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'''''Monsters, Inc.''''' is a 2001 computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by [[Pixar|Pixar Animation Studios]]. It was directed by [[Pete Docter]], co-directed by [[Lee Unkrich]] and [[David Silverman]], and was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, [[Peter Docter]], Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, [[Jonathan Roberts (writer)|Jonathan Roberts]] and [[Andrew Stanton]].<ref>{{cite web |title = Monster's Inc. Writing Credits |publisher = [[IMDb]]| url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198781/fullcredits#writers |accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref>
'''''Monsters, Inc.''''' is a 2001 computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by [[Pixar|Pixar Animation Studios]]. It was directed by [[Pete Docter]], co-directed by [[Lee Unkrich]] and [[David Silverman]], and was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, [[Peter Docter]], Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, [[Jonathan Roberts (writer)|Jonathan Roberts]] and [[Andrew Stanton]]. Monsters, Inc. is also the second Pixar film to star [[Bonnie Hunt]] (after ''[[A Bug's Life]]'' wherein she played Rosie the spider).<ref>{{cite web |title = Monster's Inc. Writing Credits |publisher = [[IMDb]]| url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198781/fullcredits#writers |accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref>
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. It was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.<ref>{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Box Office Mojo - Monsters, Inc.| work = | publisher = [[Box Office Mojo]]| date = | url = http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=monstersinc.htm| doi = | accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref> Review aggregator [[Rotten Tomatoes]] also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 95% approval rating.<ref>{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Rotten Tomatoes - Monsters, Inc.| work = | publisher = [[Rotten Tomatoes]]| date = | url = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters_inc/| format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref>
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. It was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.<ref>{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Box Office Mojo - Monsters, Inc.| work = | publisher = [[Box Office Mojo]]| date = | url = http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=monstersinc.htm| doi = | accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref> Review aggregator [[Rotten Tomatoes]] also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 95% approval rating.<ref>{{cite web| last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Rotten Tomatoes - Monsters, Inc.| work = | publisher = [[Rotten Tomatoes]]| date = | url = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters_inc/| format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-07-09}}</ref>

Revision as of 14:44, 10 April 2010

Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc. film poster
Directed byPete Docter
Co-Directors:
Lee Unkrich
David Silverman
Written byAndrew Stanton
Dan Gerson
Robert L. Baird
Rhett Reese
Jonathan Roberts
Story:
Peter Docter
Jill Culton
Ralph Eggleston
Jeff Pidgeon
Produced byDarla K. Anderson
Executive producers:
John Lasseter
Andrew Stanton
Associate producer:
Kori Rae
StarringJohn Goodman
Billy Crystal
Mary Gibbs
Steve Buscemi
James Coburn
Jennifer Tilly
Music byRandy Newman
Production
company
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release date
November 2, 2001 (2001-11-02)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$115 million
Box office$525,366,597

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. Monsters, Inc. is also the second Pixar film to star Bonnie Hunt (after A Bug's Life wherein she played Rosie the spider).[1]

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. It 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]

Plot

Monsters, Inc. is the power utility in Monstropolis, a monster-populated city; the company uses the power of human children screams when scared by its employees, entering their rooms via closets linked to special doors on the company's "scare floor", to generate the city's power. However, due to children becoming desensitized, the company finds itself struggling to meet the power needs of Monstropolis.

One day, while turning in paperwork to the dispachment manager Roz (Bob Peterson), the company's top scarer, James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) ("Sulley") finds a door left unattended and powered, but looking inside, finds the room empty. However, he quickly discovers its child, a toddler girl (Mary Gibbs), has followed him back to the monster world, thinking him to be a giant kitty. Fearing human contact, Sulley collects the girl and gets in touch with his partner Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) to determine what to do. Dressing the girl up as a monster, and giving her the nickname "Boo", the two attempt to return her the next day, but instead discover that Sulley's competitor for top scarer, Randall (Steve Buscemi), has created a device to extract screams from children, whom he brings into the monster world for this purpose.

