Monsters University opened in the U.S. on June 21. I saw it on July 4. Now I'm writing about it on July 17. I never claimed this blog would be timely. On the other hand, four weeks and change after the release date is better than eight years or one thousand years, so maybe I'm getting better at being contemporary.
As promised in my last post, this write-up will be shorter than the ones for Beowulf and Me and You and Everyone We Know. And that isn't me condensing myself. I don't have much to say about the first eighty-five minutes of the movie. It's the kind of movie the folks at Pixar can apparently make in their sleep—full of vibrant, detailed animation, endearing characters, creative set design, tightly scripted dialogue etc.—and I would rank it somewhere in the middle of the great Pixar pantheon*. There isn't a lot I could say about most of Monsters University that couldn't also be said of the Toy Story trilogy, A Bug's Life, Cars, or especially the original Monsters, Inc.
Notice I said most of Monsters University. Because what I do want to talk about is the fifteen minutes that ends the film. And oh man, that ending.
Pixar movies have always flirted with dashing the ambitions of their characters. Just look at the opening minutes of Up or the first half of Ratatouille or the third act of Finding Nemo, and you will see Pixar baiting its audience with the very real possibility that things will not end happily. It's this willingness to allow their characters the possibility of failure that creates the emotional heft that Pixar movies have become known for (and that Cars 2, their weakest film, lacked). But never has one completely committed to the idea that a protagonist just isn't meant to get what he wants. At least, until Monsters University.
At the end of the movie, Mike Wazowski finds that—despite his lifelong dream of being a scarer, despite the movie's entire plot revolving around this ambition—he is not scary enough to be a one. So he doesn't become one. End of story. (Yeah, I know there's that montage of him climbing the ranks at the scare factory, so it's a mostly happy ending, but at the end of the day, he still doesn't get to be a scarer) Think about it. That would be like if the first Toy Story ended with Woody and Buzz flying back to Andy only to find that he didn't want them anymore, or if Finding Nemo ended with Marlin realizing that Nemo was better off without him. The closest thing to a moment with as much devastating finality as the end of Monsters University is the incinerator scene in Toy Story 3, but even then a deus ex machina saves the toys. Regardless of how much soul searching and potential disappointment a character goes through, every Pixar movie eventually gives the characters what they want in the end. Monsters University is the first time that a Pixar movie has not blinked when it stared at the opportunity to disappoint a character permanently. It is the first to tell kids that they might not be good enough to pursue whatever dream career they have been pursuing**.
And why does Monsters University of all movies, a film that for most of its running time just seems content with giving its audience a good time, end up doing this? I think it's able to do so because it's Pixar's first prequel. Prequels have a safety net that other movies lack. A moviegoer never has to worry too much about characters in a prequel because the earlier position in the franchise timeline guarantees that everyone will be in good enough shape to make it to the later installment. The filmmakers of Monsters University seem to realize this, giving the MU story much smaller stakes than those in Monsters, Inc. And this is smart; any big, life-threatening stakes would have been a cheat that we audience members would have quickly seen through, since we know that Mike and Sulley are a-okay in the next movie. MU's prequelness also gives the filmmakers the freedom to crush Sulley's dreams without seeming too cruel or pessimistic; after all, we know he comes out on top by the time Monsters, Inc. rolls around. A prequel's inherent lightheartedness allows Monsters University the opportunity to be unflinchingly honest with its characters without alienating the viewers.
Monsters University would have been a good movie without the ending. I just want to be clear on that. It's a funny movie, sometimes a very funny movie, especially when it plays around with our perceptions of previously established characters—straight-laced Sulley is a douche, the banished Abominable Snowman is a careless mailroom grunt, villainous Randall is, well, mild-mannered. But during those final few scenes, during Mike's disappointment, it becomes a great movie, however briefly so.
Actually, was this any shorter than my other two posts? Anyway, feel free to discuss the length of this post to yours hearts' content in the comments. Or, you know, you could discuss Monsters University. Or not comment at all. It's up to you.
Until next time.
*I don't think Pixar has ever made a "bad" movie (even Cars 2 succeeds in being fun in my book), but for those of you who are curious, here is how I would rank them, Monsters University included.
- Toy Story
- WALL-E
- Up
- The Incredibles
- Toy Story 2
- Finding Nemo
- Ratatouille
- Toy Story 3
- Monsters, Inc.
- Monsters University
- A Bug's Life
- Cars
- Brave
- Cars 2
**No, I don't think the other Pixar movies are any worse for giving their characters happy endings. Those endings are all well-deserved and naturally reached. But Monsters University provides a refreshing counterpoint to the sometimes-blind optimism of the "you can do anything if you set your mind to it" school of thought. And yeah, I know that we technically knew from Monsters, Inc. that Mike becomes a technician, not a scarer, but I was still surprised at how much of a plot point they make his failure. I mean, a lesser film could have just had him change careers between the movies or something.
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