What Color Is Sully From Monsters Inc
STORY BONES
Monsters, Inc.: What Is It Really About?
The power of re-writing — Maybe your story is entirely about something else
It all started at one legendary lunch. In 1994, Pixar was about to finish Toy Story, the first computer-generated animation ever (released in 1995). Pixar creatives John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, and Joe Ranft went to lunch to talk about what to do next. They came up with four ideas, each of them turned into wildly successful movies later on: A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, WALL-E. These four movies grossed $1 billion at the box office. Wouldn't you like to be a cockroach on the wall that day?
Monsters, Inc. was Pete Docter's baby.
"When we were making Toy Story, everybody came up to me and said 'Hey, I totally believed that my toys came to life when I left the room.' So when Disney asked us to do some more films, I wanted to tap into a childlike notion that was similar to that. I knew monsters were coming out of my closet when I was a kid. So I said, 'Hey, let's do a film about monsters.'"
Mon s ters Inc., 2002 DVD, commentary
It's all wonderful of course, but having a great idea doesn't guarantee a story that works. After that lunch, Monsters Inc. went through a long, complex, and painful process to reach its final version.
Story material as playdough
As the rest of Pixar went on to make A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2, Pete Docter began developing Monsters, Inc. with the code title The Hidden City.
When the idea was first conceived, everyone was amused by the idea of "professional" monsters who were tasked with scaring kids as a job. They wore suits and glasses, carried briefcases, and worried to lose their jobs. The artwork for the main character Sully — named Johnson then — kept his glasses until one of the later versions, then ditched it because eyes had to be as expressive as possible for the sake of storytelling.
Docter's original idea centered a 30-year-old man who got visited by his childhood monsters that represented each of his fears, maybe a bit like Ebenezer Scrooch who got visited by ghosts from his past. Later, Docter replaced the adult character with a child to end up with a "buddy" story.
Between 1996 and 2000, both the main monster (Johnson /Sully) and the main child (Mary/Boo) went through countless changes in visual design, personalities, and background stories. They ditched the suits and other clothes, replaced some of them with fur which makes them more adorable. They had to develop a new technology to make fur as realistic as possible. Pixar worried that a character whose main goal is to scare children would alienate the audience. They tried various other ideas such as making Sully a janitor.
He had tentacles, to begin with. And the kid was a seven-year-old tough girl who grew up being teased by her four brothers. They first made her Irish, then African American. They played with her age too. Draft after draft, they kneaded the story like playdough.
Docter was a new parent during this process. At one point, he realized the story came to be about parenthood. They ended up with a toddler, Boo, who was dependent on Sully as a parental figure.
They also included Mike Wazowsky just to give Sully "a little bit more of a backstory and a world that gets upset" at first. Mike expanded to be an influence character, a sidekick to Sully, proving yet again how essential B stories are.
To read more about the creation of Monsters, Inc. check out this interview with Pete Docter.
Who is the real monster in Monsters, Inc.?
In Save the Cat, Blake Snyder has ten genres, and one of them is called "Monster in the House" (MITH) which includes stories like Jaws, Alien, Jurassic Park, Psycho or Fatal Attraction. He named Monsters Inc. a MITH too.
It is an interesting idea. We can say that it meets the three criteria of a MITH: A monster, a house, and a sin.
- A little two-year-old "toxic" human child enters the monsters' world and causes chaos: The monster.
- The monster city where everyone believes that human children are toxic and deadly: The house.
- Randall's plot to kidnap human children and get free screams using a "scream extractor": The sin.
I enjoy the idea of the human child being the monster; still, I don't agree with Snyder on this. MITH stories are mostly horror stories where the final battle is about killing the monster. Monsters Inc. is, on the contrary, about protecting "the monster," Boo. Sully becomes a father figure for Boo and he sacrifices himself for her well-being. The final battle is against other forces.
The evaluation story of the project also makes it clear that it was designed as a buddy story just like E.T.
