Minions & Monsters

At a film history museum, as a group of people are being given a tour of the building, a tour guide begins telling the story of Minions James and Henry.

A different tribe of Minions from the one that would go on to serve Gru are on a hunt to serve the world's greatest villains, but in many different ways wind up killing their masters by mistake. James, who is more artistic with a passion for painting and drawing, quickly develops a close friendship with two other Minions, Henry and Ed. Among the many masters the Minions served was a wicked warlock, who was killed by a monster after Henry summoned it from his spellbook, which Ed then takes along with them.

While fighting each other in the desert, the Minions stumble across a train robbery, deciding to chase after the robber to become his henchmen. However, it is revealed that the robbery was all a staged performance meant for a Hollywood film production. Though the film's director Max is furious with the Minions, film executives Frank and Elwood become enamored by their antics, so Max hires the Minions to star in his films. The Minions soon become a global phenomenon, appearing in several silent films, allowing them to live a life of Hollywood stardom.

When sound film comes along, the Minions are unable to adapt to the new technology due to their language being incomprehensible. Having cost the studio millions in failed film material, the Minions are fired. Not wanting to give up on his passion, James comes up with an idea to make his own movie titled Minions and Monsters where the Minions would fight against giant creatures. The leader of the tribe, Dick, rejects James' idea and leads the rest of the Minions back towards finding a new evil master, but Henry and Ed break away from them to help James make his film a reality. They pitch it to Max, who encourages James to work on the movie, providing him a film camera. Ed gets the idea to use the warlock's old spellbook to summon a squid monster to use for the film, but they are surprised that the monster is much smaller than expected. The monster, Goomi, sees James' idea and offers to help him find the perfect monsters for the movie.

Meanwhile, Dick and the other Minions decided to work for a futuristic alien robot named Dort who is determined to invade Earth. Even when Dort's cracks begin to show, Dick believes that he is the one to lead them. While trying to start his conquest for world domination, Dort ends up falling in love with a women's rights activist, Debbie, enlisting the Minions' help to romantically pursue her.

Goomi leads James, Henry, and Ed to a frozen fortress and frees the sea monsters Phillips and Howard under the false pretenses of using them as stars in James' movie. In reality, he aims to use them to summon Irene, a large orange blob monster, in order to destroy the world. Henry overhears this and tries to alert James, but Phillips and Howard kidnap him, using him as a sacrifice in the "scene" where Irene will be summoned. Just as shooting begins, Irene breaks out and begins wreaking havoc.

While on a date in the park with Debbie, Dort and the other Minions oversee Irene. Dort seemingly runs away, forcing some of the Minions to fight Irene themselves. Irene succeeds in swallowing Henry, with James entering her to rescue him, while the Minions take over from the military in holding her off. At first they succeed in tearing her apart, but Irene reconstructs herself. Just before she consumes them, Dort re-emerges with the other Minions in spacecraft, and successfully destroys Irene. Henry and James then cast a spell to trap Goomi, Phillips, and Howard in the spellbook. The public hails the Minions as heroes.

As Ed had captured the entire battle on film, James' movie has its world premiere months later, receiving a standing ovation from the audience. The tour guide finishes telling the story, revealing that the entire story, including the tour, was actually a film within a film, directed by James and Henry.

In a set of mid-credits scenes, the warlock's spellbook falls in the hands of Gru's minions and gets tried out by Kevin, Stuart, Bob, and Gru's daughter Agnes.