A franchise deep dive: the rise of the Minions
By James Burkhalter
Visual interpretation of The Minions affecting the human mind By James Burkhalter
The Minions are something that riddles children’s lunchboxes and Facebook feeds alike – an excellent example of consumerism and its effect on society. Greed is not a new concept in the film industry and is virtually ingrained in the profession. The Minions evolved from a quirky side plot into money-making merchandise, truly a personification of the film industry.
“Despicable Me”
The Minions in the first “Despicable Me'' are rather straightforward amidst a more compelling story. They were only in a few scenes, and those scenes were filled with “potty humor” instead of plot-centered actions. Their purpose in this movie was simply to make a child or two in the audience giggle, chuckle, or maybe even guffaw. Their inclusion was instead a catalyst for the most popular immortal, parasitic, gibberish-speaking, single-celled yellow being in the history of man.
“Despicable Me 2”
In “Despicable Me 2”, the writers started to realize the minions’ potential in their studio. They gave the minions a more important storyline, with them being the climax and conclusion of the movie. Around this time, the now infamous minion memes started to emerge, and the minions grasped their three fingers around society’s throat. This film symbolized the creators dipping their greedy little toes into the waters of commercialism, and from here on out, they started to swim.
“Minions”
With “Minions,” Illumination had officially found their cash cow, their holy grail. The Minions movie was based on the evolution of the Minion storyline, from small joke characters to stars of their own feature film. This movie delved into the Minions lore, giving the audience a deeper understanding and appreciation of the studio’s little money maker. It ranked third in the lineup of Despicable Me movies by “Box Office Mojo,” only following its sequel, and the second “Despicable Me'' movie, which was the first to play with the idea that the Minions could be more than joke characters.
“Despicable Me 3”
“Despicable Me 3” had the difficult job of following the introduction of story-relevant Minions, which it did not handle well. This movie took a step back from the importance of the minions and focused more on Gru and his family. It ranked fourth in the five “Despicable Me” movies, showing a pattern of Gru-focused movies ranking lower than minion-centric ones.
“Minions: Rise of Gru”
The most recent movie, “Minions: Rise of Gru”, shows that Illumination is learning to balance Gru and the Minions within a single story. Gru takes a bit of a backseat in this movie while still managing to be the story’s main focus, similar to the Minions’ role in the highest-grossing “Despicable Me” movie, “Despicable Me 2”. This new addition is the second most grossing film simply because Illumination has started to fix their Minions problem.
Is the “Despicable Me” franchise objectively good? Absolutely not. Some might say that it is a massively successful collection of film that will be ingrained in pop culture for years to come. The Minions were never inherently bad. However the audience has enabled this level of commercialism and hasn’t even realized it. While most critics believe the Minions are simply joke characters and aren’t to be taken seriously, Erik Germ of Cracked.com had this to say about the creation of the minions:
“They simply gave mankind the weapon; it was mankind who decided to use that weapon for evil.”