Why Meet the Robinsons is an Underrated Gem

funding for shaperless is provided by surfsharkvpn tune until the end to find out about their amazing service hey fam remember when i used to make long-form analysis videos on a single animated movie it's been a little while since i made one of those but that's why we're here today to actually follow up on a statement i made in a previous video yep when ranking all the 2000's disney movies i said this this one's definitely going on the list of movies i need to make a full video on eventually maybe possibly see i always say that but i never actually follow up on those my half finished how to train your dragon 3 script is just drowning at the bottom of the ocean right now but like maybe 2022 will be the year i actually make it who knows for now meet the robinsons just seems like a good thing to cap the year off with this is a movie disney put out in the late 2000s that just kind of came and went it did okay critically and okay financially and nowadays no one really talks about it i can't say i'm surprised i mean nobody really talks about any of the mid-2000s disney movies outside of chicken little cause we all love to dunk on how terrible it is this is an era of disney films defined by mediocrity and forget-ability and looking at this lineup of films yeah i get it but here's the thing meet the robinsons is so much better than these other movies it's not even funny which is how i would describe these other movies but not meet the robinsons because it is funny and heartfelt and clever there's so much to enjoy with this movie that goes overlooked because of when it came out if you plopped it into the 2010s it would fit right in quality wise with the rest of disney's lineup that decade actually come to think of it it's a lot better than the frozen films big hero 6 and ralph breaks the internet so yeah even better it's not a perfect movie not by a long shot but it is good as [ __ ] and here's why meet the robinsons doesn't open like the typical disney movie no grand musical number no narration explaining the setting or characters just an immediate somber and sepia scene of a woman leaving her baby on the steps of an orphanage it's a very unique and striking way to open up a disney movie and this baby is louis who we then see 12 years later inventing something with the help of his roommate goob technically the funniest character in the movie his inane ramblings here at the beginning are so funny and so accurate to how children talk it's great but anyway these boys are orphans and louis wants to get adopted by showcasing his passion for inventing it doesn't work out mainly because this couple neglects to tell him that the guy is allergic to peanuts and that he should not be demonstrating a peanut butter invention for them that's on them i think but after that chicanery lewis goes up to the roof to lament the fact that he hasn't been adopted even after 124 interviews he argues with a nice orphanage lady that no one wants him including his own mother and it's kind of heavy stuff to think about but for a young orphan like him yeah it's definitely a thought that would probably cross his mind and the film surprisingly doesn't shy away from it i find this to be a much more compelling conflict for an orphan to grapple with compared to something like the orphanage lady is mean which i've seen way too often in orphan stories i really love how mildred in this is just a nice supportive lady and yet it's not enough for lewis because he starts to believe that his mom probably did want him but couldn't take care of him and he'll invent a device that scans his memories and displays them in order to find out what she looked like becoming so fixated on meeting her that he doesn't want to do interviews with any potential adoptive parents this is the start of one of the movie's central themes the struggle to look towards the future when you're constantly caught up in the past lewis is convinced that whatever future he has lies with sorting out his past and finding his mom while also giving up on getting adopted because of all the constant failures he had the movie sets these themes up early in a subtle and understated way before it explicitly delves into them later and as such we'll get to them later it's also important to consider how disconnected william william what why did i say that it's also important to consider how disconnected lewis is from his present as well focusing only on his invention and not the people around him as we can see in this montage he takes stuff without permission measures some guy's head presumably without permission he won't show up to interviews and he keeps goob up all night working on this [ __ ] i sincerely hope that never has any consequences lewis seems to be doing all this harm out of ignorance and an extreme devotion to science rather than malicious intent he's like a slightly more socially aware entrapta and he's convinced that his device is gonna work and potentially even win big at the science fair but this is where things start to get a little chaotic just the right amount of chaotic not too much we'll get to too much later lewis is approached by a mysterious boy who claims to be from the future who says there's a mysterious evil bowler hat guy after him and there is he's introduced with sinister lighting and we don't quite know what his deal is yet but the movie seems to be implying that he means business and he has a robot hat who sabotages lewis's invention and causes it to fail leading to some wacky hijinks this causes louis to run off ashamed by his failure after which bowler hat guy takes the invention and says the most beautiful line in the entire movie [Music] come masterpiece i think about that quote and tear up on a daily basis thank you for that beautiful man lewis just wants to quit