We are at the 47th film in the animated Disney Canon, “Meet the Robinsons”. Released in 2007, the film wasn’t a huge mega-hit, and I guess it wasn’t really an embarrassing flop either. But in terms of Disney Canon quality, many people put this one pretty low on the list! And…yeah, it’s definitely no masterpiece, but I really enjoy this movie! Maybe, it’s the family element, maybe it’s the time travel element, maybe it’s the overall fun, I dunno!
Oh, let me talk about the film for those of you who haven’t seen it or have no idea what I’m talking about.
The film is about a young 12 year-old boy named Lewis. He lives in an orphanage and has lived there ever since his mom dropped him off there when he was a baby. And like all orphans, he desperately wants to be adopted and have a family of his own. But after 124 rejections,
he realizes that the only person who could ever love him and want him would be his own mother!
So what does he do? He decides to create a memory scanner so that he can go into the farthest annals of his brain and extract his earliest memories of what his mother looked like in order to find her.
But trouble finds its way into the plot when a 13 year-old boy named Wilbur comes to Lewis and tells him that he’s from the future and has come back to the past in a time machine.
Why has Wilbur come back in time? Well, apparently there’s an evil villain known as “The Bowler Hat Guy” who has stolen another time machine in order to come back in time and destroy Lewis’ memory scanner. Why? Well, I won’t spoil it!
The rest of the plot is kinda hard to follow, but in an effort to prove to Lewis that he is indeed from the future, Wilbur takes Lewis back to the future
wherein they crash the time machine thereby preventing Lewis from ever returning back to his proper time unless he actually fixes the machine. While in the future, he meets Wilbur’s family all the while trying to dodge the evil plans of “The Bowler Hat Guy” who has followed him back to the future.
Now, to the focus of the post: our forgotten/minor character! When Lewis decides to create a memory scanner, he kinda has to obtain knowledge on how the human brain works. After all he’s just a 12 year-old kid at an orphanage. So how does he obtain the required knowledge? Well, he visits the library,
witnesses a brain surgery,
and even attends a college class.
This brings me to the forgotten/minor character, the college professor! He’s briefly seen and not even heard, but I wonder exactly how he feels/reacts to having a 12 year-old person enter his class! And not just any 12 year-old, but somebody who hasn’t even paid the necessary tuition nor even registered at the university!
And in the end, if/when Lewis becomes successful (I won’t spoil it), I can imagine that our friend, the college professor, will definitely remember that he was probably the main source of knowledge from which Lewis obtained his information.
For these reasons, let us never forget our teachers, especially not this one, the college professor!
The Animation Commendation 
It’s funny, I just watched this movie again over the weekend and while I laughed at the clip in the montage of Wilbur in college, when I first saw your post I didn’t even recognize the professor. I love his mildly puzzled look in the pic you use. “Keep moving forward!”
Thanks for the comment! Yeah, usually the characters that I pick for the forgotten/minor characters are ones that when I re-watch the film, I’ve forgotten about. And I too just watched this film a few days ago and when I was working on getting the screenshots today, I didn’t recognize the college professor either, lol!
Oh, and I believe you mean “Lewis”, not Wilbur.
Keep Moving Forward! Just Keep Swimming! And one of my personal favorites: Don’t Be a Mediocrity! (from “The Sword in the Stone”)
LOL, yes Lewis! Sorry about that. “Don’t be a mediocrity!” Yes! I love that song!
I really like this movie!!! I almost forgot about this professor!! One of my favorite parts in the movie is when the t-Rex is chasing him and he goes into a corner and the Dino says: “I’ve got a big head and little arms!!” Hahah!! Love it 🙂
I personally found the dino scene out of place!
Well, I’ve seen this movie more than once (I really like it), and totally forgot about the professor!!!
Yeah, this movie is very enjoyable, although not nearly a masterpiece.
Ok so I’m almost a month late to this party but I have to tell you, I may have mentioned it before, Meet the Robinsons is seriously one of my all time favorite Disney movies. I know it doesn’t have very good reviews but I really do love it. I love the future-y music and the future-y characters. I love the Keep Moving Forward part. I just love the movie! I was looking for it on DVD for a while and actually left my name and number with a couple of places until they finally got a copy for me. I may or may not have watched it multiple times. 🙂
Better late than never! Hope you can catch up with my awesome posts 😀 !
I love this movie too; it’s one of my favorites.
I watched this film like 2 years ago, and I liked it okay. Not much else to say other than good post.
I think many people who love this (like me) love it as a guilty pleasure.
Personally, I find this film rather mediocre; the subplot about adoption was well-handled, but the rest seemed much too slapdash for my liking (I won’t go into details).
Understandable.
Omg I love Meet The Robinsons! It’s one of my top 10 Disney movies, not to mention top 10 animated movies of all time! Don’t get why this movie doesn’t get much recognition! I love everything about it including the soundtrack, the message(Keep Moving Forward), the animation, the story and the characters(my favorite character being either Uncle Art or Frankie The Frog)! I rate Meet The Robinsons 10 out of 10 stars!
Glad to meet other fans of Meet the Robinsons!