Robots [WS]

Overview

For this follow-up to their mega-hit Ice Age, directors Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge team with the screenwriting duo behind Parenthood and City Slickers, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Robots stars Ewan McGregor as the voice of Rodney Copperbottom, an idealistic robot who wants to convince his electronic brethren to come together and work toward making the world a better place. As the story unfolds, Rodney faces opposition from an evil corporation headed by Big Weld (Mel Brooks) and finds some unlikely allies in the form of a ragtag group of misfit robots called the Rusties and voiced by the likes of Drew Carey and Amanda Bynes. Stanley Tucci and Dianne Wiest provide the voices of Rodney's parents, and Halle Berry portrays his love interest, Cappy.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/27/2005
UPC:	0024543193913
Original Release:	2005
Rating:	PG
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:29:00

Special Features

Filmmakers' audio commentary by director Chris Wedge and production designer/producer William Joyce; Blue Sky Studios technical audio commentary; Deleted scenes; "Meet The Bots" interactive profiles; Blue Man Group Music featurette; "You Can Shine No Matter What You're Made Of!" character inspiration featurette; Original Robots test; Robots multi-player Xbox racing game; Interactive games (Robot Dance, Invent-A-Bot, Fender Photo Shoot); DVD-ROM exclusive high-definition clips; Sneak peek at Ice Age 2 and much more!

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Ewan McGregor	Rodney Copperbottom
Robin Williams	Fender,Lug
Mel Brooks	Bigweld,Originalstimme Big Weld
Amanda Bynes	Piper
Greg Kinnear	Phineus T. Ratchet
Halle Berry	Cappy
Jennifer Coolidge	Aunt Fanny
Jim Broadbent	Madame Gasket
Stanley Tucci	Herb Copperbottom
Dianne Wiest	Mrs. Copperbottom
Lowell Ganz	Mr. Gasket
Paul Giamatti	Tim the Gate Guard
Drew Carey	Crank
Lucille Bliss	Pigeon Lady
Terry Bradshaw	Broken Arm Bot
Jay Leno	Fire Hydrant
James Earl Jones	Voice Box at Hardware Store
Paula Abdul	Watch
Robin Williamson	Actor
Qyoko Kudo	Originalstimme Tim
Philipp Moog	Deutsche Stimme Rodney
Michael Herbig	Deutsche Stimme Fender
Sarah Connor	Deutsche Stimme Cappy
Wolfgang Völz	Deutsche Stimme Bigweld
Oliver Kalkofe	Deutsche Stimme Ratchet
Hans Werner Olm	Deutsche Stimme Madame Gasket
Shandra Schadt	Voices
Frank Röth	Voices
Madeleine Stolze	Voices
Ulrich Frank	Voices
Katharina Lopinski	Voices
Bernhard Blümel	Voices
Chingy	Actor
Natasha Lyonne	Loretta Geargrinder
Dan Hedaya	Mr. Gunk
Al Roker	Mailbox
Stephen Tobolowsky	Bigmouth Executive
Dylan Denton	Youngest Rodney,Young Rodney
Marshall Efron	Toilet Bot
Damien Fahey	Stage Announcer
Jackie Hoffman	Water Cooler
Brian McFadden	Trashcan Bot
Tim Nordquist	Tin Man
Jansen Panettiere	Younger Rodney
Alan Rosenberg	Jack Hammer
Chris Wedge	Wonderbot
Crawford Wilson	Young Rodney
Lara Cody	Voices
Cooper Cowgill	Voices
David Crommett	Voices
Darin De Paul	Voices
Dann Fink	Voices
Timothy Gulan	Voices
Alexander Haney	Voices
Angela Haney	Voices
Ray Iannicelli	Voices
Sondra James	Voices
Vanessa Lemonides	Voices
Anthony J. Lewis, Jr.	Voices
Marcus Maurice	Voices
Jennifer Perito	Voices
Kristin Reeves	Voices
David Rossmer	Voices
Lyla Stone	Voices
Bruce Winant	Voices
John Powell	Composer

Technical Credits

David Lindsay-Abaire

Lowell Ganz

Babaloo Mandel

Ron Mita

Jim McClain

Chris Wedge	Director
Carlos Saldanha	Director
David Lindsay-Abaire	Screenwriter
Lowell Ganz	Screenwriter
Babaloo Mandel	Screenwriter
Jerry Davis	Producer
John C. Donkin	Producer
William Joyce	Producer,Producer
Christopher Meledandri	Executive Producer,Producer
Lorne Orleans	Producer
Ron Mita	Screenwriter
Jim McClain	Screenwriter
Paul Massey	Sound/Sound Designer
Doug Hemphill	Sound/Sound Designer
Sean Garnhart	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

From the creators of the hit animated film Ice Age comes a new spin on the coming-of-age story: the tale of a young, starry-eyed...robot. Rodney Copperbottom (the near-unrecognizable voice of Ewan McGregor) is a genius teenage inventor from a little town who wants nothing more than to travel to Robot City to seek his fortune at Bigweld Industries, the home to the greatest inventor of them all, the reclusive Bigweld (Mel Brooks). Rodney has big dreams, and after creating Wonderbot -- a flying 'bot made of kitchen parts -- he embarks on his journey to the big city. But after arriving, he discovers that achieving his dream may be a lot harder than he realized. First, he can't get hired at Bigweld Industries, because the company has some new employees: Cappy (Halle Berry), the beautiful, sleek 'bot who becomes the object of Rodney's affection, and the corporate tyrant Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), who is on a mission to stop supplying parts to the older robots of the city by creating newer -- and more expensive -- robot models. Then, when Rodney has nowhere to live, he's befriended by the misfit Rusties: Fender (the typically zany Robin Williams), a 'bot who's continually losing pieces of himself; Piper (Amanda Bynes), Fender's kid sister; Crank Casey (Drew Carey), the pessimist of the group; Lug (Harland Williams), the slow-witted gentle giant; Diesel, the Harpo Marx-like robot without a voice box; and Aunt Fanny (Jennifer Coolidge), the kindhearted mother figure of the bunch. When Rodney discovers what Ratchet is trying to do, he and his friends decide to put a stop to it by finding Bigweld and bringing him back to restore the company.

Coming up with a new way to tell this type of tale is never easy, but screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, veterans of TV comedy, pull this off perfectly. In the film we see Rodney growing up, and several sequences are extremely clever in dealing with the aging of a robot: His parents actually put Rodney together from parts in a box; when the youngster starts to cry, his father turns down his volume knob; and we see Rodney grow older as he slowly adds on parts handed down from his older cousins. Of course, the film wouldn't be as visually appealing as it is without the talents of Blue Sky Studios, the animation company that was responsible for Ice Age. Working from designs by children's illustrator William Joyce (who created Rollie Pollie Olie) Blue Sky spent almost three years on design work alone, doing everything from creating the main character (who was inspired by an outboard motor) to creating a computer algorithm that could automatically spread rust on surfaces. Using a computer technology that allowed the animators to render the environments as if they were working with real lights on a set, they were able to animate approximately three seconds of film per week. The entire film took over two years to completely animate, using a process called "rigging," which provides a sort of bone structure over a character that an animator can then manipulate. Each facial movement -- from the twitch of an eyebrow to a grin -- is done individually. And that's only one step in the complicated process of storyboards, voice recording, lighting effects, and post-production that brought Robots to life. And to see the attention to detail offered by these animators, keep an eye out for a close-up of the dial on Rodney's chest: You'll see the Blue Sky logo! But to fully appreciate the process, you need to check out the extras on Robots, which include commentary from technical directors and animation heads, a featurette that describes what inspired the creation of the characters, and much more.