Meet the Robinsons

Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American animated science-fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1990 children's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce. The film was directed by Stephen J. Anderson and produced by Dorothy McKim, from a screenplay that Anderson co-wrote with Don Hall, Nathan Greno, Joe Mateo, Jon Bernstein, Michelle Spitz, and Aurian Redson. The film 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. It follows an orphaned 12-year-old inventor, Lewis, who is desperate to be adopted. He meets Wilbur Robinson, a young time-traveler who takes him to the year 2037 to visit his eccentric family. They must prevent a mysterious bowler-hatted man from changing Lewis's fate, and, by proxy, the future.
Development began in 2002, with production underway 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 an orphan and was later adopted. Disney originally planned to adapt Joyce's style, before 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, while the 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 provided the film's score, while artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Rob Thomas, The All-American Rejects and They Might Be Giants contributed to the film's soundtrack.
Meet the Robinsons premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on March 25, 2007, and was released in standard and Disney Digital 3-D formats in the United States on March 30. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise directed towards the animation and story. It was a box office failure, grossing $170.5 million against a budget of $150 million.
In 2007, Lewis, an orphaned 12-year-old boy who is an aspiring scientist and inventor, wants to get adopted, but his energetic behavior and malfunctioning inventions frequently scare off prospective parents, so he embarks on a mission to locate his birth mother, who left him at the orphanage when he was an infant. To do so, he conceives an invention that will scan his memories and help him identify her, which he calls the "Memory Scanner". While taking the Memory Scanner to his school's science fair, Lewis meets Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy who claims to be from the future. Wilbur needs to recover a time machine that a tall man wearing an evil robotic bowler hat, which he calls the “Bowler Hat Guy”, has stolen. At the science fair, Lewis tries to demonstrate the Memory Scanner, but it has been sabotaged by the Bowler Hat Guy and falls apart, throwing the science fair into chaos. Lewis leaves while the Bowler Hat Guy steals the Memory Scanner. He plans to pitch it as his own to an invention company called InventCo. Labs, but fails when he cannot figure out how to turn it on.
Wilbur meets Lewis at the orphanage and asks him to repair the Memory Scanner, but Lewis demands proof that Wilbur is telling the truth. He does so by taking Lewis in a second time machine to the year 2037, which is highly advanced technologically, but when they arrive, Lewis theorizes that he can simply use the time machine to go back and prevent his mother from giving him up; an ensuing argument between the boys leads to the time machine crashing. Wilbur asks Lewis to fix the time machine, and Lewis agrees on the condition that Wilbur has to take him to visit his mother afterwards. Reluctantly, Wilbur agrees and hides Lewis in the garage. Lewis accidentally goes up a transportation tube into the house and ends up meeting the rest of the Robinson family except for Cornelius, Wilbur's father and the inventor of the time's technologies, who is away on a business trip. Having followed Lewis, the Bowler Hat Guy tries to kidnap him by attacking the Robinson house with a Tyrannosaurus rex, but the Robinsons incapacitate it. The Robinsons offer to adopt Lewis, but change their mind when they learn that he is from the past. Wilbur admits to lying to Lewis about taking him back to see his mother, causing Lewis to run off in disgust.
The Bowler Hat Guy approaches Lewis, and offers to take him to his mother if he fixes the Memory Scanner. Once he does, the Bowler Hat Guy reveals that Lewis is Wilbur's father, and that he himself is the adult version of Lewis' roommate, Goob; because he was repeatedly kept awake during Lewis' work on the Memory Scanner, Goob fell asleep during a Little League baseball game and failed to make an important catch, costing his team the championship. Goob, having been influenced by his future self's imprudent advice, became so withdrawn and bitter that he was never adopted and remained in the orphanage long after it closed. Goob’s bowler hat, Doris, is a Helping Hat, a failed and abandoned Robinson invention. They blame Lewis for their misfortunes, so they decided to team up and ruin his life. Leaving Lewis in the future, they return to the past and enact their plan, successfully pitching the Memory Scanner and subsequently mass-producing Helping Hats. However, Doris disposes of Goob and uses the Helping Hats to enslave humanity, erasing Wilbur and turning the future into a dystopia. Lewis repairs the second time machine, and confronts Goob and Doris in the past, and invalidates her existence by vowing to never invent her, restoring the future and Wilbur.
Back in Wilbur's time, Wilbur reluctantly attempts to ask Goob to join the Robinson family at Lewis' request, but he flees in shame for his actions. Lewis finally meets Cornelius, who explains how the Memory Scanner started their successful career, and persuades Lewis to return to the science fair. Wilbur takes Lewis in the time machine, but surprises him by taking him back to the night when his mother left him at the orphanage. Lewis attempts to interact with her, but ultimately decides against it, content with the knowledge of his future family.
