[For those who haven't seen it yet: SPOILERS. A whole bunch. Like all of them. Proceed at your own risk.]
The storyline, in brief, retells the initial meeting of Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc., as they both begin the Scarer's Program at Monster's University (thus the name.) First they dislike each other, then they hate each other, then they end up as the BFFs they are at the beginning of the first film.
None of this is particularly surprising, which is probably why it will get a certain amount of lukewarm reviews from people looking for something more avaunt-guard. What I find very interesting is the method Pixar takes to get them to what we all know is a pre-determined ending.
[Real SPOILERS. Last chance.]
The crux of the tale revolves around two things: Mike's lifelong dream to become a Scarer, and the two frenemies' attempts to get reinstated after getting kicked out of the program. They go through a number of trials and tribulations and finally succeed!...
FAKE. They actually end up failing on both counts--they wind up booted from the University for good, and end up having to work their way up from menial jobs in the mailroom to the lofty Scarer team position they have at the beginning of Monsters Inc.
Worst still, however, is the realization Mike has to come to, that he is not, nor never will be, a Scarer. That all his hard work he has done throughout his life, all his hoping, isn't going to amount to a hill of beans in making him scary.
While he is initially devastated, he eventually recovers and learns to embrace a new role as Sully's Scarer Coach (which of course is also eventually rendered useless after the events of Monsters Inc.) We are sad for him, but not that sad, because we've already seen him all happy with his second-banana role in the future, and we know he'll eventually get his day in the sun when Monstropolis ultimately switches to less-traumatic laugh power.
What this doesn't change, is the fascinating way the whole story flies in the face of one of Disney's most cherished and misquoted aphorisms, "if you can dream it, you can do it." Clearly, Pixar seems to say, you can dream all you want, but sometimes it just isn't going to pan out...and what happens next? The lesson that Pixar would no doubt like us to carry away is that how you deal with failure is part of what defines you as a person, and that resiliency and hard work can lead you to a certain type of happiness, even if it isn't the happiness you thought you were seeking.
This kind of bluntly pragmatic philosophy, that not everyone has the potential to achieve their dreams, has actually been present in a number of Pixar's films in the past: Mr. Incredible and Dash both bitterly observe the fallacy that everyone in the world is "special," while Anton Ego marks that although everyone can cook, not everyone should. In Monsters University, however, we actually go from the premise that some people are superior to others in given fields, to the sad corollary that some people must then necessarily be inferior as well.
From a field like animation, which is largely considered (however wrong-headedly) to be geared towards children, I find this viewpoint singularly remarkable. Haven't we all been told that we can accomplish anything, as long as we work hard enough and want it bad enough? Wasn't that The Secret? Have we learned nothing from Barney?
For a long time I've thought that the essential conflicts in Pixar films mirror some of the issues the Brain Trust must be facing as they go through life and go from being the new, hotshot animation upstarts, to being ostracized for new ideas, to becoming part of an legacy institution, to dealing with problems of fatherhood and mortality. Now that they have become one of the preeminent animation studios of the world, it isn't hard to imagine the vast numbers of applications they must get from people desperate to work there, to become a part of the Pixar all-stars, and work each day on the Pixar Campus. It also isn't hard to imagine what a large proportion of those applicants are simply not skilled or talented enough to ever achieve a career in animation at all, let alone at Pixar. Perhaps this is, on some level, Pixar's response? You're not good enough. Not here, not now. That doesn't mean you can't achieve something in a different way, on a different path.
Maybe not everyone has to be special--maybe it's enough for everyone to work to fulfill their specific potential. Perhaps it's not so important that all Dreams Come True, as it is that we learn to enjoy the ones that do.
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