How Pixar Made A GREAT Twist Villain | Monsters Inc.

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]What are you willing to do for the greater good? To what lengths will you go to for what's necessary?

[00:00:07]For many of us, we have a set line in the sand for until where our morality would take us to achieve a goal or a necessity. We would work hard for money, but would never commit crimes for it. We would rather reach our dreams alone than to step on the backs of other people. we would stop the train altogether rather than turn its course to the poor soap who always seems to get tied up to the tracks. But I realize I keep saying we as if this is the standard when in truth everyone's needle for morality is in a spectrum. Some may have picked up a dollar bill that fell out of a person's pocket and decided not to tell them.

[00:00:45]Some may have snitched on a colleague to better their chances for a promotion.

[00:00:50]And some may have decided that they had enough of the same guy who keeps getting himself in moral dilemmas. And for them, that is acceptable, harmless, and would deem it a necessary evil. And that's where it gets interesting because if the line in the sand can be placed farther and farther out, when does it become too far gone?

[00:01:11]That is the basis for many stories, mostly for a character archetype called the paragon. characters whose morality is strict and believes that what they're doing is for the better good. The best example, of course, is Superman, a hero who believes in truth, justice, and the American way, the best boy scout.

[00:01:30]However, what happens if the same Paragon's rigid morality shifts just a little bit too far and they believe that justice is paid in blood? That, my friends, is what we'll be exploring for today's video. a video that proves that I do read your comments and if you suggest a villain enough, I will oblige to the best of my abilities because a few hours before this writing, I went back to an old favorite of mine, a movie that I haven't watched since I was a kid, and I'm surprised at how well it held up. Of course, it's now mostly known for the memes, but I think Monsters Inc. is an incredible movie that has an amazing story and even more amazing characters. And this is the Bornup channel. You all know I have to talk about its villains. And though the movie has two of them, I want to focus on one of them for now and leave Randall Keith Orton for a different video.

[00:02:26]Today, my friends and that one person who supports my channel. I want to talk about one of the granddaddies of Pixar's twist villains. a villain that is still today a great example of the archetype and a villain that is scarcely replicated today by even Pixar themselves. Today, my friends, let's talk about the Arachnid CEO himself, Mr. Water News.

[00:02:54]If there is one thing to say about Pixar movies, it's that they create the best stories out of the big animation studios. Dreams may have them beat in villains and Disney is well Disney, but no one can deny that old Pixar movies have that oomph that nobody else does better. And I think one of the reasons for that is that every character is given significance to the plot. Nothing feels out of place and that is especially true with Mr. Water News. He is the CEO of Monsters Incorporated, an energy company that supplies power all throughout Monstropolis. As monsters, they get said energy through harvesting children's screams. We get introduced to him pretty early on in the film and immediately he exudes both presence and hints of conflict. What I mean by that is through him we are told of the first main conflict of the film that energy production is at an all-time low because of the lack of new competent scarers and the increasing difficulty to scare children. Because of this, Mr. Water news has the board of directors breathing down his neck and that the company is about to go bankrupt and this gives the character both conflict and motive an active part of the story. And that's the first point that I would like to talk about for Mr. Water News as a character. It's that he is an actual character and doesn't feel like just another device for the plot. For most movies like this, the boss character might as well be a background character, often relegated as the final goal for the protagonist or just a name plate on the table that gets mentioned here and there. But for Mr. Water News, I appreciate the movie for giving him time to interact with other characters to be allowed depth and a place in the story.

[00:04:43]Our first impression of him is that he is almost a grandfatherly figure to the monsters, maintaining professionalism, but also that familial warmth, especially towards Sully, his company's top performer. I love the banter and the dialogue between the two. It was full of that delight you'd see with an old man and a son, and it was genuine. It didn't feel forced or any hints of something darker beneath. And that's an important characteristic for Water News to have because for us watching this video 25 years after the movie's release, we all know that Water News is not all that good of a guy. I think there is an art for making a twisted villain believable.

[00:05:24]How every line of dialogue and appearance has a fine line it should tread to not be overly obvious or too hidden. because the former runs the risk of the twist being too boring and almost well cringey and the latter can make the twist too out of left field for it to make sense. Water News just hit the right spot because his personality and appearance felt natural. He isn't too good to be true that we all have the feeling that he's secretly a villain or is he too subtle that his true personality and potential as a character would have been compromised. He can be warm and kind, yes, but he also shows frustration, annoyance, and even cold authority. And this balance keeps him from tipping over to one side. His design as well leads credence to his balance. Though, yes, he looks absolutely creepy with his multiple eyes and spider legs. It's a story about monsters, so that's part for the course.

[00:06:22]What I'm talking about is his shape. And if you've watched my other videos, you know I've harped about these design elements a lot. So, pop-up quiz for my subscribers. What are the primary shapes present in Water News's silhouettes?

