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- "I need scarers who are confident, tenacious, tough, intimidating. I need scarers like... like... James P. Sullivan."
- —Henry J. Waternoose III talking about Sulley.
James Phil Sullivan (commonly known as Sulley), is the main protagonist of Disney/Pixar's 2001 film, Monsters, Inc. and the deuteragonist of its 2013 prequel.
Background[]
Sulley is a scarer under his boss, Henry J. Waternoose, who is the CEO of Monsters, Inc.
Sulley's best friend and sidekick is Mike Wazowski. His mother is Mrs. Sullivan (who is unseen, but mentioned by name by Mike) and his dad is the famous scarer Bill Sullivan.
When he is first seen, Sulley is the top scarer at Monsters, Inc., responsible for generating the scares that provide power for the city of Monstropolis.
Personality[]
In Monsters University, an 18-year-old Sulley was shown to be a very different person than he was later in life.
Being the son of Bill Sullivan, an accomplished Scarer, and having the natural talent, Sulley was more laid-back, cocky, immature, and something of a party-animal. Because of his talent and coming from a family with plenty of accomplished scarers, Sulley wasn't a model student, once stating "You don't need to study Scaring; you just do it!"
He developed a competitive rivalry with a fellow student in the Scaring Program, Mike Wazowski, who had the brains and intelligence for Scaring but not the natural talent. He was also chosen to join the Roar Omega Roar fraternity due to his Scaring talent.
Sulley realized just having the talent wasn't enough when Dean Hardscrabble kicked him and Mike out of the Scare Program, for which he blamed Mike, but he was desperate enough to join Mike and the Oozma Kappa fraternity to get back in by winning the Scare Games. He came off as shallow, deeming Oozma Kappa to be lost causes but eventually came to appreciate them for their friendship. Even so, Sulley wanted so bad to get back into the Scaring Program he rigged the last event so that Mike would easily win, as he honestly didn't think Mike was scary.
However, he realized what he did was still wrong, especially when Mike sought to prove himself by scaring actual children, and when an argument erupted between them, Sulley revealed that being a Sullivan made everyone expect him to be scary, and while he acted scary and confident, in truth, Sulley was terrified of the expectations he had to live up to.
The friendship between Mike and Sulley enabled them to surprise Dean Hardscrabble, who indirectly encouraged them to work as mailmen for Monsters Inc., where they worked together until at last they achieved their dream of becoming a Scare-Team.
In Monsters, Inc., James P. Sullivan, or Sulley as he prefers, is shown to be good-natured, hardworking, and confident, who loves his job as a Scarer and while he basked in the limelight of being Top Scarer, and was indeed going for the All-Time Scare Record, he had a humble side in that he was more interested in being a good employee for the company.
One of the defining traits to his character was his friendship with his Scaring-Assistant, Mike Wazowski. They're best friends, room-mates, incredibly devoted to each other, and help each other out, as Sulley secured a reservation for Mike at Harryhausen's for his date with Celia Mae on her birthday, and covered for him in a paperwork concern.
Sulley's world, however, is turned upside-down when he discovers a human child, initially and frantically doing everything he can to get rid of her while trying not to get "infected" due to the Monsters' mistaken beliefs that human children are "toxic, deadly, that a single touch could kill them". When left with no choice, he involves Mike, who is more concerned with their career and their well-beings, but as Sulley spends time with the girl, he warms up to her and comes to disregard everything he's ever believed about human children, eventually giving her the name "Boo", and becomes attached to her, like a father.
However, his affection and protectiveness for Boo puts a strain on his friendship with Mike as he relies on Mike to help him in his madcap efforts to keep Boo safe from Randall and hide her (and their discretions) from the CDA. When Mike protests, Sulley chooses to help Boo over appeasing Mike's pride. It isn't until Sulley, at the demand of his boss, does a scare-demonstration and accidentally frightens Boo as he sees the images of the demonstration, showing Boo horrified and himself roaring, where Sulley finally realizes just how scared children are of monsters; his many years as a Scarer comes back to haunt him when Boo is so frightened of him that she shies from his touch, to his shame and regret.
Sulley's shame however is turned to shock when he realizes the boss, with whom he's always been on good terms with, is not the good man he thought he was, when Waternoose banishes him and Mike to the human world. Even so, Sulley does everything he can to get back to the monster world, even leaving Mike who refuses to come.
