falling into the “nice guy turned bad” category. i think it would be a fun twist for Pixar to do the bad guy turned good thing. I don’t believe they’ve done that yet. I mean Lightning McQueen really stretched his protagonist role, as he was a jerk in the beginning, and was pretty much “redeemed” at the end, but that;s about as far as they’ve gone with a character like that. That’s why I still hold out hope for Randall.

[spoil]Oh i guess I could add Ken to the character switching sides role, since he was working for a Bigger Bad, and in the Buzz interrogation scene you do get a brief hint that Ken could be on par with Lotso as a villain,but that’s all changed by the end of the scene of course[/spoil]

#17

Always found Sullivan’s attachment to Boo to be rather fast. They only were together a few hours. Makes me wonder about his own family situation.

Humans can be just as monsterous as Monsters, perhaps even more so. A large percentage of humans would give a negative outlook on a monster in this world. Capturing and studying them without their consent would be common.
It does sound like an interesting route. And there are several options. A human hunter? A scientist? A political individual that might reveal the existance of the Monster World, thereby threatening it’s very existance?

Good there Lil Bandit. One thing human scientists would yearn for is the technology to travel between worlds and to use Scream as energy. This is something humans would WANT. And they’d do anything to get it, even by force. And to do so to Monsters, in a human’s mind…well…it’s for the “good of humanity” isn’t it?
Humans fight against each other all the time, and it won’t stop. Monsters probably do the same. Even such things as physical appearence spark fights. With monsters, it’s more understandable. But still regardless, get the two together and there’s going to be a war.

Of course, it leads to speculate if Randall can turn invisible these days. Given his wounds, he might not be able to use it, or at least to it’s former potential.

#18

It’s never too early when you’re a Pixar fanatic!

#19

I hate to get off topic but I did read this in an earlier post and so I’m going to make it known…you can not blame an ENTIRE country for the ideas of one person…just because there is a ride or attraction in Tokyo Disney that shows Randall in a negative light doesn’t mean that you can blame the whole country of Japan, doing so is racist and nobody likes that. :imp:

#20

If that was directed at me Mis…PD, I actually have the utmost respect for Japan. My referrance was to the attraction, though I went general because whomever made the workings of it would be in the Japan office and Disney in general. It was not meant to single out Japan for all instances.

“The Japan Section of Disney”, means what it says. There are a variety, I assume, in that section, not just the Japanese.