Friday night was “date night,” and we went to see the movie Meet the Robinsons. After having seen the previews we decided that we wanted to watch this one. We especially loved the woman with the caffeine patches (which you may have seen in the commercials/previews). No side effects there!
We enjoyed the movie, although it got a bit slow in the middle. Interestingly, though, the movie had a good adoption theme. The movie opens with a young mother placing her newborn child (Lewis) at the door of an orphanage. The story grows out of the Lewis’ desire to find his family after spending his first 13 years in the orphanage. Lewis is an inventor who is always creating things to impress families, but they always blow up in his face (sometimes literally). After 124 failed adoption interviews, Lewis, tired of rejection, decides to find his family from the past, instead of going through more interviews. But a boy from the future finds him first and leads Lewis on a journey into the future to meet the Robinsons.
In addition to the adoption theme, there was also a great message about failure and “failing forward.” The movie opened with a lengthy animated clip of an old Disney classic that involved Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy building a ship. In the end, it turned out to be a failure, but they celebrated anyway. We didn’t understand why that was shown at first, but after watching “Meet the Robinsons” it made sense. Many, well, all, of Lewis’ early inventions were failures. The Robinsons convinced Lewis that failures are valuable and part of the learning process. Using Walt Disneys words, the family encouraged Lewis to “keep moving forward!”
It’s a good message for all of us. Keep moving forward!