Flint Lockwood

Flint Lockwood is the main protagonist of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The Series. He is an aspiring inventor who finds his dreams are often much bigger than his abilities.
==Appearance==
Flint is a young man in his mid-20'sCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs script with fair skin. He has unruly dark brown hair, blue eyes and an oversized nose. Heavily inspired by the style of Miroslav Sasek, he was designed to be more "cartoony," with a thin body, long limbs, and an oversized head. His mannerisms, including the way he walks, is inspired by UPA cartoons.https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2009/Volume-32-Issue-9-Sep-2009-/Food-for-Laughs.aspx He is rarely seen without his trusty lab coat, given to him by his mother Fran Lockwood when he was 8 years oldCoat of Harms, Flint "my mom gave it to me when I was eight". Flint commonly wears graphic T-shirts under his lab coat, such as a blue and yellow shirt with a rain cloud that reads "Science is Awesome!" He also wears black pants and his lace-less alternative foot covering, "Spray-On Shoes."
== Personality==
Flint is "a subversion of the archetype of a very capable scientist - he wants to be that, he just isn't.Director Phil Lord" He is a youthful, optimistic resident of Swallow Falls with a passion for science, admiring famous inventors like Chester V, whose ambitions far exceed his abilities. Flint's colorful exuberance sticks out like a sore thumb against the gray, nostalgia-paralyzed townspeople, including his own father Tim Lockwood. Flint also takes verbal conversation literally, having trouble understanding his father's fishing metaphors. 
Flint is a forward-thinking individual, and "never sees things quite clearly or balanced.Production Designer Justin K. Thompson" He is resourceful and adaptable, capable of taking the antiquated 1980's-era technology of his town and repurposing it into novel inventions. In addition to his passion for science, Flint is an unintentional artist. "Flint is obsessed with how things look, often to the detriment of their functionality." His design for the FLDSMDFR implies that he may be a fan of Star WarsThe Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with its droid-like appearance. The fact that his inventions look cool at the expense of their functionality means testing or revealing his inventions often results in chaos, much to the chagrin of local cop Earl Devereaux. Flint feels no need to hide anything about himself, and that extends to his impressions of others. He is terrible at keeping secrets, and values honesty and integrity, and being true to oneself.
He was regularly mocked by his classmates as a child, as they viewed his passion for science and inventing as nerdy. He fidgets and makes odd choices in body language, implying he doesn't know what to do with his hands, and his social ineptitude is exacerbated by the amount of time he spends isolated in his laboratory. His "best friend and most trusted colleague" is a monkey named Steve. While Steve speaks only in simple one-word phrases as translated by the Monkey Thought Translator, Flint often recontextualizes Steve's thoughts to affirm his own or to otherwise simulate conversation.
Despite being awkward and naive, Flint enjoys spending time with people he trusts and admires. He is extremely loyal and cares deeply about the approval of his friends and family. Flint is attentive to the interests and preferences of his friend and love interest Sam Sparks, making a Jell-O castle for her when she expressed how much she loved the food.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs His admiration for Sam's geekiness, which she had kept hidden for years, inspires her to be true to herself and brings the two of them closer together. By accepting responsibility for the chaos caused by the FLDSMDFR and working to fix it, he wins the approval of his father and gains newfound confidence and ambition. However, his need for social acceptance, paired with his lack of social prowess makes him naive and gullible, easily won over by Chester V's charismatic charm.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 Despite this, he does not sacrifice his values for the sake of others, and remains very independent and resilient in the face of adversity.
Flint is shown to be very stubborn and standoffish when facing criticism, brushing aside Sam's and his father's concerns until his invention puts the town - and the world - in imminent danger. Flint accepts responsibility, but falls into a depressive spiral of self-loathing, throwing himself in the trash and considering himself "junk." This resistance to criticism and strong negative reaction to failure extends into the second film, where he gives in to "teenage tantrums, throwing his hands in the air or hunching over and shrugging his shouldersThe Art of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2" when his friends express concern that his hero Chester V may have ulterior motives.
