---
title: 'Pixar''s most emotionally honest film?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=qYJ3GWbx-Is'
video_id: 'qYJ3GWbx-Is'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 2104
---

# Pixar's most emotionally honest film?

> Source: [Pixar's most emotionally honest film?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=qYJ3GWbx-Is)

## Summary

This video essay explores the legacy of Pixar's 'Monsters Inc.' and its prequel 'Monsters University,' arguing that the latter has quietly earned a reputation for being one of Pixar's most emotionally honest films. The creator analyzes how 'Monsters University' bravely tackles the theme that sometimes dreams don't work out, contrasting it with the original's focus on parenthood. The video also examines the creative challenges of making a prequel and critiques aspects of character design and narrative logic.

### Key Points

- **Reevaluation of Monsters University** [01:23] — The creator notes that 'Monsters University' has undergone a quiet but positive reevaluation since its 2013 release. People now have more respect for the film, particularly for its brutally honest message about failure.
- **Central Theme: Failure is Not the End** [02:00] — The film's core message, as stated by executive producer Pete Docter, is that the common 'you can do anything if you try hard enough' mantra doesn't always hold true. The movie shows Mike Wazowski confronting his limitations and finding value beyond his initial dream.
- **Mike Wazowski as the Protagonist** [09:49] — The creative team consciously chose Mike as the main character, drawn to an underdog story about self-discovery. The goal was to resonate with audiences who have experienced not achieving their goals, as Mike's story is about learning you aren't the person you thought you were.
- **Hazards of Writing a Prequel** [10:57] — The creator lists challenges the writers faced: the ending is predetermined, the system shown in the prequel (aspiring to beat screams out of kids) conflicts with the original's ethical shift to laughter, and they had to avoid contriving a 'Boo-like' character.
- **Critique of Mike's Arc and World-Building** [24:58] — A key issue is that Mike's lack of scariness is an 'informed attribute' – the movie tells us he's not scary, but visually he is compared to others who succeed. This contradicts his design as a protagonist originally made cute for 'Monsters Inc.' The creator argues this creates a narrative problem where Mike's dream doesn't isolate him, making his quick acceptance of failure feel rushed.

### Conclusion

Monsters University may not be Pixar's most original or respected film, but its honest handling of unfulfilled dreams and the value of friendship gives it a unique emotional weight. The creator ultimately appreciates the film for its smaller, inward-facing story and its message that failure isn't the end.

## Transcript

I've been wondering how Elio and Lightyear will be remembered in 10 years, 50 years, 100 years? Probably they'll be forgotten, but I mean by weird nerds who study film history. I wonder if looking back they'll be seen more favorably as inoffensive flops that couldn't break
the big numbers at the box office but still have some soul in them, or if it'll be more negative like and that was the beginning of the end. I imagine the Pixar Disney decline has to continue for the atmosphere to get more hostile. And these days there's a lot to be hostile about.
I wonder where Bean Mouth Animation and Live Action remakes fit into this discourse. It's still
hard to imagine a world where Disney could ever go buy-by because a company like Disney seems too rich and has so many sources of revenue to get to the point where they'd have to go buy-by or get to the point where they'd have to shut their animation department. Like we're talking more than
them just losing best animated feature to kpop theme and hunters. But you know sometimes it feels like they're really trying. What is that? I hate it. Put it back. But before I get to in my head,
movies do get re-evaluated sometimes. Maybe you can share the movie you think is undergone the biggest re-evaluation since its release. I've noticed Monsters University has over time gotten a re-evaluation since its release in 2013. Not like a drastic one but I think people have a lot
more respect for the movie now than they did when it came out. With Monsters Inc. 3 on the horizon, I want to talk about Monsters Inc. and Monsters University. Monsters Inc. was a classic, a bold, funny reflection on becoming a father and of course it's sometimes underestimated prequel Monsters
University which is over time gained a quiet little reputation for being a brutally honest film. Maybe you want to Pixar as most emotionally honest films. I find it really admirable they were able to do a positive story about how sometimes your dreams just don't work out and that doesn't make
you less valuable as a person. Failure isn't the end. And this is all very much on purpose to quote the executive producer on the project Pete Docter from the Monsters University art book. When we first had the idea of a prequel set in college we thought, oh this will be great. John
was sold immediately on the fund of college humor. And we'd hit on this idea of when Wonder closes another opens. That was a thematic element that came pretty early on. We've all grown up on the message. You can do whatever you want if you just try hard enough and dream big. But it doesn't
always happen that way. When Monsters Inc. came out in 2001 Pixar was already doing fantastic. They'd followed up Toy Story with a bugs life and created a very rare very good sequel in Toy Story 2.
