Meet the Robinsons

Meet the Robinsons
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stephen Anderson
Screenplay by	Jon Bernstein Michelle Spitz Don Hall Nathan Greno Aurian Redson Joe Mateo Stephen Anderson
Based on	A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce
Produced by	Dorothy McKim
Starring	Daniel Hansen Jordan Fry Wesley Singerman Angela Bassett Tom Selleck Harland Williams Laurie Metcalf Nicole Sullivan Adam West Ethan Sandler Tom Kenny Stephen Anderson
Edited by	Ellen Keneshea
Music by	Danny Elfman
Production company	Walt Disney Animation Studios
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release dates	March 25, 2007 (2007-03-25) (El Capitan Theatre) March 30, 2007 (2007-03-30) (United States)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$150 million
Box office	$170.5 million

Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American animated science fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Based on the 1990 children's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce, the film was directed by Stephen Anderson, and written by Anderson, Don Hall, Nathan Greno, Joe Mateo, Jon Bernstein, Michelle Spitz, and Aurian Redson, and stars the voices of Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Laurie Metcalf, Nicole Sullivan, Adam West, Ethan Sandler, Tom Kenny, and Anderson. In the film, Lewis, an orphaned 12-year-old inventor, meets Wilbur Robinson, a young time-traveler who takes him to the future, before an incident wrecks Wilbur's time machine. Lewis agrees to help him fix the machine and ends up acquainted with Wilbur's eccentric family. Meanwhile, a mysterious man with a sentient bowler hat aims to sabotage Lewis' fate, and, by proxy, the future.

Development began in 2002, with production starting in 2004 under the working title A Day with Wilbur Robinson, with a release initially slated for 2006. Anderson developed a personal connection to the main character, Lewis, as he himself grew up as an orphan with no parents and was later adopted. Disney originally planned to adopt Joyce's style, but it was decided to slightly rework the style due to his involvement stylistically in Blue Sky Studios' Robots. The animation crew had the challenge to animate CG humans, being inspired by Pixar's The Incredibles. Inspiration for the film came from Disney animated classics, such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan, as well as Warner Bros. Cartoons, to capture a 1950s aesthetic. Disney's acquisition of Pixar in early 2006 led to nearly 60% of the film, including the villain and the ending, being scrapped and reworked. Danny Elfman composed the film's score, while artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Rob Thomas, The All-American Rejects, and They Might Be Giants contributed to its soundtrack.

Meet the Robinsons first premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California in the United States on March 25, 2007, and was first released theatrically in the United States by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution on March 30, 2007. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences but was a box office disappointment, grossing a total box office $170.5 million against a total budget of $150 million.

Plot

Lewis is an orphaned 12-year-old boy who is an aspiring scientist and inventor. Despite his desire for a family, his energetic behavior and malfunctioning inventions frequently scare off prospective parents and exhaust his long-suffering roommate, Mike "Goob" Yagoobian. Frustrated by rejection, Lewis seizes on the idea of locating his birth mother, who left him at the orphanage when he was an infant. To this end, he invents a machine to scan his memories and display them, dubbing it the Memory Scanner.

Lewis takes the Memory Scanner to his school's science fair, where he meets Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy who claims to be from the future. Wilbur warns Lewis about a tall, lanky man wearing a bowler hat, nicknamed the "Bowler Hat Guy", who stole a time machine. During Lewis' presentation, the Bowler Hat Guy's hat robot, Doris, secretly sabotages the Memory Scanner, causing it to malfunction and throw the science fair into chaos. After Lewis leaves the fair, the Bowler Hat Guy steals the Memory Scanner and attempts to pitch it as his own to an invention company called InventCo. Labs, but fails as he does not know how to operate it.

Back at the orphanage, Wilbur attempts to motivate Lewis into fixing the Memory Scanner by taking him in a second time machine to the future, which is highly technologically advanced. Lewis, however, theorizes that he can simply use the time machine to go back and prevent his mother from giving him up; the boys crash the time machine as they argue. Wilbur asks Lewis to fix the time machine, and Lewis agrees on the condition that Wilbur take him to see his mother afterwards.