==History==
===Early Life===
Flint Lockwood grew up in Swallow Falls, a tiny island whose economy had stagnated once their primary export - sardines - was no longer in demand because "the whole world realized that sardines are super gross." With the stagnating economy also came stagnating technology, and the townspeople prioritized utilitarianism over aesthetic, while simultaneously remaining "stuck in the past," unable to move past the heyday of sardine canning.
Flint, inspired by scientists and innovators and encouraged by his mother, sought from a young age to solve problems that plagued the town. When he was 8 years old, he created an alternative to shoes to solve the "untied shoes epidemic" as part of an assigned science project.Tie-in Novels However, school bully Brent McHale humiliated Flint in front of the class by pointing out that Spray-on Shoes don't come off.
his mother Fran reminded Flint that "everyone probably thought that [the inventors you admire] were weirdos too," and presented him with an early birthday present: a homemade lab coat just like the scientists on Flint's posters. Inspired, Flint doodled a poster of himself as the "best inventor ever." The sight of himself among those he looked up to inspired him to "invent something great."
Fran died when Flint was around 13, leaving Flint to be raised by his father Tim, who was technologically illiterate and spoke in fishing metaphors Flint didn't understand.
Flint's interest in science and inventing was further piqued by the television show "The Scientifically Wonderful World of Science," hosted by the inventor of the Food Bar, Chester V, and his orangutan assistant Barb. Flint's dream was to become a Thinkquanaut like his hero, even dressing as one for Halloween. Flint continued to invent well into adulthood, creating with a Remote Controlled Television that ran amok and can no longer be controlled remotely, Hair Un-Balder that works too well, a Flying Car that doesn't fly, Steve's Monkey Thought Translator, and Ratbirds.
===Cloudy: The Series===
NOTE: The show retcons multiple timeline elements of the movies, so information from the show should be taken with a grain of salt. 
Roughly three years after his mom gives him his lab coat, Flint attends Cannery High with new Swallow Falls resident Sam Sparks at meets her at the school science fair. When told that his new friend moves frequently and is reluctant to make friends out of the pain of saying goodbye, he invents something that would erase everyone's memories of her time in Swallow Falls. 
Flint spent his high school years constantly trying to convince his classmates of the wonders of science, often escalating into disastrous invention attempts that wreak havoc on the school. 
As seen in the last episode of the series, shortly before inventing the FLDSMDFR, Flint worked at the local diner Sardinees before it went out of business. 
===Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs===
Fifteen years after the creation of Spray-on Shoes, Flint's next goal was to invent a machine that would diversify Swallow Falls's diet by converting water into food. When overloading the "power grid" (a network of surge protectors and a tangle of cords) in his lab short-circuits the breakers in his house, Flint uses the grand unveiling of Sardine Land as cover to sneak to the town's power grid. However, he over-powers his food machine, which sends it rocketing across town, destroying Sardine Land in the process, before shooting into the sky. Distraught and humiliated, Flint rushed to the docks and hid beneath the pier by sitting on the ladder.
However, this meant that Sam, a weatherperson who was humiliated by the food machine slamming a camera into her face, could not see Flint when she sat at the edge of the pier, kicking Flint in the eyeballs. Sam quickly deduces that Flint was the inventor of the "rocket" that destroyed her career, but while she was reprimanding him and venting about the state of the weather industry, Flint noticed bits of food plopping into the water or splattering on the docks. They quickly realized that by shooting into the atmosphere, the food machine was able to produce large amounts of food using the water in the atmosphere, causing it to rain down on the town.
Flint managed to convince his dad Tim that he had the situation under control and that it wouldn't end in disaster, then gave Sam and her cameraman Manny a tour of his lab. In the elevator, Flint admitted that he hadn't talked to a girl since his mom had died. In the lab, Flint explained the function of his food machine, which he named the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR). When Sam and Manny expected to film Flint ordering the food, he distracted them with an Internet video of cats and ducks singing a pitched version of "Fight the Power" for three hours while he hastily built a radar dish to send orders to the FLDSMDFR.
