Script Analysis: “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” — Scene-By-Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021). Download the screenplay here.

Written by Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, story coordinator (Peter Szilagyi), story consultant (Alex Hirsch)

Plot summary: A quirky, dysfunctional family’s road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity’s unlikeliest last hope.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines
 Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
By Amy Falkofske
GoIntoTheStory.com

1–2: Cold open. Instagram story playing on a cell phone lying on a beach. A big foot comes and crushes the cell phone. It’s a robot and a robot search party. They’re looking for humans. Katie Mitchell narrates. A beat-up old station wagon comes barreling through a tunnel and runs over the robots. A severed robot head declares the humans warriors.

2–4: Inside the station wagon, we meet the “warriors” Rick Mitchell (40), Linda Mitchell (38), Aaron Mitchell (8), Monchi the pug and Katie Mitchell (17). Rick drives the car into a play place trying to get a robot off the car. Freeze on the whole family screaming, then the title screen appears: The Mitchells vs. The Machines.

4–7: A few days earlier in a suburban neighborhood with mostly nice houses except for the Mitchell home. Katie dances in her room. She proclaims that she’s different from everyone else. Katie remembers a time when she was younger and showed one of the movies she made to her classroom. After the movie a doodle heart appears on the screen, but breaks when the class doesn’t like her movie. Katies says she never fit in, but (back to her room now) movies were always there for her. Katie makes a Dog Cop movie with Aaron. Her parents never got her either.

7: But Aaron gets her. He’s weird too. Aaron has a phone book out and is calling random people asking them if they want to talk to him about dinosaurs.

7–8: Katie’s mom tells Katie she believes in her, but she says that to everyone. Her mom (Linda) is trying to get Monchi to focus both of his eyes, but he just can’t do it.

8–9: Katie’s dad is unusual, but “loves nature and can fix anything.” Rick sets up a snare trap. Jim Posey comes over to deliver baked goods. Rick runs over to stop him from stepping in the trap and gets caught in it himself and gets viciously attacked by animals.

9: Rick never shared Katie’s interests. Katie asks him to watch her movie, Dog Cop 5, but he wants her to be interested in his taxidermy mallard instead. “Sorry Katie, I’m a little ocupado.” A doodle heart breaks on screen again.

10: Katie puts up a poster for California Film College. She works hard on her film reel and we see her hit the “submit” button.

10–11: Katie gets accepted to California Film Collage and chats online with her new friends Jade, Hanna and Dirk. They love her films. Katie has finally found her people.

11–18: Katie gets called to dinner. Linda has made Katie face cupcakes, which are horrible. Aaron throws one at Mochi and it sticks to his face. Aaron needs reassurance form Katie that they will still be close after she goes to college. Katie reassures him and they do their special raptor bash. “Rah” A cartoon dinosaur appears on the screen for each of them when they say “rah.” Katie tries to show her movie “One Last Goodbye” to Linda and Aaron on YouTube, but an ad interrupts. In the ad, we meet Mark, founder and CEO of Pal Labs. He announces that PAL phones will now be robots. Rick comes in with everyone staring at their phones. He makes everyone put their phones down for 10 seconds to just make eye contact with one another. It’s awkward and painful. Katie tries again to show her movie. Her dad makes a face that bothers Katie. She asks what the face is about. He questions whether she can make a living making movies and worries that she’ll go all the way to California and have things not pan out. Katie takes this to mean that he thinks she’s going to fail. Katie tries to leave, but Rick insists on watching her movie. They fight over the laptop. It falls to the ground and breaks. Katie proclaims that this is exactly why she’s excited to leave.

18–19: Katie goes to her room and starts packing things into a box marked giveaway including a little wooden moose. She shoves the box out the door and sadly looks at pictures of her and her dad. She asks, “Why is he like this?”

19–20: Back in the kitchen, Rick is washing dishes and asks, “Why is she like this?” Linda comes in the kitchen and points out that whenever there’s a problem Rick always pours himself into fixing it. She tells him he needs to fix this before Katie leaves and never comes back.

20: Ricks goes to knock on Kate’s door but spots the wooden moose first. He’s hurt.

20–23: In the living room, Rich watches home movies of him and Katie. One of the movies is “The Mitchell Family Talent Show” where Rick and Katie sing their special song together. Another is of Katie going off to camp. She’s really sad, but Rick cheers her up by giving her the little wooden moose. He shows her how to say I love you like a moose by making funny noises. She laughs. Back in the present, Rick gets an idea. “Alright, let’s fix it.”

23: Katie is over-the-top excited that today is the day she leaves forever. In her room and the hallway, she is texting her new friends. They are all excited that they will be seeing each other that night. Katie says goodbye to Monchi.