inventing all together and give up after so many failures but that future boy shows up again and tells him that he can't give up this is wilbur and he's fun lewis in spite of the strong dramatic beats he hits during his character arc throughout the film is it the most consistently fun or humorous protagonist to watch but i'm sure that's by design he represents the present slash the past and how standard it feels in comparison to the future which is zippy and fun and exciting and that defines wilbur to a t he's quick-witted energetic and a joy to watch watching this movie as a kid wilbur is who i wanted to be while lewis is closer to who i actually was look at this [ __ ] dork yeesh but anyway lewis agrees to return to the science fair and fix his invention if wilbur can actually prove that he's from the future so that's what he does and from here the possibilities are endless for the future of this video cause that's enough plot explanation i just wanted to set up the basic premise for those unfamiliar with it now it's time to look at all the other stuff about this movie that's good like for instance the funny why is your dog wearing glasses oh because his insurance won't pay for contact [Music] before we talk about the funny in this movie i should probably briefly go over the not funny didn't laugh i alluded to this before but if there's one thing i don't like about this movie it's the titular robinsons that we meet here in the future they're all just so weird for the sake of being weird we only get a couple of seconds for them to introduce their shtick the aforementioned shtick is usually not funny and then we move on to the next one there's so many of them and it's hard to keep track of who's who and there's no point the story would have been the same if there were only like five robinsons the man whose wife is a puppet makes me extremely uncomfortable like dude i don't even want to think about that somebody pick me up i'm scared but the pizza delivery guy voiced by adam west once again that's a banger good work with him yeah this middle chunk of the movie where we're just meeting the robinsons isn't that great but the good news is other than that this movie is very funny and nobody better exemplifies said funny than the villain bowler hat guy remember how he was introduced as a sinister figure and we didn't quite know what his deal was well by the next scene with him we find out he's just a big ol incompetent goofball and it seems like his robot hat doris is doing all the heavy lifting in the scheming department god i absolutely love incompetent main villains whose henchmen are the actual competent ones it's such a fun trope that plays out perfectly with these two and i really just can't get over bowler hat guy in general man everything about him is so entertaining from his wannabe devious voice to the somewhat creepy yet mostly cartoonish way he moves look at this design you see this this is peak character design everyone else go home he's like the perfect melding of waluigi and doofenshmirtz in fact i found this venn diagram meme floating around that backs up my claim and considering how much i love this arc type of character is it any wonder that i think this guy is a banger in particular every scene with bowler hat guy is the best scene in the movie watching him come up with stupid ideas and either realize they're stupid right away i'll turn him into a duck yes yes it's so evil oh i don't know how to do that they i don't really need a duck or go through with them only to realize later that they were terrible ideas it's just so hysterical there's this fantastic running gag where he takes control of a frog and then a dinosaur trying to capture louis using both of them only for them to both point out the problems with his plan and that he really didn't think it through it slays me you just never get tired of this man's chicanery aside from bowler hat guy there's other funny to be found wilbur and lewis play off of each other great there's a lot of good exchanges between the two of them and quite a few funny lines while the xd random nature of the family doesn't always work for me there are some xd random absurdist humor moments from other characters that still really get me like when wilbur can't reveal what his father looks like for spoiler reasons what does cornelius look like tom selleck that's some good [ __ ] man it's so out of left field and random but then you get to the credits and realize that cornelius is actually voiced by tom selleck banger joke 12 out of 10. there's a ton of other bangers here in this movie but i'll leave you to discover them for yourself suffice to say i'm shocked at how sharp the jokes in overall writing are in this movie considering what a painfully unfunny era this was for disney movies overall and i think this movie proved that disney could still pull off great comedic timing akin to something like emperor's new groove in a 3d setting it might have been a difficult adjustment for them but they made it work on their second attempt how neat but i can't stay hung up on the humor forever we're gonna have to keep moving forward to the next topic of the video do you get it because that's that's like the thing in this movie so shockingly enough meet the robinsons is a thematically rich film with many well-developed ideas and concepts throughout again compare this to chicken little what was the theme there aliens everyone being an [ __ ] [ __ ] meanwhile meet the robinsons manages to take a really smart and nuanced look at failure the greatest teacher failure is oh yeah i guess this is the obligatory part of my script where i acknowledge that this movie does a better job at exploring this theme than the last jedi does sorry i i have to do it it's required by law so throughout the beginning chunk of the movie we see that lewis's