What are the elements of Buddy Love? An incomplete hero, a counterpart, a complication.
- Sully has a successful career but his neat and organized life is somewhat empty. His best friend Mike has a blossoming romance with Celia, but Sully is not passionate about anything other than work; something is clearly missing for him.
- His counterpart is the two-year-old Boo. She is the opposite of neat; she brings chaos to Sully's (and Mike's) organized life.
- The complication is the fact that they are from opposite worlds. Monsters are scary for humans and humans are considered toxic for monsters.
How does the structure work?
First act
In the first act, the setup, we learn about Sully's ordinary monster world and its rules.
Opening image
The movie opens with a typical "horror movie" scene with a lot of suspense. A young boy goes to bed. He hears the squeak of his closet door. Something comes out of it, like a tentacle of a monster! When the boy looks intently at the door, the tentacle has turned into a sleeve of some clothing. As the boy tries to sleep, the monster sneaks into the room and approaches him. He sits up and screams, but the monster, even more scared than the boy, begins screaming too! He jumps backward and falls on his butt causing a comedic scene.
At that moment the lights turn on and we realize the monster failed some kind of test. It turns out, the boy in the bed is just a mechanical dummy for a simulation. This is a training room for monsters! Monsters learn how to "safely" go into the human world through closet doors, to scare human children collecting screams. We learn that they should never ever leave a door open because it can let in a child.
We meet Mr. Waternoose, the boss of the scream factory, a scary-looking monster with crab claws and five eyes, who tells us that human children are toxic and deadly. Scaring is a highly dangerous job, but the monsters' world depends on kids' screams for power. Waternoose mentions James P. Sullivan's name as a top scarer.
Setup
We meet James P. Sullivan, Sully (John Goodman), and his home mate Michael Wazowsky, Mike (Billy Crystal) at their flat. Sully is a tall, powerful monster covered in colorful fur, and Mike is a giant eyeball with two arms and two legs. Mike acts like James' personal trainer, wakes him up early, enthusiastically pushes him to train his scaring. Then the new commercial for Monsters Inc, the scream factory is on TV: The video gives us more information on how the factory works, collecting screams. We see that both Sully and Mike on their jobs. The commercial ends with Mr. Waternoose's voice who says "We scare because we care," but Mike's visual is covered by the company logo. He is still ecstatic to be on TV.
Mike has a new luxury car but Sully doesn't allow him to drive it because of the "scream shortage"; thus they walk to work. On the way we see them interacting with other monsters of the monster city.
As they walk into the Monsters Inc. factory, and we observe how popular Sully is as the top scarer. At their workplace, both Mike and Sully feel safe and at home.
They meet the beautiful receptionist Celia, a one-eyed monster with snakes as hair. She is Mike's girlfriend and they are in silly love! Since it's Celia's birthday, Mike has made a reservation at a high-end restaurant named Harryhausen's, which surprises Celia because "it's impossible to get a reservation there." Sully says he is happy for Mike, but he doesn't have anything special in his life other than work.
Theme stated
All of a sudden, Randall appears, scaring Mike. He is another top scarer who can turn invisible by changing his colors. He and Sully are rivals and both want to break the scare record. Randall cares a bit too much about this competition while Sully seems more relaxed, emphasizing sportsmanship. Before he leaves, Randall shushes Mike and Sully and says:
Do you hear that?
It's the winds of change.
Neither the characters nor the audience understands what this is about, yet. As we'll see later, the theme of the story is "change."
Setup (continued)
The scarers walk onto the "scare floor" in slow-mo, like heroes. In the scene we observe and learn how they work, the rules of their creatively designed world: The closet doors arrive at the "stations" from above and they get activated. The scarers walk into the doors that function as portals into the human world. We hear the children scream behind the doors, and the screams are collected in scream tubes.
If a child is no more afraid of the monster, their door is considered dead, and it is destroyed in a shredder. This is a problem because more and more children get over their fears every day. Kids these days… they are no longer afraid of monsters!