And Monsters Inc. landed right between Toy Story 2 and Finding Nemo with the Incredibles to come soon after. Pixar was basically in there incapable of failure era. Monsters Inc. was directed by Pete Docter who would go on to direct Inside Out, Up, and Soul. Monsters Inc. grossed about 577 million
worldwide on a budget of roughly 115 million. So basically it was highly successful but it's still in some ways gets overshadowed by bigger names like Toy Story. Like having an older sibling everyone talks about more even though you're the one with the amazing technology to simulate fur clusters.
Nobody's talking about the fur clusters. Monsters Inc. is a movie about a world where Monsters use special doors to enter the human world to scare children. But it's to collect scream energy which they use to power their monster society. And one day a child escapes into the
factory and our protagonist Sully feels responsible to bring the child he names boo back to her door and back home. But obstacles get in the way. Sully and his roommate slash scare coach discover
screams aren't the only thing that can power the monster world laughter can as well. Monsters Inc. is a really fun movie. It's well paced. It's world feels original. It's world building. How the doors work. How scream energy works. How laughter energy works. Has a satisfying internal
logic to it. And the biggest criticism I can muster towards it is it makes banishment from the monster world seem too easy to come back from. And door hopping makes the way they dispose of one of their antagonist Randall seemed likewise very easy for him to undo. Logically Randall, if not turned
into a pair of purple boots on the spot, lived to fight another day. The damn lizard. No surprises. It was a smash hit that generated Monsters Inc. merchandise. It got video game tie-ins like Monsters Inc. Scream Marina. A game I thought only existed at my
cousin's house. And Monsters Inc. Scream team. The latter has this mechanic that involves making child robots scream over and over. And the higher level you are, the more you have to just stand there and watch the robot scream. But I like the soundtrack. I wonder how canon this is. In 2003 Disney On Ice had
their Monsters Inc. show which ran until 2007. It is now mostly lost media, but the show was basically Monsters Inc. with some songs. All the Monsters look hilarious out there and particularly fond of dead eyed Sully and Ra's gracefully scooting around on the ice. That's beautiful. And of course there
have been a few Monsters Inc. attractions in the Disney parks. In 2006, Monsters Inc. Mike and Sully to the rescue opened at Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim. It's a dark ride that basically recaps the plot of the movie. In 2007, Disney added the Monsters Inc. laugh floor to Magic Kingdom in Florida.
It's an improv comedy show where the Monsters riff off the audience. It's weirdly off theme in tomorrow land. Well, you can't prove Monsters aren't the future. Well, the story of the laugh floor is it's capturing the audience's laughter to power Monstropolis. So I guess that's the future angle.
It's a technological innovation. Allegedly. The pre-show confirms that Monsters University is keeping up with the times and getting in on the power of laughter. So good for them. I'm glad Monsters University is making the transition to clown college. In 2009, Tokyo Disneyland opened a Monsters Inc.
ride called Ride and Go Seek. This one also recaps the plot of the first movie, but it has a flashlight guess can use to activate more animatronics. I think it looks like the cooler one. So amongst this monster momentum in the Pixar timeline, this prequel comes out 2013 in between Brave in 2012
and Inside Out in 2015. So Pixar is at the height-ish of its commercial power in 2013. Toy Story 3 had come out three years earlier and made over a billion in the box office. And that was the last
Toy Story sequel ever made and there's no fourth one that I despise. And I'm not scared for the fifth one or the sixth one. It's totally fine. But Toy Story 3 was highly praised and beloved.