life is defined by failure his inventions always seem to fail and he constantly fails to get adopted and after putting so much effort into both of these things with nothing tangible to show for either of them it makes sense that this young boy would feel discouraged and want to give up after 124 interviews with prospective parents all of which ended in failure and lewis's quest to get adopted he's basically done trying he says no to any future interviews because he's too fixated on his past and building the memory scanner that'll help him find his mom but then the memory scanner fails cause of bowler hat guy's epic sabotage maneuver and this is the last straw for lewis in terms of inventing he's on the verge of bitterly giving in to his failure before wilbur steps in determined to get him back on the right track since you know the future kinda rides on it more on that later after wilbur takes lewis to the future they end up breaking the time machine through wacky arguing chicanery and wilbur figures this is the perfect opportunity for lewis to flex his inventing skills and fix the time machine it's either that or let his parents know that he took it out without permission no that's not happening lewis agrees to fix the time machine on the condition that wilbur uses it to take him back to the night his mom left him at the orphanage so he can try and convince her to keep him and remember that now because it's very important lock that little detail up in your brain don't let bowler hat guy steal it like he stole the time machine okay so lewis gets to work on the time machine but complains that it's probably too advanced for him to fix and wilbur's only response is keep moving forward the motto of his father wilbur then explains the countless failures cornelius experienced when trying to construct his first time machine hundreds upon hundreds of [ __ ] horrendous disasters but he pushed through getting better and better closer and closer until finally making two working time machines in the end this still isn't quite enough for lewis who fails at his first attempt to fix the time machine and shuts wilbur down immediately when he tries to save the funny attack on titan line keep moving don't say it after this they have dinner where lewis is given another opportunity to fix an invention this one being the pb j maker that he invented earlier in the movie huh interesting that's uh huh what a crazy coincidence jimbo he fails at fixing this one too and is really ashamed but the family cheers for him nonetheless pointing out what a great learning experience failure is the greatest teacher and thanks to their warm embrace of his failure he starts to take it a little better it finally sinks in for him that he should well keep moving forward eventually you'll get better and you'll accomplish what you set out to do which will be the most rewarding feeling in the world it's such a simple yet beautiful message for this movie's story to be built upon because it applies to anyone doing anything whether you're building something trying to be a better performer a better athlete a better artist anything really this movie will speak to you and encourage you to keep trying after learning lessons from each failed attempt like do you know how terrible some of my videos used to be like holy [ __ ] dude they sucked but now after learning so much from my failures and gradually getting better and better at making videos i can safely say that my videos now they're pretty okay if i was anybody but myself i'd probably put this video on in the background while playing minecraft or something and that's the kind of improvement i'm really proud of you'll always get better if you keep at something rather than giving up because it's hard some things aren't worth the investment sure and sometimes your time is better spent on other stuff but if you're passionate about something then sticking it out is so worthwhile in order to improve and grow as a person in the process this is what we get from lewis throughout the film who not only learns to accept his failures but starts looking towards the future rather than the past it's really wholesome stuff but what if there was a character who didn't learn to keep moving forward someone who stayed stuck in the past fueled by bitterness and hatred and resentment well guess what idiot we already talked about him it's doctor doofuiji himself meet the robinsons has a pretty novel and clever story but one thing that is not novel is how the twists are laid out so it turns out after all this concern wilbur had that lewis hair would be a dead giveaway to his family that he's from the past and the fact that lewis and cornelius are both inventors and we don't really know what cornelius looks like and the fact that the pb and j cannon is yeah louis is wilbur's dad it's pretty easy to tell early on and after this scene where bowler hat guy meets goob and starts to get really invested in this story about goob getting beat up after losing the big ball game for his team yeah bowler hat guy is goob like i said they're pretty obvious twists not bad just obvious it's like some people thought the familial connections in coco were obvious twists but i still managed to be surprised by them as an adult with this movie though it's on another level i probably would have called these twists far ahead of time if i was watching this for the first time nowadays with that said they were shocking to me as a nine-year-old so shut up what i do like however is the fact that these twists don't think they're more shocking than they are unlike some other disney twist reveals what the words his that mistake and was in the script i don't think the intention here was trickery just withholding obvious information so the kids can have a novel moment of shock but why is bowler hat guy so aggro