If an object like a tiny sock from the human world gets carried into the factory, an alarm is activated and the CDA, Child Detection Agency raids the floor, decontaminating the area and the monster who caused the contamination.
Both Randall and Sully collect lots of screams and Randall's name appears at the top of the board for a moment passing Sully's numbers, but then Sully comes back in from a slumber party with multiple scream tubes. Randall gets frustrated and angry!
When the day is over, Mike is excited to go to Harryhausen's with Celia, but Roz, the no-nonsense monster responsible for accounts reminds him that he hadn't completed his paperwork. Sully saves Mike by saying he will do it.
The catalyst
When Sully goes back to the scare floor to find Mike's papers, he sees that there is an activated door on one of the stations. He opens the door to see if there is a monster scaring in there. There is no one. So he shrugs and begins to leave, but he realizes that he has accidentally let a little girl in!
He tries to put her back, but she comes back out every time! He carries her inside the room, but then he gets tangled with lots of items that he can't get rid of, much worse than accidentally bringing in one sock! When he sees Randall approach from the other end, he hides. Randall comes to the door, looks around, then deactivates the door and sends it back.
After Randall's gone, Sully runs to the locker room and the little girl is hanging on his back! Sully tries to get rid of all the items, then finds out the girl is still with him. He doesn't know what to do, so he puts her in a little box and a duffel bag before he leaves.
Debate
Mike is having a romantic dinner with Celia at Herryhausen's when Sully appears with his duffel bag, ruining their special night. Sully tries to tell Mike about the girl in the bag, but the girl escapes and makes a grand appearance in public, scaring everyone off: "Boo!"
The CDA arrives in helicopters and there is a big chaos. Celia, who is unaware of Mike's and Sully's involvement with the girl, is taken by CDA as the two guys run. They take the girl to their apartment with them since they don't want to expose themselves and get into trouble.
In the apartment, they desperately try to not have contact with the girl and keep her calm at the same time. When she screams, the lights turn on. When she laughs, the whole block lights up, and then the whole system blows up! Sully realizes there is something about a child's laughter.
Mike tries to find a way to get rid of her safely and without being accused, and Sully, quite surprisingly, bonds with the girl. She draws pictures of Sully and Randall. Sully finds out that Randall is her monster and she is very scared of him. She falls asleep in Sully's bed.
Sully realizes that the girl isn't really toxic and he decides to take her back to the factory in a baby monster costume, summon her door, and put her back into her room.
Break into two
Mike and Sully walk into the factory carrying Boo in a baby monster costume as Mike protests Sully's idea. He is afraid of being banished into the human world like the Loch Ness monster or the Abominable Snow Man. But Sully is determined to send Boo back home.
The second act
The second act is the antithesis, or the upside-down world. The characters have walked into the special world of the story.
In this story, the special world is geographically still the same place, the factory they have been working for many years. However, it is no longer the ordinary place they felt safe, where they had friends, like in the first act. Now they are hiding a big secret and they can be caught any minute.
B Story
In Monsters Inc., B story is about Sully's relationship with Mike. Mike is an influence character, he questions Sully's belief system. This doesn't mean he is always right. Sully is determined about saving and returning Boo home safely. Mike is skeptical, but he values friendship and connection. He thematically supports Sully's goal making him even clearer about it.
Fun and games
In the first half of the second act, Sully bonds with Boo even further as he and Mike try to find a way to send her back. There are a bunch of funny scenes until things really get serious.
Mike goes to Roz to get the card summons Boo's door but Roz doesn't help him, punishing him since he still hasn't done his paperwork.
Sully realizes Boo needs to use the bathroom and takes her to the bathroom where Boo starts a game of hide and seek.
So Mike finds a random door key, anxious to get rid of the girl as soon as possible, but as soon as Sully sees the door he knows it's not the right one. So they begin fighting but then pretend they are rehearsing for a play.