Probably sending the message is possible to be making both a sequel or a prequel movie that will bank off the original success and sell lots of tickets and have an artful movie people respect. Imagine if you didn't have to pick one. That would be great news for the team working on the Monster's
Inc. prequel. If you humor the idea of sequels and prequels can be just more of something you love. Did not our ancestors retell stories over and over? Monsters Inc is the kind of story that would do
well with the nice prequel. You can have a super positive wrap up because Monsters Inc opens with a protagonist's lives being basically awesome. Mike adores his job, his girlfriend, his only issue is he can't drive his fancy car because of the screen shortages. And he's behind
on paperwork. You get the sense that maybe people don't respect Mike but Mike doesn't notice he's just a short king psyched about life. Also he is entirely eyeball and I've had the thought of how unpleasant it would be to hug such a person. What if when you hug him you feel the eyeball give way to
your weight. Sully likewise perfectly content. Sully isn't having any problem scaring so he's pulling his weight around the factory. He's like a local hero. He comes to work every day doing what he loves. And he's in a low stakes rivalry with Randall over who can get the big numbers for the record books.
But at the end of the day everything Randall does helps Sully because he wants the factory to succeed and his ego isn't in it in the same way it is for Randall. So before Boo comes into the monster world the serious issue is like kids desensitized so scream energy. How'll get more? Will the factory
close? Kids spooky. The child detection agency takes threats very seriously and once again Mike's falling behind on his paperwork. The positive flip side is Mike and Sully don't undergo any huge
personality changes that would make seeing them pre-character development frustrating or attempt you to repeat the same character arc. Besides being monsters employed to torment children the plot didn't need them to work on themselves. It just needs to give them information in time to process what they
learn and change their behavior. Then they go on an emotional journey. Sully and Mike have spent their whole lives thinking children are toxic and one touch could kill them, dehumanizing them to the morality of scaring children for energy. Not all protagonists can accept a big life-changing truth
about their perspective being entirely wrong this soon into the story and have it be natural. Woody and Buzz could never, Joy could never. So when writing this prequel they had a lot of decisions to make. What problems did they have back then? What kind of students would they for example?
They envisioned Sully as a natural talent and Mike as ambitious and highly committed. In some earlier art you can see Randall as maybe more of a mean jock they are trying to bring out his concededness or competitiveness. But instead they went with more of a comedic subversion of
expectations that holds on to certain ideas about the character, like him being mainly concerned with climbing the social ladder. So he's willing to betray Mike for a rival fraternity house roar or make a roar. Whose story is this? Whose the main character? They kept circling back to our green
great boy. They were drawn in by this allure of an underdog story where Mike was the protagonist. They thought it would be surprising if Mike didn't always want to be a coach but originally wanted to be a scarer, a story about self-discovery. To quote a gizmodo article,
thanks to Monsters Inc we know that Mike doesn't become a professional scarer which has been his goal since childhood. Ray believes Mike's story will resonate with a lot of people since it isn't about how you achieve your goals. But what happens when you learn that you aren't the person you thought
you were? Scanlan agrees a lot of movies tell us that if we work as hard as we can things will always work out which is a great inspiring lesson but it doesn't always work out that way. The article mentions they felt Mike's story over Sully's story had the stronger emotional component to it.
And that sounds about right to me it's a story that has that nice bittersweet monster ooze to it. If you're writing a prequel where Mike is the protagonist and he's going to be a failed scarer there's a lot of stuff to juggle. I'll make a hazards list in order to do list or try to put us in
the mind space as if this movie didn't exist yet. Okay, possible hazards. Number one, writing a story that cannot evolve naturally because the ending is written for you is scary you are locked in. This can only go one way but hey sometimes limitations inspire artists.
