Monsters, Inc.
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| Monsters, Inc. | |
 Monsters, Inc. movie poster |
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| Directed by | Peter Docter Co-Director: Lee Unkrich David Silverman |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Darla K. Anderson Executive Producer: John Lasseter Andrew Stanton Associate Producer: Kori Rae |
| Written by | Story: Jill Culton Peter Docter Ralph Eggleston Jeff Pidgeon Screenplay: Andrew Stanton Daniel Gerson Additional Screenplay: Robert L. Baird Rhett Reese Jonathan Roberts |
| Starring | John Goodman Billy Crystal Steve Buscemi James Coburn Jennifer Tilly |
| Music by | Randy Newman |
| Studio | Pixar Animation Studios |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
| Release date(s) | November 2, 2001 |
| Running time | 94 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $115 million |
| Gross revenue | Domestic $255,873,250 Worldwide $525,366,597 |
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film was released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. Monsters, Inc. was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. It was directed by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and David Silverman.[1]
Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 and was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.[2] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 95% approval rating.[3]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Monsters, Inc. is the power utility in the city of Monstropolis. The company sends its many monster employees to human children's bedrooms around the world through individually-loaded and activated teleportation doors. Each door precisely matches a closet door in an individual child’s bedroom. The monsters, skilled in scare techniques, then frighten the children badly enough to cause them to scream. The screams are then captured through the portals and stored for later use in power generation for the monster world. It is understood, however, that the children themselves are toxic, and the company goes to great lengths to prevent contact with them; should a monster be touched by a child, or even by their belongings, the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is immediately alerted to sanitize the affected being. With growing numbers of children becoming desensitized by mass media, Monsters, Inc. CEO Henry J. Waternoose is finding it increasingly difficult to harvest enough scream to meet the power demands of Monstropolis. An energy crisis looms.
One evening, James P. Sullivan ("Sulley"), Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer, finds a loaded door on the scare floor after hours - a violation of company policy. Peering inside, the child's room appears empty, so he exits. Sulley then finds to his horror, that a human girl has followed him through the door, thinking him to be a giant kitty. Terrified of contamination, he tries to return her, but is forced to hide when Randall Boggs, a competitive co-scarer, emerges from the child's room and surreptitiously sends her door back to the factory's door vault. Sulley quickly hides the child and gets hold of his work-partner and pal Mike Wazowski for help in figuring out the situation. At Sulley's home, they discover that being touched by the child is not harmful at all, and that when she laughs, nearby fields of electrical power surges to unusually high levels. Sulley nicknames the child "Boo" and becomes her caretaker until they can get her back home.
Sulley and Mike disguise Boo as a baby monster and return to Monsters, Inc. the next morning. Mike puts in a request for retrieval of Boo's door, but the doorkeeper, Roz, denies it: Mike has failed to properly file the previous day's paperwork. Boo wanders off into the plant, with Sulley giving chase. They accidentally stumble upon Randall and his "scream extractor", a device that extracts the screams directly from a physically restrained child. This requires Randall to actually kidnap children and bring them to the monster world. Sulley takes Boo and attempts to reveal Randall's actions to Waternoose, but is sidetracked by a demonstration of his scaring skills to new employees assembled at the plant’s scare simulator before he can do so. When he scares the robot subject, Boo becomes frightened of him, and is revealed as a human. Sulley tries to explain the situation to Waternoose, but comes to realize that Waternoose is actually in on the scream extractor plan, and is allowing Randall to develop it in order to keep Monsters, Inc. from going out of business. To keep them quiet, Waternoose orders Sulley and Mike exiled to the human world, and gives Boo to Randall for use in the machine.
Sulley and Mike, now stranded in the snowy Himalayas in Nepal with its local monster inhabitant, an ever-gleeful Yeti, realize that Boo's life is in danger. They find a nearby Nepali village and locate a door connected to Monsters, Inc.'s Scarefloor F, Mike and Sulley's daily workstation. They are just in time to save Boo from the extractor, and attempt to catch Randall, leading to a chase on, across, and through the myriad traveling portals within the cavernous automated door vault, all now activated by Boo's reverberating screams of delight. They triumph once Boo overcomes her fear of Randall and starts beating him with a Wiffleball bat. Sulley throws Randall through a door, and he and Mike then smash the door to pieces to prevent him returning. Sulley, Mike, and Boo then lure Waternoose into a trap at the scare simulator, and force him to reveal his intentions on camera. Under arrest by the CDA, the executive furiously blames Sulley for destroying the company and exacerbating the energy crisis. As he is taken away, Roz (now revealed to be Agent 001 of the CDA) insists that Boo must return to her world and that her door be destroyed. Sulley conveys Boo to her room and bid her farewell, and watches sadly as her door is run through a door shredder. Mike retrieves one undisposed-of splinter, and gives it to Sulley as a keepsake.
Later, Sulley has become the new CEO of Monsters, Inc., and has changed the company's approach - instead of scaring children, they make them laugh. This generates ten times more power, making both monsters and children happy. Mike then reveals his own special project to Sulley - he has managed to rebuild Boo's door save the one piece Sulley has kept, and invites him to finish it. Sulley places the last piece and enters the door, where an unseen Boo instantly recognizes him.
