Trivia / The Mitchells vs. the Machines

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: The creators put the World’s Largest Furby into the movie because they “thought it would be funny to include it”. They didn’t know that one actually existed, though it was smaller and only for a promotional video for Furby Babies.
• Channel Hop: From a theatrical release to Netflix, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Reflected on the Blu-ray release as the Netflix logo pops up before the other company logos.
• The Danza: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Ricardo Tejedo voices Rick.
• Descended Creator: Michael Rianda, the film's director, provides the voices of Aaron, the talking dog of the PAL commercial and the Furby army.
• DVD Commentary: With writer/director Mike Rianda, visual effects supervisor Miks Lasker, production designer Lindsey Olivares, co-writer/co-director Jeff Rowe, producer Kurt Albrecht, head of animation Alan Hawkins and head of story Guillermo Martinez. Only included on the Blu-ray release.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • The first trailer (when the film was still Connected) had a scene where a toilet says “Sayonara” and launches a man through the roof. This isn’t in the final film.
  • Aaron's line after exiting the porta-potty ("False alarm, I was just in there reading") was originally him claiming he never washes his hands, but it was changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it makes sense seeing that you can’t wash your hands in a porta-potty unless you have hand sanitizer.
• The Other Marty: Downplayed. Fans took note that Grey Griffin voiced Linda in the deleted scenes, which lead to a belief that she was the original casting choice. However, she was actually just recording temp vocals, to get a sense of the timing of each scene, and was always intended to be replaced by Maya Rudolph in the finished product.
• Playing Against Type: Eric André, a comedian known for his unique type of Surreal Humor, plays Mark Bowman, a tech company CEO who doesn't really have a lot of funny qualities aside from his corrupt business practices, and the robots' abuse of him, both being Played for Laughs, albeit briefly.
• Playing with Character Type: Danny McBride is known for playing selfish manchildren in his films. While Rick Mitchell is rather selfish and immature himself, he is nonetheless portrayed far more sympathetically than most of Danny's other characters.
• Production Lead Time: The film was originally set to release in 2020, but was pushed back due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a result, the film is visually set in the fall of 2020 (as seen on devices like the camera), not its actual release year of 2021.
• Production Posse: Several people who worked on Gravity Falls worked on this film. Co-directors and writers Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe were writers and directors on the series. Series creator Alex Hirsch is credited as a "story consultant" on the film and also provides the voice of Dirk, one of Katie's college friends. Art director Ian Worrel worked as a visual development artist on the film. Matt Braly (Amphibia) and Dana Terrace (The Owl House), who were storyboard artists on the series, storyboarded some scenes to help Rianda pitch the film to Sony; some of these scenes ended up in the film. Series composer Brad Breeck has a song on the soundtrack. In Canada, much of the animation team at Sony Pictures Imageworks previously worked on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, while character designer and animator Victor Carlos (Corn & Peg) also helped out with some of the Katie Vision design that was conceived by lead character/production designer Lindsey Olivares.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Katie, who is confirmed to be LGBT near the end, is voiced by bisexual actress Abbi Jacobson.
• Real-Life Relative: Jim and Hailey Posey are voiced by John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen.
• Recycled Set: Two assets from previous Sony Pictures Animation projects were repurposed here: the Tokyo setting seen during the initial phase of the robot uprising was originally Manhattan as seen in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, while Katie's classroom from the beginning of the film was the same one as Alex's from The Emoji Movie.
• Release Date Change: The film was supposed to be released on September 18, 2020. Then due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it got pushed forward to October 23. The film was ultimately removed from Sony's release schedule entirely on September 17 (a day before its original release date) and would've been released in theaters on March 12, 2021. When it was picked up by Netflix, it was given a final date of April 30, 2021.
• Those Two Actors: Abbi Jacobson (Katie) and Eric Andre (Mark) also lend their voices to Disenchantment as Bean and Luci, respectively.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Katie went through many different design concepts. Also, she had more of an interest in video games as well.
  • The Poseys originally had a second daughter that was closer to Katie's age but she was cut from the film, Also their dog was originally a Maltese instead of the steroid-looking Great Dane dog in the final.
  • Originally, PAL was going to be male and used all the technology in Silicon Valley to create a Humongous Mecha with the world’s second-largest Furby as its head in the climax. The resolution to that fight can be seen here.
  • A shot full of Freeze-Frame Bonus was cut out of Katie's application video.
  • As the Mitchells hid in an icebox to hide from the robots, Rick was going to go on a rant about how he was right all along about technology being evil, but test audiences felt it made him too callous.
  • During the Mall Attack scene, before the film got the rights to use Furbies, the original plan was to use "Tickle-me Melmo's" as the killer toys.
  • Edgier lines from the giant Furby referencing blood, eating people, and serving Satan were cut.
  • Instead of a toaster being the first corrupted appliance to confront the Mitchells, a jumping toy puppy was considered.
  • One of Katie's films in her intro was going to be "Dog President and Barfy the Puppet".
  • In the Dinostop attack, the Mitchells were going to be saved from a robot by a man named Dirk McTavish, who would immediately be shot by another robot.
  • Rick was going to teach the family how to camouflage themselves, with Aaron covering himself in glitter, Katie wearing a robot, and Deborahbot 5000 and Eric transforming into furniture.
  • The final battle originally took place in Las Vegas.
  • There was a scene between Linda and Deborahbot 5000 where the latter would ask the former to explain an image in a coloring book of a mother duck helping her ducklings. Linda would explain the importance of family and look out for one another to Deborahbot, who would concede that they similarly would not leave Eric behind. Deborahbot would then eat a bunch of crayons.
  • The "Prancer belongs to the canyon now!" gag was almost cut because of how expensive it was to animate rain, the river, and a burro rig.
  • There was a scene cut from the movie that elaborated more on the robots taking over the world, including a gag where PAL GPS devices were instructing people to drive off of cliffs, and one where a little boy insults an Alexa device, which promptly insults him back.
  • One alternate opening for the film began with a presentation by Mark Bowman (then named Mark Zuckercorn), which demonstrated previous attempts at making functioning robots, before cutting to the Mitchells escaping from a horde of robots, much like the opening sequence in the final film. Another proposed opening began the film with technology coming to life at a Chester Cheeser restaurant, before the Mitchells drive through the building.
  • The robot apocalypse was going to be much slower originally, implied to be in a matter of days rather than about half a day. In an alternate opening, the Mitchells drive along other cars escaping from the robots, burning tanks can be seen, and Katie narrates how the world’s governments and militaries fell in about three days.
• Working Title: Was formerly known as The Mitchells vs. the Machines until February 2020, when the title was changed to Connected, before reverting back to its original name in January 2021. This is lampshaded in the Freeze-Frame Bonus of the title splash.^note BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TITLE BABY!!!
  • Also, the film's artbook shows it was pitch with the title Control.Alt.Escape.
• Write What You Know: Most of the Mitchell family was based on Rianda's own family excluding the dog who is primarily a self insert character.

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