Two, Monsters Inc explores how this system is unethical but will be spending the whole movie watching people aspire to be this thing with no mixed feelings that could potentially be alienating. Three, any effect Mike and Sully have on the school itself or fellow students will be disrupted by
the scare energy industry being subverted into the laughter energy industry. That has to be factored in. And obviously if it needs to be said, four, don't poke holes in laughter being more powerful than screams. And in their minds this next one was very important, they were self-aware of this going
in. Five, don't can try a reason for boo or a boo-like creature to exist. Things to do. Number one, make a good story. No pressure. Two, Mike needs to fall in love with coaching others in a way that
satisfying that doesn't make it look like he gave up on all of his dreams because we ran out of story. Three, it'd be awesome if we had the undercurrent that Mike is funny. He'd be great at making kids laugh, not scream. We won't know that's going to pay off someday even if it's not relevant to his life right
now. Four, continuity. The end of the story has to set up monster zinc. IE might become Sully's coach and best friend. Personalities roughly resemble what they'll grow into and that growth needs to look like positive change. And like I said, this should go smoothly. It should retain continuity
details with the monster zinc universe and be hesitant to break it. Hypothetically, you should be able to watch monster's university and then monster zinc and the graphics should be the main giveaway that monster zinc was not the solace cash grab sequel to the beloved Pixar classic monster's
university. Five, make characters that reflect the setting and themes in an interesting way. Maybe Mike has an opposite, someone who's all talent in no study. Maybe there's someone who's like Mike, but is willing to get ahead in an underhanded way. And we didn't antagonize someone
formidable who stands in the way of Mike's dream. Ultimately, monster's university would gross about 744 million worldwide on a 200 million budget. Personally, I remember being underwhelmed by it. I enjoyed it in places, but I didn't think much of it. Not the kind of movie I first saw myself
writing a 17 page essay about. As I said before, it was not overly beloved by critics and common complaints included getting distracted by John Goodman's voice not sounding 18, being unimpressed by the studs and horns being put on everything. Being like, why is this scene staged as a race when it's
not a race? Still, it wasn't overwhelming success. Something to be proud of. Let's examine why. What does monster's university do well? Well, let's start with the way the movie looks. I adore how they made this monster Ivy League environment with all these old brick buildings
and mixing in other building types to give the impression the school was built over time. I noticed the practice dummies are more primitive looking now. They don't look like weird, freaky children anymore. I like that. I think it's a combination of time passing, causing the design
of the dummies to become more advanced, but it also means that currently they look less like children, and thus our protagonists are more sympathetic and further removed from the realities of the screen industry. It also makes monster's screen team feel more canon because these are totally
like the nerves the robot children from the island. Relax Mikey, remember what happened on our first day of college. The movie feels vibrant and alive. The color palettes for every scene are beautiful, even the more muted ones. And they're always using the weather to enhance the scene, whether it's
the autumn leaves or a more stripped down dead of winter look they totally nail it. And of course, as the boys start to work together again, it's like spring comes and the world looks more alive once more. It's fun watching the little details and how all these different monsters move around
and how they use their extra limbs. Zootopia in this film remind me a lot of each other because there's always something to look at. I read in the art book it's 300 designs. One way they save time was by having 10 basic species and mixing it up from there. Although there are special background monsters
with unique designs. This was the same strategy as monster's ink one. They also figured out how to make something look like an animal in a world where people can have all different kinds of legs and eyes. They did this by using goat eyes to help create the pig from the pig chase sequence.
