Ever since he was a little monster, Mike Wazowski has dreamed of becoming a Scarer, but his plans are derailed during his first semester at Monsters University when he crosses paths with hotshot James P. Sullivan. Their out-of-control competitive nature gets them both kicked out of the University’s elite Scare Program, forcing them to work together with a group of misfit monsters to make things right.
Information |
|
|---|---|
Language |
English |
Country |
United States |
Premiere date |
June 21, 2013 |
Running time |
104 minutes |
Genre |
Animation Adventure Comedy Family Fantasy |
Budget |
$200,000,000 |
Box Office |
$743,600,000 |
Crew |
|
Directed by |
Dan Scanlon |
Produced by |
Kori Rae |
Written by |
Dan Scanlon Daniel Gerson Robert L. Baird |
Music by |
Randy Newman |
Cinematography |
Jean-Claude Kalache Matt Aspbury |
Edited by |
Greg Snyder |
Production Co. |
Walt Disney Pictures Pixar Animation Studios |
Distributed by |
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
Official Trailer
The Plot
The Field Trip to Monsters, Inc.
Six-year-old Mike Wazowski, a small, round, one-eyed monster, attends a school field trip to the renowned Monsters, Inc. factory. The class is guided through the facility, eventually reaching the viewing deck of the Scare Floor. There, a professional Scarer named Frank McCay captures the children's imagination. Frank tells the awe-struck students that he learned the art of scaring at Monsters University, sparking a light in Mike's mind. While the teacher and the rest of the class are distracted, Mike slips under the safety rail and manages to sneak onto the active Scare Floor. He quietly trails Frank McCay to a door that is prepped for entry into the human world.
As Frank enters the child's bedroom, Mike follows him in, unnoticed. Inside the human world, Mike watches with bated breath as Frank maneuvers through the room. When the child's parents suddenly enter, Mike thinks quickly and avoids detection by pretending to be a discarded piece of clothing on the floor. Once the coast is clear, Frank sneaks up to the sleeping child and executes a textbook scare, harvesting the scream energy. Mike rushes back through the door just as Frank exits. Frank is initially furious to find a child on the other side but quickly realizes it is just Mike. Although he admonishes the boy for the extreme danger of his actions, Frank is visibly impressed by Mike's stealth, noting that he didn't even know Mike was in the room. He gifts Mike his Monsters University cap and winks at him. When the teacher, Karen, demands to know what Mike has to say for himself, the young monster simply smiles and asks, "How do I become a Scarer?"
Arrival at Monsters University
Eleven years later, a 17-year-old Mike Wazowski boards a bus bound for Monsters University. He bids farewell to the other monsters on the bus but manages to creep them out by reciting overly specific facts he knows about their personal lives. Upon arriving at the university campus, Mike is overcome with excitement. He navigates the bustling grounds, takes a photo for his student ID (which unfortunately crops out most of his face), and heads to his dorm room. There, he meets his roommate, Randall "Randy" Boggs, a nerdy, purple lizard-like monster who is shy and struggles to control his invisibility powers. When Randy suddenly disappears mid-sentence while greeting Mike, Mike is impressed rather than startled. He encourages Randy to use this ability more often. Taking Mike's advice to heart, Randy decides to ditch his glasses because they remain visible even when his body turns invisible. While Randy worries about fitting in and impressing the "cool kids," Mike remains laid-back and supremely confident in his academic knowledge of scaring.
Scaring 101 and The First Rivalry
On their first day of classes, Mike and Randy join other hopeful students in the lecture hall greeted by Professor Knight, an orange, dinosaur-like monster who teaches Scaring 101. As Professor Knight outlines the curriculum, the class is interrupted by the sudden, ominous entrance of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble. A legendary Scarer with dragon-like wings and millipede legs, Hardscrabble terrifies the room simply by walking through it. She declares her belief that scariness is the true and only measure of a monster, setting the bar incredibly high. She announces that a final exam will be held at the end of the semester, and anyone who fails will be permanently kicked out of the Scaring Program.
