Waternoose was a prime example of "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Yes, there was a matter of family pride for him in MI. His family had founded the company, after all, and since that time there'd been a Waternoose at the helm. HOWEVER, the fact that company included the term, "Incorporated" in its official name meant that now it no longer belonged to any one individual or family, but to stock holders, as a publicly traded company. Henry J. Waternoose III was just the CEO, and while that was a position of power and authority, even HE had to answer to the Board of Directors, which would have been made up of the people who owned and controlled the most stocks in the company. They had the authority to hire or fire anyone as CEO. The company would NOT have "gone under", no matter what Waternoose claimed as his reasoning for doing what he did. That's not how publicly traded utilities function. It could have either declared bankruptcy, and been allowed to work out its financial difficulties that way, and many companies that we're familiar with here in the Human World have in fact done that, yet they are still around, still viable. OR, it could have been bought out and taken over by another utilities company, like Fear Co. The only difference that the customers would have seen had that happened would be a different logo on their monthly utilities bills once the take-over was complete. That also happens, every day, in the utilities market. The company that provides people in our area with electricity has changed hands many times during my lifetime and has gone through some rough economic times as well, but not once has it simply shut down and left customers without electricity. That claim was simply a ruse by Waternoose to justify his attempts to remain in power indefinitely. He was already on thin ice with the BOD, as he indicates to Sulley during their conversation on the Scare Floor at the coffee machine. They had probably given him a ultimatum to get his act together, or face being voted out as CEO and replaced, and that was simply unthinkable. He could not accept the possibility that for the first time since its inception, the company his grandfather had founded would no longer have a Waternoose occupying a position of power. He was not trying to "save the company", just his own job, and the bad thing was, he was willing to use anyone in order to make that a reality. He was using Randall, of course, to design and build that Scream Extractor, knowing fully well that he was taking advantage of Randall's weakness, his desire to please someone he looked up to and an even greater desire to finally be recognized and accepted, instead of being ignored. I also have no doubt that Waternoose was taking advantage of Sulley, as well, deliberately playing him and Randall against one another, and probably doing some behind-the-scenes tweaking of the Scare Board numbers to make sure that Sulley, not Randall, got on the top of the board and stayed there. Note that when Sulley and Randall both fill their respective Scream canisters to the maximum, Sulley gets 100 points for doing so, while Randall only gets 75. That would be like a teacher grading two students' tests, identical tests, in which both students got all of the answers correct, and giving one student a 100, an A+, while giving the other student a 75, a D, even though both had the exact same answers! Waternoose also makes a point of publicly praising and recognizing Sulley for his accomplishments, while ignoring Randall, as we see when he praises Sulley for "just happening" upon a "slumber party", while he says absolutely nothing to Randall for having actually, albeit briefly, topped the Scare Board. Randall was actually just a few points behind Sulley, and when you consider that Randall did NOT have a "friend in high places" to help him out, nor did he even have a competent and helpful assistant, as Sulley did, AND in addition to his regular full-time job, he also had that little side project of Waternoose's, that is really a pretty remarkable feat in and of itself. But Randall gets no real recognition at all, as all the glory and praise go to Sulley. That was no accident. Waternoose was smart, and he had not gotten where he was by not knowing people and knowing how to manipulate others to his advantage. He knew that Randall was desperate to be recognized for his accomplishments, he knew that Randall was fundamentally an honest individual who despised cheaters, who would NOT normally have been willing to take such a huge risk by doing something as illegal as bringing in those "deadly" human children to extract their Screams. To get Randall to that point, where he'd be willing to risk everything just to gain what most people take for granted, Waternoose had to make sure that Randall could NOT get that recognition and respect and acceptance by any other means. Waternoose has to keep Randall from getting too deep in his "comfort zone", in other words, by simply performing his regular job, and to make sure that Randall could NOT get what he wanted, Waternoose had to make sure that SOMEONE else did, and who better than someone Randall already knew and distrusted as a cheater, someone with a big-shot family name behind him? Waternoose was pretending to be a close friend of Sulley, cultivating the "cronyism", while using him just as he was using Randall. Any truly concerned boss would have noticed tensions growing between the two long before things escalated to that point where the movie starts out, and taken measures to prevent things from getting worse, like putting Randall and Sulley on different Scare Floors, and would have noticed Randall's mental and emotional state deteriorating long before HE got to that point, and insisted on him getting some sort of help. There is no way that any company would have hired Randall in the first place if he'd acted like that when he first applied, and if they did, they would not have kept him for long! That really indicates to me that when he first went to work at MI, his demeanor and attitude and behavior was still friendly and he was able to work well with others, and that whatever lead to his "meltdown" happened well AFTER he went to work at MI. His justifiable anger at being beaten in MU in the Scare Games was a one-time reaction, not a complete and permanent change of character, as many have suggested. I dare anyone to claim that they would not be angry, hurt or upset themselves if THEY were beaten by someone they believed had been cheating, especially if they believed that the cheater had gotten away with that just because of their family name and reputation!
