Pixar's 'Monsters University' explores derailed dreams with poignancy.
With Lightyear looming later on this year, let’s take a look back at Pixar’s first prequel-origin story for one of its most beloved franchises: 2013’s Monsters University. Monsters University currently holds an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Which, okay, great! Fine! That is a solid B- average, Monsters University, which is never anything to sneer at. Combing through reviews at the time, there was a lot of use of descriptors such as “charming,” “breezy,” and “pleasant.” Just good enough.
Mike can’t take it, though, so he sneaks across the line and into a kid’s room where “Frightening” Frank McCay is working. There is, naturally, a kerfuffle upon discovering little Mike has broken away from the field trip group, but Frank is more impressed than angry. The monster world is a perfect backdrop for a classic college movie, because, even at its best, college is a bit of a fun nightmare. After a great Pixar opening credits sequence, Mike is an MU freshman, fresh off the bus and instantly swept up in the fervor of a student activities fair happening on the quad.
To spare you an entire recap of the film, rest assured there are collegiate shenanigans and hijinks which put Mike and Sulley’s future in the Scare Program in immediate jeopardy. Their only recourse is to join the lamest fraternity on campus, Oozma Kappa, and participate in the famed Scare Games. If they can pull off a victory, Dean Hardscrabble will allow them to continue in the program. If not, they will be expelled.
It’s the scariest line in any Monsters franchise film because we believe Mike. We watched him want it more than anyone, and we watched him do absolutely everything he thought he had to do to get to this place. We watched him make sacrifices in terms of studying over socializing. And, in the end, it just wasn’t “enough.” Mike Wazowski dreamed of becoming a Scarer, and it isn’t going to happen. It is a radical moment.
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