Monsters Incorporated
Leaping from closets across the country, MONSTERS INC. hit the theaters running in 2001. It opened to positive reviews and tremendous audience approval. Co-produced by Pixar and Disney, the film went on to gross more than $524 million — rivaling only “The Lion King” in terms of overall box office gross. It also went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Song.
Monsters, Inc. is the main power supplier to Monsteropolis, a city reminiscent of New York in the 1930s. The monsters employed at Monsters, Inc. clock in every day to power the city with the screams of human children. Do you recall those dreaded nights when you could have sworn something was moving in the closet? Well, little did you know your screams would be powering a city of monsters. If you had reached out to fight them off you would have found out these monsters are convinced one touch from a human is considered toxic. If they should ever touch a human, or any of their belongings, they have to endure a rigorous sanitation process that leaves them hairless.
So it happens that one fateful shift, Monster Inc.’s best and brightest, Sulley (voiced by John Goodman), accidentally brings a human child back to Monsteropolis. In a frightful panic, he hides her with the help of his good buddy, Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal). They soon discover humans are not toxic after all — in fact, making them laugh generates more power than a scream ever could. Sulley and Mike hatch a plan to disguise Boo as a monster to get her back home, but the no-good monster Randall Boggs (voiced by Steve Buscemi) has devised a power extractor that can double the scream-based fuel systems.
Sulley takes Boo straight to the CEO of Monsters Inc only to get sidelined with having to teach the new recruits some basic scare tactics. Seeing this impressive display, Boo blows her cover by bursting into tears. Sulley soon discovers the CEO, working along with Randall, is behind the new scream extractor but not before Boo is taken from him. He and Mike are quickly exiled to the Himalayas, where they begin to search frantically for the portal that will get them back to Monsteropolis in time to save Boo. Can they get to her in time? What will happen to the children of the world if the scream extractor is put into effect?
This spectacular film was the end result of the skill of the digital masters at Pixar. A good example is Sulley’s fur. The animators managed to render over two million individual hairs to give him a completely realistic look. Pixar invented a proprietary program called RenderMan DSO (Dynamic Shared Object) that effectively distributed the hair on any given character and added depth to the renderings. The end effect is a magnificent film that never disappoints.
Tags: Movies