Now able to communicate, and with a "Dangeometer" to warn him when the food was going to over-mutate, Flint spent the next month fulfilling the town's peoples' requests, including an ice cream breakfast on behalf of Earl Devereaux for his son Cal's birthday. Mayor Shelbourne encouraged Flint to overwork the machine, telling him that Sam's worldwide reporting on the food weather would help market the grand reopening of the town, rebranded as Chewandswallow, to a global audience.
At the end of the month, Flint realized Sam had not made any requests, so he made Jell-O rain in the middle of the night, gathered it with his food debris cleaning vehicle the Outtasighter, and pressed it into a giant custom Tupperware mold he made, all in a grand gesture to get to know her better and show his appreciation for making a friend who loved science as much as he did. The two of them bounced in the Jell-O castle, playing in the Jell-O pool and eating themselves silly, then sat and watched the sunset together. Sam admitted that as a child she too was made fun of for her interest in science, specifically weather. She stopped wearing glasses and putting her hair up in a ponytail, and got into the habit of bailing from any "nerdy" comments. Flint put her glasses on and gave her a Jell-O scrunchie to put her hair into a ponytail, then, after a dramatic reveal, told her that "you were okay before, but now you're beautiful." Sam leaned in for a kiss, and Flint puffed up his cheeks, but before they can (sort of) kiss Flint's phone rang and interrupted their date.
The mayor told Flint that he would cut the ribbon at the town's unveiling ceremony. Flint treated his dad to a fancy steak dinner at the Roofless Restaurant to share the news, but Tim Lockwood noticed that the steaks were unusually large and warned Flint that the food weather may not be good for people. Flint argued that Tim was the only person in the town who was not happy with Flint's invention, and Tim responded by telling Flint "you look like you know what you're doing, then. I guess I'll just get out of your way."
Flint stormed home, muttering to himself and venting about how badly the dinner had gone, before he was nearly crushed by a giant hot dog. Finally realizing his father was right, he attempted to warn the mayor that making so much food was causing the food molecules to over-mutate, but the mayor insisted that the bigger food was better for people. Using Flint's desire for acceptance to manipulate him, he convinced Flint to reluctantly order a spaghetti dinner.
At the unveiling ceremony, Sam also confronted Flint, warning him that a storm was brewing, but he ignored her. Flattening his hair against his head, Flint entertained the adoring crowd and cut the ribbon to the town with a large pair of ceremonial golden scissors, used by Brent a month prior to mock his outsider status in society.
However, just after cutting the ribbon, the wind picked up, tousling Flint's hair back into its natural spikiness. Realizing that Sam and his dad were right, he shouted to Sam that he could shut the machine off and rushed to his lab to put an end to the food weather. He got sucked up into the tornado and lost his lab coat in the storm. The mayor had been ordering a Vegas-style all-you-can-eat buffet for the past ten minutes, and sent the order just as Flint arrived at his lab. The two of them had a food fight, Flint trying to send a kill code to the machine and the mayor trying to stop him, before the mayor threw a beet (or a radish) at Flint, which missed and destroyed the radar instead, breaking off all communication with the machine.
With the storm getting worse and no way of stopping the machine, Flint gave into despair, crawling into a trash can and considering himself a piece of junk, "like all [my] other dumb inventions." Tim, who had found Flint's lab coat in the aftermath of the storm, presented it to Flint, saying "when it rains, you put on a coat." Realizing that he could still use his resourcefulness to stop the machine, Flint created the Flying Car II ("now with wings"), copied the kill code to a USB drive, and flew into the heart of the storm with Sam, Manny, Steve, and Brent.
A squad of flying, sentient pizza knocked a window out of the car, creating a vacuum that sucked the USB with the kill code out of Flint's hand. Flint desperately called his tech-averse father at the tackle shop and frustratedly walked him through the process of sending the file to Flint's cell phone via email.
Despite his insistence that Brent stay in the car while Sam and Flint destroyed the FLDSMDFR, Brent leapt out of the Flying Car II and knocked the three of them off-course, where they ran into sentient chickens and a chasm of peanut brittle. When Sam pricked herself on peanut brittle while lowering Flint down the hole, which triggers an anaphylactic reaction, Flint cut the licorice rope by biting it and ordered Brent to take Sam back to the car.
