Best Animation: Monsters, Inc 2001

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 computer animated comedy film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film was released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 2, 2001, in Australia on December 26, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2002. Monsters, Inc. was written by Jack W. Bunting, Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett Reese, Jonathan Roberts and Andrew Stanton. It was directed by Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and David Silverman. [1]

Monsters, Inc. premiered in the United States on October 28, 2001, and went into general release on November 2, 2001 and was a commercial and critical success, grossing over $525,366,597 worldwide.[2] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also reported extremely positive reviews with a fresh 94% approval rating.[3]

Plot

Monsters, Inc. is the city of Monstropolis' power company. Monsters, Inc. sends its employees to human children's bedrooms to scare the children, through teleportation doors set up on the work floor. The screams of children generate electric power for the city. However, the monsters believe that children themselves are toxic, and go to great lengths to prevent contact; should a monster be touched by a child or their belongings, the Child Detection Agency (CDA) is alerted to sanitize the affected being. With increasing numbers of children becoming desensitized by mass media, Monsters, Inc. CEO Henry J. Waternoose is finding it difficult to scare the children enough to meet the power demands of the city.

One night, James P. Sullivan ("Sulley"), Monsters, Inc.'s top scarer, finds a door on the work floor after hours - in violation of policy. Peering inside, the child's room appears empty, but Sulley finds that a human girl has followed him through the door, thinking him to be a giant kitty. Terrified of contamination, he tries to return her, but is forced to hide when Randall Boggs, a competitive co-worker, come out of her door and returns it to the company's door vault. Sulley quickly hides the child and gets hold of Mike Wazowski, his co-worker and best friend, to figure out the situation. Together at Sulley's home, they discover that being touched by the child is not harmful at all, and that when she laughs, surrounding electrical power surges to incredible levels. Sulley nicknames the child "Boo" and becomes her caretaker until they can get her back home.

Sulley and Mike disguise Boo as a baby monster and return to Monsters, Inc. the next day. Mike attempts to get the right door to return Boo, but the doorkeeper, Roz, refuses due to Mike failing to return paperwork. Boo wanders off into the plant, with Sulley giving chase. They accidentally stumble upon Randall and his "scream extractor", a device that takes the screams directly from a child, which requires Randall to actually kidnap the child and bring them to the monster world. Sulley takes Boo and attempts to reveal Randall's actions to Waternoose, but is forced to demonstrate his scaring skills to new employees before he can do so. When he scares the robot subject, Boo becomes frightened of him, and is revealed as a human. Sulley tries to explain the situation to Waternoose, but comes to realize that Waternoose is actually in on the scream extractor plan, allowing Randall to develop it in order to keep Monsters, Inc. from going out of business. To keep them quiet, Waternoose orders Sulley and Mike exiled to the human world, and gives Boo to Randall to extract her screams to generate more power.

Sulley and Mike, stranded in the Himalayas, realize that Boo's life is in danger, and find a nearby Nepali village where they locate a door connected to Monsters, Inc. Scarefloor F (Mike and Sulley's work station). They are just in time to save Boo from the extractor, and attempt to catch Randall, eventually leading to a chase on and through the millions of doors in the door vault. They eventually triumph when Boo overcomes her fear of Randall and starts beating him with a Wiffle bat. Sulley throws him through a door, and then they smash the door to pieces to prevent him returning. The next scene shows a trailer in a Southern swamp, with Randall's silhouette passing by the window. A boy's voice calls "Hey ma! Another gator got in the house!" A woman answers, "Gimme dat shovel!" A great deal of whacking and bonking ensues as they drive Randall outside. Sulley, Mike, and Boo then lure Waternoose into a trap, forcing him to reveal his plan while they were recording it as to present the information to the CDA. Waternoose is arrested and Sulley is lauded as a hero, but Roz (revealed to be Agent 001 of the CDA) insists that Boo must return to her world and that her door be destroyed so that she cannot return. Sulley and Mike return Boo to her room and say goodbye to her, and watch sadly as the CDA put her door through a wood chipper, reducing it to splinters, one of which Sulley holds onto as a keepsake.

Sometime later, Sulley has become the CEO of Monsters, Inc., and has changed their approach - instead of scaring children, they make them laugh, which generates ten times more power, making both the monsters and children happy. Mike reveals a special project to Sulley - he has managed to rebuild Boo's door save the one piece Sulley kept, and invites him to finish it. Sulley places the last piece and enters the door, where Boo instantly recognizes him, much to Sulley's happiness.