Randall Boggs is the main antagonist of Monsters, Inc.

  1. When Waternoose banished Sulley and Mike when Randall made him do so, Mike told Sulley afterwards, “Too bad he (Waternoose) was in on the whole thing!”. If Waternoose was the mastermind, Mike would have said," Too bad he was behind the whole thing!".
  2. After Waternoose feels remorse for banishing his scarers, he tells Randall he never should have trusted him with the plan (meaning that Randall is behind everything) and that because of him, he had to banish Sulley. In response, Randall says they won’t need scarers with the Scream Extractor and that Sulley got what he deserved anyway. Offended and angered, Waternoose retorts that Sulley was twice the scarer Randall will ever be. After growling in frustration and irritation at Waternoose, Randall forces him to accept his plan and to stand back and watch
  3. When Waternoose told Randall to get Sulley, Randall was already enraged and prepared to attack anyway.
  4. When Waternoose told Randall there cannot be witnesses to Randall’s plan, Randall said in a sinisterly way that there won’t be, implying that he intends to betray (and possibly kill) Waternoose after Sulley and Mike.
  5. When Waternoose told Sulley that he and Boo have seen too much, he meant too much of Randall’s plan. Then when he said he had on choice but to make things be that way, it was most likely because Randall was forcing him and that Waternoose just wanted the company to keep going. When Sulley asked him about kidnapping children, Waternoose said he will kidnap a thousand children (meaning for Randall) before letting the company die and silence anyone who gets in his way (meaning for Randall’s plan).
  6. Randall is much more prominent in the first film as the villain since Waternoose’s antagonistic role is only revealed near the end. Also, Randall is more evil than Waternoose since his actions and disposition are more overtly malicious and he holds a personal grudge against the protagonists. However, unlike Randall, Waternoose would have preferred them not to get involved in Randall’s plan and thus, need to be eliminated.
  7. Steve Buscemi’s name is listed first before James Coburn in the villain list. Whereas, it probably would have been James Coburn first.
  8. Even CEOs and elderly people can be henchmen as they are just people and not some kind of gods or anything like that.

Is there some reason the Monsters fanbase seems to have trouble seeing the two as both being horrible people with equal responsibility for the plan, in it for themselves and begrudingly working together? The Randall fanbase spends its time twisting itself into knots trying to blame everything the guy does on Waternoose, whenever someone says Randall was the main guy they designate Waternoose to henchman status, neither of which the film supports. Can two adults not make evil plans together willingly?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, a lot of the points work, but they seem to go way too far the other way to try and make Waternoose an unwillingly participant and completely blameless (and that doesn’t work).

I feel compelled to point out that Mike isn’t really an authority on the whole thing. It’s kind of like if Carl Fredrickson commented on the relationship between Muntz and Alpha; he can guess, but he hasn’t really seen it.

I love this, just for the record. Like, it happens after the insult and death glare. It makes so much sense and I totally didn’t get it at first!

Wrong, Waternoose and Randall share the role of being an antagonist in the film. Waternoose’s intention of teaming up with Randall was to save his business from going under; Randall sought Sulley’s title of “Top Scarer”. Both had selfish intentions that led to their fitting punishments.

Actually, NO, Randall is NOT the main antagonist of MI except in the fact that he is the one chosen to primarily oppose the “heroes”, Mike and Sulley. In order for Waternoose to have “teamed up with Randall”, that would have meant that RANDALL was the one with the high rank within the corporation, but that clearly was not the case at all. I’ve worked for people like Waternoose. They do NOT share power; they control, they manipulate, they play people against one another to further their own agendas, and they do it very effectively. Randall was a nobody, literally. He had no power, no pull, no family name to fall back upon(unlike Sulley), and even from MU we see him basically shunned by society at large, an outcast. It is really absurd to think that someone of his status(or lack thereof), would actually be able to walk up to the CEO of any company and say, “look pal, I’ve got a plan to help me beat one of YOUR favorite co-workers in a competition that might help you look good for the Board of Directors, and you’re gonna go along with it whether you like it or not”. That is completely, absolutely illogical for anyone who has any first-hand knowledge of business and how things work on that infamous corporate ladder to think that way. That would honestly be like a Jr. High student strolling into the District Superintendent’s office and just ordering that person around. Waternoose was the CEO; HE was in charge over everyone at that company except the BOD, of which he would have been a member. MI was NOT Waternoose’s company, not anymore. The initials, “INC.” stand for “Incorporated”, which means it was a publicly-owned company. It might have been started by the Waternoose family, but it now belonged to share holders, and the top share holders would have made up the BOD. The BOD either hires a CEO or elects them from within their own ranks, but either way, they were unhappy with the company’s stock performance, and it was Waternoose’s job to see that the stocks did well. Failure to do this put him in hot water with them, and they had the power to terminate his position. The thought that the company his family had founded would no longer have a Waternoose at the helm was the reasoning behind HIS plan(yes, HIS). He had the motivation to do something risky and drastic to save face and turn the company around, thus retaining his position of authority within it; he just lacked the ability to do so. He needed someone who had that technological know-how, who was easily manipulated, and most of all, expendable-someone with no family or friends to leave behind if worst came to worst, no one to confide it, and the desire to prove themselves.

