- This article is about the animated movie Robots. For the book series entitled Robot City, see Isaac Asimov's Robot City.
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| Robots | |
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 Rodney (left) and Fender (right) in the promotional poster for Robots. |
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| Directed by | Chris Wedge Carlos Saldanha (co-director) |
| Produced by | Bill Joyce Christopher Meledandri John C Donkin Jerry Davis |
| Written by | Ron Mita (story) Jim McClain (story) David Lindsay-Abaire (story and screenplay) Lowell Ganz (screenplay) Babaloo Mandel (screenplay) |
| Starring | Ewan McGregor Robin Williams Halle Berry Mel Brooks Stanley Tucci Dianne Wiest Drew Carey Amanda Bynes Harland Williams Greg Kinnear Paul Giamatti Jim Broadbent Jennifer Coolidge |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | March 11, 2005 |
| Running time | 89 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Robots is a computer-animated film produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox (the same companies behind the film Ice Age), and was released theatrically (both in normal theaters and in IMAX theaters) on March 11th, 2005. The story was created by Chris Wedge and Bill Joyce, a well known children's book author/illustrator. The two were trying to create a film version of Joyce's book "Santa Calls" but instead they came up with a movie about robots. Joyce served as producer and production designer for the film. The DVD of Robots was released on September 27, 2005.
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Synopsis
The film is set on a world populated only by robots, with most of the action occurring in Rivet Town (based on Watertown, New York) and Robot City, home to Bigweld Industries. The hero is a young genius robot, Rodney (Ewan McGregor), who lives in the small town of Rivet Town but aspires to improve the world. After failing to help his father (Stanley Tucci), Rodney decides to travel to Robot City, the robot metropolis, to meet his childhood idol Bigweld (Mel Brooks). When he arrives, he learns that his hero has been forced out as the head of his own company by the profit-motivated Ratchet (Greg Kinnear). To maximize profits, Ratchet ends production of replacement parts for robots, forcing them to "upgrade" with expensive new parts. Those who cannot afford the upgrades are turned into scrap metal at the Chop Shop, a recycling sweatshop run by Ratchet's mother, Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent). Rodney teams up with The Rusties - the eccentric Fender (Robin Williams), his sister Piper Pinwheeler (Amanda Bynes), and their guardians Lug, Crank, Diesel and Aunt Fanny - and Cappy (Halle Berry), a beautiful executive 'bot who he falls in love with, to bring back Bigweld and help the robot population.
Characters
Locations
Movie director Chris Wedge says New York City (his hometown), Toronto, London, and a little future-like city inspired him to make the city. There are three parts of the city:
- High End District (based on a future-like city): The part of the city where the rich and famous robots live. Buildings and robots are all shiny, nearly everything is futuristic. Everyone here has a metal covering that hides all their inner workings. Bigweld Industries is here.
- Combustion District (based on a hybrid of Toronto and London): Middle-class place. It has a few rust spots, and robots have the internal workings similar to a 1950s car. Aunt Fanny's house is here, and the majority of the movie takes place here.
- Steam District (a parody of New York City ghettos): The lowest part of the city, and therefore the rustiest. It may be also be a ghetto. Parts are out of the Industrial Revolution, and everywhere is filled with broken machines. Sweepers grab old robots and bring them to Madame Gasket's Chop Shop, where mutant robots then break and melt robots, turning them into new parts.
Another major location of the film is Rivet Town. It is home to the Copperbottom family. Two of the buildings there are Gunk's Greasy Spoon and Flathead Floyd's. Rivet Town is based on Watertown, New York where movie director Chris Wedge lived during his teens.
Release
The film was the first to feature (in US screenings) the new trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The movie featured the exclusive trailer for Ice Age: The Meltdown, then called Ice Age 2.
Reception
Robots was decently received by critics and currently has a 62% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes with most liking the visual style but panning the predictable story. The film was nominated for many awards in the category of best animated film, as well as awards for character design, best animated character, voice casting, and sound editing. However, it only won one, the MTV (Mexico) Movie Award for best song, "Un héroe real".[1]. In box office terms it was a hit, its total world wide gross was more than US$260 million.
Cultural references
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This article or section contains too many minor or trivial fictional references. Mere trivia, or references unimportant to the overall plot of a work of fiction, should be deleted. See also what Wikipedia is. |
- In the Robot City Train station, the Tin Man shows up and goes dancing away with 3 other robots and a small dog à la Wizard of Oz. The Tin Man also makes an appearance in the crowd in Rivet Town, where he says "Now I'm sure I have a heart, 'cause it's achin'!".
- Andrés Cantor: The voice box that the mute robot put on made him start commentating a football game in Spanish and say "GOOOOOOL!" like Andrés Cantor.
- James Bond: During the party, a robot asks for a screwdriver, "shaken, not stirred."
- Singin' in the Rain: After a party, Fender does a spoof version of the classic song and dance called, "Singing In The Oil."
- 2001: A Space Odyssey: Bigweld breaks down like HAL and begins singing "Daisy". Also, a shot of a domino echoes a similar shot of the Monolith.
- Star Wars: When Gasket and Wonderbot are fighting with the pipes they sound like lightsabers. One of the voiceboxes Diesel tries gives him a Darth Vader sound (James Earl Jones provided the voice).
- Scarface: In the big fight scene Aunt Fanny says,"Say hello to my Dimpled Friend".
- The Matrix: During the big battle, Diesel dives to his left in apparent slow motion and fires "bullets" in the form of metal balls, that spring from his "guns" (straws). The spring tailing the metallic balls as they travel forward and hit the enemy robots is reminiscent of the slow motion bullet time trail seen in The Matrix.
- Rodney has a movie poster parodying the "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots."
- Xena Warrior Princess: In the big fight scene Fender charges in yelling the Xena war cry.
- Operation: Rodney fixed a yellow robot that has a wrench in his right ankle.
- In the climatic fight scene Lug is dressed like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
- Diesel's narration of the fight is accompanied by Eye of the Tiger, the theme music from Rocky III.
- "Blazing Saddles": Flatulence scene in Aunt Fanny's house homages the bean eating scene with Mongo in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks is the voice of Big Weld.
- On the "Map of the Stars' Homes" that Fender tries to sell Rodney, the names of the stars are:
- Jeremy Irons
- Orson Wheels (Orson Welles)
- Axle Rose (W. Axl Rose)
- Britney Gears (Britney Spears)
- Farrah Faucett (Farrah Fawcett)
- M.C. Hammer.
- At the party Fender yells/yodels "Ricola."
- In the background of one shot (Beginning of the 'Crosstown Express' scene) it says "Got Oil?": a spoof of "Got Milk?"
- During the big battle, Fender uses Britney Spears' song, "...Baby One More Time," as an attack.
See also
External links
| Preceded by The Pacifier |
Box office number-one films of 2005 (USA) March 13, 2005 |
Succeeded by The Ring Two |
| Blue Sky Studios |
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| Feature-length animations |
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Ice Age (2002) • Robots (2005) • Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) • Horton Hears a Who! (2008) • Ice Age 3 (2009) |
| Short films |
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Bunny (1998) • Gone Nutty (2003) • No Time for Nuts (2006) |
| Contributions in other films |
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Joe's Apartment (1996) • A Simple Wish (1997) • Alien: Resurrection (1997) • Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) • Jesus' Son (1999) • Fight Club (1999) • Titan A.E. (2000) |
