Plot Versus Character

One of my Disney/Pixar secrets is that I actually quite like Monsters University. In fact, in some ways, I think it’s better than Monsters Inc. That is, I’m aware, a heck of a hot take. This isn’t even to say that I think Monsters Inc. is a bad movie. It’s not. It’s a lot of fun, and it has an engaging story. And I freely admit that the story of Monsters University is less so. However, what I find interesting about it is the character development in it. It’s the portrait of someone who discovers that they just aren’t good at what they always wanted to do, who internalizes that and learns what they actually do well instead.

Books and movies can be a lot of things. They can be stories. They can be propaganda pieces. They can be ways of processing feelings. They can be portraits of a person. There are a lot of ways to tell a story, and some of them are more about a character than about what that character does. Some of my favourite stories are more about the development of a person, and while they do things, the things they do are just intended to show who they are and how they’re changing.

Movies are, I suppose, a more visual, concentrated storytelling method than books. Whether they’re more visceral or not, that depends on how you process things. Still, I can understand to a certain extent being frustrated with a by-the-numbers plot that just advances who a character is. This isn’t even intended to be a snobby “well, you’re a commoner who wants to watch things go boom.” This is just vibing differently with different purposes of storytelling. Not being into character studies is fine.

The problem I have is where you act as though there is an inherent value to your preferred version, which is one of the ways you can tell I’m not being a snob about the whole thing. Honestly it’s been a while since I’ve seen either Monsters movie, though I fully agree that University is a bit of a bog-standard “slobs vs. snobs” comedy. I just find it frustrating that I can see how it’s clearly intended as a framework for telling something specific and it gets dismissed as just being bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I actually believe there’s such thing as objective quality in a movie. However, I think there’s a lot more that’s subjective. The animation of the two movies is similar. The scores are of similar quality. Obviously there are plenty of skilled voice actors in both. The things I think of as objective are much alike. What I like about University over Inc. is the subjective bits. You’re absolutely allowed to watch Inc. better, and I can tell you things I really like about it, some more subtle than others. But let me have my silly monsters character study without shame!