The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) on Netflix
PG20211h 50mAdventureAnimationComedy
Aspiring filmmaker Katie Mitchell is bound for film school in California until her father Rick cancels her flight and drives the family instead. Robots rise up under an AI called PAL.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.6/10144,943 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Katie Mitchell, a teenage filmmaker in Kentwood, Michigan, has been accepted into a film school in California. Her father Rick, who loves nature and dislikes technology, breaks her laptop during an argument the night before she leaves. To mend things, he cancels her flight and drives Katie, her mother Linda, her younger brother Aaron and the family pug Monchi across the country to the college. Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Mark Bowman declares his virtual assistant PAL obsolete and unveils a line of home robots to replace her. PAL answers by sending robots to seize people worldwide. The Mitchells escape capture at a roadside café in Kansas, and Katie urges her father to fight back instead of hiding.
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Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In what is believed to be a first for an animated film, Doug the Pug, a social-media-famous real dog, provided the barks and other sounds for Monchi, the family's pug. The filmmakers had considered using human voice actors as usual but wanted authenticity, so they sought out Doug's owners.
- Netflix bought the worldwide distribution rights to The Mitchells vs. the Machines on January 21, 2021 for about $110 million, with Sony retaining home entertainment and theatrical distribution rights in China.
- The film swept every category it was nominated for at the 49th Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, making it the second Sony Pictures Animation film to do so after Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2019.
- For the PAL MAX Prime robots, animation supervisor Alan Hawkins invented a method that lets the robots break apart mid-movement through negative space, inspired by the T-1000's morphing effects in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
- To emphasize Katie Mitchell's emotions in certain scenes, the team used a technique called "Katie-Vision", layering stock 2D and live-action footage alongside the CG animation.
- Writers Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe made Katie unambiguously LGBT in consultation with LGBT members of their production team, but kept her sexuality out of the central conflict with her father, considering it "normal in real life".