Sulley and Mike, carrying Boo, attempt to alert Monsters, Inc.'s president, Henry J. Waternoose (James Coburn), while he is attending a training session for new monsters. However, Waternoose asks Sulley to demonstrate his scare tactics, and when Sulley growls loudly, Boo reveals herself as a human child. Waternoose, taking Boo, promised to set things right, but instead reveals he is in on Randall's scheme, worried for the future of the company, and exiles Sulley and Mike to the Himalayas in Nepal. Sulley and Mike have a falling out. Sulley, only concerned about getting to Boo quickly scavenges parts from stockpiles from the Abominable Snowman (John Ratzenberger), another exiled monster, and returns to the nearest village to use a door and return to Monsters, Inc. He arrives in time to rescue Boo, shortly followed by Mike who helps them to escape from Randall.

The three go into the company's door vaults in search of Boo's door, which quickly becomes like a roller coaster ride. Boo's laughter powers the millions of doors in storage. After a chase through numerous doors, Randall catches them and he nearly destroys Sulley. His gloating makes Boo angry; she overcomes her fear of Randall, jumps on his back and beats him into submission with a baseball bat. Sulley throws him through a door. On the other side of the door (in a caravan), a mother beats Randall senseless with a shovel after mistaking him for an alligator. Meanwhile, Sulley and Mike destroy the door. The three turn and trick Waternoose into stating the purpose of Randall's scare machine on tape. Roz reveals herself as the lead agent of the Child Detection Agency, a group that deals with human contact, and takes Waternoose away. Roz then forces Sulley and Mike to return Boo home, and after a tearful goodbye, her door is "shredded", though Sulley keeps one of the wood splinters as a reminder.

Sometime later, Sulley becomes president of Monsters, Inc., and changes the company approach; as they found with Boo, children's laughter is ten times more effective than their screams, so they now send monsters in to make children laugh. Mike himself and others like Randall's former assistant Fungus (Frank Oz) enjoy themselves by doing stand-up and dressing up in silly costumes. Mike reveals to Sulley a secret project he was working on, recreating Boo's door piece by piece, and with the final piece Sulley kept, the door is able to work again. As the movie closes, Sulley peeks into Boo's room (unseen by the audience), where a voice says "Kitty!" showing she still remembers him.

Voice cast

  • John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, a large, furry blue monster with purple spots and the protagonist of the film. At the start of the film, is Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer. After Waternoose's plan is revealed, Sulley becomes the CEO of the company, overseeing the collection of laughter from children.
  • Billy Crystal as Michael "Mike" Wazowski, a green monster and Sulley's sidekick, who is mostly an eyeball with hands and feet. Mike is Sulley's best friend and runs his station on the scare floor. After Sulley takes over, Mike becomes one of the monsters that helps extract laughs from children, using his stand up comedy.
  • Mary Gibbs as "Boo", a two year old human girl that is inadvertently brought back to the monster world by Sulley. She appears unafraid of any of the strange monsters (except for Randall, who it turns out was the monster that would occupy her closet the most out of all the Monsters, Inc. monsters), and tries to explore the world on her own. In a book based on the film, it is revealed that Boo's real name is Mary Gibbs (the same name of her voice actress).
  • Steve Buscemi as Randall Boggs, an anthropomorphic chameleon-like monster and the primary antagonist of the film. Randall has the ability to change the color of his skin to camouflage himself. He is a direct rival to Sulley, attempting to earn the most Scares during shifts, and is in on Waternoose's plan to kidnap children from the human world.
  • James Coburn as Mr. Waternoose, a monster crab and, at the start of the film, CEO of Monsters, Inc. This was Coburn's last role in an animated work. He is the secondary antagonist of the film.
  • Jennifer Tilly as Celia Mae, a Medusa-like monster with snakes instead of hair, Mike's girlfriend, and receptionist for the company. She playfully refers to Mike as "Googly Bear".
  • Bob Peterson as Roz, a slug-like monster that works as a clerk for the Scare floor, but secretly is the top agent of the Child Detection Agency (CDA) who were seeking evidence for Waternoose's plan.
  • John Ratzenberger as the Abominable Snowman, a yeti banished to the Himalayas
  • Frank Oz as Fungus, a three-eyed monster that works as Randal's assistant on the Scare floor, and while aware of the plan, is hesitant to help with its execution.
  • Bonnie Hunt as Ms. Flint, a snake-like monster that trains new monsters in scaring tactics.
  • Jeff Pidgeon as Mr. Bile, a monster, newly hired to Monsters, Inc., who tries, and fails, to impress Sulley and Mr. Waternoose with his scaring antics, but is able to use his clumsiness to extract laughs from children at the end of the film.
  • Dan Gerson as Needleman and Smitty, two monsters that work as janitors on the Scare floor
  • Sam Black as George Sanderson, a monster that runs afoul of the CDA's "code 23-19", contact with a human child, several times during the film, forcing the CDA to shave and scrub him to remove any trace of human contact.

