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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 31, 2012 22:24:37 GMT -5
It's definitely not SgtYayap, since I know him on the other forum and also on FB....although I have never heard of him refer to himself as Brandon so I'm surprised you guys think that's him. The Brandon I'm talking about is the one who was really really really really into Randall back on the really old forum. I actually did used to have him as a friend on one of the old chat features too....ICQ or one of those old chat things that people no longer use. I know some people didn't get along with him and some of the stuff he said would come off as over the top to a lot of people. I never had a problem with him though. I try to accept that people are different and get along with them. Oh, THAT Brandon. Nope, have not heard from him since the original board(didn't know you'd been around then, actually). He left when I joined. We never had any exchange, but due to his treatment of Randall's female fans, and one in particular who was at that time a good friend of mine, I laid down the law when I joined and let anyone know that yes, I DID find Randall to be very attractive, and no, I was NOT a young girl who'd run off crying if some jealous and possessive admirer, male or female, decided to give me grief about it. He hung around on the poetry part of the board writing love poems to Randall for a little while, then left, either because he found a new fandom or whatever. I know he really hurt one of my friends for simply admitting that she found Randall attractive; she was young and fairly new to message boards and wasn't expecting to be attacked like that, least of all by a guy who seemed to think that he had the sole right to find Randall attractive. I mean, a LOT of people do find Randall to be physically attractive, so there's no point in anyone, male or female, trying to claim sole possession over that opinion. I don't have an issue with it; in fact I love the fact that so many others feel the same way I do because it vindicates MY beliefs and makes ME feel a bit less strange for finding a 12-foot-long scaly MONSTER to be hot. pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 31, 2012 12:26:14 GMT -5
Which "Brandon" are you referring to, since we've had more than one. Is this the Brandon whose user name was "SgtYayap" or another Brandon? If it's the former, he's still on Deviant Art and also on the other Randall Board, "Winds of Change". I don't know about the other one, since he never came to this board that I'm aware of.
pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 27, 2012 22:55:31 GMT -5
It's a little stretching that the response is based solely on Randall... But still, it's good to get some applause and heh, hooting in the general sense hm hm. ComicCon? Really? Huh...wonder if there were discussions on that awful (story-wise for the most part, visually it's way better) BOOM! comic series... The "boisterous applause and fanatic hooting" was due to the last announcement, which was that Steve Buscemi would be returning as Randall, not to the announcement that Billy Crystal and John Goodman would be reprising their respective roles. The mention of Randall's return was what sparked the reaction. There was no mention of BOOM! comics at all in the line-up at last year's ComicCon. pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 27, 2012 15:21:12 GMT -5
Found this quote on a blog which described the MU/Pixar panel at last summer's ComicCon in San Diego, CA:
"Billy Crystal and John Goodman will be returning as Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan, plus even Steve Buscemi as Randall. This last announcement received rather boisterous applause and fanatic hooting from panel attendees."
Says it all, doesn't it?
pitbulllady
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Hi <3
Dec 25, 2012 23:54:59 GMT -5
Post by pitbulllady on Dec 25, 2012 23:54:59 GMT -5
Yeah that is an interesting point. And also Randall is not the first reptile in a Disney movie to be shown negatively, I remember there were both snakes in The Jungle Book and the cartoon version of Robin Hood where the snakes were bad or working with the main villain. There's probably more then that but they are the ones that first come to my mind. I think that the villainesses in both The Rescuers movies had reptiles as minions, alligators in the first one and a monitor lizard in the second "Down Under" version, so again, reptiles were associated with someone bad. Even though Randall is not biologically a reptile, as he has to be endothermic, he's still scaly and has a lot of physical characteristics that are associated with snakes and some lizards, like the forked tongue and sharp teeth and his ability to cling to walls and constrict, so those things alone are going to make a lot of people hate him, no matter what he does. pitbulllady
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Hi <3
Dec 25, 2012 18:36:21 GMT -5
Post by pitbulllady on Dec 25, 2012 18:36:21 GMT -5