towards lewis well it's simultaneously the funniest and most deeply sad motivation he could possibly have basically lewis kept him up all night inventing and he had a big ball game the next day so he fell asleep and didn't catch the ball that would have won them the game and everyone got mad and beat him up this sent him on a downward spiral of resentment letting this one incident fester and infect him until it became the only thing he thought about to the point where he just straight up ignores the reality of his life hey goop what's up cool binder hey wanna come over to my house today they all hated me that's so funny but also so [ __ ] like imagine being so bitter that you can't move on from a failure like this it certainly stung for goob both emotionally and physically but the thing is he absolutely refuses to move forward from this moment remaining an emotionally stunted man-child wallowing away in this orphanage and as he does jealousy begins to set in as he keeps hearing all of louis's accomplishments and begins to blame all of his life's failures on lewis keeping him up that one night it's such an ultra specific ultra petty reason to hate someone but that's just who goob has become someone stuck in the past without the will to move on and carve out his own future in spite of the hardships he's experienced it's such a great balance of a hilarious but tragic reveal which is all too fitting for a hilarious but tragic character i mean his life is only a tragedy because he chooses to make it that he doesn't realize it's a comedy and that he should just move on from the past but it's not an easy thing to do for someone who never really grew up so goob chooses villainy and crushing young lewis's dreams by passing his invention off as his own and becoming a famous inventor instead in doing so he [ __ ] up the future entirely because guess what the hat was evil the whole time well i mean i guess we already knew doris was evil just that they were more evil than we anticipated this is probably the most unexpected twist even though it adds the least from a story perspective it's just there because we needed a climax even if that climax is a bit underwhelming and short we get to see this horrific doris controlled future for like three minutes before lewis realizes oh yeah i invent doris in the future i'm just gonna decide not to invent doris in the future so he has to like go to doris's face and tell her he's not gonna invent her for her to die apparently just thinking about not inventing her here doesn't fix things i guess we needed bowler hat guy to get a glimpse of the bad future and realize doris was just using him okay sure and then there's this moment that's always stuck with me ever since i was a kid where lewis tries to explain to wilbur that bowler hat guy isn't dangerous and they should just adopt him but before wilbur can offer that he's gone he slipped away leaving behind his notebook with all his evil plans crossed out and nothing left but an empty box with a question mark we then see him solemnly looking towards them from a distance and then walking off a more than unusual fate for a disney villain because well he really wasn't a villain he was just confused and emotionally stunted and ultimately taken advantage of by doris and now he just walks off with no more plans for revenge because his heart has been emptied of all its hatred it's always been such a profound way for a disney antagonist to go out and the cool thing is it's not even the best part of this movie's ending [Music] there's this one scene in meet the robinsons that didn't really need to be there in terms of wrapping up the plot but i'm so glad it's here because it is a quintessential example of character growth it's a moment where wilbur and lewis are both tested based on everything they've learned throughout the movie and they pass with flying colors as a result it's extremely necessary for both of their arcs and i'm glad they went through with it in the movie so lewis gets to meet cornelius and take a peek at all the inventions he's gonna create one day he then gets to say goodbye to everyone else in the family while also having a really uncomfortable interaction with the adult version of his future wife stop it get some help and so wilbur takes lewis back to the science fair hey wait a minute this isn't the science fair this is actually the night that lewis mom left him at the orphanage because the deal was if lewis fixed the time machine wilbur would take him there remember how i said to remember that detail and lock it up tight in your brain oh god you left the garage door unlocked didn't you bowler hat guy stole that detail from your brain and you for gore well good thing i'm here to remind you yeah that was the thing that happens okay there you're up to speed now so while i've mostly focused on lewis's character flaws throughout this video let's turn a critical eye to wilbur for a second the boy is a grifter always opting to make up lies in order to get his way saying he's a time cop from the future or convincing louis to work on the time machine in exchange for taking him to see his mother which is something he never had any intention of actually doing i was never gonna do it i swear you lied to me no yeah oh yeah i guess this movie had a liar revealed scene but i actually forgot it was in the movie because it wasn't focused on or over dramatized which is exactly how liar revealed scenes should be if i forget these scenes are in the movie that means they did their job right but yeah wilbur is constantly self-centered and dishonest desiring only to keep himself out of trouble at all costs he was also told by his lovable robot assistant carl who is basically been from treasure planet except not an obnoxious [ __ ] that if he were to actually take lewis back to see his mom there's