His actions however are justified when Mike follows back home, and they work together to foil Randall from getting his scaly hands on Boo, eventually stranding him in the human world.
After Roz of the CDA declares Boo's door must be destroyed, Sulley is brokenhearted and gives Boo a fond goodbye, and is more crestfallen since the entire fiasco will shut down the factory.
However, a stray remark by Mike, along with an observation he'd made, helps Sulley realize the human children's laughter is ten times more powerful than screams. He manages to not only save the company, but revolutionize it by having monsters make kids laugh instead of scaring them, solving Monstropolis' energy crisis, and Sulley becomes the company's new CEO.
While proud of his success and making things better not just for monsters but kids as well, Sulley sadly holds onto a piece of Boo's door and a drawing she made of him and her holding hands but Mike reveals to him that, after trial and error, he managed to restore Boo's door except for the piece Sulley still has (the door will not work unless it has every piece). Sulley places the piece in its place, reactivating Boo's door and steps through. To his joy, he is reunited with Boo.
By all his actions, Sulley proves himself to be a well-meaning person who strives to do the right thing. He was shown to be observant and keen-minded to Boo's laughs super-charging electronics in ways screams had never done although Sulley appears to be a little trusting in some cases although he was completely fooled by his own boss, Waternoose, and he has a strong moral compass - Appalled by Waternoose's plan to kidnap children to harvest their screams.
Even so, Sulley has a powerful devotion to those he cares for, risking his job, his life, and even his friendship with Mike to save Boo and foil up Randall and Waternoose's evil plan, and while he has his ups and downs with Mike they are true and loyal friends to each other, despite their differences.
Physical Appearance[]
Sulley is a large blue monster with purple spots. He is covered with hair. He has curved horns, black claws that later become brown, and blue spikes that run down his backside to the end of his long dinosaur-like tail. He has bushy eyebrows and a dark teal nose. In Monsters University, it is revealed he sheds.
Appearances[]
Monsters University[]
Sulley appears in the prequel, looking shorter, skinnier, and shaggier.
The son of Bill Sullivan, a famous Scarer, Sulley hardly put in any work in his classes and instead relied on his family legacy and natural skills, preferring to spend his time goofing off and playing pranks, such as kidnapping the mascot of rival college Fear Tech. Hiding the mascot, he accidentally sneaks into the room of a fellow scare student, Mike Wazowski. His skills and legacy eventually get him accepted into ROR, the premiere campus fraternity.
However, Sulley was soon upstaged by Mike in his classes, which lead to ROR considering revoking his membership. Eventually, Mike and Sulley's petty competition gets out of hand and causes a mistake during the semester final, causing Dean Hardscrabble to expel them from the program and also results in Sulley getting kicked off his fraternity.
After seeing Mike join Oozma Kappa to compete in the Scare Games, and hearing Mike and Dean Hardscrabble make a bet that Mike's entire fraternity will be allowed into the scare program if they win the Scare Games, Sulley joins as the sixth member, allowing them to be entered. Sulley is concerned, as Oozma Kappa is not known for being scary, but Mike trains them for the games.
Despite Mike and Sulley arguing and competing, Oozma Kappa progresses through the competition. During a party at ROR house, the ROR pranks Oozma Kappa and humiliates them in front of the whole university. Mike sneaks them into Monsters Inc. to lift their spirits, causing Mike and Sulley to understand each other, and begin to be friends.
Thanks to Mike and Sulley, Oozma Kappa makes it to the final round against ROR. Even as the final round arrives, Sulley has a hard time believing Mike to be a good scarer. So, in the final round, he tampers with the scare simulator setting, putting it on easy, so that Mike can register a perfect score and make Oozma Kappa win the tournament, but when Mike realizes this, he is heartbroken.
Sulley, feeling guilty, confesses to Dean Hardscrabble about the cheating, then hears that Mike had entered the human world to prove himself scary.
Sulley enters the door and arrives at the camp looking for Mike. At the camp, the police has arrived looking for intruders and Sulley is mistaken for a bear, chased into the woods. Sulley finds Mike by the lake, and he apologizes for what he did, acknowledging his faults and Mike's superior knowledge of scare techniques, they both run back to the camp to go back to the university. However, Dean Hardscrabble deactivates the door until the authorities arrive, trapping Mike and Sulley in the human world.
