Movie Thoughts: Monsters University

I have a soft spot for animated movies. Unfortunately, most of the ones in mainstream consumption are aimed at kids, and called "cartoons." This means usually they don't give much fodder for thought. Or the thoughts are pretty routine and obvious. Monsters University, however, dealt a bit of a different dish.

Not an entirely different dish, mind you. Pixar does make their films for a younger audience, though I think they are also catering to us older folks in a way that many other animated films do not. Yet, since they know kids are a major portion, there still tends to be a similar formula:
Main Character is some kind of outcast
Main Character rises against all odds
Main Character succeeds, no longer being outcast.

The general theme of many kids movies seems to be this: you don't have to fit in to be cool, everyone will love you anyways. And whatever it is you want to do, you will be great at it! Especially if you don't fit the mold of what we think great is!

And the Harry Potter books/movies highlighted another somewhat common element: it's ok for the Hero to break the rules. So since you are your own hero, and everyone is a hero, go ahead and break them! Dumbledore will make your team win by default, because after all, no one likes those snake guys. They are jerks, and jerks always lose!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Monsters University deals up a nice change to that. Mike is clearly not a scary guy. And at the end of the movie, instead of turning out to be scary, he turns out to be, well, not scary. A total geek. In that brief moment where he digs deep, finds his inner monster.... Sully cheats. Mike doesn't actually scare anyone. And this is true to life: no matter how much you want to, there are some things you just can't do. Digging deep and believing in yourself just isn't always enough.

And Sully cheats, getting kicked out of the school. It doesn't matter that he meant well. It doesn't matter that he confessed, rules are rules. And when Mike breaks into the door lab, same thing: expulsion. Doesn't matter that he discovered a new way to do energy, he risked his own life, and that of everyone else (or at least that's what they believed since they thought kids were toxic). No Dumbledore to save them.

The last lines from the Dean are great: You both taught me something, and I will be open to new things in the future. My eyes have been opened! But that doesn't change your situation.

In the last words, however, is encouragement. Sully tells Mike, you might be a horrendous scarer, but you are far from ordinary. And Dean is telling them something as well: you might have failed here, but that doesn't mean you don't have greatness ahead.

Consider all the famous successful people who never completed major degrees. Consider the people who rose out of nothingness. While being a genius, or a stud, or filthy rich, or having a master's degree, sure does help most of us get by, it isn't the only way to do things. But rather than digging deep and believing you can do something you can't, and then judging yourself by the failure, find what you ARE good at. Mike was no good at scaring, and Sully was no good at making connections with normal folks, but with the two working together, they made an unstoppable team.

Don't rely on Dumbledore to come bail you out. Don't rely on everyone hating the jerks, and siding with you instead at the last second. Instead, find your own strength, and use it.