Monsters University

[Ben]

Ok, I've gone from worrying about this just being a cash cow (not through any Pixar sequel bias but just based on the not very good trailers) and probably just catching it on BD, to actually wanting to run out the door and see this at the movies (which I can't right now because we don't fricken' get it for another two weeks. Still at least not as long a wait for Lone Ranger, coming to us in August!!).

[danieltruchsess]

I went to see this last Thursday, and I think it was amazing. I laughed a lot, but more than that, it its ending really impressed me.

[ShyViolet]

Just saw it, found it enjoyable and sweet, but not nearly in the league of MI. It was just missing something. I definitely see this getting a BAF nom for great animation as usual, but I don't see it winning unless it's motivated by the Pixar name. The depth and resonance that marks the usual Pixar endeavor just wasn't there.

[James]

OK, you've compared it to Pixar. How does it compare to what everyone else is doing?



As for BAF, there's a long way to go. But nothing else released so far has won it either.

[ShyViolet]

Well, compared to a lot of other stuff out there (especially animation wise) it's above average. But I do think it's important to state that MI's heart just wasn't there, the greatest reason being that the real core of the original story was the unlikely friendship between a monster and a little girl. Sure, Mike and Sulley's relationship was important too, but if you take away the real core, what's left? The very thing Sulley realized he didn't want to do anyomore because he saw Boo's tear-stained face?
And yes, again, I totally agree that compared to most stuff out there (including live action films) it's a well made movie. But the very essence of the tear-inducing goodbye between Boo and Sulley is broken down by the trumpeted importance of scaring children at the end of MU. It just doesn't work.

[EricJ]

The MI scene where Sulley finally sees his scare-face probably works better if you see MU first, in "chronological" order, since we get more of the A-B arc of his wanting to be a champion scarer. (Also since we also learn that the Scare industry is fundamentally flawed to begin with, and that's a better realization for later.)

Have to admit, I'm on the same "Where's our Marc-Anthony Sulley?" side, since he's probably one of my single favorite Pixar characters--
Here, like Lightning in the first Cars movie, he works with his embarrassing "friends" long enough to realize "I've been a jerk" for the first half of the movie, and, like Cars, our reaction is, "Uh, yeah. Noticed that too, huh? "
Once the Games are in full swing, and our two characters are finally working together, it gets back up to the speed of what a Pixar movie is, ie. never what you expect it to be. Kept wondering what exactly the big core climax was going to be, and then they'd suddenly pull out another one. (Oh, would that Brave had done THAT.)
Still, it was nice to see the Grand Councilwoman from "Lilo & Stitch" return as the villain...Or wait, was it Captain Amelia from "Treasure Planet"?

(...Oh, and I assume everyone spotted the "Inspirational" poster on Randall's wall? )

[Vernadyn]

Regarding the music during the end of the film: it's not by Newman, and it's not on the soundtrack CD either. It's a song called "Gospel" from a group called the MarchFourth Marching Band.

http://marchfourthmarchingband.com/m4-b ... niversity/

I would like to have heard what Newman would've done with the scene. Maybe a melding of one of the film's themes with the If I Didn't Have You theme from Monsters, Inc?

[Josh]

Thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, I wish Newman had composed original music for those scenes - heck, I wouldn't have minded if he had just used some slight variation of the "Enter the Heroes" and "The Scare Floor" tracks from the Monsters, Inc. soundtrack.

[Vernadyn]

Yeah, the use of that track is odd. With the exception of the Cars films and Wall-E, Pixar rarely uses tracked music for the most important scenes (usually, it's for humor like the Ken wardrobe scene in Toy Story 3, Carmen in Up, or the Psycho murder music for Darla in Finding Nemo). Because it's so prominent and it's instrumental, I also assumed that Newman did it, but my suspicions were aroused when I found that it wasn't on the soundtrack CD.

[Macaluso]

Personally I thought that track worked great in both instances it was used. During the montage where Mike and Sully are going through the scaring program and during the photo montage of their Monsters Inc career

[ShyViolet]

Cool interview!

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/monster ... university

[EricJ]

"Pixar sequels/prequels might not have been looked on with suspicion in that Cars 2-free parallel world..."

That pretty well sums it up.

[ShyViolet]

Neat article on what it's like to work at Pixar:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... Pixar.html

[ShyViolet]

Also Easter eggs and in-jokes:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/06/27/m ... ggs-pixar/

[ShyViolet]

Does Andy have a monster?

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/05/14/ ... nal,manual