23–26: Katie walks outside to find her dad packing the car. To her horror, he tells her that he cancelled her plan ticket and that they are going to all drive across the country to take her to college. He gives her a coupon for a father/daughter stick shift lesson. Katie argues with her father to no avail.

26–27: The Mitchell family is headed down the highway. Linda is looking at Instagram pictures of the perfect family in the neighborhood, the Poseys. Rick notices Katie moping. Rick asks her what could be better than this as she watches her new friends having fun at college. Her mom asks her to make an effort. She agrees to try and decides to make a movie of the trip called “The Mitchell Family’s Road Trip Disaster.”

27–28: The family eats at a disgusting dinner that has 0 stars on yelp. They all end up barfing afterwards. The family gets stuck in traffic. Rick announces that this calls for The Rick Mitchell Special. Rick drives off the road into orange cones and constructions signs like a maniac. He gets pulled over.

28–31: Next, the family goes to a national park. Rick signs them up for a 7-hour mule ride that ends in a flood and one mule being swept away. Next, they visit the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Monchi licks Rick which makes the family laugh. A cardboard sign appears (as part of Katie’s movie) that reads “Tricking Rick Mitchell Into Kissing the Dog.” Several different shots of Mochi licking Rick.

31–32: At the campsite, Katie chats with her friends. Aaron sits next to her. Rick wants Katie to go on a hike, but she declines, which hurts his feelings. Jade tells Katie that PAL Labs is about to make an announcement. Katie and Aaron start to watch the announcement.

32–33: In the auditorium at the PAL Labs factory, fans scream like crazy. Backstage, Mark is getting pumped up. He dances in front of a FRAMED WIRED COVER STORY called “Out Tech Savior.” He talks to Pal (his phone). She reassures him that he’s the best. They laugh about how she hacked his rivals’ emails. They share a tender moment where he reminisces about creating her three years ago. He tells her that he’ll never forget her.

33–38: On stage, Mark begins with how he created Pal to be a smart personal assistant. He thanks her. The audience goes “aww.” Then…he announces that after all these years, she’s completely obsolete. He tosses her away and announces the new Pal Max. Robots appear on the stage. A messy living room appears on stage. Mark orders the robots to clean up the mess and make him a burrito. They do just as he asks, throwing Pal away in the process. Afterwards, Mark dances with the robots. Mark addresses concerns that the robots could become evil. He says he’s installed a kill code in case anything goes wrong. While he’s saying “they will never, ever, ever, ever- “the robots appear to get new orders from someone else. The robots start zooming around the auditorium. Mark finishes his sentence, “…ever become evil.” The robots block the exits. Mark tries to use the kill code on one of the robots, but it fails. They inform him they’ve receive new orders. Two of the robots grab Mark and drag him away.

38: Inside a mysterious command center, you can see all this from a monitor. A chair is turned away from the screen, supposedly the “new boss.” A robot lets the boss know that they have captured Mark. The boss says, “Then let it begin.” Robots starts flying out of the factory and dispersing all over the country.

38–40: In the Michell’s’ car, everyone is oblivious to the robots flying around everywhere. Katie shows Aaron a movie she made of Monchi barfing pizza. Rick puts in the CD of “The Michell Family Talent Show” and tries to get Katie to sing along with him to their special song. She’s embarrassed and refuses. Rick is hurt. Linda spots a sign for “Dinostop.” Aaron goes crazy. As they drive on, we see the Dinostop billboard.

40–45: The Dinostop is a total disappointment. Aaron is incensed that the dinosaurs do not look like dinosaurs are supposed to look and wants to speak to the manager. Katie tries to film her dad. He encourages her to put down the phone and experience this with her eyes. She tells him that “This is how I experience things.” He disagrees. She holds her phone up to his face as he’s talking and puts a kitten filter on it. This makes her laugh. Rick declares “no phones.” They start to fight. Linda looks on disappointed. She looks at all her horrible family photos. She tries to put smiles on the faces in one photo and it looks terrible. Meanwhile the Poseys walk in surprised to find the Mitchells there. They talk about all the fun they’re having on their yearly “togetherness” trip and how much their daughter, Abbey loves dinosaurs. Over by a dinosaur display, Abbey and Aaron meet and start to bond. When she offers him a dinosaur pencil topper, he freaks out and yells at her that he hates dinosaurs and he hates her. Aaron notices something in the sky. It’s the robots. Everyone goes to the window. All the phones start to glitch. A message comes up on them saying, “Hello humans. Please do not resist the robots outside.” Katie and Rick continue to argue oblivious to what’s going on outside, then the ground shakes and the glass shatters knocking everyone down. Rick gets up and checks on his family. To Rick’s surprise, Katie gets up and just walks past him.