a 99.999999999 chance that he won't exist uh oh sounds like something he would never want to do but he does completely unprompted without lewis asking him to because he made a promise and he's actually gonna fulfill it for a change regardless of the fact that this action will probably erase him from existence he's essentially sacrificing his own life and the entire future his father built because he believes that this is what his father wants more than anything to meet his birth mother and convince her to keep him and at any other point in the movie wilbur would be right this is what lewis wanted for so long but now after he's gotten to see what an amazing future he makes for himself he realizes it's okay to let go of the past and to finally definitively keep moving forward and thus he stops himself before meeting his mother simply knocking on the door of the orphanage when she's gone and leaving why'd you just let her go because i already have a family bro this movie got me crying in the club right now everything about this scene is so good the music the return of the sepia color scheme from the beginning of the movie wilbur's hesitant body language throughout the whole thing it's such a powerhouse moment that beautifully showcases how much both lewis and wilbur have grown over the course of the film after lewis and wilbur's wholesome as heck goodbye lewis makes his way back to the science fair but first he remembers to run over to the baseball game and wake goob up in time for goob to make the winning catch again such a nice scene that i'm glad they added for the sake of wrapping everyone's stories up in a satisfying way so he returns to the science fair to give the invention another go i like how his previous embarrassing failure here isn't erased or undone via time travel it's still something that happened and that he has to just move past it's the theme of the movie so we test it out on this one lady and it works at long last after all the failures he's endured he's finally succeeded and in more ways than one because this lady and her husband are actually the couple who adopt him a pretty novel twist actually we saw this lady at the science fair at the beginning of the movie acting just a little kooky and then we promptly forgot about her meanwhile lucille barely got any screen time in the future compared to the rest of the family meaning it's harder for us to connect the dots and realize that she was that lady from the beginning i mean even if you did notice how similar they look you'd probably just chalk it up to this movie constantly reusing character models cause they do that a lot i spotted the ceo of the invention corporation at like three or four different places throughout the movie there's a reporter in this scene who's literally just the guy with the peanut allergy that lewis interviewed with but with a black wig can you tell this was disney's first cgi movie with human characters in it knowing that fact the animation could have been a lot worse we also meet louis's future wife franny here and this is the point where you realize oh yeah wilbur had a fun interaction with her earlier in the movie and that was his future mom the whole time that's funny this movie begs to be rewatched for sure to catch all the neat little details and so lewis is finally adopted saying goodbye to goob and mildred and getting a chance to live out his dreams and invent and we get this nice little quote at the ends to round out the whole experience the man who said this quote may be [ __ ] up but it is indeed a good quote neat stuff so meet the robinsons isn't perfect the family stuff is extremely haphazard and doesn't feel particularly well put together that might have to do with the fact that the movie was adapted from a kid's book about a wacky family that didn't have any time travel elements at all so it was probably more than a bit tricky to mesh these elements together into a cohesive film there's other structural issues here and there and elements of the climax are a bit bizarre plus yeah the animation isn't great it doesn't really hold up compared to something like ratatouille which came out the same year but it's kind of on par with b-movie and dreamworks have been animating cgi humans for six years now while disney just started doing it so like what's the excuse there dreamworks yeah this movie is heavily flawed and it's not quite one of disney's greats but you know what i've said it before and i'll say it again despite its failings this movie keeps moving forward and delivers a ton of truly exceptional elements it's incredibly hysterical the story is well thought out and clever there's tons of absolutely heartwarming and beautiful moments it's an underrated gem that very much deserves your time to check out and deserves to be talked about way more so please do so send me your funny bowler hat guy memes please i need sustenance speaking of sustenance you know what else needs sustenance sharks and surf shark vps guys this is the end of the year i'm very tired from thinking of all these sponsor transitions can you just just give me this one surf shark vpn time it's a cool product let's hear about it now an excellent vpn that encrypts your data and protects you online surfsharkvpn allows you to access geo-restricted content meaning you can trick your browser into thinking you're in another country thus allowing you to access content you couldn't get otherwise that way you don't have to physically travel to another country to watch that 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Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 1,624,310

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, Meet the Robinsons, Disney, Lewis, Wilbur, Bowler Hat Guy

Id: 8SlSG8d1oAk

Length: 27min 21sec (1641 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021