Production

The idea for Monsters, Inc. started with a lunch in 1994. At this lunch was John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft. One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming session was a film about monsters. Docter's original idea revolved around a 30-year old man dealing with monsters, which he drew in a book as a child, coming back to bother him as an adult. Each monster represented a fear he had and conquering those fears caused the monsters to eventually disappear.[4]

Docter started working on the script in 1996 and with Harley Jessup, Jill Culton and Jeff Pidgeon completed a draft treatment in February 1997. The initial story did not have the character of Mike Wazowski. He wasn't added until a story review meeting between Pixar and Disney in April 1998. The film went into production in 2000.[5]

The release of Monsters, Inc. was almost delayed by a lawsuit brought by Lori Madrid against Pixar, Disney and Chronicle Books. The suit alleged the defendants had stolen her story There's a Boy in My Closet, which she had mailed out in October 1999 to a number of publishers, including Chronicle Books. The plaintiffs had requested a temporary injunction against the release of the film. Judge Clarence Brimmer, Jr. had a hearing on the injunction on November 1, 2001, the day before the film was to be released. He judged against the injunction, and the entire suit was thrown out on June 26, 2002.[5]

Another lawsuit by Stanley Mouse, alleged that the characters of Mike and Sulley were based on drawings he had tried to sell Hollywood in 1998.[6]

Music

Main article: 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.

Awards and nominations

See also: Table of Pixar awards and nominations for Monsters, Inc.

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).

References to other Pixar films

Main article: List of Pixar film references

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 Sulley 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 film. Another is when Randall arrives in the trailer, it is the trailer from A Bug's Life, and the pizza delivery truck 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.

Alternative versions

One month after the movie's theatrical release (on December 7th, 2001) a version with alternative end credits was brought into theatres. There, the credits are accompanied by a "blooper reel", followed by the musical "Put That Thing Back Where it Came From or So Help Me", performed by the cast. This version can be found as a separate feature on the collector's Edition DVD and in the credits of the 4:3 fullscreen DVD version as well as the end credits of the R2-R5 widescreen version for Eastern Europe.

As is common for Pixar movies, international versions differ in the contents. Many English inscriptions are either removed, or replaced by more generic symbols, especially in Monstropolis and at the Scarefloor. For instance, the "Stalk/Don't Stalk" traffic light is replaced by a green two-headed monster (for "Stalk") and a forbidding red hand (for "Don't Stalk"). Additionally, an animation of Sulley telling Boo to go to sleep was changed for Non-English version, as in the US version, he holds up two fingers to illustrate "to" in "You - go - to - sleep". Several European DVDs contain only the "international" version, whereas the US DVDs and US/UK BluRay contain the "US" version. Some of the examples for alternative angles can be seen in the bonus material of the 2-Disc DVD and Blu-Ray of the film.

Other media

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 all home video releases of Monsters, Inc.

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.

Video games

A series of video games, and a multi-platform video game were created, based on the film, such as a film adaptation, Monsters Inc., developed by A2M on PS2, PC, Game Boy Color, and GBA consoles in 2001.

On ice

Feld Entertainment toured a Monsters, Inc. edition of their Disney on Ice skating tour from 2003 to 2007.

Theme park attractions

Monsters, Inc. has inspired three attractions at Disney theme parks around the world.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Monster's Inc. Writing Credits". IMDb. Retrieved 2008-07-09.
  2. ^ "Box Office Mojo - Monsters, Inc". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-07-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes - Monsters, Inc". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-07-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Davis, Erik (November 13, 2009). "The Original Pitch for 'Monsters, Inc.'". Cinematical. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
  5. ^ a b Price, David A. (2008). The Pixar Touch, pp. 187-196. New York, Alfred A. Knopf
  6. ^ Shiels, Maggie (November 14, 2002). "Monsters Inc faces 'copying' lawsuit". BBC News. Archived from the original on September 1, 2009. Retrieved September 1, 2009.
  7. ^ "DURING 'YEAR OF A MILLION DREAMS' CELEBRATION DISNEY CAST MEMBERS TO AWARD A MILLION MAGICAL DREAMS". The Walt Disney Company. 2006-06-07. Retrieved 2008-08-28. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
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