Heart Scrabble was one of my favorite designs of the movie, Bloodborne Library and Monster Come Second. Originally, Heart Scrabble was a male character, but they decided they wanted to see a female scarer. And in trying to find a way to make her read more feminine, they developed a spin on the
centipede body type. I love her. She's so draconic and elegant both in her silhouette and her presence. She's just so cool. I really appreciate how her card in the credits looks older than the others. You ever think about how awkward Heart Scrabble is going to feel when she realizes that if she hadn't
expelled Mike from the scare program, he wouldn't have befriended Sully. Sully might not have made it through college, so Sully possibly wouldn't work for monsters ink at all. And if that hadn't happened, we might not have gotten saved. So in a way that's convoluted to support a humorous point
by discriminating against Mike and not letting him try, Heart Scrabble accidentally created a very big surprise for herself when in the twilight years of her retirement, her industry is taken over by literal clowns. This movie has an excellent rivalry montage that has very fun satisfying editing with
lots of cute jokes. It's not like my favorite montage ever, but it's pretty close. Thankfully, Monster's University manages to have a dramatic climax with screen energy without implying it's more powerful than laughter. Laughter can power more things longer for sure looking back at Monster's
ink. Let's talk about that theme again. Monster's University is directed by Dan Scanlon, who would go on to direct 2020's Onward, which has a surprising ending in kind of the same vein as Monster's University. Onward was based off of Dan Scanlon's experience with losing his father as a
baby and his brother was three, and they both had this experience of wondering who their dad was and how he was like them. Both films have the similar theme of coming to terms with life not always going how you want it to, but still finding meaning and valuable relationships despite it. A lot of movies
have a want versus need gap dynamic in them, where what a protagonist wants isn't what they really need deep down, and they'll realize that come the story's end. But not every narrative has that want be a specific concrete goal that the protagonist desperately yearns for and never stops talking about
and being motivated by. That's a tricky story because there's a possibility of disappointing your audience when the dream is unrealized. To quote from storyboard artist James Robertson from the Monster's University art book, I swear I'm not being paid to plug this book. Once we did the sequence
inspired, the identity of the film became certain. It was like, okay this is Mike's story. This is a story about a guy who loves something desperately, but can't have it. So what do you do when that happens? When you can't have what you want? Maybe that's why Mike's saying I did everything right
and still failed hit so hard. It's not that dreams just don't work out. It's that sometimes the system isn't fair. Sometimes how you look matters more than how hard you try and no amount of effort or perseverance guarantees you'll be rewarded. Also, while on the topic of things I like,
I have to give a shout out to Sherry Skribbles for being a hilarious side character.
Seven and a half minutes into Monsters Inc, Mike makes a joke that contains a crumb of exposition that contradicts the entire prequel. But this is the type of cinemasins thing that I feel the movie actually deserves to some extent
and then I'll kind of walk it back later as I do. What makes me frustrated with this is they didn't have to be best friends since childhood. They just needed to know of each other for the line to work. I think they wanted nothing to distract from Mike in this opening school trip to make it
clear who the protagonist of this movie is. And I think Sally has a strong introduction to the movie in a way that establishes him in his place in the story. It establishes him at a place of power over Mike. It introduces him and his family privilege and might can't imagine all the ways that
Sally is secretly struggling. It might sour it to put Sally in the flashback and effectively end up meeting him twice. The thing is they got slammed with this criticism and they've already responded to it. You have to do what's right for the story. You have to do what's right for both stories in the long run.
And so we made the tough decision to just have them be in college and put that line aside. So the good thing is the only reason that line was in the first film was just to give the feeling that these guys have known each other for a long time. And I think college still does that.
I'm still annoyed at Break's Monsters Inc. Canaan but the school aspect of the story is everything in this movie and it's part of the reason why I like it. So I kind of get why they broke the way they did on this decision. You know what I like? That's a positive example of them breaking continuity. The
concept that scaring is something that you have to go to college for and needed to be invented because we saw very inexperienced unwilling monsters being trained during Monsters Inc. at the factory itself. I won't go into kids room. You can't make me. The solution they pick to camouflage this change is
awesome and super intelligent. They expanded the lore of the setting. The story now is children have gotten harder to scare. And as the energy crisis has gotten worse, the industry got desperate and standards lowered, which made things even harder. This is interesting to me being able to see
this industry when it was still in its prime is really cool. At MU, we see the other professions that make scaring children possible like door and scream can designers. It gives scaring a history. None of this is possible if you were totally inflexible about scaring being a major. In my opinion,
this stuff is awesome. There are all kinds of reasons you might not want to appease the cinemas and things. You could drive yourself nuts, thinking of every way someone trying to entertain a totally separate audience could ding you. Just as you can never make anything perfect, you can never
account for every ding. But the impulse to get ahead of dings traps writers and sometimes weakens their work. The inner critic run rampant is a tyrant. So how does this giant student go to school here? Ding ding. But this problem doesn't affect the plot. I just don't like it because someone like me
is never going to value this funny visual over the world building. But if I control myself, I can recognize that this is something worth laughing about with my friends. Not something that hurts the movie in this dramatic way. And it's like a callback to the big people in Monster Zinc.
