- 6 weeks ago
From silent-era slapstick to noir, sci-fi, and monster movie nods, “Minions & Monsters” is packed with clever callbacks to classic Hollywood. Join us as we explore how the film weaves in beloved cinematic moments, legendary performers, and iconic scenes that movie fans will instantly recognize. Which reference made you smile the most?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Okay, we're recording.
00:02And action!
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06And today, we're looking at ways that Minions and Monsters serves as an unlikely love letter to classic Hollywood.
00:12Look, Minions, my name is Max.
00:15Hello, Max!
00:17Early silent cinema.
00:19My father took me to the movies all the time.
00:22He told me about the first one he ever saw.
00:25He went into a dark room, and on a white screen he saw a rocket.
00:29He would fly into the eye of the man in the moon.
00:33Following the Illumination logo, which is presented in black and white with the Minions looking like characters from a Golden
00:38Age cartoon,
00:39the mischievous characters insert themselves into several silent shorts.
00:43In Hollywood, the new stars at the silver screen changed the face of the motion picture industry forever.
00:50Apparently, they know O.J. and M. Haywood's great-great-great-grandfather riding his horse.
00:55The Minions also find themselves running with a dog, turning the tables on a gardener,
01:00leaving the Lumiere factory after a day of work, awaiting the arrival of a train at La Cierta station,
01:06and taking a trip to a Minion-shaped moon.
01:09Chances are that you'll recognize at least one of these clips,
01:12although for kids in the audience, this may be their introduction.
01:16Either way, these remain prime examples of how a few minutes or even seconds of film can change everything.
01:30The two greatest American movies.
01:33In 1998, the American Film Institute compiled their original list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time.
01:40Naturally, Minions and Monsters pays homage to the top two.
01:43Oh no, Emil, please, a bottle of your best champagne and put it on my bill.
01:46Very well, sir.
01:47Captain, please.
01:47Oh, please, monsieur, it is a little game we play.
01:49They put it on the bill, I tear up the bill.
01:51It is very convenient.
01:53Following a screening, one of the Bright Brothers asks the piano player, Sam, to play it.
01:58Without even saying the song's title, Sam knows he means As Time Goes By,
02:02which was written in 1931 before being immortalized almost a decade later in Casablanca.
02:07You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
02:18If there's one movie that can contend with Casablanca as the goat, it's Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.
02:24Not only is Welles on display in a museum with George Lucas,
02:28but the Minions recreate the iconic opening of his 1941 masterpiece.
02:33Of course, Rosebud loses some of its power in Minionese.
02:36I wouldn't worry about it too much, Jed.
02:39There'll probably be a few of them there to let me know when I do something wrong.
02:43The Dort the Earth Stood Still
02:45I originate from the planet Metlar.
02:48Huh?
02:48Near the G45T system.
02:51Right. I don't know where that is.
02:53Seeking a new master to follow, the Minions are drawn to a robot alien named Dort.
02:58At least, he claims to be from another planet.
03:01Dort could just be a loser in cheap cosplay, but we won't spoil that here.
03:05Both Dort's name and appearance are a nod to Gort, the extraterrestrial from 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still.
03:12Gort, but he's a robot. Without you, what could he do?
03:16There's no limit to what he could do.
03:17Dort's presence also paves the way for echoes of other sci-fi classics,
03:21such as Forbidden Planet, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers,
03:25and, naturally, Plan 9 from Outer Space.
03:28We can imagine a younger viewer writing off some of these films due to their retro special effects.
03:33As Dort demonstrates, though, robots are sometimes more than meets the eye.
03:37Do you want to assist Dort in a potentially dangerous mission?
03:42See?
03:43See?
03:44Great! Follow Dort back to Dort's secret lair!
03:48The Minions Falcon
03:55We all know the Minions are yellow.
03:57Before Technicolor dominated, though, audiences might have assumed that they were in black and white.
04:02Even with color becoming the norm, black and white lends itself to genres like film noir.
04:07Perhaps no name is more associated with noir than Humphrey Bogart,
04:12so it shouldn't come as a surprise that one of the Minions is called Humphrey.
04:15What's more, his screen partner is named Mary.
04:18In perhaps his most famous film noir,
04:21Bogart starred opposite Mary Astor as the quintessential femme fatale.
04:25Won't you sit down, Ms. Wanda?
04:27I inquired at the hotel for the name of a reliable private detective.
04:30They mentioned yours.
04:31Suppose you tell me about it from the very beginning.
04:33Just as the kiss between the Minion and Mary takes an awkward turn,
04:37Astor recalled Bogart struggling to shoot love scenes.
04:40After one take, she supposedly told him, quote,
04:43Try not to knock my teeth out next time.
04:51I don't care what your secrets are.
04:54But I can't go ahead without more confidence in you than I've got now.
04:57The Monsters
04:58You wrote a monster movie?
05:00Si, con pika kai chou.
05:02Arr, arrr.
05:03What are you going to use for your monster?
05:05Ah, uh, pff.
05:07Given the title, it only makes sense that some of the monsters would draw from classic cinema.
05:12Before reaching Hollywood, the Minions encounter a cyclops resembling the one from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
05:17and a mummy right out of the Universal Horror Library.
05:21Uh, please, por favor.
05:23Uh, uh, uh, ah.
05:26Ah!
05:28Oh, please!
05:30The Minions also nearly get eaten by a shark,
05:33just as the one from Jaws gobbled up the box office,
05:36marking a turning of the tide in moviemaking.
05:39Perhaps the most notable monster homage is Irene,
05:42who resembles the titular creature from 1958's The Blob.
05:46Except this blob has more eyes.
05:48Oh, we just got it.
05:49Irene.
