Meet the Robinsons is a highly underrated film. I recently re-watched this movie and marveled at the storytelling genius of its writers. Seriously. Genius.
In particular, there was one facet of the story that really struck me: the villain. Writing the villain is not the easiest part of writing for me, since I often find it hard to keep my bad guys likable. However, I love a good villain in any given story, and I LOVE the bowler hat guy.
He is funny and awkward, and his pursuit of evil is more comical than threatening. And yet, if he gets his way, he will alter the timeline and totally ruin Lewis and the Robinsons' lives. He has a clear goal: ruin Lewis’s future. He has a clear path to achieving that goal: go back in time to Lewis’s breakthrough invention and make sure it doesn’t work.
To take it a step further, he even steals the invention for himself to steal Lewis' fame and fortune. He is aided by his robotic bowler hat, Doris. If you’ve seen the movie, than you know Doris ends up the true villain, filling the future with mind controlling bowler hats to keep the humans doing their bidding.
But let’s talk about the bowler hat guy first.
The bowler hat guy is the antagonist of this story. He is the reason things go haywire. So why do I have such a soft spot for him? It’s simple: he is so awkward and bumbling that it’s funny. He has that one redeeming quality, and it is so relatable that you instantly like the dude. Not in a way that makes you root for him, but in a way that makes him entertaining to watch.
Every good villain needs a redeeming quality. It makes them relatable and interesting. It makes them seem like real, complex people with authentic ambitions and motivations. You do not have to like the antagonist, and you certainly do not have to root for them, but they should be well-rounded instead of just plain evil.
The other thing that strikes me about the bowler hat guy is how similar his journey is to Lewis’s. Lewis’s main problem is that he is stuck in the past. He cannot get past the fact that his mother left him for adoption when he was a baby, which only keeps him from finding a future family. He needs to stop looking to the past in order to build a future. This, too is the bowler hat guy’s journey. Once we discover that the bowler hat guy is actually Lewis’ old friend Goob, grown up and seeking revenge on the roommate who ruined his life, we see that he too needs to let go of the past in order to create a future for himself. In helping Goob get over the past, Lewis realizes himself that he needs to move on. This further develops the theme of the film, stated pretty explicitly: “Keep moving forward.”
So, the bowler hat guy and Lewis can both move on from the past but…they still cannot save the future. Doris, the bowler hat, the true villain of the story, has already created a future in which the bowler hats rule the humans. The clues are there the whole time (come on, the bowler hat’s weird red eye looks just like H.A.L. from 2001: a Space Odyssey). Goob never intended for things to get so messed up, but eventually he works together with Lewis to save the world.
I’m a sucker for bad guys gone right. Sometimes the character you think is supposed to be the villain is not actually the true villain. Doris is a failed invention getting her revenge on her inventor (future Lewis). Even she has a reason for doing the things she does and she’s literally a hat. Treat your villains like real characters with real motivations, as if they are the heroes of their own stories, and your antagonist will turn out like the best.
Much love for Goob.
Peace out,
Grace
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