Just after Hardscrabble leaves, a large, blue, spotted monster bursts into the room late. This is James P. Sullivan, known as "Sulley," a monster from a famous family of Scarers. Despite having immense natural talent and potential, Sulley is arrogant and unprepared, not even bringing a pencil or book to class. Later that day, while Mike is diligently studying scaring theory in their dorm, Sulley bursts into the room carrying a squealing pig. He is trying to hide Archie the Scare Pig, the mascot of the rival college, Fear Tech. Chaos ensues as Archie steals Mike's precious MU cap and scrambles away. Mike ends up riding the panic-stricken pig through the campus, eventually stopping it by trapping it under a garbage can. However, Sulley arrives moments later and takes all the credit for the capture. This feat attracts the attention of several fraternities, including Omega Howl and Jaws Theta Chi, but Sulley only has eyes for the top fraternity, Roar Omega Roar (ROR). As the ROR president, Johnny Worthington III, speaks with Sulley, Mike tries to interject, asserting that he is also a scare student. He is rudely blocked by Chet Alexander, a one-eyed crab-like monster, and Sulley dismissively tells Mike that the ROR party is only for students who "have a chance." This slight cements an intense rivalry between the hard-working Mike and the naturally talented but lazy Sulley.
The Final Exam Disaster
Throughout the semester, Mike dedicates every waking moment to studying, earning high marks and the respect of Professor Knight. Conversely, Sulley relies solely on his family name and roar, slacking off and losing the respect of both his professors and the ROR fraternity. The day of the final exam arrives, and Johnny Worthington threatens to kick Sulley out of ROR if he fails, telling him it is time to stop showboating and start delivering. The exam requires each student to demonstrate a specific scare tactic on a simulator set to medium difficulty in front of Dean Hardscrabble.
As the exam begins, the members of Roar Omega Roar watch from the back of the hall. Sulley notices Mike studying even in the final moments and, to antagonize him, pushes Mike's books off his desk. The two begin to argue loudly. Mike, trying to prove his worth, roars at Sulley to show what he is capable of. Unimpressed, Sulley roars back with ferocious intensity. The shouting match escalates until they draw the glare of Dean Hardscrabble. Suddenly, in the confusion, Sulley trips over one of Mike's fallen books. He stumbles violently into the pedestal holding Dean Hardscrabble's prized scream canister. The canister falls, rockets wildly around the room as the pressurized scream escapes, and finally shatters on the floor right in front of Mike and Sulley. The room falls silent.
Terrified, both students expect Hardscrabble's fury. Instead, she remains icily calm, dismissing the destruction as an accident where, thankfully, nobody was hurt. However, she decides to take over their testing personally. She turns to Mike and asks him to demonstrate the scare tactic for a child afraid of lightning. Mike recites the theory perfectly, but Hardscrabble cuts him off before he can even approach the simulator, declaring that while his knowledge is spot-on, he simply isn't scary. She dismisses him from the program. She then turns to Sulley, who impulsively roars at her without waiting for instructions, claiming he doesn't need to know "book stuff" to be scary. Hardscrabble coldly informs him that the assigned child was afraid of snakes; a roar would not have made the child scream, but cry, alerting the parents and exposing the monster world. Because of his laziness and lack of technique, she dismisses him from the program as well. Sulley storms off in anger, and Roar Omega Roar immediately expels him from their fraternity. Mike, devastated, tries to plead with Hardscrabble to let him use the simulator to prove her wrong, but she refuses, leaving him standing in the empty hall with his lifelong dream shattered.
The Wager and Oozma Kappa
Following the winter break, Mike and Sulley find themselves stuck in the boring Scream Can Design program. Sulley is visibly angry at Mike, blaming him for their situation. Mike, depressed that his path to being a Scarer has ended so abruptly, throws his textbook at the wall in frustration. The book knocks down a calendar, revealing a flyer for the "Scare Games." A spark of hope ignites in Mike. He rushes out of the dorm, with an angry Sulley trailing him, and heads to the fraternity registration area. The sign-up period is nearly over as Dean Hardscrabble explains to the gathered crowd that the winner will be crowned the "most fearsome monsters on campus."
