Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Lewis is a brilliant inventor who meets mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson, whisking Lewis away in a time machine and together they team up to track down Bowler Hat Guy in a showdown that ends with an unexpected twist of fate.

Director:

Stephen J. Anderson

Writers:

Jon Bernstein (screenplay), Michelle Bochner (screenplay),

Stars:

Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry

1 win & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Angela Bassett	...	Mildred (voice)
Daniel Hansen	...	Lewis (voice)
Jordan Fry	...	Lewis (voice)
Matthew Josten	...	Michael "Goob" Yagoobian (voice)
John H. H. Ford	...	Mr. Harrington (voice)
Dara McGarry	...	Mrs. Harrington / Receptionist (voice)
Tom Kenny	...	Mr. Willerstein (voice)
Laurie Metcalf	...	Lucille Krunklehorn (voice)
Don Hall	...	Coach / Gaston (voice)
Paul Butcher	...	Stanley (voice)
Tracey Miller-Zarneke	...	Lizzy (voice)
Wesley Singerman	...	Wilbur (voice)
Jessie Flower	...	Young Franny (voice)
Stephen J. Anderson	...	Bowler Hat Guy / Grandpa Bud / Tallulah (voice) (as Stephen John Anderson)
Ethan Sandler	...	Doris / CEO / Spike / Dmitri / Laszlo / Fritz / Petunia (voice)

Storyline

Lewis an orphan wants to see what his mother looked like. So he invents a machine that looks through your brain so you can see your memories. But this weird kid says he's from the future and warns him about a guy in a bowler hat. The bowler hat guy messes with his invention and it fails. He decides that he's a failure and no one wants him. But the kid that warned him about the guy is here on a mission to find the bowler hat guy that wants to destroy Lewis. To prove he's from the future he takes lewis to the future. But the time machine breaks and he's stuck in the future until he fixes it. In the meantime he spends quality time with the family. But the bowler hat guy is about to alter time and it's up to Lewis to save the future.

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Plot Keywords:

future | hat | bowler hat | invention | memory | 

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Taglines:

Experience the future as only Disney can imagine it!

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Disney [fr] Disney [us]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 March 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Day with Wilbur Robinson

Filming Locations:

Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

£895,955 (UK) (30 March 2007)

Gross:

$97,821,064 (USA) (31 August 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the 3D version of the film, the final credits are all in 2D except for the names of the people who converted it to 3D.

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Goofs

When the time machine crashes Wilbur is seen holding onto the steering wheel of the time machine, clearly detached from the time machine. At the next scene when Lewis and Wilbur are looking at the damage done to the time machine we see that the steering wheel is intact with the time machine.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Michael "Goob" Yagoobian: Then, um, I didn't choose that one because it was gonna give me pimples so I choosed, um, another scary one cause for, um, all those years that I went for halloween I wasn't scary at all... I love baseball. It's my destiny to play that game. And I don't really care about winning. Well, like, now i do, cause, like, we've lost every game and I've gotten tired of it! I'm working like so hard, all the balls are getting thrown to me, I'm trying to catch like everyone. All of the people ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

In the 3D version, most of the closing credits are in 2D; however, the credits for the people who created the 3D version are in 3D.

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Connections

References The Jungle Book (1967)

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Soundtracks

"Give Me the Simple Life"
Written by Harry Ruby and Rube Bloom
Performed by Jamie Cullum
Produced by Stewart Levine
Orchestrated by Geoff Gascoyne
Recorded and Mixed by Rik Pekkonen

User Reviews

Disney is getting back on the right track

I'm writing reviews for a German movie website and thus got into a press screening of the new CG animated Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons" in Munich a little while ago. I'm a big animation fan myself and love many of the old Disney movies, although lately I've been more impressed with Pixar's films than anything Disney had to offer in the last few years. However, the story of this one is actually quite interesting and not as uninspired and generic as Disney's last traditionally animated feature Home on the Range or as messy as their first CG outing Chicken Little. It offers a number of nice surprises and even a good plot twist or two without causing too much of the old time-traveling headache. The humor also works quite well, although many of the jokes seem to be aimed at adults and little kids might not get all of them. (Didn't bother me, though…) Most importantly, this film does not contain a single fart joke nor any talking animals or even animal sidekicks (except for those singing frogs you might have seen in the trailers, but they're really not the same thing). I don't know how close this adaptation is to William Joyce's novel "A Day With Wilbur Robinson", as I've never read anything Joyce has written, but it all works pretty well and manages to be an exiting and entertaining family adventure movie.

One aspect of the movie that works particularly well is the design. The buildings, machines and landscapes of the future really look totally cool and have a very own look that is inspired by Joyce's illustrations and various visions of the future from the 50ies and 60ies. They're beautifully rendered, too. Furthermore, the animation is pretty awesome. The movements of the quirky characters are very fast but funny and cleverly stylized. The best example for this is the Bowler Hat Guy who moves in a unique style that makes him look like a giant Spider. This really is a welcome change from the hyper-realistic motion capturing stuff we've been seeing in a lot of movies lately. The character design isn't so bad either. However, the humans don't look quite as good as the ones in The Incredibles, the stylization of some characters makes them look a little too artificial for my taste. The voice-acting, which relies on solid voice actors and luckily doesn't involve any fancy stunt casting, leaves nothing to be desired. Danny Elfman's score is pretty fine, too. I could have done without the cheesy pop songs that were played at some parts of the film, though.

Altogether, I highly recommend seeing this warmhearted family film to any animation fan. It might not be as good as my Pixar favorites The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, but it sure is a lot better than most of the other studios' wisecracking-and-farting-animal flicks. With Pixar's John Lasseter pulling the strings at Disney's animation unit now, they finally seem to be getting back on the right track and I'm looking forward to their next projects, especially the traditionally animated The Frog Princess.

One last thing: as some of you might have heard, Disney wants to start putting original animated shorts in front of their feature films again. Meet the Robinsons kind of makes a start by showing the old Mickey, Donald & Goofy short Boat Builders in the beginning. It's a great experience to see one of those on the big screen again and the kids in the audience apparently loved it.