The motivation for creating Uzma Kappa was to give Mike and Sully something vulnerable to nurture and take care of like in Monster Zinc. This is taken from the 70th page of the Monster's University art book. Quote. Dan Scanlan recalls the idea of a fraternity full of misfits came out of the
desire to keep Mike and Sully underdogs to put them in the worst possible situation. But it also came from the desire to give them someone to be a parent to. What I love most about Monster's Inc is watching those two characters interact with Boo. They're at their best when they're taking
care of something or someone. I adore every scene with these guys and watching Mike and Sully try to deal with them or making sarcastic quips at them creates some of the funniest moments in the movie for me. But they clash with Mike's arc because it's the exact opposite message. I would love a story
where two or more characters learn the exact opposite message based off of what they need and what would actually make them happy. But apparently, there isn't enough time to walk through why it's okay for all of the other usmas to become scarers despite not being scary, but not Mike. In a hilarious way,
even though they were explicitly aggressively against creating a boo knockoff, Boo still ended up haunting University anyway because they still thought they needed to replicate the energy of nurturing something helpless. I think this comes from the fact that in Monster's Inc, Sully and Boo are the
big heartstring tuggers. The usmas are cute, but I don't think they can replicate the raw power of Boo. They also represent various types of students, like older students, students with no direction, students torn between two majors or whatever's going on with art. Sometimes the plot of this movie
isn't making a heck of a lot of sense to me on a deep level because, well, Mike's scary. If you saw this thing come out of your closet, you'd scream, or he's not unscary compared to his fellow
scare majors, he's just small, but he's not so much smaller than other scarers already in the program, and he's especially not less scary than the Usma Kappa who he trains, and do all make it into the big leagues no matter how fluffy or small they are. How often do you watch an animated movie and say the
character is aesthetically wrong for their role? The character is typically literally designed for the role they occupy in the story, from shape language to color palette. This shouldn't be possible, but Mike and Sully are miscast. And as a consequence, the protagonist main flaw becomes an informed
attribute. It becomes a case of Show Don't Tell. People, mostly hard-scrabble, keep telling us over and over Mike isn't scary. You might also start to question why Sully is considered so much scarier than Mike when he's just kind of not. He's just big. You see, the original reason Mike and Sully were
designed does not fit the new story. In fact, it's almost openly hostile to it because it has nearly the opposite goals. The major priority in the Monster Zinc movie character designs, which I know because
I own the art book for that one too, was making the protagonist Sully cute and likeable even though his job is to scare children. They didn't know how the audience would react, so they were really worried about this. Sully's at the top of a struggling field, so it's believable all he really needs to be a
top-scarer is his big-ness, his mighty roar and his sharp teeth. They put polka dots on him to make him look more cute like something you'd want as a toy. My other favorite part is when Sully took Sully to bed. Just hog-blowing bedtime Sully. You're better to protect you from things that
go bump in the night than your monsters and friends. Glowing bedtime Sully and Babylon boo each sold separately. So he looks cuddly and friendly. Everything with spots is friend-shaped, yes, even jaguars.
