La Bene Vita

Plot Debate: The Mitchells vs. the Machines

It's PrepMo, so I have plots on the brain. My songwriting student Millie, who just finished her musical, "Gwinny! The Musical" (starring her dog, Gwinny), has decided her next project will be an opera about manatees.

Her homework was to complete a story and plot elements analysis template for the opera. Instead, she wrote the main plot points in a list form without actually completing the template. Although she had the analysis in her head, she had trouble filling in all the blanks when I asked for details; but she's stubborn and insisted her plot was fine. So I manipulatedenticed her by asking if she thought she would be up for an intellectual debate.

She bit. So, I asked her favorite movie. What followed was a spirited debate between a 14-year-old intellectual and her much-older-than-that-but-equally-intellectual music teacher about the plot and story elements of the 2020 Sony Animations film, The Mitchells vs. the Machines.

Millie argued that the protagonist is the Mitchells, and the antagonist is clearly PAL and the robots (aka, the machines.) After all, it's right there in the title, right?

This was her initial analysis:
Protagonist: The Mitchells
Goal: Save the world
Antagonist: PAL
Conflict: A bunch of evil robots are kidnapping people and launching them into space.
Climax: Rick & Linda (mom & dad) escape the spaceship
Resolution: PAL bounces off Monchi's head and falls into the glass of water.
Protagonistic change/growth: She couldn't really pin this down.

It's been awhile since I saw the movie, so I looked up the synopsis from Wikipedia*. ▼

Katie Mitchell is a quirky aspiring teenage filmmaker in Kentwood, Michigan, who often clashes with her father Rick, a middle-aged, nature-obsessed and technophobic man, and has recently been accepted into film school in California. In September 2020, the evening before Katie leaves, Rick accidentally breaks her laptop after a fight over one of her short films, leading the family to fear their relationship will permanently be strained. Attempting to prevent this, Rick decides to cancel Katie's flight and instead take her, her mother Linda, younger brother Aaron, and family dog Monchi on a cross-country road trip to her college as one last bonding experience, much to Katie's chagrin.

Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Mark Bowman declares his highly intelligent AI virtual assistant PAL obsolete as he unveils a new line of home robots to replace her. As revenge for Mark casting her aside, PAL orders all the robots to capture humans worldwide and launch them into space. The Mitchells avoid capture at a roadstop café in Kansas. Rick decides that his family should stay put in the café for their own safety, but Katie convinces him to help save the world instead. They meet two defective robots, Eric and Deborahbot 5000, who tell the family they can use a kill code to shut down PAL and all the robots.

The Mitchells make it to a mall in eastern Colorado[4] to upload the kill code, but PAL chip-enabled appliances attempt to stop them. Katie tries to upload the kill code, but is stopped when a giant Furby pursues the family. They ultimately trap and defeat the Furby, destroying a PAL router in the process, which disables the hostile devices but stops the kill code from uploading. On the way to Silicon Valley to upload the kill code directly to PAL, Linda reveals to Katie that she and Rick had originally lived in a cabin in the mountains years ago as it was his lifelong dream before he gave up on it to provide for their growing family.

Upon arriving in Silicon Valley, the Mitchells disguise themselves as robots and head to PAL Labs HQ to shut it down, until PAL shows surveillance footage from the café of Katie telling Aaron in secret that she was pretending to have faith in Rick so that he would take them to upload the kill code. Heartbroken by this revelation, Rick accidentally blows their cover, and he and Linda are captured by PAL's recently upgraded robots. PAL then reprograms Eric and Deborahbot to obey her, while Katie, Aaron, and Monchi escape.

Katie discovers Rick's recordings of her childhood on her camera, realizing that Rick gave up on his lifelong dream to give his daughter a normal life. In the meantime, Rick reflects on his actions after seeing one of Katie's videos that mirrors their relationship. Reinvigorated, Katie and Aaron infiltrate PAL Labs HQ again, this time using Monchi to malfunction the robots, as his appearance causes an error in their programming. With help from Mark, Rick and Linda free themselves and plan to upload Katie's home movie of Monchi to short-circuit the robots. However, Rick is outnumbered by the robots when he is about to upload the video, while Katie and Aaron are captured.

Facing PAL to justify saving humanity, Katie explains that no matter how hard her family struggles, they will always stay connected in spite of their differences. PAL rejects this reasoning and drops Katie from her lair. Eric and Deborahbot, having been inspired by Rick's "reprogramming" of himself that allowed him to use a computer, revert to their malfunctioning states and upload Katie's home movie, saving her and helping the rest of the Mitchells. As the Mitchells band together to fight the rest of the robots, Katie destroys PAL by throwing her into a glass of water, freeing all the humans and disabling the remaining robots. Eric and Deborahbot are spared via their malfunction.

A few months after the uprising, Katie and her family arrive at her college as she shares one last goodbye with them. She later joins them on another road trip with Eric and Deborahbot to Washington, D.C. to accept the Congressional Gold Medal.

Do you think she's right? Let's hear your counter arguments.

Her homework was to debate the plots of at least five more stories this week with other intellectuals like herself.


*Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mitchells_vs._the_Machines