As for Randall, HIS motive had absolutely NOTHING to do with beating Sulley to the All-Time Scare Record; he even says so himself. To Randall, Sulley was a cheater, who got whatever he wanted and was loved by everyone simply because of his family name. Randall sees no difference between douche-bag MU Sullivan and his co-worker Sullivan. Knowing what he knew of Sulley in college, how Sulley had unfairly beaten him in the Scare Games by sabotaging Randall’s scare(and remember, Randall cannot see inside his opponent’s simulator room, so he has no clue that Sulley did not mean to knock him off the wall, nor does Sulley know that this in fact happened), how Sulley had treated Mike like a jerk, how Sulley had gotten away with showing up late to class, without any books, mind you…and no doubt Randall had learned of Sulley’s role in that cupcake incident, too. He has no reason to think that Sulley is anything BUT a lazy, privileged rich kid who gets whatever he wants and gets by with anything he does. MIKE actually sums up Randall’s feelings on Sulley very nicely out at the lake in MU, but Mike gets to learn the truth, while Randall never does. Now, Sulley has been named “Employee of the Month” for 11 months straight, out of what is likely hundreds and thousands of employees at that company. MI employed a total of 4,680 SCARERS in any one given day, and that is JUST Scarers, not counting the other employees, so the odds against any one employee getting “Employee of the Month” for 11 months straight are seriously stacked against that. It’s not going to happen without someone pulling some strings, someone is a high-ranking position. Randall would have been smart enough to know this. He just assumes, though, that it’s still Sullivan cheating his way to success, riding the coattails of his father, and that frustration is what makes him vulnerable to Waternoose’s suggestions. Waternoose needs a “techie” to build and design his machine; Randall needs to find a way to circumvent Sulley’s success. He needs to find a game that Sulley can’t play. He knows he is not going to beat a cheater in the Scare competition, because Sulley’s already proven(to Randall at least)that he’s going to use whatever means to get to the top. Randall’s goal is, in his own words, to “revolutionize the Scaring Industry”, to find SOMETHING at which he can be more successful and finally get the recognition and respect that has been eluding him for so long.

The other thing that people fail to take into account is, had it not been for the laws against bringing those horrible, deadly, toxic, disgusting human children into the Monster World, there would have been absolutely NOTHING illegal or unethical about the Scream Extractor. Those laws were not to protect human children, but to protect MONSTERS FROM human children! THAT was the only reason why anyone would have had a problem with that machine or how it worked, because bringing in human children to test it upon would have put monsters at risk. It had absolutely nothing to do with any concerns about “kidnapping” what the monsters considered to be just animals-useful animals, but still not “people” in any sense of the word. The non0thinkers simply assume that Randall should have felt the same way about human kids that WE do, and hate him because he didn’t, but fail to consider how many bad things MIKE wanted to do to her just to get rid of her, or that Sulley himself, even after realizing that she wasn’t going to kill him, still thought of her as an animal, treating her as one would treat a stray puppy, until he saw her drawings. I think that’s when it started to dawn on him that human kids were actually PEOPLE.

Now, is it possible for someone to be driven to the point of psychosis, to do something as horrific as try to kill a co-worker, by a manipulative boss? ABSOLUTELY! It’s far easier than you think to persuade someone to do “evil”, and ironically, the more a person considers themselves “good”, the easier it is. Google “Milgram Experiment”, although I’m sure many of you here think that you’re perfection personified and you would NEVER, ever do anything bad. I know from having been in Randall’s position myself just how easily someone like Waternoose can spot someone like Randall and take advantage of them without them even realizing it.

I’m going to end with some questions: how many of you are in favor of vigilantism? How many of you believe that any person should have the authority to punish any other person, as they see fit, without trial, without judge or jury, for whatever reasons? How many of you believe that any person should be able to punish YOU, in any way that they wish, if they believe you are “bad” or have done something against them? How many of you feel that laws against lynching-that is, the physical punishment or even killing of a person by two or more other individuals as punishment for something that individual did should be repealed, that this behavior should be allowed and encouraged?

pitbulllady