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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 07/27/2013 : 10:34:22
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I hope you are fortunate enough to see The Blue Umbrella, the 7 minute Pixar short which precedes Monsters University.
There's nothing particularly wrong with MU - well, nothing that a much funnier script might have fixed ... it's just that the sublime elegance, wit and poignancy of the short is so superior in every way.
Nutshelling - it's an urban tale of obstacle-strewn love between two inanimate objects. I think there's a clip on imdb to give you a taste.
Though very stylistically different, it's in the same ballpark as Pixar's delightful Paperman, and proves yet again that the studio is one of the most innovative around.
I know it's prob'ly unfair to compare a short and a feature. Shorts have no imperative to sustain anything, for starters. But the thought and care that's gone into the umbrella's conception and execution is testament that director Saschka Unseld and his team of creative filmmakers care passionately about what they do - without compromising for the sake of box-office returns.
Unseld cut his teeth on other Pixars after attending the Baden-W�rttemberg Film Academy in his native Germany. He's currently working on their next The Good Dinosaur. Remember his name, you'll be hearing lots more from him!
As for MU - I suspect it will be popular, but I also suspect it's lost its way ... from a marketing perspective. Monsters Inc had great appeal for tots because it's primarily they who can identify with conjuring up a world of scary monsters when the dark turns a scarf into a snake, and a beachball into a rolling horror.
The whole concept of anthropomorphizing these imaginary threats, creating a story for them and peppering it with giggles & guffaws, and including the children themselves was a winning combo.
But who's the point-of-identification in MU? Unless college kids are even dumber than we're led to believe, can what is essentially a kiddy film really sustain their interest? I doubt adults would seek this out if they didn't have kids in tow.
The premise itself is just so lame: hey kids, you like Mike & Sully, doncha? Well, here's a story of how they met and became pals. BIG FAT YAWN.
So - sure, all the talent's still there, with some extra added talent, too. But the best proof for me that it just wasn't working was what I call The Wriggle Test. If the kids in the audience are wriggling, and fidgeting, and talking throughout - nope, not a good sign.
There may or may not be another of these things - if so, they really better get back to basics and target the tots.
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 07/31/2013 : 07:03:07
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I have to say that I'm not at all interested in going to see Monster University. But these shorts - they're marvelous - each and everyone of them. If you ask me, Pixar could do worse than forgetting about doing a whole movie on one lame topic and instead putting out a collection of these shorts (maybe 6-7 pieces of 10-15 minutes each) bundled together. It worked for Fantasia, didn't it?
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Pixar short umbrella + Monsters University
