Enjoyed it. More to the point the kids enjoyed it -- came out of the cinema roaring and hissing at one another, trying out scaring moves. Very excited. Mind you, they'd eaten four point eight metric tonnes of sugar each over the course of the afternoon; so that helped. Me, I couldn't shake the sense of vague disappointment about the movie (hardly any, really! It's funny, clever and endearing, with stuff for both grown-ups and younglings). I'm not really sure why my appointment was dis, in this instance. Hmm.
One thing: I fretted about the imprecision with which the conceit transfers from metaphor to real life. I appreciate that this is precisely the sort of thing that worries nobody but me, but I can't help that. So: 'MU' Monsters University is a kind of BU, Boston University. One other institution of higher education is mentioned, 'Fear Tech', which is I suppose a version of Cal Tech (we don't get to see it, so it's hard to be sure). Fair enough. But, given that this an entire alternate dimension populated exclusively by monsters, endowing a institution called "Monsters University" is rather like calling a North American school "Humans University". ("Where did you study?" "I got a degree from Humans University" "Is that like the University of Life?" "More like the School of Hard Knocks").*
More worryingly, all the subjects studied at this school relate to the 'scream' technology, by which electricity is generated in the United States of Monsterica. I work at a university. If all our courses, without exception, related directly to the generation of electricity, I suspect the syllabus would be too narrow really to match Newman's Idea of a University. And I suppose a human version of "Fear Tech" would be "Coal Technical College". Which sounds a grubby sort of place to study.
---
*Not to be confused with the German Sour Vintner Training Centre, 'The Scool of Knarled Hocks'. Thank you. I'm here all week. Try the veal.
Given that the major energy generating organisation in this world is called "Monsters, Inc", maybe it's a corporate university, designed to train staff members of that specific company?
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the movie? There's an early scene where a young Mike W. visits Monsters Inc, and meets workers: some are graduates of Monsters University, and some of Fear Tech.
ReplyDeleteI think your second point answers your first. Fear Tech put me less in mind of Cal Tech than somewhere like Texas A&M (although apparently its name has always been misleading). That is to say, it is a vocational institute. Which would make sense as Mike and Sulley are less monsters in the way we are humans and more in the way that some of us are miners.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing it used to be something like "Monstropolis University of the Monstrosities", which under a conservative administration was then privatized, rebranded, and stripped of all those airy-fairy arts-and-monstrosities subjects in favor of straight up STEM (scaring, terror, _effrayage_ and menace).
ReplyDelete