Mike climbs onto a car and loudly declares his entry into the games representing a new fraternity: Oozma Kappa (OK). The crowd bursts into laughter, as Oozma Kappa is known as a house of misfits, not Scarers. Hardscrabble dismisses Mike's entry, claiming he doesn't stand a chance. Desperate, Mike baits her into a high-stakes wager: if Oozma Kappa wins the Scare Games, she must admit the entire team into the Scaring Program. If they lose, Mike will leave Monsters University forever. Hardscrabble accepts the bet but points out a technicality: a team requires six members, and Oozma Kappa only has five. Mike spots Randall and asks him to join, but Randall rebuffs him, revealing he has finally been accepted by the cool kids at Roar Omega Roar, effectively ending their friendship. Seeing an opportunity to get back into the program himself, Sulley steps forward and offers to be the sixth member. With no other options, Mike reluctantly agrees.
Meeting the Team and The First Challenge
Mike and Sulley arrive at the Oozma Kappa house, which turns out to be a regular suburban home belonging to the mother of one of the members. They meet their new brothers: Don Carlton, a mature student and former salesman returning to school; Art, a flamboyant, U-shaped philosophy major who offers them a dream journal; Terri and Terry Perry, two bickering brothers who share a single body; and Squishy, a small, five-eyed, gelatinous monster whose mother, Sheri, is constantly hovering around. Later that night, Mike and Sulley realize they must share a tiny room with bunk beds. The fraternity attempts an initiation ceremony in the dark basement, but the spooky atmosphere is ruined when Sheri interrupts to do laundry. The next morning, a letter arrives announcing the first event: The Toxicity Challenge.
The Toxicity Challenge takes place in the sewers and mimics the dangers of a human child's room. Competitors must race through a dark tunnel filled with glowing, stinging urchins that simulate toxic toys and debris. The goal is to reach the finish line, but the entire team must cross to qualify. As the race begins, Mike and Sulley immediately let their rivalry take over. They sprint ahead, ignoring the toxic urchins and leaving their slower teammates behind. Roar Omega Roar finishes first comfortably. Mike and Sulley cross the line shortly after, still bickering, but Oozma Kappa finishes last because the rest of the team got stuck. They are set to be eliminated, but a referee notices that the Jaws Theta Chi fraternity used an illegal protective gel to repel the urchins. Jaws Theta Chi is disqualified for cheating, allowing Oozma Kappa to miraculously survive to the next round.
The Library and Humiliation
Realizing they cannot survive on luck alone, Mike tries to rally the team. He initially attempts to teach them, but seeing their lack of natural talent—Don's suction cups pop off, and the Terrys fight—he decides to micromanage them, ordering everyone to do exactly as he says. Sulley, having no faith in Mike's leadership or the team's ability, disengages. The second challenge requires the teams to sneak through the campus library to retrieve their team flag without being detected by the Librarian, a massive, slug-like monster with poor eyesight but hypersensitive hearing. Anyone caught making a noise is thrown out the window and eliminated.
The team tries to follow Mike's rigid step-by-step instructions, creeping slowly. However, Sulley's impatience gets the better of him. He breaks formation and charges toward the flag, but his heavy footsteps cause a ladder to collapse with a loud crash. The Librarian instantly transforms into a terrifying beast and charges toward Sulley. Seeing his teammate in danger, Mike signals the other Oozma Kappas to create a distraction. They coordinate a series of noises to confuse the Librarian, drawing her away from Sulley. Amidst the chaos, Squishy uses his silent, gelatinous body to sneak unnoticed and snatch the flag. The team escapes the library just as the Librarian grabs the members of the EEK fraternity and hurls them out. Oozma Kappa advances.
Riding high on their success, the team is invited to a mid-Games mixer party at the Roar Omega Roar house. Mike takes a moment to admire the Scare Games trophy, seeing his reflection and feeling his dream within reach. Johnny Worthington III gives a speech welcoming the top Scarers, but when he addresses Oozma Kappa, the tone shifts. At Johnny's signal, Randall triggers a trap that douses the OK members in paint, glitter, flowers, and stuffed animals. The entire party laughs as photos are taken. The next day, the campus is plastered with images of their humiliation. Morale hits rock bottom, and the team wants to quit. To stop them from giving up, Mike takes them on a secret field trip to Monsters, Inc. Breaking through a fence, they watch the Scare Floor from a distance. Mike points out that professional Scarers come in all shapes and sizes—some are odd-looking, some are old, some are small. He helps them realize their unique traits can be strengths. Even Sulley begins to respect Mike's passion. After narrowly escaping security guards, the team returns with renewed determination.
The Climb and The Final Round
With their confidence restored, Oozma Kappa begins training in earnest. Mike stops trying to change them and starts utilizing their specific abilities, while Sulley begins to listen to Mike's strategies. In the subsequent challenges, the team excels. They navigate a maze while avoiding scare-proof "teenager" cutouts, finishing second only to ROR. In the hide-and-seek challenge inside a fraternity house, they evade detection perfectly. Oozma Kappa and Roar Omega Roar become the final two teams. Before the final, Dean Hardscrabble approaches Sulley. She admits he has improved but predicts his team will lose because one member—Mike—is simply not scary. When she asks Sulley if he truly believes Mike is scary, Sulley hesitates and cannot answer.
The night before the final, Sulley feels guilty. He attempts to coach Mike on physical scaring techniques, teaching him how to roar and posture. However, it becomes painfully obvious that Mike lacks the physical presence to be intimidating. Sulley stops the lesson, masking his doubt with false encouragement.
The Final Challenge takes place in a stadium in front of the whole school. The teams must face off in simulators set to the highest difficulty level. Each member enters a simulator, reads the file of a mock child, and executes a scare to generate scream energy. The team with the highest combined score wins. Don goes first, using his suction cups to scale the ceiling and terrifying the dummy, outscoring his opponent. Terri and Terry use a puppetry act to mimic a human, then reveal themselves for a jump scare. Art uses his flexibility, and Squishy uses his creepy stare. By the final matchups, ROR has a slight lead. Sulley faces off against Randall. Sulley utilizes a heavy stomp to create a tremor, scoring highly and knocking Randall off balance in the adjacent simulator. Randall's camouflage malfunctions, turning him bright pink with hearts, mimicking the room's carpet. He is humiliated and vows revenge on Sulley.
It all comes down to Mike versus Johnny Worthington. Johnny executes a near-perfect scare. Mike enters the simulator, remembering Sulley's coaching but also his own studies. He delivers a performance that triggers the dummy to scream at maximum capacity, filling the canister to the top and lighting up the red "max score" indicator. The crowd erupts. Oozma Kappa has won the Scare Games. Mike is ecstatic, holding the trophy high, having finally proved everyone wrong.
The Cheat and The Break-In
Amidst the celebration, Mike returns to the simulator to savor the moment. He playfully snaps his fingers at the dummy, and to his confusion, the score maxes out again immediately. Suspicious, Mike checks the control panel behind the simulator. He discovers that the difficulty setting has been tampered with—it has been lowered to "Easy" (the lowest setting), while all others were on "Hard." He realizes Sulley rigged the machine. Mike confronts Sulley, who admits he did it because he didn't believe Mike was scary enough to win on his own. Heartbroken and betrayed, Mike accuses Sulley of being just like Hardscrabble and everyone else. He throws the trophy down and storms off. The rest of Oozma Kappa is equally ashamed of the hollow victory and leaves Sulley alone.
Determined to prove his worth once and for all, Mike breaks into the Door Technology lab. He activates a newly manufactured door and enters the human world. Meanwhile, Sulley confesses his cheating to Dean Hardscrabble, who is outraged and expels him on the spot. Suddenly, alarms blare indicating a door breach. Sulley realizes Mike has gone through and pushes past Hardscrabble to follow him. He enters the door just as Hardscrabble orders the power cut to seal the breach until the Child Detection Agency (CDA) arrives.