[edit] Voice cast
- John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan
- Billy Crystal as Michael "Mike" Wazowski
- Mary Gibbs as "Boo"
- Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs
- James Coburn as Mr. Waternoose
- Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae
- Bob Peterson as Roz
- John Ratzenberger as the Abominable Snowman
- Frank Oz as Fungus
- Bonnie Hunt as Ms. Flint
- Jeff Pidgeon as Mr. Bile
- Dan Gerson as Needleman and Smitty
- Sam Black as George Sanderson
[edit] References to other Pixar films
There are numerous references to other Pixar films to be found in Monsters, Inc.; one example is that near the end of the film, Boo hands Sully a Jessie doll from Toy Story 2, the Luxo ball, and a plush of Nemo from Finding Nemo. Since Finding Nemo was the Pixar film that followed Monsters, Inc., it was presumably a sneak peek to the upcoming movie. Another is when Randall arrives in the trailer, it is the trailer from Bug's Life, and the pizza delivery car from Toy Story is seen sitting next to it.
Also, in the bloopers of the film, Rex from the Toy Story films makes a cameo appearance.
[edit] Other media
[edit] Manga
- A manga version of Monsters, Inc. was made by Hiromi Yamafuji and distributed in Kodansha's Comic Bon Bon magazine in Japan; the manga was published in English by Tokyopop until it became out of print.
[edit] On ice
- Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.
[edit] Video games
- A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the movie, such as a movie adaptation, Monsters Inc., developed by A2M on PS2, Game Boy Color, and GBA consoles in 2001. The game received 5.1 from Gamespot and 2.0 from IGN for repetitive gameplay and poor graphics.
[edit] Monsters, Inc. Quiz Game
[edit] Cast
- John Goodman as Sullivan.
- Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski.
- Mary Gibbs as Boo.
[edit] Playables
Math Game the playable is Sullivan. Quiz Game the playable is Mike and Boo.
[edit] Additional short film
- A short was made by Pixar in 2002 named Mike's New Car, in which the two main characters have assorted misadventures with a car Mike has just bought. This film was not screened in theaters, but is included with the VHS and DVD release of Monsters, Inc.
[edit] Theme park attractions
Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks across the globe.
- In 2006, Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! opened at Disney's California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The dark ride was developed to boost the theme park's lagging attendance, and was quite successful in doing so, at least for a period of time.
- In 2007, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor opened at the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The show is improvisational in nature, and features the opportunity for Guests to interact with the monster comedians, and even submit jokes of their own via text message. The attraction has been praised on it being original but has been criticized for being in Tomorrowland.[4]
- In 2009, Monsters, Inc: Ride & Go Seek opened at Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Chiba, Japan.
[edit] Music
- For details, see Monsters, Inc. (soundtrack).
The score was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the song "If I Didn't Have You" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
[edit] Awards
- Monsters, Inc. won the Academy Award for Best Song (Randy Newman, after 15 previous nominations, for If I Didn't Have You). It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature (lost to Shrek), and Best Music, Original Score (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).
- This movie, and Shrek are the first pair of computer generated (CG) animated movies to win Academy Awards in the same year. Monsters, Inc. won for Best Song of 2001, and Shrek won for Best Animated Feature of 2001.
[edit] Trailers
One Pixar tradition is to create trailers for their films that do not contain footage from the released film[citation needed]. Trailers for this film include:
- Sulley and Mike stumble into the wrong bedroom. Sulley blames Mike for the mistake, and the two have a fight, which is quickly resolved.
- In a trailer shown before the first Harry Potter film, Sulley is shown playing charades with Mike, but Mike is unable to guess the phrase "Harry Potter". The clip never specifically mentions Harry Potter, but the end states that Monsters, Inc. is playing right next door. Afterwards, Mike attempts to charade by waving his arms in the air to make a star shape. A bored Sulley quickly and correctly guesses Star Wars. A bewildered Mike asks how he does it. A different version has Mike using a hula hoop, and Sulley correctly guesses Saturn.
[edit] Blu-ray Release
Monsters, Inc. will also become available on Blu-ray in September 2009.
[edit] See also
- List of animated feature-length films
- List of computer-animated films
- List of Monsters, Inc. characters
[edit] References
- ^ "Monster's Inc. Writing Credits". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198781/fullcredits#writers. Retrieved on 2008-07-09.
- ^ "Box Office Mojo - Monsters, Inc.". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=monstersinc.htm. Retrieved on 2008-07-09.
- ^ "Rotten Tomatoes - Monsters, Inc.". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters_inc/. Retrieved on 2008-07-09.
- ^ "DURING 'YEAR OF A MILLION DREAMS' CELEBRATION DISNEY CAST MEMBERS TO AWARD A MILLION MAGICAL DREAMS". The Walt Disney Company. 2006-06-07. http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corporate/2006/2006_0607_disneywheredreams.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-28.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Monsters, Inc. |
- Information at Pixar's site
- Monsters, Inc. at the Internet Movie Database
- Monsters, Inc. at Allmovie
- Monsters, Inc. at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Monsters, Inc. at Rotten Tomatoes
- Monsters, Inc. at Metacritic
- Monsters, Inc. at Box Office Mojo
| Preceded by K-PAX |
Box office number-one films of 2001 (USA) November 4 - November 11 |
Succeeded by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
| Preceded by Vanilla Sky |
Box office number-one films of 2002 (UK) February 10 - February 24 |
Succeeded by Ocean's Eleven |
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