MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

I did it again. I should know better. I'm the father of a four year old who rented a Pixar movie rather than purchased it. He loves it. I think it's a great movie I could watch a dozen times with him, and I can already see it happening. I did it with Monsters, Inc. also. He'll watch it a few times, it will go away, he won't understand why, and I'll buy it because A) I know we will get our money's worth and B) I wouldn't mind watching it again myself. We've watched it twice and he's had it for 6 hours. Plus we had to leave for a bit, so he's hooked. Great characters, this movie is overflowing with charm. It's great for all ages, just like every Pixar movie.

UPDATE 11/4/13: Blu-ray details review. QUALITY: Unsurprisingly, the video quality is stunning. Little else needs to be said about the transfer. It's flawless. EXTRAS: There are a TON of extras! If you like the behind-the-scenes process of filmmaking, the extras here are about as extensive as I've seen before. Not only do the shorts give a background of life on Pixar's campus (Campus Life), but plenty of dedication to each aspect of making the film. Of course, there's also some deleted scenes. What's nice about the scenes is that director Dan Scalon talks you through the scene in detail and why it was cut. They are of course unfinished, but still interesting to see what could have been part of the movie. If I have one complaint, it's the layout of the bonus features menu. Despite the features being on a blu-ray disc, the menu does not operate like a blu-ray menu. Typically, you're able to operate within the menu while the movie (or features) are playing on screen. Instead, you need to return to the menu screen to select the next option. It's a small caveat, but there we go. SPOILERS BELOW. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM. If you don't care about the end being discussed, then by all means read on... My wife and I saw Monsters University and both loved it. Many of the Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes however, seemed to miss the point of the film entirely. "This is a safe, predictable, edge-free, nearly bland effort from a studio that rarely hedges its bets." - Richard Roeper "[It] conforms to [Pixar's] apparent drift toward the average, with toy sales taking priority over originality." - Liam Lacey "Monsters University is cute, and funny, and the animation, though not exactly inspired, is certainly colorful." - Steven Rae "Mostly memorable for being fine but forgettable." - Betsy Sharkey Since 1995, Pixar has dominated computer animated filmmaking. They constantly win Academy Awards (9 nominations, 7 wins for Best Animated Feature) and are universally praised for their efforts by the critics. Nearly each Pixar movie has a handful of lessons or dominant themes it tries to teach and tell. The Toy Story Trilogy (friendship, getting older) A Bug's Life (self-esteem, ingenuity, teamwork) Monster Inc (greed, pride) Finding Nemo (father-son relationship, growing up, letting go) The Incredibles (family values, honor) *Cars and Cars 2 (I'm pretty sure these are just about marketing toys) Ratatouille (friendship, trust, confidence) WALL-E (consumerism, environmentalism) Up (love, living life in the moment) Brave (family values, respect, love, mother-daughter relationship). However, after seeing MU and reading the critical reviews, I was shocked how many reviewers missed the point of the film and the important lessons Pixar chose to address in the film. You could even make the argument that the lessons in MU are more bold than any previous Pixar film. Which leads to why MU is ultimately about failure and why that's okay. Obviously, as this is a movie about college, there are your typical and inherent lessons for the characters (finding your place, growing up, building friendships), but the most important and surprising lesson is watching Mike Wazowski fail. This lesson is a particularly unique and groundbreaking approach for the age groups in Generation Y (Millennial) and Z. Generational scholar and author Ron Alsop argued that the Millennial generation is a group of "trophy kids", who were given rewards just for participating. I'm a Millennial and like many of my friends growing up, we all received gold stars on our homework, ribbons for events, etc. constantly rewarding us for just doing our job. You could also argue we've been constantly told that we could achieve anything we want if we just worked hard. We were told there was no way we could fail. This is the definitive issue that MU tackles head-on. From the age of little monster, Mike is enthralled with the career of being a scarer - the job that every monster dreams of. It's for the cream of the crop. Mike is told continually as a small monster that he's too small and not scary enough to succeed. It's only after he sneaks into a live door on the Monsters, Inc. scare floor that people believe he's capable of great things. He uses that moment to work hard and get into Monsters University to study at the School of Scaring. The main plot is the competitive nature between the hard-working Mike and the famous-last-name Sullivan. Their antagonistic rivalry drives the story until they are forced to work together to get back into the School of Scaring. Like all feel good movies, Mike and Sullivan ultimately save the day, win the Scare Games and are cheered and admired amongst everyone at the school. They defeat the oppressive Dean and defy expectations, the day is theirs! But it's right that that the writers (Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, Dan Scanlon) drastically changes things. Sullivan admits to cheating to help his team of lovable losers win and save face for Mike who he believes isn't scary. When Mike finds out, he breaks into the door testing laboratory to prove to himself that he is indeed scary. However, he quickly learns that he does not in fact scare the kids in the cabin. Crushed, Mike goes to the nearby lake and wallows in self-pity. Everything he's dreamed about and worked for has been for naught - he's failed to be scary, what society tells them is the only thing monsters should be. In the end Mike accepts this and along with Sully works his way from the mailroom at Monsters Inc. to the scare floor where we find him and Sully in Monsters, Inc. While this journey from the mailroom to success supports the "work hard and you can accomplish anything" mentality of our generations, it also addresses the fact that Mike isn't ultimately meeting his initial goal. He acknowledges his failure and grows past that. No other examples come to mind of children movies in which a character or character fail and are okay with it, at least not in the end. This is what the critics missed. Pixar has chosen to tell a story about children (monsters) who grew up and realized that they cannot achieve their dreams, that their dreams are out of reach and totally unattainable. This bold lesson is actually a fantastic one for kids who watch this film. For some, it's been decades of being taught that it is okay to fail, but that with hard work you can still achieve those dreams. For many that's true, but for some it's just not feasible. MU has managed to tell a story that supports that second statement. Failing isn't bad and realizing that some dreams really are out of reach is also okay. The real lesson is to be comfortable with who you are, what you're truly capable of and utilizing your strengths to better yourself and your community. That's what Mike does, he becomes the coach and teacher. His knowledge of scaring helps Sullivan to eventual massive success. He helps the rest of Oozma Kappa reach their dreams. It's not a story about settling, it's a story about failing, learning from it and growing from the experience to make yourself and others better. It's a life lesson that we should share with this current and future generations. Yes you can reach your dreams with hard work, but if you can't, that's okay too.