Trapped in the Human World
In the human world, Mike creeps into a bedroom expecting to scare a child. However, he discovers too late that he is not in a private bedroom, but a cabin at a summer camp. His roar merely wakes up a room full of children. Instead of screaming, they look at him with curiosity, one girl remarking, "You look funny." The children crowd around him, forcing Mike to retreat in terror. He flees the cabin and hides by a lake. Sulley arrives in the human world and tracks Mike to the lakeside. He finds Mike despondent, realizing that Hardscrabble and Sulley were right: he isn't scary. Sulley tries to comfort him, admitting that he himself is a fraud who is terrified of the pressure to live up to his family name. He admits he cheats and lies because he is afraid of failing.
Their reconciliation is cut short as park rangers and police officers, alerted by the children, begin searching the woods. The two monsters rush back to the cabin to use the door, but they find it deactivated. They are trapped. As the adults close in on the cabin, Mike realizes that while he can't scare children, he knows exactly how to manipulate the psychological fears of adults. He formulates a plan. Working together, Mike sets the stage while Sulley provides the muscle. They scratch the floorboards, manipulate the shadows, and slam doors, terrifying the investigating rangers. As the tension reaches its peak, Mike signals Sulley, who unleashes a roar amplified by their setup. The rangers scream in absolute terror. The sheer force of the scream energy overloads the door from the other side, causing the lights on the canisters in the lab to explode. The door blows open in the lab with a massive shockwave, knocking Hardscrabble back. Mike and Sulley launch themselves through the portal just as the door station disintegrates.
Consequences and New Beginnings
Back in the monster world, the CDA has arrived. Mike and Sulley are arrested and taken away. Dean Hardscrabble, recovering from the shock, looks at the destroyed door station, deeply in thought. Later, it is revealed that both Mike and Sulley have been expelled from Monsters University for their reckless actions and the damage caused. However, there is a silver lining: Hardscrabble was so impressed by Oozma Kappa's performance in the games that she allows the other members—Don, Squishy, Art, and the Terrys—into the Scaring Program. Don and Sheri announce their engagement, much to Squishy's discomfort.
As Mike packs his bags to leave, Sulley catches up to him at the bus stop. Sulley tells Mike that he has never met anyone like him. He points out that the strategy, the leadership, and the eventual massive scare that powered the door were all Mike's doing. Sulley admits that while Mike might not be scary, he is fearless. Dean Hardscrabble approaches them. She tells them that they are the first students to ever surprise her. While she cannot re-enroll them due to university rules, she wishes them luck and tells Mike to "keep surprising people."
Mike and Sulley leave the campus together, now best friends. They spot a "Help Wanted" ad in the newspaper for the Monsters, Inc. mailroom. They take the job, working under the Abominable Snowman (the Yeti). A montage follows showing their progression through the years: they work as mail sorters, then janitors, then cafeteria workers, and eventually Can Wranglers. They keep studying and training on their own time. Finally, they ace the company tryouts. Sulley becomes a Scarer, and Mike becomes his Scare Assistant/Coach. On their first day on the Scare Floor, Mike puts on his hard hat, and they walk toward the floor, setting the stage for the events of Monsters, Inc.
Credits and Post-Credits
During the credits, a series of Scare Cards are shown, revealing the fates of the characters. The members of Oozma Kappa, along with Chet Alexander, Randall Boggs, and Rosie Levin, have all graduated and become professional Scarers at various companies. Johnny Worthington III is shown on a card, but notably, he does not work for Monsters, Inc.
In a post-credits scene, the slow-moving slug monster from the very beginning of the movie finally arrives at the classroom door. Breathless and exhausted from his semester-long journey, he asks if he is late. The janitor, who is mopping the floor, informs him that the school year is over. The slug groans and begins the excruciatingly slow turn to head back home.
Top Cast
- Billy Crystal as Mike Wazowski
- John Goodman as James P. "Sulley" Sullivan
- Steve Buscemi as Randy Boggs
- Helen Mirren as Dean Hardscrabble
- Peter Sohn as Squishy
- Joel Murray as Don
- Sean Hayes as Terri
- Dave Foley as Terry
- Charlie Day as Art
- Alfred Molina as Professor Knight
Movie Collection
- Monsters, Inc. (2001)
- Monsters University (2013)
