Not So Scary

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

There are those of us who know the techniques to a skill… and those of us who truly understand it. Storytelling is a skill. Being ‘special’ has nothing to do with it, a reality the creators behind MU have unfortunately failed to comprehend with their childish imitation. But fear not - it’s not all downhill for this movie. There are certain points deserved for the effort given, and they had indeed surprised me on certain occasions.

Let’s start this lecture by addressing a reality - I’m no storyteller. I’m not special. I had to put in a lot more hard work than others because I just don’t have it in me. Contrary to popular beliefs, writing stories does require a certain type of talent, but the accurate term to be used here really isn’t ‘talent.’ Perseverance, focus, patience, intelligence, diligence, creativity, open-mindedness, a keen eye for observation, and a great interest in books go a long way. These ‘talents,’ or rather, ‘personality traits’ are what a great writer makes. Any mediocre person can be a good writer, but it takes a great writer to become the best of them all. But the thing with the best is that, no one will forget when they lose. Pixar has lost, very badly. When a poor storyteller like myself could recognize that, there’s certainly something wrong with this picture.

Art is a funny thing. You can’t apply logic to it. It is as chaotic as life itself. And yet art requires logical techniques and systematic applications to truly shine in the modern world, a contradiction itself, much like how this film is a contradiction. The story places its focus on breaking traditional techniques and surpassing them to become something special, and yet in the end, the story is so familiar, so by-the-numbers, that it’s really nothing that special. Is this an artpiece imitating itself or is this a satirical mocking of the cruel reality? I think it isn’t really that complicated, or deep. It’s just a shallow story.

But like I said, I was surprised a couple of times throughout the film, by its self-contradictory theme and by… indescribable and abstract things. ‘Artistic’ things. Let’s start from the beginning.

When I began watching this film, I was so ready to slam it hard. I knew of its reputation, and from the first time I laid eyes on its trailer, I presumed it was going to be bad. It was a biased judgement, I agree, but it’s only biased because I didn’t receive any evidence, yet. I knew that it was going to be a prequel to “Monsters, Inc.”, so I went in with a mindset ready to judge it as a prequel. A sequel is about adding depth to what has come before, but to be honest, a prequel isn’t all that different - adding depth to the instalment that comes after. We’ve already seen the richness “Monsters, Inc.” has to offer with its story, so it makes sense to say that “Monsters University” has to offer us something more as an opening-liner to this world of monsters. From watching the prequel, we have to feel that the story in the first film is significant, that being a scarer working at the Scare Factory actually means something important. In other words, watching M.U. should make us appreciate M.I. even more than not watching it.

The central theme here is fear. Why fear? Why is it so important to utilise it as a mechanism to energise the world? Why are there monsters in the first place? Why do the monsters not connect the logic that the ‘Monstrous Heroes’ working at the Scare Factory should be feared, not envied? Why is Dean Hardscrabble the only person who understands what true fear is like? Why is Mike Wazowski even trying to scare people in the first place? Is it a childhood trauma or is it just plain idol-worship? In fact, why the hell is fear such a ‘cool thing’ in the first place? Because of the simple fact that it energises the world? So I guess the central theme here isn’t fear, but entropy? No, that’s not it either. It’s a typical schoolyard underdog story about the elitists versus the ordinary, about the mediocre being special.

What’s ironic is the fact that Pixar and the characters of “Monsters, Inc.” are no one mediocre. They are the elites. They are the John Worthingtons, the top-scarers, the highly respectable people. And yet here, they are trying to be mediocre. This ironic sense of contradiction is what gets to me. My head couldn’t grasp the logic of it. Is this what art is supposed to be? A self-mockery that seems foolish to everyone but is a clever joke in itself? And this isn’t the kind of stupid joke other self-mocking movies tried to make, either. This one is actually clever. Look at “Disaster Movie.” When it came out, some people thought it was actually a clever attempt to make the worst movie ever, a self-titled ‘disaster movie.’ It was not. Its lack of clever satirical content is enough evidence. But “Monsters University” has drawn enough lines between elitism and the mediocre that it’s become such a confusing study, making me wonder of which side of the spectrum it’s trying to support. It’s not a display of how the talented overrules the ordinary, seeing how Mike was able to utilise his knowledge of scaring to the fullest at the end of the movie. And yet, it’s not really a display of how the ordinary manages to surpass the talented, either! Mike could’ve been actually scary rather than just knowing how to be scary! How I would’ve loved to see Mike actually scaring the dummy-child in the Scare Games without Sully rigging the system! Now THAT would at least have been a more satisfying conclusion!

But that’s beside the point. “Fear” is a depthless commodity in this story. Replace it with anger, hatred, gluttony, apathy, or any other negative feelings, and Pixar would still turn it into something funny without ever actually addressing issues regarding to fear or scaring people. And this makes me wonder in the end - what’s so special about being scary?