Welcome to the boards, Ashley! I agree with what the others have said, though to be fair, the film doesn't make it glaringly obvious that Randall is a 'henchman'. Sure, there are moments later on in the film when it becomes clear (Waternoose ordering Randall to go get Sulley and Mike just after Randall was knocked out comes to mind) but the audience does spend a fair bit of the movie assuming Randall to be the 'main' villain, and even when it is revealed that he isn't, it's not like the focus shifts immediately to Waternoose- there's still the whole door chase and so on, and so I can completely understand why so many people think of Randall as a villain. (Not saying you in particular, but just in general. ) And yes, I think I can speak on behalf of everyone here that we, too, are all very excited about getting to see him again in MU. Squeeee! Yeah I was actually just thinking about this earlier.....a lot of people end up seeing Randall as the main villain simply because this film is one of those rarer cases where they actually feature a henchman more than they do the main villain. AND, while I know that there are people who adamantly disagree with me on this, the fact that Randall is scaly and reptile-like DOES play a big part in how many people perceive him! So many people dislike, or even outright hate, reptiles, that even just seeing Randall, not knowing what he was doing or how he behaved, was enough to convince them that he was bad. I know one of the former members here actually left the board due to my insistence on this point, which she refused to believe, and in fact she refused to believe that people in general have ANY fear or dislike of reptiles, no more so than they have for cats, dogs, bunny rabbits, etc., which is ludicrous. My calling out the cowards on Deviant Art who kill snakes and lizards out of such spite and hate/fear, and then post their bloody, mutilated bodies accompanied by boasts as though they'd saved the world actually made some folks leave this board because they saw nothing wrong with people doing that to a defenseless animal, or anything wrong with hating something that badly simply because it wasn't furry. Even TVTropes.com has a category, "Reptiles Are Abhorrent" for a reason, because that's how many people feel, and many movie and tv studios capitalize on that. This, coupled with the fact that Randall is the one who actually has to "get his hands dirty" in directly dealing with the protagonist, Sulley, firmly cements in most people's mindsets that he, rather than Waternoose, is the primary villain. Waternoose mostly just orders others around but only gets physical himself after Randall has been eliminated, and he's clearly used to using others to do his dirty work so he will come off smelling like a rose. This obviously wasn't the first time he'd done that either; he had a lot of experience with this sort of underhandedness, and who knows how many bodies, both literal and figurative, lay around due to him and his family, but he'd been raised knowing how to cover his tracks and how to keep those around him who were expendable, on whom blame could always be put when things didn't go as planned. Randall was one of those individuals. I even recently saw a "Disney Villains" Wiki in which it's stated that RANDALL hired WATERNOOSE...yes, a Scarer, a mere employee not even near the top of the corporate "totem pole", hiring the freakin' CEO of a large company! I mean, how asinine is THAT? That would be even more absurd than ME, a teacher who brings home less than 30k per year, hiring the state's Superintendent of Education to do something illegal for MY benefit! People are still willing to believe that, though, that Randall was in charge of this powerful CEO, forgetting such lines as Waternoose telling Randall, "I never should have trusted YOU with this"! pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 25, 2012 12:14:19 GMT -5
Definitely with you on the scare potential matching thing, mintygreen- I bet it'd be really easy to manipulate this 'system' or change the algorithm or whatever that they use to make it in Sulley's favour, and to disadvantage Randall. I know we've always assumed that Randall is a fair bit younger than Mike and Sulley- I think most tend to place Randall as being in his mid-20s in the film, and Mike and Sulley being in their early to mid-30s- but I didn't realise there was actually a book stating their age, so that changes things. In context of MU, it would make sense for them to all be the same age, but as we've all already said, Randall just looks so young in that picture... BMI would mean even less in the Monster World, haha, considering the different shapes and sizes of monsters. For example with Randall, his body shape means that height is a pretty meaningless measure. Plus if you go by that advert that's in the newspaper that Roz is reading in MI ('gain 1,000 pounds in two weeks!', or something like that, haha), it seems to be more 'fashionable' or 'attractive' for monsters to be fatter. (Though Mike does make fun of Sulley's size at several points in the film...Hmm.) But yes, I agree with you; Randall is a naturally skinny guy, probably one of those guys who couldn't put weight on even if he wanted to. He suits being skinny. ;D There are very young people who get accepted into college due to their extremely high IQ. One of my father's college classmates was only 14; he'd aced every known exam and just skipped high school, basically. His IQ was off the charts, but the problem was, he still ACTED like a typical 14 year-old kid, emotionally, and soon dropped out of college because he couldn't deal with the