Imaginary Monsters and Job Prospects

So, picture this… You’re a senior at Monsters University, just about to graduate from their prestigious “Scare Program.” (MU is top notch. Forget all that talk about Fear Tech. Their mascot? A pig. Really?) You’ve studied your whole life for this. Dean Hardscrabble has scared you. You’ve learned all you can from Professor Knight. Soon it will be time to head out onto the scare floor, enter the human world, and fill those scream canisters with the sounds of all those scared little children… 🙂

But wait… Did you hear what Sulley and Mike just discovered? No? Okay, well, remember that little girl “Boo” that snuck in the monster world? Right after she returned home something changed. There’s a rumor going around that human laughter is much more powerful than human screams. Yeah, I know. Doesn’t look too good for us scarers. I mean, what are we supposed to do now? We’ve spent the past four years learning how to scare children! Now we’re gonna have to make ’em laugh? I’ve already got $40,000 in monster student loans… spent all this time bulking up (I don’t want to get tooooo big) and now? What do I have to show for it? A degree in a field that has no future. Maybe I can apply for some government help and go through job retraining… What else is a monster to do?

Welcome to Monsters University! Our soon-to-be-unemployed scarers are back, in a prequel that makes us laugh without working too hard. It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 years since the original “Monsters, Inc.” hit the theaters. Our kids have grown so much since the original, they don’t remember life before it. The “Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor” is one of the most innovative attractions at Walt Disney World. So this movie has big shoes to fill.

I loved the glimpse of our favorite monsters’ lives before their daily scare floor routine kicked in. Seeing Mike as a kid and watching him evolve into the paperwork-loving monster we all know was quite enlightening. Watching how some personalities evolve over time (Randall, for example) shows us what turned them into the monsters they are today. In a “Revenge of the Nerds” type of way, we watch as an unlikely group of students compete against other, seemingly stronger monsters for an opportunity to get into the scare school and get a leg up on their future at Monsters, Inc.

The major players are all back with a cameo or two (Snowcone, anyone?) and some surprises. The only negative I have to say is that I had a hard time finding my favorite song from the movie because it wasn’t on the soundtrack. Fortunately, a few kind souls on Yahoo! helped me track it down. You can see a Youtube video of “Gospel” by the MarchFourth Marching Band below: