Meet the Robinsons

• Directed by Stephen Anderson
• March 25, 2007 (El Capitan Theatre) / March 30, 2007 (US)
• Based on the 1990 children’s book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce

Voice Cast

• Lewis-Jordan Fry and Daniel Hansen
• Cornelius Robinson (a grown-up Lewis)-Tom Selleck
• Wilbur Robinson-Wesley Singerman
• Mike “Goob” Yagoobian-Matthew Josten
• Cousin Tallulah, Bud Robinson, Bowler Hat Guy-Stephen Anderson
• Carl-Harland Williams
• Franny Robinson-Nicole Sullivan
• Young Franny-Michaela Jill Murphy
• Mildred Duffy-Angela Bassett
• Art-Adam West
• Lucille Krunklehorn-Robinson-Laurie Metcalf
• Doris, Fritz Robinson, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Spike and Uncle Dimitri, Cousin Laszlo, The Unnamed CEO of InventCo-Ethan Sandler
• Gaston, Gym Coach-Don Hall
• Mr. Willerstein-Tom Kenny
• Aunt Billie-Kelly Hoover
• Lizzy-Tracey Miller-Zarneke
• Tiny the Tyrannosaurus-Joe Mateo
• Frankie the Frog-Aurian Redson
• Singing voice of Frankie the Frog-Jamie Cullum
• Stanley-Paul Butcher
• InventCo Receptionist, Mrs. Harrington-Dara McGarry
• Mr. Harrington-John H. H. Ford
• Lefty-Nathan Greno
• Reporter-Joe Whyte

An orphaned 12-year-old desperate to be adopted meets a young time-traveler and together they must stop a mysterious bowler-hatted man from changing the future.

Meet the Robinsons popped up a few times when I was watching other things on Disney+ and knowing of it but knowing very little about it eventually I decided to give it a look. What I found was something entertaining with maybe with a little more work could’ve been improved. It’s good, but not as good as it could’ve been. Not all bad but with definite weaknesses. Let me explain.

The main character of Lewis is a scientific genius orphan desperate for a home. He’s of the wacky and comedic invention type with his construction/materials used bordering on the implausible. That plays into how the future is portrayed. The technology we encounter is whimsical and silly like bubble travel or instant buildings. I like the whimsical technology but even the silliest part of me has trouble being okay with a fan, an old timey radio, and other stuff coming together for a memory viewing device.

The driving force of Meet the Robinsons is Lewis seeking to know what his biological mother looked like. His initial invention which will set him on his path to the future is an attempt to get into his deepest memory and see her face. Then there’s a tinge of obsession when time travel enters into the equation to maybe even change his fate.

One thing this does right is Lewis never actually sees her face. I don’t think the viewer gets a good look at it in all the moments when it is teased. In that aspect what the film does is frame what happened as she did what was best for Lewis given the general situation-whatever it was. The message there is don’t keep mourning the past but look to the future.

The secondary villain is generally referred to as Bowler Hat Guy with a name reveal coming down the line. He stole a time machine to ruin Lewis’s life. Why? Because his younger self of Mike “Goob” Yagoobian was so sleep deprived from Lewis’s random inventing that it ruined his life. Never does Lewis’s complete lack of consideration get viewed as wrong or mildly inconsiderate. Ruining a life for revenge purposes and altering time and space are bad but Lewis was an inconsiderate twat that broke the poor boy.

Doris the Helping Hat is the ultimate villain of the movie. Goob is just a vehicle for her to get things done though given how capable she is I am not sure if she even needed him. She can manipulate equipment and do all sorts of things by sprouting Doc Ock-like tentacles. Her presence does provide some creepiness when she finally succeeds. Her disposition though was rather anti-climactic given what she wanted.

Meet the Robinsons was before Disney acquired Pixar and they were trying to start up their own computer animation studio. Perhaps it’s a combination of aging or the fact that they were trying their own style distinct from Pixar, but the animation looks a lot like cheap direct-to-videos computer animation. It may even owe to William Joyce contributing to Robots and a need to differentiate from that then upcoming project.

The humor is actually quite witty. Tom Selleck provides the voice the adult Lewis and they make a joke about how the adult Lewis looks like Selleck. But the film is just silly and wild. It’s slapstick and playing with reality in a way that only animation can. It is the kind of humor that kids might enjoy but adults will get the whole joke.

As a time travel movie it ignores logic and causality. Undoing of events such as Lewis not creating Doris the Helping Hat to stop it and the obvious effects it should have on the timeline are ignored. Based on some dialogue you could surmise that the future Lewis encounters is no longer because adult Lewis does not seem to know about anything that happened. Even the changing of the critical moment of Goob’s life means the future this happened in doesn’t happen at all.

The invention that sets Louis on to the path of being a great inventor and a corporate powerhouse is the memory viewing machine that Future Goob steals from the science fair. That very act of theft would change the future if successful. Weirdly he goes back to his future and tries to sell it to the corporation of the guy that invented it. If it worked in the past (and I’m guessing he knew whether it did or not) then reselling an old invention would not work because it’s old technology. 

The climax felt like less than some of the other moments afterwards. Future Goob turning away from having a family or Lewis helping his Goob make the winning catch were stronger than ultimate victory. I’m not sure how you could’ve fixed it, but something needed to be done.

This has a message. Don’t treat failure as a setback but treat it as a learning experience. Figure out where you went wrong and keep trying. The hero has failure after failure and is on the verge of giving up at the start of the story. His love of science has made and passion for invention has made him a bit odd and he can’t even find his place because of that. 

I think Disney was onto something with their own computer animation studio because this has more entertainment value than some of the Pixar stuff-imperfections aside. There is a more direct thread to Disney of the time and connection to Disney as a whole.

Meet the Robinsons is a good Disney movie. Maybe not the best of the best but an underrated story about family and maybe even taking into consideration others along with other themes.