Meet the Robinsons
Jan. 21st, 2022 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI actually quite liked Meet the Robinsons! I didn’t expect to, as most of the forgotten Disney movies have been forgotten for a reason, and okay, I can see the reasons why this one has gone down the memory hole… but I still really enjoyed it.
Our hero is Lewis, a young inventor who lives in an orphanage, where his inventing sprees scare off potential adoptive families and keep his long-suffering roommate Goob up late. Despairing of ever being adopted, Lewis becomes fixated on the idea of meeting his mother and invents a machine that will project his memory of her face onto a screen, which he just barely finishes the night before the science fair.
At the science fair, however, things rapidly go wrong. A “time cop” (who is very clearly a boy Lewis’s own age) insists that a man with a bowler hat has come from the future to try to sabotage Lewis’s experiment… and indeed, soon a bowler hat with spider-like metal appendages sneaks over to Lewis’s table and takes a screw out of his machine.
There is just so much zaniness in this movie and I really enjoy it. The bowler hat who is the true evil mastermind! (Also, her name is Doris.) The guy wearing the bowler hat is a vengeful bumbler whose plans all fail! (My favorite is the bit where Bowler Hat Guy summons a T. Rex, who tries to catch Lewis, only for Lewis to take shelter in a corner where the T. Rex can’t reach him with its tiny arms…)
There’s a wonderful moment when Bowler Hat Guy meets Goob, who has just missed the game-winning catch in his Little League game, and is pondering whether he ought to take his coach’s advice to move on. “No! Everyone will tell you to let it go and move on, but don't! Instead, let it fester and boil inside of you! Take these feelings and lock them away. Let them fuel your actions. Let hate be your ally, and you will be capable of wonderful, horrid things. Heed my words, Goob: don't let it go.”
Goob: “Huh?”
And then it turns out the Bowler Hat Guy is, in fact, Goob, all grown up! After years of letting that Little League game fester and boil in his heart, he has decided that his misery is All Lewis’s Fault for keeping him up so late the night before the game (Goob fell asleep in the outfield, you see), and heads out to egg Lewis’s house… which is where he met Doris the bowler hat, an invention of Lewis’s who has Turned To The Bad!
It also turns out that Lewis is the so-called Time Cop’s father, which makes it a little weird that Time Cop’s mom offered to adopt Lewis, but these things happen when you time travel!
I think the reason this movie has drifted so far out of the public consciousness - indeed, perhaps the reason many of these Disney movies have so drifted - is that it lacks an easily explained hook. There’s so much going on: inventions! Orphans! Time travel! A zany family! Bizarre time travel villainy! Lots of things to enjoy, but not easily summed up in a phrase that will bring the movie-goers to the yard.
Our hero is Lewis, a young inventor who lives in an orphanage, where his inventing sprees scare off potential adoptive families and keep his long-suffering roommate Goob up late. Despairing of ever being adopted, Lewis becomes fixated on the idea of meeting his mother and invents a machine that will project his memory of her face onto a screen, which he just barely finishes the night before the science fair.
At the science fair, however, things rapidly go wrong. A “time cop” (who is very clearly a boy Lewis’s own age) insists that a man with a bowler hat has come from the future to try to sabotage Lewis’s experiment… and indeed, soon a bowler hat with spider-like metal appendages sneaks over to Lewis’s table and takes a screw out of his machine.
There is just so much zaniness in this movie and I really enjoy it. The bowler hat who is the true evil mastermind! (Also, her name is Doris.) The guy wearing the bowler hat is a vengeful bumbler whose plans all fail! (My favorite is the bit where Bowler Hat Guy summons a T. Rex, who tries to catch Lewis, only for Lewis to take shelter in a corner where the T. Rex can’t reach him with its tiny arms…)
There’s a wonderful moment when Bowler Hat Guy meets Goob, who has just missed the game-winning catch in his Little League game, and is pondering whether he ought to take his coach’s advice to move on. “No! Everyone will tell you to let it go and move on, but don't! Instead, let it fester and boil inside of you! Take these feelings and lock them away. Let them fuel your actions. Let hate be your ally, and you will be capable of wonderful, horrid things. Heed my words, Goob: don't let it go.”
Goob: “Huh?”
And then it turns out the Bowler Hat Guy is, in fact, Goob, all grown up! After years of letting that Little League game fester and boil in his heart, he has decided that his misery is All Lewis’s Fault for keeping him up so late the night before the game (Goob fell asleep in the outfield, you see), and heads out to egg Lewis’s house… which is where he met Doris the bowler hat, an invention of Lewis’s who has Turned To The Bad!
It also turns out that Lewis is the so-called Time Cop’s father, which makes it a little weird that Time Cop’s mom offered to adopt Lewis, but these things happen when you time travel!
I think the reason this movie has drifted so far out of the public consciousness - indeed, perhaps the reason many of these Disney movies have so drifted - is that it lacks an easily explained hook. There’s so much going on: inventions! Orphans! Time travel! A zany family! Bizarre time travel villainy! Lots of things to enjoy, but not easily summed up in a phrase that will bring the movie-goers to the yard.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-21 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-21 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-21 08:34 pm (UTC)I have never seen Meet the Robinsons, but I have a friend who used to quote "I have a big head and little arms!" as an expression of all-purpose frustration, which always made me feel kindly toward it.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-21 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-25 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-25 09:49 pm (UTC)