pressure. Randall is no doubt extremely intelligent, so it's possible that he was able to skip at least some of his high school years and go to college much earlier than most kids. It is also possible that he's not enrolled in the university at all, officially, that he's the offspring of another character/staff member, that he's part of some special accelerated learning program for really smart kids(many colleges offer those, especially during the summer), or even a foster kid that Squishy's mom(the one who actually owns the frat house where Mike and Sulley wind up pledging, the one for "nerds")takes care of. I guess we won't know until the movie is out, but seriously Randall doesn't look like an 18-year-old in that pic. He just looks like a middle-schooler. I've often said that Waternoose was intentionally manipulating either the doors, or the Scare Board, to favor Sulley, behind-the-scenes, and since we know that he had Randall working on a very top-secret, bound-to-be-controversial, and at that time, illegal, project for him, he'd naturally have to be concerned with Randall losing interest or giving up or worse, threatening to tell the authorities. Waternoose knew that if Randall got complacent, if he was able to achieve on the Scare Floor what it took to earn him the respect and admiration he so desperately sought, that he might easily lose the motivation to work on the Scream Extractor. Waternoose knew that in order to keep Randall from doing any of those things, he could not allow the Scarer to get into his "comfort zone". He had to keep Randall frustrated by making sure that no matter how hard he worked, no matter what he did, he could never top the Scare Board for long and never really catch up with Sullivan. If he did, he might decide that the Scream Extractor was just too risky and try to back out of the deal, with him being able to get what he wanted just with his regular job. Unable to achieve what he wanted to on the Scare Floor, Randall would have thought that the Scream Extractor would provide him with all the admiration and fame and financial success he'd want and render the whole Scream competition a moot issue, so even if Sulley DID succeed in breaking the All-Time Scream Record, it would no longer mean much if Scarers became an anachronism, like the cowboys of the American West. pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 25, 2012 11:52:22 GMT -5
Yep, that's the one! Scales all over, not just on the top, with nice bright turquoise detailing on his back.
As for that sculpture to which RB referred, I remember it now. It was one of the Sculpey "mock-ups" that are actually used by the animators in making their 3-D digital images of the characters as a reference, so it was truly one-of-a-kind, making it all the more valuable. Still, it sold for higher than the other character mock-ups being offered, which should say something about Randall's popularity.
pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 24, 2012 19:14:56 GMT -5
Actually Randall plushies have been high selling on such sites, like Ebay. And outside plushness, I will never forget that Randall sculpture that was bid on several times and finally was sold for $1000 bucks. That's right folks, somebody brought something of Randall for a one THOUSAND dollars. Wasn't that the "Slithery Scarer" figurine, which is just a few inches tall? Yeah, anything with Randall, especially if it's a good, detailed likeness, is going to sell and sell high, too. There's not a lot of it in relation to the demand. pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 24, 2012 19:06:08 GMT -5
Scarers, especially those that do well, do get fame, more than energy collectors in our world due to Scareing having such a large impact on monster culture... However, money doesn't change much. You have several energy collection buildings ranging on thousands of collectors, the big cats (literally? *snickers*) aren't going to cough up more dough to pay their mass of workers unless they critically excel. I'm not sure about free stuff from random citizens...but there is something close enough. Free or discounted service. You think Sullivan managed to get reservations at Harry Hausens (for Wazowski and Celia) because he's a regular? (honestly think Sullivan goes to classy places all the time?) I honestly do not think Sullivan or Wazowski was aware of things being manipulated. Sullivan just did his job as normal, and Wazowski doesn't question things when he gets up on a pedestal (at least next to Sullivan). Randall, though, probably knew SOMETHING was going on...he was tired and the like working on the Extractor, but he still worked and got his canisters filled but it didn't seem to matter. And after, at the very least, MONTHS of this...it's kind of frustrating when your the only one to notice something was up. Good point on the restaurant thing. I highly doubt Sulley is a regular there....it doesn't even feel like the kind of place he'd go out to eat at honestly. It does seem like he is able to get in just because of who he is....and that's how he got Mike in. Yeah, it is too bad that Randall doesn't get the same treatment, especially because he really is only barely behind Sulley all the time in scare points. Considering that Sulley broke the scare record and Randall was only barely behind that....Randall is still clearly one of