05:51The Minions may defeat Irene,
05:53although Hollywoodland is never the same.
05:55At least now we know why they dropped The Land from the name.
05:58She is gonna destroy everything on the planet!
06:07Minions in the Rain.
06:09It may not be a musical,
06:10but Minions and Monsters shares more than a few parallels to Singing in the Rain.
06:14Both take us behind the scenes of Hollywood,
06:16exploring a pivotal turning point in 1927.
06:20My voice has been recorded on a record.
06:23A talking picture.
06:27Goodbye.
06:32Well?
06:34It's just a toy.
06:35It's a scream.
06:36It's vulgar.
06:38The jazz singer proved that the talkie was here to stay.
06:41While some actors successfully transitioned from silence to sound,
06:45others didn't have the voice to accommodate this evolving medium.
06:49No, no, Miss Lamont.
06:50Round tones, round tones.
06:53Now let me hear you read your line.
07:06Sound ultimately proved to be the high-pitched Lena Lamont's undoing,
07:10as is the case with the Minions, too.
07:12Not only are their voices an acquired taste,
07:15but the Minions can't even read the lines as written.
07:27Audiences may not have been ready to hear the Minions talk in 1927.
07:32By 2010, though, perhaps they'll be more open to Minionese.
07:46A party with elephants.
07:48At the peak of their stardom and access,
07:50the Minions attend a wild party,
07:53complete with an elephant.
07:54You mean really big horse?
07:56No, I mean an elephant.
07:58You might have assumed that this was a nod to Damien Chazelle's Babylon,
08:02which also mirrors the transition from silent films to talkies.
08:05Although that connection wasn't lost on the filmmakers,
08:08they actually had another movie in mind when devising this scene.
08:12According to director Pierre Coffin,
08:14inspiration initially derived from Blake Edwards' 1968 comedy, The Party.
08:19Do you believe that child of mine bringing home an elephant?
08:23Oh, really?
08:24Like much of Edwards' work,
08:26The Party was essentially a live-action cartoon,
08:29leaning heavily into slapstick and absurdity.
08:32The mayhem culminates in the arrival of a baby elephant,
08:35we're not sure which is inclined to make a bigger mess,
08:38the elephant or the Minions.
08:40Probably the latter.
08:42General, your wife is still in the pool.
08:44Get her jewelry.
08:45A train chase through cinema.
08:47It's fitting that the Minions' arrival in Hollywood
08:49would reflect a landmark in narrative film.
08:52Pursuing another bad guy,
08:54the Minions get caught in the middle of a locomotive chase
08:56reminiscent of 1903's The Great Train Robbery,
08:59as well as 1906's The Story of the Kelly Gang.
09:02As it turns out, this isn't a real train robber,
09:05but rather an actor in a movie.
09:07The train is real, though,
09:09putting everyone in jeopardy.
09:11In a way, this also reflects how many classic Hollywood performers
09:14actually endangered themselves to get the perfect shot.
09:23One such example is 1926's The General,
09:26in which Buster Keaton put himself in front of a moving train.
09:30That's not the only moment involving Keaton that's echoed here.
09:33We never worked on the middle.
09:36We always figured the middle would take care of itself.
09:38You let that happen.
09:39We get off to a good start and have a good finish.
09:42Three silent movie legends.
09:43I would like to work with you.
09:46We should make movies.
09:48Movies?
09:48Movies.
09:49Movies.
09:50The Minions owe a lot to the silent masters
09:53who innovated on-screen slapstick.
09:55It's only fitting that they paid tribute to three of them in one scene.
09:59First, they bump into Charlie Chaplin,
10:01getting caught in the cogs just as he did in 1936's Modern Times.
10:05The Minions leave Harold Lloyd hanging
10:07as he clutches onto a clock like in 1923's Safety Last.
10:20Finally, they encounter Buster Keaton,
10:23who just barely avoids disaster as a house comes crashing down,
10:27recreating the scene from 1928's Steamboat Bill Jr.
10:30All that's missing is a fatty Arbuckle homage.
10:33Although, maybe that's intentional since this is a family film.
10:37In any case, this is likely the closest we'll ever get to Chaplin,
10:40Lloyd, and Keaton all sharing the screen.
10:42Well, it's like old times seeing you here again and put it on your wall page.
10:47Yeah, I'll be down watching the other acts.
10:51If you love games, be sure to check out WatchMojo's new game, Terrible Influence.
10:56Just launched for purchase at TerribleInfluence.com.
10:59Terrible Influence is a satirical board game about the dark side of fame
11:02from the writer of the most popular girls in school and us, WatchMojo.
11:06Boom, I can make an apology video.
11:09Oh, you so would.
11:10Click on the link in the description to check out the game
11:12and be the first to play Terrible Influence.
11:15The Names of the Minions
11:17First things first, who are you?
11:26The two central minions in this movie are James and Henry.
11:29We can't help but wonder if this is a salute to James Stewart and Henry Fonda,
11:33who shared one of Hollywood's most historic friendships.
11:36Both also popped up in movies like How the West Was Won and 1968's Fire Creek.
11:41Sound nosy. We may be bringing a herd up this way come spring.
11:45Might put up here instead of Sweetwater.
11:48Town's always glad to get busy.
11:50Whether or not that's a coincidence,
11:52Christoph Waltz, who voices Max the director,
11:55improvised the names of several other minions.
11:57As the minions are booted out of Hollywood,
12:00Max bids them farewell one by one.
12:02Waltz thought it would be funny if the minions shared the same names as directors.
12:06While there are some modern names in there like Quentin and Steven,
12:09only true cinephiles will know that Federico is an homage to Mr. Fellini.
12:23Are there any classic Hollywood references we missed?
12:31Let us know in the comments.
Comments