Randall looks for the lost girl everywhere and realizes that Mike is somehow involved, so he threatens him to bring the girl to the scare floor at lunchbreak. He says her door will be there.
Boo runs away from Sully and part of her monster costume gets into garbage. Sully follows a pile of garbage into a compactor thinking Boo gets crushed. Mike finds him devastated by the compactor, but Boo turns out fine!
They finally take Boo back to the scare floor to send her back home.
Midpoint
Boo's door is at the station just like Randall said! When they are about to put her back in her room, Mike mentions Randall. This stops Sully in his tracks. He refuses to put Boo back in since they can't trust Randall.
To prove it's all safe, Mike goes into the darker room, and gets captured by Randall who doesn't have the best eyesight. Randall puts him in a bin believing he's the kid!
Bad Guys Close In
Sully and Boo follow Randall and find a passage to his secret lab. Randall and his helper Fungus bring the bin to their machine, the "Scream Extractor." But when they open the bin they realize it's not the kid, it's Mike in the bin.
They tie him to the machine anyway. Mike, who still thought Randall had been cheating to break the scare record, now finds out that he has other plans — to kidnap and extract screams from children with his machine! Randall tortures Mike using the machine to find out where the kid is. But the machine stops by itself.
Randall goes to find what happened to the machine and finds it unplugged. When he is back, it is Fungus who is tied to the machine. Mike has escaped thanks to Sully and Boo.
Just before they run out of the factory to safety, Sully decides to go tell the truth to Mr. Waternoose whom he trusts. They rush into the training room where Mr. Waternoose had invited him earlier to demonstrate his scaring skills to the new scarer candidates.
Sully and Mike try to tell Mr. Waternoose about the kid but he doesn't listen, he wants Sully to roar for the trainees. So he does, and Boo gets terrified of Sully and she runs away from him. Sully has a moment of truth: his praised skills about scaring kids are damaging for little human beings.
All is lost
Mike and Sully finally tell Mr. Waternoose about Boo and Randall's Scream Extractor in his secret lab. Mr. Waternoose seems sad, attempting to fix the situation. He asks them if anybody else knows about it. He takes Boo and calls a door.
But it is not Boo's door! It's a metal door for Mike and Sulley! Waternoose pushes them out the door; and they find themselves in the middle of a snowy mountain, with the door inactive. They are banished, Mike's biggest fear, the worst thing that could happen in their world has come true!
Dark night of the soul
Mike and Sully begin fighting, Mike blaming Sully for everything.
They are welcomed by Yeti, the "Abominable Snow Man" who is indeed a monster that had been banished from the monster world years ago. They go to his cave where he serves them snow cones and tries to cheer them up. But Sully is devastated for letting Boo down.
Mike gets even angrier when he realizes Sully is still fixated on Boo and he doesn't care about their friendship or Mike's other connections in their world.
Sully finds out from Yeti that there is a village with kids down the mountain so he makes a sled to go find a door as soon as possible. But Mike won't support him anymore.
Sully slides down alone in the blizzard, but his sled gets smashed on a rock. He falls motionless in the snow, and the wind blows on his fur as if he is dead. This moment is what Snyder calls "whiff of death." Then, he raises his head and sees that the lights of the village are near.
The third act
The resolution of the movie is action-packed. The thesis world and the antithesis form the synthesis, and the world finally reaches its balance.
Break into three
One of the monsters is about to get into a door in "nice, quiet" Nepal. The door opens and Sully storms in!
Finale
Waternoose and Randall are by the Scream Extractor and Boo is tied to the machine. Sully turns up and moves the machine with his enormous power, saving Boo. Waternoose instructs Randall to follow them, "there can't be any witnesses!"
Randall turns invisible and attacks Sully. As they fight, Mike turns up too. He tries to talk to Sully about friendship and forgiveness, not realizing Randall. He gets angry when Sully doesn't respond and throws him a snowball knocking Randall off. They begin running, and a relentless chase begins!