Mike devises a plan to create so much scream energy, that they can power the door from their side. Combining Sulley's natural abilities with Mike's technical knowledge, the two manage to scare the park rangers so much, that not only they are able to power the door, the door blasts off from the surplus energy. This causes Mike and Sulley to be detained by the CDA, thus expelling them from MU.
While they are leaving MU, Dean Hardscrabble encourages them to keep "surprising". The movie ends with Mike and Sulley taking jobs at Monsters, Inc. as mailmen. During credits, it is shown that both of them rise from being mailmen to an efficient scare team, thus establishing the story for Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc.[]
- "You're the boss. You're the big hairy boss."
- ―Mike, as Sulley enters through the first door of the day
Sulley was top scarer of Monsters, Inc., and was naturally afraid of humans, due to their rumored "toxic touch" that could kill the biggest monsters in an instant... until he met Boo, a human girl who found her way into the monster world and into the factory. Sulley, who was initially hesitant, became Boo's protector and obtained a fatherly role to the human. Constantly worrying about her and protecting her from harm while at the same time unlocking the secrets that humans were not as deadly as rumored. Starting by treating Boo like a pet, he eventually grew to care for her, the attention drawing away from a jealous Mike. Randall Boggs, Sulley's rival who also wants to be top scarer, tries to use Boo in an experiment to forcibly extract screams for the growing energy crisis that relies on their cries to provide, and risking his friendship with Mike, Sulley comes to her rescue and in the process discovers that a child's laughter is 10 times more powerful than scream. Sometime after Mr. Waternoose, the CEO of Monsters, Inc., is arrested by the CDA, Sulley becomes the new CEO and changes the policy to obtain children's laughter instead of scream, apparently turning the energy crisis around.
Sometime after the events of the film, Sulley announces Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me, a company play that stars Mike, who has also directed, written, and produced the play, in front of the audience, and he appears in the play as a co-star.
Mike's New Car[]
In the short, Sulley is featured as the secondary protagonist. When he sees Mike's new car, he asks Mike what was wrong with the old car, to which Mike replied, "That's three little words, Sulley: Six-wheel drive!", then they both got in. Unfortunately for Mike, Sulley accidentally ruins the car by doing various things, and Mike eventually told Sulley to get out, but ruined the car himself when he sped off.
Disney Parks[]
Sulley as a walk around character at the Disney Parks
Sulley is a walk around character at the Disney Parks. He also appears in several parades and also appears in the attractions Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! at Disney California Adventure and Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek at Tokyo Disneyland.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Sulley appears in the end credits of Cars as a giant monster truck. He is also seen in Tokyo Mater with a car version of Mike.
- Sulley was originally going to be a janitor and not a scarer in one early version.
- According to the original treatment from the DVD, Sulley's working name was Johnson and instead of being the best scarer as seen in the movie, he was a clumsy monster who was very bad at his job.
- In another early draft, one of his original names was Hob, and instead of working as a Scarer, he actually worked for a TV show.
- One prototype drawing of Sulley showed him with brown fur, while another showed him wearing glasses, and a third showed him with tentacles. The reason for Sulley to be drawn with legs for his final design is due to the fact that the animators were afraid that the viewers would focus too much on the tentacles instead of his face had he be drawn with such.
- A drawing of Sulley appears on a wood carving in Brave.
- Sulley is the first main protagonist in the Pixar films who doesn't have a love interest, followed by Remy and Merida.
- In the prequel Monsters University, it is said that he is 18, so in the first movie he is probably 28.
- John Goodman, Sulley's voice actor, also voiced Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove, Baloo from The Jungle Book 2, and Eli "Big Daddy" LaBouff from The Princess and the Frog.
- Sulley's design was said to be based on that of a prehistoric giant ground sloth.
- Sulley has 5.5 million rendered hairs in Monsters University, 5 times as many as in Monsters, Inc.
- Physically, Sulley has 5,475,458 hairs on his body. He weighs 985 pounds.[1]
- John Goodman, Sulley's voice actor, also voiced Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove, Baloo from The Jungle Book 2, and Eli "Big Daddy" LaBouff from The Princess and the Frog.
- It's revealed in Monsters University that Sulley's father is actually named Bill Sullivan.
- At one point, they made Sully wear glasses which was a bad idea because it was hard to see the eye expressions of the character.
- He is similar to Pumbaa from the Lion King