Alone, Flint faced the FLDSMDFR, which was suspended above a meaty chasm by a translucent white tube-like appendage. Flint entangled the machine with a piece of spaghetti and plugged the phone into the FLDSMDFR's USB port. Unfortunately, Flint's dad had sent the Internet video of "Fight the Power" instead of the kill code. The FLDSMDFR shot the phone into a wall, shattering it, then broke its bonds and attempted to fling Flint into the abyss below.
Flint realized he still had one chance left and sprayed a can of Spray-on Shoes onto the exhaust of the FLDSMDFR, pressurizing it as it filled with water but had no way to release the food. Flint dropped into the hole, accepting his fate as the FLDSMDFR exploded. But he was rescued by Ratbirds, who gently returned him to the ground, where he reunited with the townspeople.
Using the Monkey Thought Translator, Flint's dad admitted that he had always admired how creative his son was and that every time he spoke in fishing metaphors, it was his way of expressing his love for his son. Sam and Flint reunited, and at long last they shared their first kiss.
===Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2===
Upon finishing their kiss, Sam and Flint began plans to build a laboratory together, which they would call Sparkswood. Earl, Manny, Tim, Steve, and Brent all expressed interest in joining in, but before they could plan in any detail, a helicopter descended, and Flint's childhood hero Chester V appeared. He told the town that Chester's inventing company Live Corp had been cleaning up the leftover food from around the world and that they would relocate the entire town to San Franjose, California while they cleaned up Swallow Falls. He offered Flint a job at Live Corp as a Thinquanaut, and after consulting with his friends to make sure it didn't interfere with their Sparkswood dream, he agreed.
Flint was enamored with Live Corp's modern aesthetic, hot lattes, and an environment filled with people who all shared Flint's passion for inventing. Barb gave him a tour of the facility, telling him that to become an official Thinquanaut, he had to submit ideas for his inventions to a yearly competition where Chester V would hand-pick the greatest invention from the submissions and personally give that inventor the coveted orange vest.
Over the next six months, Flint submitted several inventions, such as the Invisible Coffee Table, the Fork-and-Knife-and-Spoon-inator, and the Celebrationator. He worked vigorously, submitting one invention a day, his enthusiasm leading to more time away from his family and less time with Sam.
However, the winner of the competition (after a red herring that increased Flint's anticipation) was Flintly McCallahan, a New Zealander inventor who created a car that runs on cute. Unfortunately, Flint had trained Steve to press the Celebrationator's red button and trigger the colorful explosion whenever he heard the word "celebrate," and after an unfortunate choice of wording, Steve triggered the Celebrationator in the middle of the presentation, showering audience members with colorful paint and confetti. The entire fiasco was televised, and, more humiliatingly, Chester glared disapprovingly at Flint during the event, clearly unhappy with the mishap.
Later that evening, Barb escorted Flint to Chester's office, which Flint interpreted as a chance for redemption to make up for the Vesting Ceremony mishap. However, Chester had instead invited Flint to his office to reveal that the FLDSMDFR was still running and had mutated half-food, half-animal creatures that appeared to be learning to swim to escape the island and terrorize the mainland. Flint insisted that he would be able to fix the problem and shut off the machine again, and, despite his promise to Chester not to tell a soul about the mission, invited all his friends to come along.
To their surprise, in the past half a year, the island had developed entire food-based ecosystems filled with diverse fauna known as foodimals. Flint treated these creatures with skepticism and disdain, while Sam expressed joy and curiousity toward the beings. After a sentient strawberry Sam cheerfully named Barry ate the Bifurcating Systematic Universal Stop Button, they decided to let the foodimal tag along until it "passes" the BSUSB. While traversing the landscape and chasing down Barry to try and get the BSUSB back, Flint and friends awoke a Cheespider, which cornered them and threatened to attack until Chester descended in one of his Help-icopters to come to their aid.