At Wilbur's house, Lewis meets the rest of the Robinson family, who are uniformly bizarre and idiosyncratic. Cornelius, Wilbur's father and inventor of the era's technologies, is absent on a business trip. Throughout the visit, the Robinsons emphasize Cornelius's motto of "Keep Moving Forward", encouraging Lewis to learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile, the Bowler Hat Guy arrives from the past and attempts to kidnap Lewis, first with a mind-controlled frog and then a Tyrannosaurus, but is foiled by the Robinsons. When Wilbur's mother, Franny, offers to adopt Lewis, Wilbur abruptly reveals Lewis is from the past, and Franny regretfully rescinds the offer. Wilbur then admits he lied to Lewis about taking him back to see his mother, causing Lewis to run off in disgust.

Bowler Hat Guy intercepts Lewis and offers to take him to his mother in exchange for repairing and demonstrating the Memory Scanner. Shortly after, the Bowler Hat Guy takes Lewis hostage and identifies himself as Goob, who developed a grudge after Lewis's work on the Memory Scanner deprived Goob of sleep and led to him missing a game-winning catch at a Little League Baseball game. He also reveals that Cornelius is Lewis as an adult, making him Wilbur's father. Doris is a rogue decommissioned Robinson invention called a Helping Hat, and Goob teamed up with her to jointly take revenge on Lewis. Leaving Lewis in the future, Goob and Doris return to the past, successfully pitch the Memory Scanner, and begin mass producing Helping Hats. Doris then betrays Goob and uses the Helping Hats to enslave humanity, erasing Wilbur from existence and turning the future into a dystopia. Lewis repairs the second time machine and confronts Goob in the past, where he apologizes for his insensitivity and then erases Doris by vowing never to invent her. Goob accompanies Lewis back to the future, which is restored to its utopian state along with Wilbur. At Lewis's urging, Wilbur reluctantly offers for Goob to join the Robinson family, but Goob leaves in shame.

Cornelius arrives home and finally meets Lewis. Cornelius explains how the Memory Scanner started their successful career and persuades Lewis to return to the science fair. Wilbur surprises Lewis by taking him in the time machine back to the night when his mother left him at the orphanage. Lewis decides not to meet her, content with the knowledge of his future family.

Back in his own time, Lewis first awakens the young Goob at the baseball field so he can make the winning catch, averting his future as Bowler Hat Guy. At the science fair, Lewis successfully demonstrates the Memory Scanner on one of the judges, an InventCo. scientist who chooses to relive her wedding day; Lewis recognizes the groom as Bud Robinson, Cornelius's father. She and Bud subsequently adopt Lewis, with Bud nicknaming him "Cornelius". Emboldened by his future family's motto of "Keep Moving Forward," Lewis moves in with his new parents and begins his inventing career.

Voice cast

In addition, Joe Robinson is Wilbur's obese, silent uncle, Billie's husband, and Bud and Fritz's brother, who rides in an easy chair; an uncredited actor provides his whimpers. Also in the Robinson family is their dog, Buster, who wears glasses due to his insurance not covering contacts.

Production

In 1990, prior to the original publication of A Day with Wilbur Robinson, William Joyce became acquainted with film producer Bill Borden, who was in the middle of shooting The Man in the Moon in Joyce's native Shreveport, Louisiana. Upon seeing the proofs for the book, Borden was convinced that the book would make for a great Disney movie. He convinced Joyce to write a treatment for a film adaptation, and within a week, the project was optioned by Walt Disney Pictures as a potential live-action film. Over the next couple of years, William Joyce wrote several drafts for the film, as Disney considered several directors, including Steven Spielberg, George Miller, Peter Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola, and Diane Keaton. Having difficulty securing a director, in addition to potential budgetary issues, the film would soon enter turnaround at the studio for a couple of years. However, Leo Chu, an executive at Walt Disney Feature Animation took interest in the project, and convinced Joyce to bring the project over there to develop it as an animated film.