Monsters University is a fantastic movie! This prequel to Monsters, Inc. is filled with humor, heart, and valuable life lessons. The animation is stunning, and the story of Mike and Sulley's college days is both entertaining and relatable. A must-see for fans of the original film and anyone who enjoys fun, family-friendly movies!

Really engaging and fun. I actually plan on watching it again without my grandson. Well written movie. Don't miss this prequel...

Exactly as described. Thank you

I purchased Monsters University because my 2-year old son was obsessed with Monsters, Inc. He would repeatedly request to view it over and over again. Sound familiar for other parents? For my wife and I, this was special because Monsters, Inc. was the first movie or show that was over one hour where he would sit still and truly be watching. We knew because he remembered the characters and would try to roar for himself. Too cute. Given the above, we made the move to purchase Monsters University when it came out. Not surprising to say, but he loved it also and has requested seeing it again a few times since. In general though, I will say that he and we (the parents) both prefer the original to the sequel. Not atypical, but here's a few reasons why below. My reasons as an adult/parent that I didn't give Monsters University five-stars are as follows: - The plot is much more formulaic than the original. There are still some twists and turns, but it was pretty obvious for the most part what was going to happen. The (partial spoiler alert) "Scare Games" seemed to be a common way to go through successive challenges, like any other movie or even video game. - Most of the characters were more cliche in terms of college; the jocks, the cheerleaders, the nerds, etc. - For whatever reason, I felt the jokes were more original/crisp in the first - Inconsistencies with story from original; see below. Some inconsistencies (also spoiler alert): - It still wasn't very clear why Randall would eventually become so mean to Mike in the original, given they were roommates in college. Most of his battles/gripes seemed to be against Sully moreso than Mike. - In the original, Mike says he knew Sully since the 4th grade (or something to that effect); but he clearly just meets him at University in the sequel. I really don't have any gripes against the inconsistencies. I just noticed them after watching the movie a million times with my son. That's what happens to you as a parent, but I digress... Anyway, if your son/daughter liked the first, they will most likely like this as well. It's a fun extension of the original and does add to the background somewhat. I hope they make a third one that is not straight-to-video. Maybe we'll see Boo grown up and the laugh factory, but hard to say...

This movie is a family favorite. It captures attention from start to finish and has such positive messages about friendship and believing in yourself. My son can't get enough of it!

This is more a review of the Blu-Ray set than the movie. Plenty of others have extolled the virtues of the movie, which I and my 10 year old son loved. So I'm going to focus on what was good and bad on the Blu-Ray. The addition of the DVD is of no use to us - we have no DVD only drives anywhere, not even on our computers. Everything is Blu-Ray where we watch anything. So I'd really prefer to see them do more Blu-Ray that aren't the multi format versions, yet still have all the extras. For this movie, the only options were this, or combo packs that had both movies in it. I'd prefer to not have to pay for a version I'm never going to use. We already had this in digital format, but I wanted to get the Blu-Ray for the extra content. My son loves the "extras" in movies like the outtakes in Bugs Life and such, or even the bloopers on Muppets Most Wanted. So I had hoped we would get some good ones on here. And that's where he was disappointed. There were a couple hours of extras here, but not really any engaging content for younger kids. Most of the extra content is designed for older people. And for me, as a parent, it was fascinating, hence the 5 star rating despite the things I didn't like about it. They had a bunch of videos behind the scenes, showing the workflow and the things the people deal with while creating the animations, storylines, art, etc... As a grown up I really enjoyed it. My son lost interest in a few minutes and moved on to something else. But these videos had some really neat insight into how the story morphed and changed from the beginning (I never knew originally Sully was going to want to be a dentist like his father, which shows how much they changed as they went). They also discussed how they used light and shadow to help emphasize the differences between the characters, and how whenever Mike and Sully were at odds, one was always in sunlight, the other in shadow. Whenever they started working together, that's when they would both be lit the same. Or whenever they made a major decision, they'd step from shadow into the light. Little things like that, which made subsequent viewings of the movie more interesting as I strove to catch these little things I had missed previously. I had hopes for the deleted scenes, but unfortunately there were no scenes that were cut after animation, so all they are is a mix of very basic animation and storyboarding. They were alright, but I can see why they cut them, nothing really forwarded the story. They had some really nice artwork as well in a photo show you can do. Again, something that interested me as an adult, but held no interest for my son. The sound and video quality were excellent. All told, if you're doing like I was, and thinking of getting this for the extras for your child, don't bother. There's nothing of interest for the younger kids. But if you, yourself, want to see behind the curtain to get an inside look at how they do their magic, it's worth grabbing.