In Monster Zinc, how he contrasts with Mike in terms of scariness didn't matter. But does this really matter to the themes? It ends up feeling like unexplored worldbuilding, what monsters find scary, but it's central to the movie and it seems to be not one trait, but the overall traits, which poor
Mike lacks too many of. Everyone in Uzumacapa becomes a professional scarer minus Mike even though they're not nearly as dedicated to him and most of them seem far less scarier than him, which brings us to our second problem. I had a conversation with a friend where they were unsure where Mike gives up on
his dreams, and almost felt as if he makes the biggest change in the credits. The proper answer to when does Mike give up on his dreams is he gives up on his dreams after failing to scare a child
himself. He sees with his own eye that he is not scary and finally concedes to what hard Scrabble has been saying about him. But isn't it also true that Mike kind of gave up after failing once while doing something incredibly advanced nobody else in his year was asked to do? Because the
movie is about scaring being taught, the impression it gives is that Mike can get better and better. I kind of want to argue this little man may have called it quits too early and then proceeded to help his more privileged friend reach his dreams. This contrarian feeling of wanting to argue comes from a
few places. You know the scene where Buzz Lightyear tries to fly out the window to prove he can fly and by extension that he's not a toy only to fail and break his arm off? Why is this so touching to people? Why doesn't anyone feel betrayed by it? Well Buzz delusionally believes he's already a space
ranger. He doesn't spend the movie fighting to prove he can be a space ranger through hard work and rigorous study. He doesn't get the audience to want to see him succeed at being the space ranger. It's meant to be funny that Buzz thinks he's literally on a different planet. That his blinking
light is a real laser that can kill people and that the cardboard box he came in is a spaceship. The audience has their expectations managed. We can't be disappointed by a broken promise that
Buzz will be able to fly the way he thinks he can. Everything in this story feels built around Woody and Buzz and their unique psychological hang ups. It challenges them and pushes them over the edge and back together more whole and well-rounded. Debateably, the most important detail of this
is that Buzz's insistence that he is not a toy puts a wall between him and other people so it feels unhealthy even though he seems confident and happy. This is unlike Mike. Mike spends a lot of his time
working and studying. But the movie always frames this as cool wholesome and admirable. The dark sides don't affect Mike. He's just a perpetual motion machine of ambition who never gets tired. There are background characters struggling harder than Mike. It would say Mike's ego sometimes
brings a wall between himself and other people like in the first game with the sea urchants. But because this flaw is shared by Sully, it makes it feel like an effect of their rivalry clouding their judgement. Most Pixar stories stress the importance of authentic, whole-hearted
connection and even Mike's slack of friends at the start of the story cannot be pinned on Mike's dream. Mike is overall social bull and friendly and he always has been. Mike's friends Randall, Mike and Sully are both hesitant with Uzma Kappa but Mike accepts the situation before Sully
and makes more of an effort first. Mike trains them all of this for the scared games for the dream. The way Mike's dream gets in the way of his social popularity is people laugh at his dream and he gets upset and wants to prove himself. And this is fun to watch but it's not good material for why Mike
should have to change because Mike is not the problem right now. These guys are just jerks. Even Mike's opening flashback demonstrates Mike was an outcast before he even dreamed his dream and he was already used to this. And the thing is Mike is in a wallflower. He's extremely social and proactive about making
friends. It's just not working. He tries so hard to build good rapport with the other children. He's doing everything he can. He did everything right but he still failed. This might be the wrong backstory
for this type of character. They want I did everything right and I still failed time to reassess. They got I did everything right and I still failed. Well that's the day in the life of Mike because everyone's been telling him no his entire life that we've seen so far. I see this conversation and I think
oh yeah he's gonna bounce back in a couple of hours. I don't believe it for this character at all. I just sort of have to because this is Mike from Monsters Inc. And Mike from Monsters Inc is not a scarer. Mike gets this lesson so fast the second that little girl wasn't afraid of him. He internally
accepts his new reality and enters grieving mode. You know what doesn't help the situation? The fact that Mike is so damn resilient that he lives his life in this high of a scarer fanboy bliss. Mike knows what brings him joy and everyone's always trying to take it away from him. This might seem like
almost a joke but one of the most important details to consider about the widower protagonist of up a Karl Friedrichsen is that in his morning routine we see that he's unhappy. His life is just ruminating on the past and getting increasingly alienated with everything presently around him.
And nothing in his life brings him joy. It sets us up to feel like something needs to help this guy. Under most circumstances you would not feel good about an old man losing a house he built with his late wife and every possession in it. I hope. We see examples of how much stuff breaking in his home
hurts him because each object is rich with sentimental meaning. We see how he values the house over other people and how he treats his home as if it were Ellie herself because it's how he feels connected to her. They'll be dragging that house around all movie because Karl just can't let it go.