Pre-production of the film was first unveiled during SIGGRAPH 2001, where a character resembling Lewis was showcased in a tech demo for "Project Gemini". Originally titled A Day with Wilbur Robinson, production began in June 2004 and was scheduled for a 2006 release. During the film's production, Walt Disney Animation Studios' storyboard artist Stephen Anderson decided to direct the film due to his connection to Lewis, since they both grew up adopted.

The studio planned to adapt Joyce's style to the film, but the style was slightly reworked due to his stylistic involvement in Blue Sky Studios' Robots. While still taking cues from his retro style, influenced by everything from Technicolor films to '40s architectural design, the crew also took inspiration from the company Apple. Unlike their previous film, Chicken Little, which starred CG animals, the animation crew had the challenge of animating CG humans. They took inspiration from Pixar's The Incredibles when animating the characters. They also took inspiration from Disney animated classics, such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan, and from Warner Bros. Cartoons to capture the 1950s aesthetic.

While the film was in production, The Walt Disney Company announced on January 24, 2006, that it would be acquiring Pixar, and as a result, John Lasseter became the chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. When he saw an early film screening, he told Anderson that he did not find the villain scary or threatening enough and suggested he make some changes. Almost 60% of the film had been scrapped and redone ten months later. The villain had improved and was given a new sidekick, a dinosaur chase had been added, and the ending was changed.

Jim Carrey was originally offered the role of Bowler Hat Guy but he declined when he signed to star in The Number 23.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was released by Walt Disney Records on March 27, 2007. It includes four original songs written for the film, performed by Rufus Wainwright, Jamie Cullum, and Rob Thomas. Contributors to the album beyond the Danny Elfman score include another track by Wainwright ("The Motion Waltz (Emotional Commotion)"), The All-American Rejects ("The Future Has Arrived"), They Might Be Giants ("There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow"), and the Jonas Brothers ("Kids of the Future", a reworking of "Kids in America"). The track "Little Wonders", recorded by Thomas, reached number 5 on the Billboard AC chart and the top 20 in Australia and Canada.

The song "This Much Fun" by Cowboy Mouth, which was featured in the trailer, was not featured in the film or on the soundtrack. The song "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" was originally from the Disneyland attraction General Electric's Carousel of Progress which was located in Tomorrowland.

The Japanese version uses "Hitomi Hiraite" by Mitsuki Takahata as the theme song.

Release

Reception

Video games

A Meet the Robinsons video game was published by Disney Interactive Studios for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows. England-based Climax Group developed their own adaptation for the Game Boy Advance.

Bowler Hat Guy, Franny Robinson, and Carl (referred to in-game as Carl the Robot) appear as playable characters in the mobile game Disney Heroes: Battle Mode.

Cancelled sequel

Disneytoon Studios originally planned to make a direct-to-video sequel to the film, tentatively titled Meet the Robinsons 2: First Date. However, when Lasseter became Walt Disney Animation Studios' new chief creative officer, he cancelled all sequels in development at Disneytoon, including Meet the Robinsons 2, and ordered the studio to shift its focus towards spin-off films and original productions.

Legacy

In May 2022, many cast and crew members, including Stephen Anderson and Michaela Jill Murphy, reunited to celebrate the film's 15-year anniversary by participating in a two-hour livestream on YouTube. A limited edition MagicBand bracelet was also released by the company to commemorate the 15th anniversary.

The characters of Lewis, Wilbur, Bowler Hat Guy, Carl, and Lucille made cameos appearances in the 2023 short film Once Upon a Studio to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary, in which they were recreated using new CGI models, which the same was done for the characters from Chicken Little and Bolt. This was due to the original models not being used for over a decade, as well as updates made to animation technology since the original film's release, with rigging and rendering being reworked so they could be used with modern technology.

In February 2026, a concept album based on the movie was released titled Meet The Robinsons: The Unofficial Cast Album, featuring various artists such as Kevin Chamberlin, Caroline Bowman, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, and Caesar Samayoa, among others.

Notes

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Meet the Robinsons.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Meet the Robinsons.

• Official website
• Meet the Robinsons at IMDb
• Meet the Robinsons at the TCM Movie Database (archived)
• Meet the Robinsons at Box Office Mojo
• Meet the Robinsons at Rotten Tomatoes
• Meet the Robinsons at Metacritic