After Flint and friends escaped a Tacodile ambush, Sam noticed the foodimal protected its family, and became suspicious of Chester's intentions. Sam attempted to convince Flint to spare the foodimals , but Flint disagreed, still convinced that Chester was right about the danger the foodimals posed to the rest of the world. Unable to come to an agreement, Sam and the rest of Flint's friends left, promising to meet him back on the boat.
Flint and Chester located the FLDSMDFR, but before Flint could follow through on destroying the machine, a family of cute marshmallows gathers around the FLMSMDFR and tickle Flint. Flint realized that Sam was right, that not all foodimals posed a danger to the world, but Chester, revealing his true nature, seized control of the FLDSMDFR by using the BSUSB to reprogram it. A crushed and betrayed Flint was tossed into the river but was rescued by the marshmallows and returned to his dad, who had befriended a tribe of sentient pickles.
Barry told Flint through a game of charades that Chester had kidnapped Sam and the gang and was keeping them at the factory. With the help of the foodimals, Flint launched himself and Barry into a storage room in the factory using an old sardine statue. Barry freed the rest of the trapped foodimals while Flint went to rescue his friends.
With a captive audience in Flint and his friends, Chester revealed his plan to to make food bars out of the foodimals, threatening to do the same to his friends if Flint continued to resist. Chester attempted to overwhelm and misdirect Flint with a horde of holograms of himself, but Flint (with help from Steve, who was able to free himself) used the Celebrationator to dissipate the holograms and expose the real Chester. 
With the island and his friends safe, Flint returned the FLDSMDFR to its place, where it continued to produce foodimals. Flint fished with his father for the first time, finding it enjoyable despite catching an incredibly tiny sardine. He and his friends finally build their dream in Swallow Falls, creating Sparkswood and living in harmony with the foodimals.
River Expedition
Flint continues to invent, selling his inventions via TV ads.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs River Expedition
==Inventions==
See Flint Lockwood/Inventions
== Trivia==
*He is based on Henry, a male character in the book.
*Flint has more than 1,000 facial controls and has extra resolution in his limbs and hands to allow for extreme levels of flexibility.
*The name "Flint Lockwood" is a cross between "Flintlock" (which comes from the hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz) and "Clint Eastwood", the name of a famous actor.
*In the original script, Flint was a suave scientist whose government-funded machine got stuck in orbit over Swallow Falls, leaving him stranded in the small town while he attempted to fix the machine
*Flint's lab and inventions are designed to be smooth, abstract, and asymmetrical to contrast with the town's square, gray aesthetic
*The production team established that "the rainbow represents magic, and Flint is magic, with an imagination that is unlimited."
* Flint cannot swim.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (video game)
*Flint's color cue is blue, which is a visual indicator of moments where Flint features prominently.
*His email address is "flockwood@flinternet.com"
*His screams measure at approximately 300 decibels
*He is genetically predisposed to male-pattern baldnessHair We Go Again
*He presumably has a "born to science" tattoo on his armAnd the Winner Is...
*One of the prevailing fan theories upon the movie's release was that Flint is autistic.https://flintlockwoodslab.proboards.com/thread/13/flint-aspergers When asked about the theory, Cloudy 2 directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn responded that the similarity was not a deliberate choice, but they're honored that Flint resonated with so many in the autistic community.https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nqbie/comment/ccl0b5k/?utm_name=web3xcss
==Gallery==
See Gallery
File:Flint with a blaster.png|Flint in Cloudy: The Series
File:Flint Lockwood.jpg|Promo image of Flint
File:Cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-character-renders-4.jpg|Video game render with the Chopper-er
File:Cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-character-renders-3.jpg|Video game render with the Forkamajigger
File:Cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-character-renders-2.jpg|Video game render with the Bigacious Pow
File:Cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-character-renders-1.jpg|Video game render with the Hot Enougher
File:FlintConceptArt.jpg|Concept art of Flint
File:FlintTeacherConceptArt.jpg|Concept art of Flint in school
File:FlintLockwoodPSP.png|Flint as seen in the PSP game
File:Graduation.png|Flint's high school graduation picture
File:FamilyPortrait.png|Flint's family portrait
File:Flint Poster.png|Flint's motivational poster
==References==
==Site Navigation==
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