When Sully realizes they won't be able to reach Boo's door without being attacked by Randall, he hangs onto a random door. Mike joins him, and they all go into the vault of million doors! But Randall doesn't stop chasing them.
Mike and Sully make Boo laugh, which activates all doors, and they enter a door, ending up in a random place in the human world. Randall follows them. The chase goes on from door to door, extends to locations all over the world!
Boo is still scared of Randall. At one point, Randall catches up and steals Boo. Sully doesn't give up, he follows them and they begin to fight with Randall. When Randall strangles Sully, Boo finally gets over her fear and attacks him with a bat, helping Sully to get rid of him once and for all. With Mike, they throw him in a door and then ditch the door down the vault to destroy it permanently. Randall gets stuck in a faraway trailer with people who think he's another alligator and hit him with a shovel!
They get Boo's door and slide back to the scare floor where Waternoose is waiting with the CDA agents. They see and chase Mike with Boo's monster costume, but Sully is with the real Boo, running the other way. When Waternoose realizes that they have been tricked, he follows Sully demanding the child.
Sully ends up in Boo's room with Waternoose behind him. He begs him for letting Boo go but Waternoose says she has witnessed too much; Sully too. He ends up admitting that he will "kidnap a thousand children before he lets this company die."
At that point the lights turn on and we all realize it is not Boo's room, it is the simulation room again, and Waternoose's words were recorded on video. Mike plays it again for the CDA agents so the evil plot is finally revealed. Waternoose is arrested.
The CDA leader wants to talk to Sully and Mike. It is none other than Roz! She's been an agent all along, who worked undercover to reveal Randall's plot. She thanks Sully. With her order, Boo is finally placed to her home and her door is shredded. Sully will never see her again. They have a moment to say goodbye.
After Waternoose's arrest, the factory will probably be closed, but Sully remembers something important!
Final image
The scene starts as an almost identical suspense scene to the opening image. A monster sneaks into a boy's room. We realize that he is Mike! Instead of scaring the boy, Mike begins telling jokes! The boy's laughter fills the tube right away because laughter is many times more powerful than screams.
The wind of change has come after all! It just wasn't Randall's version in which monsters extracted screams from kids forcefully, but it was Sully's version of generating power from laughter instead of scream!
Sully is the successful new boss now! He still keeps one piece of Boo's door taped in his notepad. The updated factory produces laughter rather than screams, and the power shortage is fixed, bringing balance to the monster world.
Sully and Mike are on the cover of a magazine (even though Mike's image is covered by a barcode).
Finally, Mike takes Sully to the basement and shows him Boo's door. He has found all the pieces from the shredder and built the door again. There is only one bit missing. When Sully completes it with the missing piece in his notepad, the door gets activated and Sully walks in to meet Boo again! Boo still calls him "Kitty" and their relationship is intact as parent and child.
Final thoughts
A fun idea about "working monsters whose jobs are to scare kids" turned into an intimate story about being a parent over the course of years.
This is often the case with long-termed projects. As we work on our stories, we dig deeper and deeper with each re-write. We almost always realize that there is much more to our story than we first envisaged it.
I wrote many episodes for Turkish TV series with a group of screenwriters. We were usually short of time since we had to complete each script in a week. Watching our shows on the channel was often painful because that would be the time we realized and regretted all the lost opportunities. When we saw our ideas and words visualized and acted on screen, we would see the real potential of emotions we could have used, but it would be too late. Our characters sometimes acted as if they hadn't noticed the weight or delicateness of the situation at hand. They would behave like robots, and it wouldn't be the actors' fault, it would be ours.
If you have the time, use it wisely. Rather than playing with words on the surface, try to feel the emotions underneath, and see how you can use it to touch your audience's hearts. That's how best stories are written.
What Color Is Sully From Monsters Inc
Source: https://writingcooperative.com/monsters-inc-what-is-it-really-about-b97add556e25