There’s a certain risk to revisiting a film as beloved as Monsters, Inc., but the folks at Pixar feel confident that the upcoming prequel, Monsters University, will be rewarding in its own right. It looks to have everything that is expected from Pixar: a strong cast, beautiful animation and an exciting story.

The duo at the center of the film is the real reason Pixar wanted to make another movie in the Monsters, Inc. universe.

“We loved the characters of Mike and Sulley and we loved the relationship — we always wanted to do something with them again and we kind of got together and talked about what that might be,” said director Dan Scanlon. “That’s where we started thinking about how these guys met — which led naturally to the college idea.”

Of course, creating youthful versions of such distinct characters presented its own set of challenges.

“We had to make them look younger, so our art department did a really good job trying to study, you know, how do you make an eyeball look younger?” laughed Scanlon. “We started to notice that thinning them up really helped. We were all a little thinner in college.”

It was important to keep the characters true to themselves, but Scanlon and his team wanted to make small touches in order to feel different while still remaining familiar to fans.

The biggest change to the prequel is that it takes place at the Monsters University, where Mike and Sully are first introduced to one another. It is intended to show how the two became friends and grew into the Monstropolis citizens seen in the original Monsters, Inc.

Scanlon and producer Kori Rae wanted this to be a classic coming-of-age story for Sully and Mike and found that college was the best setting for this theme.

“That’s kind of where you first are out on your own. You just figure out who you are, who you want to be,” said Rae.

Some might worry that the collegial atmosphere could lend itself to more adult themes than are expected from a children’s film, but Scanlon assures viewers that they won’t be seeing Mike and Sully having too many beers the night before a final.

“The good thing is we were able to get a lot of wild fun behavior that still reads as sort of a fun party college, but is probably no different than the wild crazy stuff that goes on in an eight-year-old birthday party,” Scanlon said.

Alongside old favorites, there are plenty of new characters being introduced in Monsters University. “We have a character, Scott ‘Squishy’ Squibbles, who is kind of your classic 18-year-old college student that hasn’t decided what they want to be,” Scanlon said.

Making Monsters University a prequel did present a challenge to its stars, John Goodman and Billy Crystal, who are now playing characters much younger than themselves. “They just added a lot more yelling, to their dismay,” Scanlon said.

While the main goal is to make a film that’s fun and enjoyable for the audience, both Scanlon and Rae hope that viewers can take away an important lesson about life and university — sometimes you have to “let go of the thing that you think you absolutely have to be to be happy in order to find out who you truly are.”

Monsters University is in theatres June 21.