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| Two movies, but which reigns supreme? |
Trapped in quarantine, nothing else to do, but families gotta stick together, and mine decided to stick together with Pixar movies. We're rewatching one a week. I'm comparing them to the ranking I made before the rewatch, and seeing if any change spots.
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| Me to people breaking quarantine |
The first two weeks were the Monsters series, Inc and University. Comparing the two is a good exercise in studying prequels, and how they're almost impossible to make as good as the original. We're breaking it down point by point. While I vastly prefer Inc to University (U for short), let me start with a huge pro of University that even this watch I was blown away by.
VISUALS
The 12 years between the original and prequel did a monster good, as U is gorgeous. The palette is bursting to the seams with color, and the style fits the tone to a tee. While the overall visual are a bit more kiddy and I could see someone not liking the aesthetic as much as the original, I think it fits the younger age and mood of the film perfectly. Mike and Sully are kids, and the art designs reflects that.
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| Tag yourself I'm the two headed guy on the left. |
Light, shadows, and water all seem to be modeled perfectly. While that may seem obvious, it's actually pretty impressive considering this movie is now 7 years old. It still looks like it could release today and I don't think anyone would bat an eyelash.
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| Grass so real you need to mow it. |
Looking back at Monsters, Inc. now, the fur went from being "Wow this is great!" to "Wow, how could I ever think THAT was great?!"
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| I feel slightly uncomfortable. |
Yes the designs themselves are timeless, but textures look much flatter, especially Mike. His spots honestly seem like they're just pixels with no actual bumps or height. Compare the life Monsters University has in every frame to Monsters Inc. Everything just feels much more... barren.
However, visuals are just one part of the story. And when comparing the ACTUAL story... well. Let's break that into three parts: world, character, action.
WORLD
The world relates intimately to the story, especially in a fantasy world like the Monsters series. In Inc., the world was such a part of the charm of that story. The idea that all the monsters that live in kids closets and scare them actually having their own world was brilliant.
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| What... happened to him? |
A lot of the humor of the first one was seeing a normal human work-place, but with monsters. It's a classic comedic set-up, take something fantastical and have them act like humans, but when it works, it works. And for Monsters, Inc. it WORKED.
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| Photos you can hear. |
I loved seeing how the monsters feared children just as much as we feared them, seeing their prejudices challenged with Boo, and the change that made on the entire world. I loved the Easter eggs to the Abominable Snowman. We got a whole view of the world. The world was singular for its story, yet felt complete.
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| Me pointing out everything I love about this movie to someone who doesn't care. |
Now compare that to Monsters University. It's the second, yet a prequel, so we can't see how the world has changed, yet they also can't just make the same jokes as the first one.
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| Enter: Binge drinking |
So Pixar decided to focus on one aspect of monster society: college. While this could have led to a treasure-trove of jokes, for me... it didn't. What hilarious moments in University do you remember? Especially compared to how many iconic lines there are in Inc., there's far less.
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| This is the main one I thought of, and it's mostly for the tumblr post. |
College is such a narrow field to see the world through, I think we lost a lot of the magic of the monster world. College is already so insular. One of my favorite scenes of the film was the group going to Monsters, Inc. and getting pumped up, and I don' think that's a coincidence. When your best setting is the setting of the last movie, that's a BIG problem.
Monsters Inc. made so many iconic characters in one movie. Mike. Sully. Randal. Boo. Even Roz and Ceila. To this day, people adore these characters. And to just say it, it's the reason why 12 years later they could make a prequel based on these characters and the movie would gross over 700 million dollars.
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| Plus who knows how much they made from parks and merchandise. |
Now Monsters University. All I have to say is... how many of these new characters can you NAME?
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| In before one superfan names all 34. |
I'm guessing most people can't name any beyond maybe one or two. And even if you can, to me, their arcs and relationships were simply not as strong as what the original did. So why was that?
One of the reasons I think the relationships worked so well in the original was that most existed BEFORE the movie started. It's really hard to build a lot of relationships from scratch in less than 2 hrs, so Pixar already had Mike and Sully be best friends, already had Randal hate them, Ceila date Mike, etc. This made their banter organic and made us feel a sense of history.
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| Yes, yes they are. |
Making all the relationships already in progress also let Pixar focus on the one they really had to nail: Sully and Boo. That is the heart of Monsters Inc, and seeing them progress from fearing each other to risking their lives to save each other is heart-warming.
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| Also Sully gives me such Dad vibes and I love it. |
So instead of having to build every relationship, we get to see how relationships CHANGE. Mike and Sully's friendship nearly breaks. Randal's rivalry gets worse. Ceila almost breaks up with Mike.
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| Tbh, this moment still terrifies me. |
And then, when the Sully and Boo have to say goodbye.. we've devoted enough time that my tear soaked pillow feels earned.
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| I'm okay. I swear, I'm okay. |
Going back to University, not only is this an origin story of how Mike and Sully met for the first time, it's also an origin for how they met Randal, and every single other student at that college. While the minor characters already know each other, the main characters have NO relationships going in, which means the screenwriters had to build every one from scratch, making none strong enough to be the emotional core. At least, imo.
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| It's just my opinion bro. |
ACTION
Finally, action. While I think heart is the most important part of a Pixar movie and humor is huge too, action shouldn't go unnoticed. However, I still think the original beats out the prequel.
The prequel does have action set-pieces, but they're very bluntly set up as "scare games". And even when we're given a plot-device for any crazy action to happen, what we get is... a bit underwhelming. Like you could do anything, and all we get is colored spiky balls?
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| I mean the lighting is BEAUTIFUL, but consider me whelmed. |
Compare that with Monsters Inc. There's no games or arbitrary number of set pieces they have to go through. But the movie feels much more kinetic to me. Even just the simple act of a monsters getting a sock on them felt more dangerous than half these scare games. That's because the scare games were these scheduled things, so they really couldn't go that wrong.
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| This poor guy. |
The best set piece from University for me was the camp scene in the human world. That was tense and had a sense of real danger. But then Inc. just blows it out of the water with the fight with Randal, the snow sledding, not even to mention the DOOR CHASE.
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| Ohmygosh this was so good. |
The creativity, tension, visual appeal, and stakes!! The sense of danger! How they jumped in and out of doors and gravity changed and they traversed across the entire human world to run away!! This unbridled creativity is what I love about Pixar.
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| Plus my stomach drops just looking at this. |
In the door scene, we get great character in Sully protecting Boo, great action in the chase, AND great world in seeing how the doors are stored for scaring. That one scene is a perfect summary of, in my opinion, why Monsters Inc. is a superior movie to Monsters University.
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| That's all folks. |
Rankings before: Monsters University 20th place; Monsters Inc 8th place
Rankings after: Same! University gets 3.5/5, Inc. gets 4.5/5
