Ryan McNeil
Talent comes with certain metrics. You’re either a good public speaker, or you aren’t. You can either hit a curveball, or you can’t. And you might be great with numbers, or a complete mathematical catastrophe. But what if talent is harder to define? What if to build a great team, you need to have pieces that work well in concert with one another? Perhaps that means that the bad speaker, the curveball whiffer, and the mathematical dunce still have a role to play.
The trick, it would seem, is recognizing the talent and seeing the role it can play on the team.
In 2001, MONSTERS, INC. introduced us to Mike Wazowski and James “Sully” Sullivan (voiced by Billy Crystal and John Goodman). The two worked as scarers at Monsters, Inc., harvesting the screams of children in the mortal world and converting it into energy for Monstropolis in the monster world.
Before that happened though, they had to be taught how to be scarers, and for that, they went to Monsters University Scaring Program.
The pair arrive at M-U in very different fashion. Mike is socially awkward, though a hard worker. He might not have God-given talent, but what he lacks he makes up for by studying hard. Sully, on the other hand is a natural. Besides coming from a family that is a scaring legacy, he is physically imposing and can make a child scream just by letting out a roar. Unfortunately, all of that natural ability leads him to coast, and not apply himself to his fullest potential. The differing approach leads to a great deal of competition between the two.
While both Mike and Sully show promise, they both manage to fail to fail the Scaring Program’s first semester exam, and that comes with consequences. At the start of the year, The Dean of Scaring, Ms. Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren) made it clear that anyone who failed was out of the program…so before long, Mike and Sully are on the outside looking in.
But all is not lost.
M-U hosts a competition between fraternities and sororities every year called The Scare Games, the goal of which is to prove each monster’s scaring ability. Mike enrolls in the scare games by hooking up with the wildly underwhelming frat Oozma Kappa (in a live action movie, they’d be wearing pocket protectors). Making matters more interesting, he has to bring Sully on to the team for them to qualify. The rivals are now teammates, with a lot to prove:
Thanks to a wager Mike made with Hardscrabble, if they can win The Scare Games, they’ll be back in The Scare Program…but if they lose, they need to leave M-U altogether.
The widely held opinion is that the team Pixar have been crackerjack animators since they first dropped TOY STORY on us in 1995. That opinion is partially true, and films like MONSTERS UNIVERSITY underline why.
It’s true that Pixar’s visual technique has been some of the very best one could see right from the first moment we met Woody and Buzz Lightyear. However, what we forget is the way that visual technique has evolved through almost twenty years. In that time, Pixar has continually tweaked their approach, and have likewise developed better tools to employ. The studio has been so good at what they’ve been doing for so long, that we forget sometimes that they have gotten even better. To see just how far they have come, one needs to preface a screening of MONSTERS UNIVERSITY with its twelve-year-old sequel, MONSTERS, INC.
The difference is startling.
In 2001, Mike, Sully and all of the inhabitants of Monstropolis were cartoons. They were charming cartoons, who were all wonderfully rendered…but they had more in common with Shrek than they did with Gollum. Twelve years on, the advance in technology is astounding. When one sees what the team at Pixar is now able to do with light and texture, it stops being about watching cartoons on a big screen and instead being about living, breathing, beings.
Late in the film, there is a scene where Mike and Sully talk things over lit only by a nighttime sky. It’s a key moment in the film since it will define who they both go on to be. It’s also a key moment in Pixar’s history since it is visually the best thing they have ever done.
The funny thing about all of this is the way it flies in the face of those who would bemoan a Pixar sequel. One could argue that Pixar is making sequels as a cash-grab, or even because they are out of ideas. However, that ignores a larger truth. Sometimes when Pixar makes a sequel, it allows them to take beloved characters, and bring them to life using the cool new tools they’ve developed. It’s like giving your favorite car a badass new engine.
There is, of course, a story that one must consider as well, since not everyone will be going to MONSTERS UNIVERSITY for visual splendour. For some audiences, the story will seem familiar – chiefly in the way it draws from a certain 1980’s comedy. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially since it takes a narrative that was not at all appropriate for children in its original incantation.
The crux of the story is, I believe, an important one. It underlines how talent manifests itself in so many different ways. It’s difficult to draw hard borders around talent, and yet that’s exactly what we do time and again. We get hung up on a look and a swagger and an ability to deliver the goods in a certain way. MONSTERS UNIVERSITY reminds us that sometimes talent can come from a place that speaks softer, or looks funny, or takes the long way around. One can say something for being naturally gifted, and one can say something for being a hard study. It would seem that MONSTERS UNIVERSITY says something for the way one works in concert with the other.
In her address to the scaring students, Dean Hardscarbble says that it’s her job to make great students greater; not to make mediocre students less mediocre. It’s an approach we see time and again in our world where we like to underline how something, or someone, is “not good enough”. However, as the Oozma Kappa’s demonstrate, there’s a difference between being mediocre and having a specialized skill-set.
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY wants us to recognize what every team member brings to the table, be it raw ability, a new way of seeing the task at hand, or even a calming influence. It’s an important lesson, and one that is told with great visual flourish.
Just watched this and I thought it was pretty good! You’re so right about the animation, it really was noteworth. Nice review Ryan.
If you really want to see how amazing the animation was, rewatch MONSTERS INC. Your mind will be blown.