Speaking of special. Isn’t it nice what Pixar is teaching kids? Be a nice, mediocre person, or you will turn into a nasty jerk elitist who has no worth in life at all! Like Randall, kids! Hate him because he’s a nasty jerk who should be put down like every other villain you see in fairy tales! Yep, elitism goes both ways. It especially helps when we know that Mike would never be scary and that Randall would never get any kind of redemption in “Monsters, Inc.”

But at the end of the day, there was indeed one scene that surprised me - the ending scene. A film so focused on scaring people actually manages to give me the chills in the end. Much as Dean Hardscrabble was surprised, I was too. The scene with the police and the Crystal Lake Camp was actually frightening… compared to the rest of the film anyway. If the movie had maintained that tone when the elitist scarers were trying to actually demonstrate their scaring talents, I think this would have actually been an entertaining watch. As of now, I don’t know what the story is trying to focus on. It’s messy and all over the place.

2/5

#2

The moral of the story is actually two things:

1. Not everyone is gifted the same way.

From the very start, Mike thought he was born to be a Scarer. And throughout the movie, he believes this, and without a doubt he is actually very smart and knows a lot about the subject. He knows scaring by the book, and all the techniques. However, until the very end when he’s trapped by the lake, he does not realize that he was not born with that gift, and Hardscrabble knows this, and tells him not that to put him down, but that she does care for him and even worries about making a fool of himself in the Scare Games. It’s like whistling; people know how to do it, but not everyone can. Or even drawing; most people can draw with some pencils, but not everyone has the level of talent of a Renaissance or Impressionist artist. Although it took a near-suicidal venture into the Human World, Mike eventually came to terms with the fact that he does not possess the gift of scaring, and his dream of working at Monsters, Inc. is realized, just not in the way he had hoped for, and is content to be Sulley’s assistant. In the end, Mike’s gift is to encourage and help, and in a way, serve as a “behind the scenes” scarer. This is evident when he is being used by Sulley to do all the things with the phonograph and wind-up doll in the camp cabin, and even when he goes in through Frank McCay’s door, hiding himself and startling the entire medical staff on the Scare Floor. Basically, Mike learns that not every monster is born to scare; some are born to be helpers to the Big Scarers.

The Second theme of this story is…

2. Knowing who your true friends are.

[spoiler]At the beginning, Mike goes into his dorm, thinking that the student he is paired up with will be his lifelong friend. That student turns out to be Randall, and at first, their friendship seems promising, as Mike encourages him to use his abilities to his advantage in scaring, and the two of them are shy at first (though Mike is more “gung-ho”). When they go to scaring class, the minute Sulley enters, roaring so loud and taking pride in his family name, Mike immediately assumes this will be his rival in realizing his goal. However, both of these figures in Mike’s life start to show their true colors when they all decide to enter the Scare Games. Sulley starts prideful, but the minute he decides to join OK with Mike, you start to see that he is willing to help. On the other hand, Randall wanted to make friends and be noticed, and he did have a good relationship with Mike, but when the cool kids decided to “accept him”, he chased his dream of popularity, and was willing to do anything to achieve recognition, even forsake friendships that were “holding him back”. These radically different character developments bring to mind two words I learned from manga and anime:

Tsundere: A character who is irritable at first, but also has a warm, loving side. This type of personality can be progressive (Irritable at the beginning, eventually developing to loving and caring at the end of a story) or on/off (both sides of the personality are displayed, e.g. Kagami Hiiragi from Lucky Star). Sulley fits the progressive tsundere formula, because while he starts out as a prideful jerk at the beginning, irritated by Mike’s teasing, being with him and the rest of OK eventually bring out his warm, loving, and caring side.

Yandere: A character who starts out as sweet, innocent, loving, warm, and caring, but overtime is revealed to be mentally ill, and lets his/her attachment for something (usually romantic), turn destructive and fatal. (For those familiar with this term, is usually carries the connotation of a psychopathic killer). It could also describe someone whose so emotionally attached to something, that they’d do anything to defend it, even murder enemies. Although not to this extreme, Randall does follow the yandere formula to a certain extent, seeing that he starts out as a sweet and loving character, but his love of popularity and acceptance eventually show how cruel he can really be in order to gain it (participating in the prank against OK, developing a grudge against Sulley for having lost the Scare Simulator, and even willing to hurt and endanger a toddler-aged girl for the sake of testing out a machine that could “revolutionize the scaring industry”).[/spoiler]

So, in the end, the person Mike thought would be his rival became his lifelong friend, and the person whom he thought was his friend turned out to be his (and Sulley’s) lifelong enemy.