The other indicator that shows that Waternoose was not the sweet old guy just looking out for the company's best interests is the fact that he kept a door specifically for the purpose of "banishing" anyone who got in his way. Banishment, from what logic tells me, was not something that just any monster could do to another monster they believed had slighted them in some way. It was, rather, a punishment handed down by a court, by a jury or judge, following a trial, upon being indicted for a very serious crime. We know that they DID have a legal/judicial system, as indicated by Mike's comment to a co-worker about "how was jury duty" early in the movie. It makes no sense that every monster could simply thrown someone into the Human World for whatever reason they felt justified that; had that been the case, their world would have lawless chaos, and clearly that was not the case. Not only that, but if any monster had the right to do that to anyone else, their world would have emptied out pretty fast, and OUR world would facing one heckuva population explosion! There'd be as many monsters as humans living here! So no, Waternoose did not legally own that door leading to the Himalayas. That was his way of silencing his enemies, his version of cement shoes and a really deep lake. While I don't consider him "evil", I do consider him largely amoral, incapable of really empathizing those he was taking such advantage of, able to pretend to be someone's friend and father figure in order to gain their trust, so he could use them as he saw fit. Workers like Randall and Sulley were no more than pawns on a chessboard to him. I would not put anything past him to try to regain that power, to keep his family name associated with the company...or to stay out of prison. All three-Mike, Sulley and Randall(most ESPECIALLY Randall)-can testify against him in a court, and the more first-hand witnesses can come forward with information to support the allegations against Waternoose, the more likely it is that he'll get convicted and sentenced. That taped "confession" probably WON'T be admissible as evidence, since any decent attorney will claim that it was made under duress, or was not made by an arresting officer, or it could have found a large magnet inconveniently placed next to it in the Evidence Room, so that would leave just first-hand witnesses. We have all seen how powerful, wealthy individuals have gotten off of seemingly "Velcro" like serious charges, after all. Randall, out of the three witnesses, would know the most, and since Waternoose is the "Big Fish" here, the one likely to garner the most "feathers in the cap" of a prosecuting DA, the prosecution would be more than happy to cut a deal with him in exchange for having that "Big Fish" in their proverbial pan. Lacking his testimony especially, Waternoose could very well be acquitted of all charges.
NOW, the CDA...they scared me in the first movie, and I DON'T mean because they're monsters, either. To me, they are not "good guys" at ALL. Even back when MI was first released, some people were mentioning a rather disturbing comparison between them and our newly-formed Dept. of Homeland Security, and how the CDA was keeping information from the public and how the mantra of their leadership was "always watching. The similarities now, between them and the NSA, are rather disturbing, how both use fear and disinformation to control the populace. If I was to write a sequel, THEY would be the real "bad guys", not Randall, nor even Waternoose. They know that Sulley had harbored a human child,and probably know that he illegally threw another monster into the Human World, so now they've got "dirt" on him that they can use against him any time they choose to do so...and now, he's the CEO of the company. That gives the CDA frightening leverage over a giant of a corporation in the utilities industry. As for the "energy crisis" being solved by the discovery that Laugh energy is more powerful than Scream, that's probably going to lead to a short-term positive economic "bubble", but bubbles burst eventually. What's going to happen to all those Scarers, Scare professors, etc., who either cannot make that transition to becoming Comics, to making children laugh, or who refuse to do so? I can't see Johnny Worthington, for example, humiliating himself night after night, throwing pies in his own face or doing other silly things, just to get some four-year-old brat to laugh at him, can you? I would guess that majority of Scarers, in fact, can't cut it as Comics. It is still easier to scare someone than it is to make them laugh, as fear is still a deeply-ingrained primal response. What's gonna happen when all those Scarers are now out-of-work, unemployed, not making money, not spending money and putting it back into the economy?
pitbulllady
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Onholyservicebound
11 years ago
Brevity is the soul of wit Putbulllady, I read most of these posts and your analyses seems spot on, but this wall has to be in the quadruple digit word count, there's a reason that essays have a word limit...
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