But over the course of the story Karl is challenged to stop focusing on the one thing he and Ellie didn't do and remember all that they did do and then go forward forging new bonds. The antagonist reflects the darker version of the same sadness. The explorer Charles Muntz is so
obsessed with proving that he didn't lie about this one big dumb bird that he's wasted decades of his life that he could have spent adventuring stuck in this one location trying to prove he's not a fraud by catching another big dumb bird. Every part of the movie builds to this development of getting
Karl to a place where he will willingly give up his house to save his friends. By the end of the story you see he actually has things to look forward to something unimaginable to him at the beginning where he felt hopeless like he might as well be dead. Karl doesn't change his mind about his dream
not being worth it in some photographs in the credits. He changes his mind in the movie. We see him struggle with it. We see him digest the change and understand why it happened. Even though it's sad that he lost his house and all he got something valuable in life changing that he wouldn't have had
if he refused to change. And Karl technically got his wish because the house floated to the water but he didn't see this and I think it's beautiful that he didn't find out because it's not about that dream. He has new dreams. Sometimes something so amazingly significant loses all of its
meaning when it cannot be enjoyed with others. Now Russell and Doug are what will make Karl's life special. Still, maybe the fact that Mike's dream brings him no harm, only passion is meant to add to the tragedy of him not getting what he desperately wants. To summarize my problem, Monsters University
break some of Monsters Inc. canon on purpose to make the college story work and while that's annoying some of those changes actually expand the world in cool ways. The bigger issue is Mike's arc. The movie keeps telling us he isn't scary even though if this thing came through your bedroom closet
you would certainly scream. He's especially scary compared to others who succeed. Mike works hard, improves and inspires people and is genuinely happy chasing his dream so when he gives up on it after one big failure it feels kind of rushed and unearned for me but hey maybe that's what makes it more
painful for you. Unlike other Pixar characters, his dream isn't hurting him or isolating him so the movie's message about letting go feels too easy to argue with because it concerns this world building question of what do Monsters find scary. With college costing an arm in a leg these days,
movie with the moral of how you don't have to go to college to be successful in life is a nice soothing medical bomb. I appreciate how the narrative doesn't shame Mike for his dream instead slowly goes about showing how he lacks a certain something special sauce talent if you will. Even if it's not
perfect and there are some things you might not like about it, I think Monsters University is a cute little movie that's doing a lot well and I appreciate it in retrospect. The rival to friend subplot between Sully and Mike is genuinely a lot of fun and John Goodman and Billy Crystal have great chemistry
with each other. In some ways it's a movie that's smaller and more inward facing than the original. It's trying to create a detailed place within the monster world but I appreciate the details like the polish on the statue where people touch it as they go by or the modern art display.
The campus feels like it has history even though it's really just a few spare details. Monsters University doesn't quite have the third act emotional gut punch that Sully being separated from Boo has but it has a pretty strong one in Mike's dream falling apart and being remotivated by Sully.
This scene doesn't really focus on Sully but I think we see here that Sully has shed his too cool for this attitude dropped his defense mechanism and realized that he doesn't need to go at this alone. He can be made better a better scarer by getting help from others so maybe this
wasn't what his family wanted for him but that's okay Sully can play to his strengths and be made better by his friends. For Mike I think he's still digesting his failure trying to settle on the meaning behind it and where he should go from here. Okay so he doesn't have talent but what part of his dream
is still possible if anything. Can his knowledge and passion be applied to something else? Is there still a way to get on that scare floor? And all of this is made sweeter by the fact that Mike and Sully will revolutionize their industry when they replace the power of screams with the power of
laughter and Mike being funny looking to children will be put to good use leading to a more ethical and joyful work environment. So Monsters University might not be Pixar's most original movie or it's most respected but it still holds a weird monster shaped hole in my heart. I want you
to remember that failure isn't the end of the road and to be kind to yourself. If you like the video please like comment and subscribe. I had a lot of fun reflecting on Monsters Inc and Monsters University for this video as it's a franchise that's very dear to me. Yeah so welcome to the end of the video.
I'm Quinn Curio if you like my video you can give it a like you can leave a comment you can talk about your Disney Pixar hot tics maybe tell me what you ate while watching the video if you put it on
to sleep you can tell me what dream you had when you wake up eventually you'll be able to let me know if Monsters Inc. 3 is a good movie. You know I had to patch that part of the video where I say blood born librarian monster because I said library again I can't make up my mind of bean mouth is over hated
I don't like it but I feel like people hate on it too much. Oh gee I never know what to say here I'm so shy. You know I originally started this video during my last hiatus and I gave up on it but
I'm glad I finished it. I forgot to talk about the fur clusters no!