Meet the Robinsons

Lewis is an aspiring 12-year-old inventor who grew up in an orphanage. His energy and eccentricity have been scaring off potential parents, so he works all night on a machine to scan his memory to locate his birth mother, who abandoned him at the orphanage when he was a baby. While taking the scanner to his school's science fair, Lewis meets 13-year-old Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy claiming to be a time cop from the future. Wilbur needs to recover a time machine that a man wearing a bowler hat has stolen. Lewis tries to demonstrate the scanner, but it has been sabotaged by Bowler Hat Guy and falls apart, throwing the science fair into chaos. Lewis leaves while the Bowler Hat Guy, with the help of his robotic bowler hat named Doris, steals the scanner.

Wilbur meets Lewis at the orphanage and asks him to repair the scanner. Lewis demands proof that Wilbur is telling the truth. Wilbur does so by taking them in a second time machine to the year 2037, which is highly advanced technologically. When they arrive, Lewis realizes he can simply use the time machine to meet his mother; the resulting argument makes them crash. 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 leaves, however, 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 and Doris try to kidnap him, but the Robinsons beat them back. 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 mom, causing Lewis to run off in disgust.

The Bowler Hat Guy and Doris approach Lewis, and offer to take him to his mother if he fixes the memory scanner. Once he does, they betray him and tie him up. The Bowler Hat Guy reveals that Cornelius Robinson is, in fact, Lewis's future self, and that he himself is an adult version of Lewis's roommate, Michael "Goob" Yagoobian. Because he was kept awake by Lewis's work on the scanner, Goob fell asleep during a Little League baseball game and failed to make an important catch, costing his team the championship. Goob became so withdrawn and bitter that he was never adopted and remained in the orphanage long after it closed. Doris is "DOR-15", one of Lewis's failed and abandoned inventions. They both blamed Lewis for their misfortunes and decided to ruin his life. Leaving Lewis in the future, they return to the past and enact their plan. However, it is revealed that Doris tricked everyone; once mass-produced, the Doris hats dispose of Goob and enslave humanity. Lewis repairs the second time machine, confronts Doris in the past, and destroys her by promising to never invent her, restoring the future to its utopian state. Wilbur tries to ask the adult Goob to join the family, but he has fled in remorse.

Back in Wilbur's time, Lewis finally meets Cornelius face to face. Cornelius explains how the memory scanner started their successful career, and persuades Lewis to return to the science fair. Wilbur takes Lewis back, but makes one stop first: as he promised, he takes Lewis back to see the moment when his mother abandoned him.

Wilbur drops Lewis off in his own time and leaves. Lewis heads to the fair, en route waking up Goob just in time for him to make the winning catch. Back at the fair, Lewis asks for one more chance to demonstrate his scanner, which this time succeeds. He is adopted by Lucille, one of the science fair judges, and her husband Bud, who nicknames him "Cornelius" and takes him home.

The film ends with a quote which reiterates the message of not dwelling on failures and "keep moving forward", attributed to Walt Disney.

^†Note: The character of 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.[7][8][9]

Director Stephen Anderson at the film's premiere

Originally titled A Day with Wilbur Robinson, production began in June 2004, and was scheduled for a 2006 release.[10][11] 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.[12][13]

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.[12] 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 Brothers cartoons to capture the 1950s aesthetic.[12]

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.[14]

Over 600 REAL D Cinema digital 3D-equipped theaters presented Disney Digital 3-D version of the film.[15] 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 Chip 'n Dale 3D short Working for Peanuts.[16] The final credits of the 3D version were left two-dimensional, except for the names of those who converted the film to 3D.

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"). 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.

Disney's Meet the Robinsons video game is available from Buena Vista Games for PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, and PC. The independent England-based company Climax Group developed their own adaption for the Game Boy Advance.

Disneytoon Studios originally planned to make a sequel to the film, tentatively titled Meet the Robinsons 2: First Date.[27] However, when John Lasseter became Walt Disney Animation Studios' new chief creative officer, he called off all future sequels Disneytoon originally planned, including sequels to Chicken Little (2005) and The Aristocats (1970), and refocused on spin-off films and original productions.[27]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Meet the Robinsons.

• Official website
• Meet the Robinsons at IMDb
• Meet the Robinsons at the TCM Movie Database
• Meet the Robinsons at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Meet the Robinsons at Box Office Mojo
• Meet the Robinsons at Rotten Tomatoes
• Meet the Robinsons at Metacritic