Robots (film)

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 by March 11, 2005. The DVD of Robots was released on September 27th, 2005.

Tagline: Repair for adventure!

Summary

The film is set on a world populated only by robots and follows a young genius, Rodney, a small robot who lives in a small town called Rivet Town, with aspirations of improving the world. After failing to help his father, Rodney decides to go to Robot City, the robot metropolis, to meet Bigweld, his childhood idol. When he arrives, he learns that his hero has gone out of business and the new manager, Ratchet, refuses to make replacement parts for robots. Instead, he is forcing them to upgrade to the new models and those who can't afford his upgrades are turned into scrap metal. Rodney teams up with The Rusties, the eccentric Fender (Robin Williams), his sister Piper (Amanda Bynes), and their guardians Lug, Crank, Diesel and Aunt Fanny to bring back Bigweld and help the robot population. - Robots D.V.D.

Voice actors

Ewan McGregor — Rodney Copperbottom
Robin Williams — Fender
Halle Berry — Cappy
Mel Brooks — Bigweld
Stanley Tucci — Mr.Copperbottom
Dianne Wiest — Mrs. Copperbottom
Drew Carey — Crank Casey
Amanda Bynes — Piper Pinwheeler
Greg Kinnear — Ratchet
Paul Giamatti — Tim
Jim Broadbent — Madame Gasket
Jennifer Coolidge — Aunt Fanny
Harland Williams — Lug
Lowell Ganz — Mr.Gasket
Dan Hedaya — Mr.Gunk
Natasha Lyonne — Loretta Geargrinder
Will Denton, Crawford Wilson — Young Rodney
Dylan Denton — Youngest Rodney

Voice actors - Regional Trivia

Following Jonathan Ross in Shrek 2, the UK version of Robots gets a re-dub of the original vocal track, with minor character parts now being performed by such British TV and Radio celebrities as Chris Moyles, Cat Deeley, Terry Wogan and Eamonn Holmes.

Other voice artists who have played minor parts in localised versions of Robots include:

Jackie O as Loretta Geargrinder in the Australian release
Natasha Lyonne as Loretta Geargrinder in the United States release
Do as Cappy in international releases

Characters/Places

Trivia

The movie pays homage to many films/games, including:
- The Wizard of Oz, Rodney (Dorothy) is unhappy in his home town and travels to a faraway place where he meets friends like Fender (Scarecrow) and enemies before arriving at Bigweld Industries (Emerald City) only to discover that the Bigweld (Wizard of Oz) is not as he appears. Also, in the Robot City Train station, the Tinman shows up and goes dancing away with 3 other robots à la "Wizard of Oz". The Tinman 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'!".
- Singin' in the Rain, after a party, Fender does a spoof version of the classic song and dance called, "Singing In The Oil"
- A Space Odyssey (film), Bigweld breaks down like HAL and begins singing "Daisy". Also, a shot of a domino echos a similar shot of the Monolith
- At the party Fender screams Ricola.
- In the background of one shot it says "Got Oil?". A spoof of "Got Milk?"
- Star Wars, when Gasket and Wonderbot were fighting with the pipes they sounded like lightsabers. When Diesel tried a voicebox he sounded like Darth Vader (James Earl Jones provided the voice).
- Scarface In the big fight scene Aunt Fanny says,"Say hello to my Dimpled Friend".
- Braveheart
- Ice Age (another computer-animated film produced by 20th Century Fox). You can see a robot that looks strikingly similar to Sid the sloth to the left of the screen as the red robot breakdances when Rodney tries to talk to him (This is also the scene in which part of Right Thurr was played. The song is on the soundtrack).
- Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles
- Rollerball
- Desperado
- Bottle Rocket
- The Matrix
- You Got Served
- The Two Towers Right before the big fight, Piper and the good Robot army charge down a hill, reminiscent of the Gandalf's arrival of the battle for Helm's Deep.
- Britney Spears during the fight Fender starts dancing to "...Baby one more time".
- Operation when Rodney is fixing a ton of "outmoded" robots, one of the yellow robots that Rodney fixed had a wrench in his right ankle.
- In the fight scene at the end Lug is dressed like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
This film was the first to feature (in US screenings) the new trailer for Revenge of the Sith. The movie featured the exclusive trailer for The Meltdown (Then called Ice Age 2).
The small town named "Rivet Town" was based after Watertown, New York.
This film was simultaneously released in IMAX theaters.
If you look closely, you can see significant differences between Bigweld in person and Bigweld on his old TV show.
A robot dog appeared 6 times throughout the movie: three times in Robot city and three times in Rivet Town.
When Fender just realizes he can lay eggs and he lays one, he leaves it in the same old spot and doesn't take care of it.
Fender's name used to be Bumper.
Robots was a nominee for Favorite Animated Movie in the 2006 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, but lost to Madagascar.

External links

Official site