Hope that helps! :smiley:

#3

I’m gonna wade in here with what I KNOW is going to be a very unpopular stance, but one I feel the need to point out.
Mike and Randall never were friends, not in the sense that it was a two-way relationship with equal give-and-take on BOTH sides. The term “friend” has become so “cheapened” today by internet social networks, that I honestly and truly do believe that few people even really understand what it means to BE a FRIEND nowadays. Being a friend is more than liking someone, more than being nice and polite to someone. Being a friend means that you have to be willing to give of YOUR time and sometimes give up things that are important to you, like pursuing YOUR goals and dreams, to do things for that other person that THEY consider important. It means that there has to be give and take on the part of both individuals. Mike was not willing to do that at first. Doing things that were important to Randall, just hanging out socially with him, meant that Mike had to put aside his books and studies for awhile, and he absolutely was not willing to make that small concession. He refused to go to the Rush party with Randall, in spite of Randall’s pleading, and actually tells him in so many words that Randall is going to have to wait FOUR YEARS for Mike to graduate and fulfill his dream of being a Scarer when he says, “we’ll have plenty of time for parties once we become Scarers”. Now, who is going to wait four years for someone to make up their mind whether they really want to be friends with you or not? Mike is all too happy to accept Randall’s help in studying, to help him achieve his dream, but does not acknowledge that Randall’s dream isn’t becoming a Scarer; that was simply a career choice. Randall’s dream is to have something he’s apparently never had before: FRIENDS and acceptance by others, and he saw Mike as a potential first friend, as he indicates right after they meet. Mike is non-threatening, he’s a little guy like Randall, and Randall probably sensed that he, too, was an outcast, so they had a lot in common. Mike, however, was simply not interested in anything that was not directly related to the pursuit of his dream and saw anything that was not directly helpful to him in that pursuit as a hindrance. Even when they’re at the football game, Mike pays absolutely no attention to Randall whatsoever, but keeps his face in the books. Randall looks like a rabbit surrounded by a pack of wolves in that scene, clearly left out, and he keeps looking to Mike as if for some emotional “backup” when surrounded by all those big, jock-type monsters(you have to wonder why Randall is so afraid of guys like that), seeing Mike as a bit of an emotional anchor because of Mike’s courage and confidence, but does not even receive so much as a glance of acknowledgement from his roommate. Now be honest with me, folks-if someone that YOU knew treated YOU like this, ignored you, brushed off your attempts to get them to go places with you and do things that friends do together, and did this consistently, BUT that same person was all-too-willing to take advantage of YOUR help with things that THEY wanted to do, what would YOU do? How long would you be willing to wait on them to finally acknowledge you as more than just an acquaintance or a study partner, before you give up and move on? I can tell you that Randall was a LOT more persistent than I would have been; having Mike tell me that he wasn’t going to go to any parties or movies or other non-academic functions with me until we graduated and got jobs(as IF there’d be more time for fun things THEN-oh, little did Mike know) would have been enough for ME to start looking for other friends! Randall was clearly a lonely kid, deprived of normal social interactions for whatever and starved for acceptance, just as a person deprived of food is starved for sustenance. When someone else came along, claiming to offer friendship and a sense of belonging, something he’d not gotten from his roommate, naturally he jumped at the offer, failing to realize that it was not an honest offer and that those so-called “friends”, the guys in ROR, were only using him and really didn’t think much of him at all. If you’re desperate, though, and have little in the way of social experiences upon which to draw in order to ascertain if someone’s offer of friendship is legit and honest, and you’ve already failed at forging friendships thus far(not just Mike, but even Randall’s naive and innocent attempt to break the ice at the Rush party with the cupcakes ended badly for him), you’re going to go with the first offer rather than chance remaining an unwanted outcast. Its’ just the nature of social beings. Randall didn’t “abandon” or “turn his back on” a friendship between himself and Mike, because it never existed in the first place. He just acknowledged that fact and recognized that there was no point in waiting around on someone who clearly was not interested in being anything other than a roommate and a study partner. Imagine, though, how he must have felt upon seeing that Mike later DID become friends with the OK’s, and with that Sullivan kid especially, even though that Sullivan kid was the one who’d provoked that confrontation that got Mike kicked out of the Scaring program. Randall wasn’t “good enough” to be Mike’s friend…but THEY are??? Knowing what Sullivan’s family background was probably made Randall question if THAT was the reason why Mike chose Sulley as a friend over him, when in actuality, THAT was one of reasons why Mike actually did NOT like Sulley at first, as he explains out at the lake, but there must have been at least a subconscious effort on Randall’s part to want to prove that HE was just as good as that Sullivan guy, in spite of not having a famous family name. Mike literally has to LEARN how to actually BE a friend to someone, to value others for more than just their potential Scaring ability or in terms of how they can help HIM. At first, he sees the other guys in OK and even Sulley as no more than tools for helping him get back into the Scare Program because THAT is all that matters to Mike. Along the way, he learns to value them as PEOPLE while at the same time realizing that Scaring ISN’T his real talent, but Mike learns this too late for Randall’s sake, because Randall has already fallen in with ROR and is under their control, and is now starting to resent Mike for having shunned HIS offers of friendship while being apparently open to friendship with others(who knows what Johnny and the other ROR’s have been telling him to get him to think that way, too). Randall’s involvement with ROR is short-lived, however, and they show their true colors when he loses to Sulley, a loss that from HIS perspective would have seemed unfair and unethical, so in the long run, he STILL winds up unwanted and lonely-right where he was when we first meet him.

pitbulllady