the very top scarers the company has ever had in it's existence(and it has existed for pretty long at least because we know that Waternoose says its' been in his family for 3 generations so it must have existed for quite a while). It's completely horrible how Randall gets treated. Oh by the way about the leaked photo of him from MU that got out....considering that he's really thin in that picture too, I don't actually feel like he's lost weight from his job at MI. He's stressed, yeah, but I think he's obviously just naturally really skinny. Just thought I'd mention it since I recall some people here thinking he's thin due to stress and that he's not normally that skinny. Sulley DIDN'T break the Scare Record, actually. The whole process of scaring was derailed by the events in the movie before he could do that, and the factory switched over to Laugh energy. Sulley and Randall were both close to breaking it at the start of the movie, but neither succeeded, so "Fangs" McDonald's record still stands, at this factory at least. But yeah, it's bad how Randall gets shafted in this movie. Like RB pointed out, when both he and Sulley fill their Scream canisters to capacity, Sulley gets 100 points and Randall only gets 75...now what's UP with THAT hot mess? And Sulley "just happens" on a slumber party? Yeah, riiiight. And of course there's that whole "Employee of the Month" for 11 months straight... not SCARER, mind you, but EMPLOYEE, period. I'd figured up the odds once of any one employee doing out, based on the number of the Scarers only, since it is quoted here on this site somewhere from the "Monsters, Inc. Employee's Manual", and for Sulley to have achieved that was actually greater than the odds of winning the Powerball Jackpot, and THAT is not even figuring in all the thousands of other non-Scarer employees that had to have worked at the company, so no one can tell me that it was all due to Sulley just being that good at anything or even to a popular vote among other employees. There was a lot of unethical bovine excrement going on there, and Randall obviously knew it, and thought he could beat that system somehow. As for the pic, yeah, Randall looks thin, but he also looks MUCH younger than a college-age monster. Compare the college pics of Mike and Sulley to how they looked in the original movie, and there's not that much difference. They look younger, yes, and Sulley has not yet acquired that "spare tire"(which didn't come from eating at sushi restaurants, lol) around the middle, but they still aren't that different. Randall, on the other hand, looks like a CHILD. His fronds are much smaller, indicating that he probably hasn't even passed through puberty yet, if they are indeed a secondary sex characteristic. He is lacking the scars along his jaw and sides, too. While Mike and Sulley look like young adults, Randall looks like an adolescent kid. pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 24, 2012 18:52:12 GMT -5
I checked with Amazon.com, and they are selling these there, but for over TWICE what I paid! Looks like some sellers have bought up these at the Disney Store and are cashing in on Randall's popularity, as I suspected they would.
pitbulllady
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Hi <3
Dec 24, 2012 18:49:49 GMT -5
Post by pitbulllady on Dec 24, 2012 18:49:49 GMT -5
I second what Minty already said, Ashley-welcome to the board, but few if any of us here consider a Randall to be a "villain". He's no saint, to be sure, but most of us can readily understand why he did what he did, and it wasn't because he was "mean" or "evil", either. Randall was very much a victim of circumstances that were largely beyond his control. He didn't have much of a choice, honestly, or rather, he was choosing between doing some awful things and having some really awful things done to HIM, considering how the REAL villain, the real mastermind-Waternoose-treated people he actually LIKED(or pretended to, anyway). To me, a "villain" is the mastermind, the one in charge, the one who instigates the nefarious plot, and that would be Waternoose. Randall was very much just a henchman, if you will. If I were to list a group of Disney/Pixar villains, names like Ursula, Jafar, Syndrome, Hades, or the witch from Snow White come to mind. These were the ones calling the shots, so to speak, and answered only to themselves as far as anyone can tell. Randall was directly controlled by Henry J. Waternoose, who was not one to take kindly to insubordination.
pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 23, 2012 8:11:52 GMT -5
I think they're the same, but the pic is showing up really small so it's hard to make out any details there. I'm expecting a flood of these down the line on Ebay, though, to satiate the Randall fans and Disney collectors in general.
pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 22, 2012 22:30:08 GMT -5
I decided to drive to Pineville, North Carolina on a whim today to complete my last-minute(as usual)Christmas shopping, in spite of the horrendous traffic(apparently everyone else in the Eastern US had the same idea, go figure), about an hour's drive. I'd almost put it off due to the traffic, but some nagging little hunch kept telling me to go check out the Carolina Place Mall, which happens to be home to the last remaining Disney Store in the Carolinas.
