Here’s the latest trailer for Monsters University, which we expect we’ll be taking the kids to this summer. Monsters, Inc. was the first entry in this Pixar series, of course, and it came out in 2001. That means we can expect a few college students to be reliving their childhoods along with us. And, of course, we’re very happy that our kids have a chance to see some characters on the big screen that they first met on a humble DVD. Still, we have to recommend that you watch this new trailer with the volume turned high. We first watched it with the sound off, and saw enough scary creatures that we suddenly weren’t sure about taking our kids.
It really is better with the sound on, while you see that Pixar has taken this prequel as an opportunity to set up a kind of Harry Potter-styled world of aspiring magic. Or weirdness. Or scariness. We’re still not sure if this movie will be okay for younger kids. Maybe you have to make that judgment in the context of the movie, measuring scary imagery up against the amount of harmless laughs.
And don’t mock us too much for this, but we kind of wish Monsters University didn’t seem so much like Animal House. We’re pretty sure that’s even a tribute when Sully (that’s the big blue monster) trashes the guitar of a monster folksinger. We know Pixar isn’t going to turn Monsters University into a sex comedy, but we already feel like our children are being indoctrinated into some idea that college equals stupid antics. To be fair, it looks like there’s also some kind of Revenge of the Nerds angle going with the misfits of the Oozma Kappa fraternity house. That looks like an inspiring message. We’re still not in a hurry to sit our precious darlings down for a screening of Revenge of the Nerds, though. But check out the return of Sully and Mike, and decide for yourselves what your own darlings can handle…