[00:06:37]That's right, circles. And what do rounder edges mean? Yes, he friended.

[00:06:44]For most of the movie, we get to see Water News in closer shots, and the prevailing shape we see are the circles.

[00:06:51]This subtly nudges us towards a more positive disposition against him. Pair that with his demeanor and we really don't get much hints to him being a villain. But to be honest, that's not the main thing that made him undetectable as a twist villain. It's because he's paired with an actual apple. Now, this is not a new method to hide your twist villain nowadays. God knows how they try. And God knows how hard I'm trying right now not to drag you know who into this video again. But back in the day, this was still a fresh trope. And I think Pixar being a pioneer, they made this dynamic work the best because Pixar knows how to make a hatable that steals our attention and really divert our expectations. Randall was the perfect front for both the audience and in the in universe story. We see him be outwardly antagonistic and downright evil. How he kidnapped Buu to extract her screams, which we all know is the Disney way of saying they're going to torture a child. This was the second main conflict of the story, how the protagonists try to rescue Buu from the clutches of this chameleon. Now the two main conflicts have a small through line and at the back of our mind there is that cold logic cutting through Randall's greed for power that this is an efficient way to supply power for Monstropolis. However, it is done through cruel and inhumane means to kidnap children and traffic them just to heat up the shower or light the apartment. Of course, Randall doesn't care about any of that and just wants to be the top scarer. So, how does Mr. Water News react to this? Well, he was outwardly appalled by it, showing care and gentleness towards Buu when Sully told him about the whole scheme. Of course, he's the CEO. Doing shady things like that just to up the profit and save the company is not what a CEO does.

[00:08:52]>> My grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. Watching this movie now as an adult, even with the knowledge of its story, I think it's pretty clear that we all automatically assume that the CEO of a company has inherent evil within him because, well, that's the real world. For once, our adult cynicism is correct. In one of the best villain reveal scene in animated movie history, Mr. Water news reveals himself as the villain as he banishes the two monsters to the Himalayas and it's fantastic. So sit your ass down people because I want to yap about why. The reason why Mr. Water News's reveal worked is not because it was surprising but because it made sense and tied the movie all together. That's what's missing with a lot of villain reveals nowadays. They feel like just another obstacle they put into the movie halfway instead of building the plot all around it. Mr. Water News being in on the trafficking scheme or even being the mastermind behind it filled in plot holes instead of creating them. Why did Randall have so much power and technology to enact this plan? Because he had to go from the boss himself. Why is he not scared like the other monsters when there was a 2319 and he acted more frustrated than relieved when the CDA arrived? Well, at first we thought it would be a blow to their production. But having revealed this information, we learned that he doesn't fear contamination because he knows that children are harmless and he instead is frustrated because he has to swat away these agents prying on his company and turning them away from the crime he's committing. The very scene of him just picking up Buu without fear when he explicitly says how dangerous they were also shows us that he knew this all along and that he always had this habit of fear-mongering for manipulation. It's information like this that we don't get to enjoy from the first watch and this is one of the main reasons for having a twist. Another thing that made him such an effective twist is that he didn't do a complete 180 character change. We always knew that he was a threat being a monster and all. We even see him vasilli kamotskying sully near the end. But above all of that, we knew that he built the company with strictness and fear. Like the very first scene where he demonstrated the power of children's screams. He established himself as someone to not mess with. What the twist added was the full extent of this personality of his.

[00:11:26]He didn't turn from smiling papa to a pokerface bad guy. He was still the same person. To hammer this home, he didn't even go with the old trope of I've always hated you towards silly. In fact, he was actually saddened that he had to do that to the monster that he genuinely loved and respected, a monster that helped his company for years. And I love that he absolutely hates Randall. And he made it clear that what they're doing was nothing more than a business partnership. To him, Randall was simply the frontman both in universe and to us the audience, which was hinted to us in this scene where he literally was in front of Water News's portrait. The best thing about Water News, though, is that he doesn't see himself as the bad guy, that all he's doing was for the good of the company. All throughout the film, we were given dialogue on how he puts the company first. Not in the way that he would sacrifice his employees, but he did say in one line that he would do anything, which in hindsight basically sticks a big red flag on top of his head. I love that deep down he has a good cause to save his company and to provide energy to adapt in times of necessity, but the methodology is just plain wrong. Now, I'll let you guys be the judge of that in the comments. It's just that my morality points towards the side where we don't traffic kids for profit. Overall, there is not much else to say about Water News. He doesn't really get all that much screen time, but his appearances are frequent enough to make us actually care about the character and be stabbed in the heart enough that he's a no good CEO. So, yeah, that's all I have to yap about him. So, please leave a like and subscribe if you like the video and be on the lookout for the next one.