Meet The Robinsons

[Ben]

http://animated-views.com/2007/meet-the ... vd-review/

Yes, it's a fun movie, but it does have its drawbacks. Sorry guys, but as much as I <I>loved</I> the ending and appreciated it a LOT more a second go around, I still needed to make some of the same points in my review for those coming to it fresh.

Agreed, it works tons better a second time, but you shouldn't really need to recommend a movie for the second time yo watch it!

[Meg]

Good review, Ben. Enjoyed reading it.

By the way - are you planning on reviewing Surf's Up?

[Ben]

Thanks Meg.

We didn't get a screener in for Surf's, but I bought the disc and if I get around to it I'd like to put some thoughts up on the movie and the DVD treatment.

Will be concentrating on a few more "must dos" first though!

[Dacey]

I was gonna maybe get this yesterday, but couldn't find it for some reason.

[Therese]

After having "Robinsons" parked in my DVD player for the last week and a half, I wanted to make a few more observations. I'm going to hide some of it, just in case.

Question: Who is the Spanish Cornelius?

On the Spanish language version, during the Pop Quiz scene, when Lewis asks what Cornelius looks like, Wilbur says a name I can't understand, and they show a realistic portrait of a man who is not Tom Selleck - the obvious joke is that he is an equivalent macho-leading-man-type actor who would be recognized by the Spanish-speaking audience. Anyone know who that is? I wondered if the gag also extended to that same actor voicing Cornelius later in the movie. (The French version uses the Tom Selleck name/picture just like the original.)

Also on the Spanish track - the actor playing BHG would make a good Oogie Boogie in "Nightmare Before Christmas," but his voice is a lot deeper and fuller than Steve or the French one, and doesn't quite suit the character, IMO.

Neither French nor Spanish Wilbur can compare to that great incoherent-with-panic wrblbrbl thing Wesley does when Wilbur learns that Lewis has met the family; that is still one of my favorite bits.

Droosan is 100% right that they should have given us an alternate music-only audio track.

On the "use of green" thing...

Steve Anderson talks in the commentary about green becoming the signature color for Bowler Hat Guy and Goob throughout the movie, and I finally got that the Nice Couple to whom Happy Goob is showing his baseball trophy at the end are also both wearing green.

When Goob says, "Nice to see they're branching out," he sounds just like the original Linus in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." (Eric Shea?)

Am I the only one who thinks Gaston occasionally looks like a young Hans Conried?

Of course, we already know Steve Anderson can Do Voices, but...

During the flashback about Doris's origin, Steve talks about how they always knew her backstory, but it wasn't in the movie, until they told it to John Lasseter and John said, "Oh, you should put that in!" - Ha, when Steve says that, he sounds just like John, and it's one of those things where you don't necessarily think about what John Lasseter sounds like until you hear someone else "doing" him.

I nearly forgot, the deleted BHG scene...

I loved that! I understand why they made the choices they did for the overall good of the movie, but I loved BHG realizing, "I really didn't think this through," and Lewis calling him "Mike." Also, I thought it was cute that BHG is featured on the screen where you choose the Director Commentary track.

LOL, I've had so much fun watching this to pieces (admittedly, mostly the Goob and BHG scenes), I don't know what I'm going to do after Tuesday when I have to start swapping this in and out of the DVD player with Ratatouille!

[Ben]

I thought it was cute that BHG is featured on the screen where you choose the Director Commentary track.

Wha, wha, what!??

[Dacey]

I've watched it on DVD a few times now. My opinion hasn't changed much since I first saw it, in that I think that the beginning is great, the middle could use some work, and that the last 30 minutes or so are BRILLIANT.

[Therese]

I thought it was cute that BHG is featured on the screen where you choose the Director Commentary track.

Wha, wha, what!??

Yep, on the US regular DVD version, when you go through the menus to the screen where you can select the Stephen Anderson commentary track, that screen has a still background of the Evil Doris Future City with Bowler Hat Guy in the foreground; it's the stock character still of him where he has his arms folded and is twirling his mustache.

[Daniel]

Me thinks Ben meant how you could find it cute, Therese. I don't see what's wrong with it though, since I think its cute, too. Unless of course he means the commentary or something else.

[Ben]

Actually, I just got very confused (it happens a lot)!

I took Therese's comment to mean that BHG popped up <I>on screen during</I> the actual commentary track, the way they did on Men In Black, Muppets In Space, and a couple of other films (Brother Bear also had the moose in silhouette). It was a subtitle-track graphic overlay thing they did back in the early days of DVD to show how "cool" it was, but I haven't seen anything like that on a disc in a while. If they had done it here, it could have been "cool", and I didn't want to have missed that. That's what I read it as, so my mistake.

Yes, now I get what you were saying, I also think it <I>was</I> cute how they used the BHG image for the director's commentary track, which is why I picked it to illustrate that feature in my review:
http://animated-views.com/2007/meet-the ... vd-review/

That what you meant?

[Therese]

That is what I meant, Ben.

[Code Horror]

Well looks like Meet the Robinsons got beaten again, and this time Spider-Man takes the top spot in DVD sales and rentals.

[Dacey]

And that says...what exactly about how MTR is doing?

[Code Horror]

And that says...what exactly about how MTR is doing?

Still on number two.

[Ben]

But it's a STRONG two then, right? I'm guessing Transformers is down to 3 or lower?

MTR has legs...