Wilbur drops Lewis off in his own time and bids him farewell. Lewis heads to the science fair, realizing he had to wake Goob up at the baseball field just in time for him to make the winning catch, averting his future. Back at the science fair, Lewis asks for one more chance to demonstrate the Memory Scanner, which this time succeeds. He is adopted by Dr. Lucille Krunklehorn, one of the science fair judges and a scientist from InventCo. Labs, and her husband Bud Robinson, who nicknames him "Cornelius." Emboldened by his future family's credo of "keep moving forward," Lewis moves in with his new parents and begins his inventing career.
In addition, Joe Robinson is Wilbur's obese uncle, Billie's husband, and Bud and Fritz' brother who rides in an easy chair, his whimpers are provided by an uncredited actor. Also in the Robinson family is their dog, Buster, who wears glasses.
Note: Lewis was voiced by both Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry. Daniel Hansen voiced Lewis at the beginning of the film's production, and when the studio needed Lewis' lines changed, they had Jordan Fry re-dub many segments.
Prior to Disney's involvement, Joyce had pitched the story to various filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, George Miller, Peter Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola and Diane Keaton as a potential live-action movie.
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 personal connection to Lewis, since they both grew up adopted.
The studio planned to adapt Joyce's style to the film, but due to his involvement stylistically in Blue Sky Studios' Robots, the style was slightly reworked. While still taking cues from his retro style, influenced by everything from Technicolor movies to '40s architectural design, the crew also took inspiration from the company Apple. Unlike their previous film Chicken Little, a film starring CG animals, the animation crew had the challenge to animate 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 screening for the movie, he told Anderson that he did not find the villain scary or threatening enough, and suggested that he make some changes. Ten months later, almost 60% of the film had been scrapped and redone. 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 turned it down to star in The Number 23.
Over 600 REAL D Cinema digital 3D-equipped theaters presented Disney Digital 3-D version of the film. In all theatrical showings, the standard version of the film was preceded by the 1938 Mickey Mouse short film Boat Builders and the 3D version was preceded by the 1953 Donald Duck 3D short Working for Peanuts. The final credits of the 3D version were left two-dimensional, except for the names of those who converted the film to 3D. This is also the first Walt Disney animated film to display the Walt Disney Animation Studios logo at the beginning; previous animated films from Walt Disney Animation Studios had only displayed the Walt Disney Pictures logo.
The DVD and Blu-ray versions were both released on October 23, 2007. Both versions feature 1.78 widescreen aspect ratio and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, plus music videos, the "Family Function 5000" game, deleted scenes, and other bonus features. The DVD's audio commentary contains Anderson's narration, occasionally interrupted by himself as the Bowler Hat Guy. The Blu-ray also includes uncompressed 5.1 audio and a BD-J game, Bowler Hat Barrage!. A 3D Blu-ray was released on November 8, 2011.
As of January 2008, the DVD had sold approximately 4 million copies.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 67% of 144 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Meet the Robinsons is a visually impressive children's animated film marked by a story of considerable depth." Metacritic reported the film had a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on 27 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.
Realmovienews stated that it has "a snappy plot that demands close attention as it whizzes back and forth in the space-time continuum, touching on serious ideas and proposing some rather disturbing alternate realities. And the witty story twists are handled with rare subtlety and intelligence. In the end it may get a little weepy and inspirational. But it's so charming that we don't mind at all". Danny Minton of the Beaumont Journal said that "The Robinsons might not be a family you want to hang out with, but they sure were fun to meet in this imaginative and beautiful 3-D experience". Andrew L. Urban of Australian Urban Cinefile said that "Walt Disney stood for fantasy on screen and this is a loving tribute to his legacy". Kyle Smith of the New York Post named it the 10th best film of 2007.
Conversely, A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "Meet the Robinsons is surely one of the worst theatrically released animated features issued under the Disney label in quite some time", while Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C" and said "This is one bumpy ride".
Meet the Robinsons grossed $25,123,781 on its opening weekend, ranking in second place behind Blades of Glory. Over its theatrical run, it grossed $97,822,171 in the United States of America and $72,730,548 in other territories, grossing $170,552,719 worldwide.
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 parody 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 as the theme song.
A Meet the Robinsons video game was published by Buena Vista Games for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows. England-based Climax Group developed their own adaption for the Game Boy Advance.
Bowler Hat Guy appears as a playable character in the mobile game Disney Heroes Battle Mode.
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.
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 (in her young scientist judge appearance) 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. This was due to the original models not being animated 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.