Well, long story short, the Disney Store had some new plushies in conjunction with the 3-D theatrical re-release of MI, and to my amazement, these included a Randall plush about 13 inches tall! Seems I got there in the nick of time, too, because there was only ONE left, among many Sulleys, Mikes, Celia Maes and Abominable Snowmen and even Waternooses. When I finally made it to the checkout, the clerk asked me how many were left, and I told her this was the last one. She said she wasn't surprised; the shipment had just been put out on display YESTERDAY, and already all the Randalls were gone! She said they'd been "flying outa here" since they were put out on display! Hopefully Disney will take note of this when it comes time to finally release merchandise for MU, and realize what a tremendous marketing boon Randall is! Now, to the plush itself-he is very similar to the one that RB gave me years ago in terms of pose, color, materials, etc., perhaps a bit more detailed, with sewn-in eyes instead of plastic ones and 3-D fronds instead of flat ones, and he's about twice the size overall. He still has that "mean" expression, though(which hopefully Disney will eventually see fit to "fix"), but overall, he looks very nice and well-made. I'm just happy that Disney IS making new Randall stuff, period, that's not something stupid like those cubed dead Randalls in Japan Disney's store next to their "Ride-and-Go-Seek" attraction. This is a start, as they say, and hopefully just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to future Randall merchandise.
pitbulllady
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Post by pitbulllady on Dec 20, 2012 18:03:10 GMT -5
I'd read somewhere way back when I first got into this fandom that Randall's middle initial was "J", with no explanation as to what it stood for. In my own little head canon, it was for "Joseph", but I honestly don't recall where I saw that initial and in fact had questioned as to whether I actually DID read it somewhere or it just popped in there. Apparently I did, though, since it has resurfaced again that his middle name starts with "J". Sulley DOES seem like waaaay more of a jerk than Randall does in all of the pics, and if he has anything to do with how Randall turned out, that still makes him a First-Class A$$ in my book, no matter how he tries to come off in the original movie, because of how he "handles" the product that HE basically is responsible for. pitbulllady That's interesting about his middle name starting with a J. I do wonder what it is. Also, yeah....about Sulley....you know if I were him and I kept getting employee of the month every single month I would have actually complained to the boss about that. I would really HATE to actually get employee of the month every single month. I would feel really bad for other people who work just as hard. Just because someone might always have the top score doesn't mean you should make that person employee of the month every month. Sulley should have complained about that if he really wanted it to be fair as he claimed. I mean, it could just be that Sulley is really not that smart though....he never seemed like the most intelligent character. I wonder but is there any evidence that Sulley got paid more than Randall? I have heard that it was stated in a fact book that Randall makes minimum wage. Does Sulley make more? I know that at some jobs you get a BONUS for more sales/doing better than other employees and so I wonder if Sulley made a decent amount more than Randall, even though Randall was never that far behind Sulley in points. I just thought of that possibility due to the job my boyfriend recently had....in which case he actually got paid nothing except when he made sales! And his employer tried to get him to do something illegal to better the company too! He refused to do the illegal stuff and I'm glad he quit, it was "soul sucking" as he described that job. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Randall's job was similar. There was actually a "Monsters, Inc. Employee Handbook", like a real company handbook, in which it was stated that ALL Scarers made minimum wage, so they obviously weren't in it for the money. It also plainly said that working overtime was NOT frowned upon at all, as Mike indicates in the original when he thought that was why Randall was working late on the Scare Floor, but actually encouraged...just don't expect to be PAID for it(sounds like a teaching job). I have to wonder, though, just why Mike and Sulley do seem to be quite well off, financially. They've got a great apartment, in a nice, quiet uptown neighborhood, that probably isn't cheap, and Mike's fondness for sports cars has to take a healthy bank account and credit rating, too, so maybe minimum wage plus commission and a few, oh, under-the-table perks provide the means for them to live like that. I've worked for many a "soul-sucking" boss, including one who tried to get ME to commit a felony(for the good of the company, er, school district) many years ago. The superintendent hated my guts, and never failed to let me know it, but promised I could hang onto my job if I'd just alter some students' responses to the state's standardized tests, which is a felony if you get caught, with a minimum ten year jail sentence. I refused, and I lost my job. I know exactly how Randall feels and how easy it is for a soul-sucking job like that to turn you into something really bad. I can't say that I've ever gotten completely over how I was treated and have been treated since. There is still a lot of distrust and anger under the surface when it comes to people I've worked for, because I know how easily they can ^%$# you up and how little they care. People who have not been through that often just can't connect it with how Randall acts in the original movie and just ASSume he has to be completely evil to the core from his very conception, but I've come so close to BEING Randall that it's not even funny. pitbulllady
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