Buzz and Woody is (incidentally) one of my favourite Pixarian friendships. Plus them getting to that point pretty much makes up all the movie.
Haunted would be a good word for it. Of course it has to be subtle if they ever went in that direction themselves yet not something which would fly over peoples heads. Some build up as to how Sulley has something bothering him but he can’t put his claw on exactly what it is.
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Oddly this topic seems to be what we think SHOULD happen in M.I.2 but perhaps we should also state what is most likely here: I’m 99.95% certain Randall was supposed to simply be with no depth and 100% certain Sulley’s action wasn’t suppossed to be questionable in terms of creator intent.
I think the problem comes because while Docter has a lot of talent and imagination as well as ideas- he has little discipline when it comes to putting them together. While we have only two examples of when he’s directing, he breaks his own worlds internal logic and the world he’s built and doesn’t think about what is sometimes implied He can produce excellent heart warming moments and an interesting world in M.I.- but most of the interesting parts of M.I’s world. are accidental (except perhaps Waternoose).
I guess I should explain here: Basically for instance in Up it’s more or less established they are dogs which have collars which make them talk. That’s fine really if that’s the rule in their universe. Otherwise they act like dogs it seems anyway. They simply can talk. And I can buy that you could train a dog to carry a tray like they did (albeit they were VERY easily distracted.). But I can’t buy them flying aeroplanes as easily. (Plus the presence of them and the fact they CAN use them makes you wonder why they didn’t use them earlier in tracking the bird- have some on the ground to track and communicate with some in the air for example).
Simarilarly in M.I. we get throw away lines about Jury duty from Mike- probably literally thrown in there without thinking more on what it implied. We get Waternoose, in what might have been simply the writers trying to drive the point home that Sulley was the better scarer make the relationship with Randall look unbalanced and certainly not one built on mutual respect. It was unusual for someone as high strung and argumentative as Randall to act as he did to Waternooses argument.
I can see what they were going for- Randall was simply the bad guy and any depth we saw was and is technically accidental, though the problem is they could have made it easier on themselves with some changes despite the difficulties sometimes of creating someone like that in a world with paycheques.
Waternoose is an excellent and realistic antagonist. His reveal is shocking but in retrospect has build up and makes utter sense considering his reactions to certain things and the fact Randall would need resources in various forms in the plot as well as this someone being higher up in the company. This IS and always WILL BE a display of Docter’s talent and potential to me personally: Waternoose. He is an EXCELLENT character, a human form of which you could see existing and it will be sad that his reappearance in any talking form seems unlikely. But if they wanted Randall to come off as nothing but bad and no controversy to surround his exit, there could have been changes made. They have to take into account world building and general perceptions. I mean just because the designated hero does i doesn’t make an action automatically good.
First off take away the Jury Duty line OR make it so he’s stuffed in the back of the CDA truck at the end instead of exiled, perhaps tying him up after they have him in their power. (Or heck do that latter one anyway, even without the legal issues it just throws me.).
It also seems to at points want us to forget that humans were never viewed as intellectual or sentient equals to monsters at all in the beginning, even though they are. If they wanted Randall to be pure evil forver, there could have been a number of ways of doing so to make it a bit more believable. But THIS particulary is one of them- make it clear that yes monsters see humans as equals. That in their eyes it would be the same as testing on a monster kid. And there you go Instant Randall evil, just add water.
While it raises some other questions DON’T have it clear that humans are seen as lesser animals. Sure it results in questions regarding Mike’s own behaviour towards Boo (well even as how they view them, it still raises eyebrows) but if you WANT Randall to be pure evil you have to make it so they know they are intellectually more or less equals.
Another instance could have that its stated that Randall is a recent addition to the staff and only came in when the plot started, or the only reason he was hired as a scarer was as a cover for the plot- Waternoose got him through for that reason alone.
Perhaps even have him NOT be the engineer at all! Perhaps merely a ‘grunt’ in some other form for Waternoose- like someone who ‘takes care’ of certain people and is not officially on the payroll, so he doesn’t have likely sleep deprivation issues. The builder of the sceram extractor is some other guy. Making Randall a scarer on top of an engineering project is dicey.
(Heck I just went through one night of no sleep recently, I was terrible the day afterwards and was snapping at my dad down the phone because he frustrated me. He’s frustrating in general to talk down the phone to but not sleeping before hand just made things worse- he’s better to talk to face to face. I did email later to apologise and explain though.)
. I can understand why in a way things went this way in the movie- things seem more obvious in retrospect if at all and people approach movies differently. Sleep deprivation isn’t something many kids face or the work environment or how it might function. It can get easy caught up in hating someone like Randall- who ON-SCREEN any other side would be considered to be remarkably subtle and not as in people faces. Possibly because it wasn’t intended at all. Sometimes double standards do happen in fiction, M.I. wasn’t the first- because many people (creators included) relate and think more on that character’s story and thoughts and feelings compared to others and don’t maybe think that perhaps that the action committed isn’t all that great just because its done by them or even though the desire is understandable.
(I may have been thrown even when I liked Sulley only and not Randall the first time I watched it, but people have different levels of this probably).
Overall I can see what they want- and this is likely what is role in the sequel probably WILL be. But there are mistakes in that area which weren’t exactly accounted for
Plus in more shallow terms, it’s pretty dull and a boring idea to me personally speaking.
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