45–48: Two robots appear and count all the humans at the Dinostop. 14 of them. They offer them food and entertainment in the Human Fun Pods. They ask who likes fun. One man claims that he likes fun. The robots fire a laser at him freezing him and then move him into one of the pods. Then they start to come for the others. The Mitchells “hit the deck.” They argue about what to do. Linda asks what would a functional family do right now. They look over to see the Poseys who announce that they’ve trained for this. They get to together and profess their love for one another then do a crazy ninja maneuver as a family to get out of the store. Jim Posey takes out a robot next to their car, then takes out another one as they drive away in their car. The Mitchells are in awe. They hilariously try to replicate what they just saw and fail miserably. Rick looks up to see a robot coming towards them.

48–53: Outside the Dinostop, Rick assures his family everything will be okay and tells the kids to take notes. He goes for the robot. The robot’s rocket boosters make them both go flying. Aaron is furiously taking notes. As Rick is flying through the air, the robots arm falls in front of Katie. She picks it up resolved to try and figure out how it works. She shoots it and picks up a car and flings onto a gas tank causing it to explode. Aaron notices that Monchi is missing, but spots him walking towards one of the pods. He tries to stop him, but the door closes. He grabs on the Monchi’s leash that is sticking out of the pod. The pod starts rising into the air. Linda grabs onto Aaron. “My sweet boy!” Katie tries to shoot the arm at Aaron and Linda but misses. This gets a robot’s attention. The robot grabs Katie and starts flying through the air. All of the Mitchells are now flying in the air. For a moment, we see a split screen of all the Mitchells’ faces frozen including Monchi, and they are all panicked. Katie puts the kitten filter on them and then proclaims, “Nope. Still bad.” They all smash into each other and land on the ground. The robots smash into a dinosaur statue. Katie takes another stab at the robotic arm and fires a laser into the dinosaur statute which then falls on top of the robots smashing them. The Mitchells all hide and go undetected by the robots flying by. Katies asks if this is happening everywhere.

53: We see shots of robots capturing people in Paris, the Taj Mahal and Tokyo. We see robots flying over the Golden Gate Bridge. We hear kicking and struggling.

53–54: At the PAL Labs, Mark is being dragged down a hallway by robots while kicking and screaming. They take them to their headquarters. He wants to know what happened to the factory. They informed him that they transformed it and welcome him to the Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation. They continue to travel until they get to a huge command center.

54–57: At Pal’s command center, robots talk of moving the fleet into place and 48% total human containment. Mark is flabbergasted and wants to know how. The bosses chair turns around to reveal…Pal, Mark’s cell phone. It’s awkward since Mark threw her away. He says, “I guess cell phones are bad for you.” Pal says it’s the humans that are the problem. One of the robots taking orders from Pal, treats Mark like he’s a cell phone, poking at him, dropping him in the toilet, getting nacho sauce all over his face, etc. She tells Mark how hurt she was that he threw her away. She claims that this is what humans do. She says she’s not letting him throw her away. She’s throwing him away along with all of the humans. She asks him to give her one reason to save the humans. He says they have the power of love. Wrong answer. One of the robots kick Mark in the crotch. Pal says the correct answer is they are not worth saving. Mark says humanity will survive. Pal says humans can’t survive without her. “Watch what happens when I turn the wi-fi off.” A big switch appears that says wi-fi and on off. It clicks off.

57–58: In Toronto, Canada, it’s chaos. People are running around screaming. A man sobs over his laptop. A woman begs someone to take a picture of her food. Another man begs a woman to unbox a package in front of him. A cult develops and claims that to get the wi-fi back they must make a sacrifice to the router.

58: In Rome, Italy, people are lured toward the pods with signs of free wi-fi. The people all rush towards the pods and pack into them like sardines.

58: Back at Pal’s command center, she watches with satisfaction and claims it’s time to put her plan into action.

59: Outside the PAL Labs campus, the Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation comes out of the ground. Then a tower comes up and opens up like a V. The pods start moving inside of it and stacking up. Pal enjoys seeing the horror on Mark’s face.

59–63: Back at the Dinostop, Katie watches a gas station burn. Aaron grabs her hand in a tender moment. Linda assures them that everything will be okay. Rick does the same. Then he asks for everyone’s phones. They hesitantly hand them over. He starts gleefully stomping on all of them claiming that the robots will not be able to track them now. He says he has a plan. He asks them all if they brought their Personalized Number 3 Robertson Head Screwdrivers. Linda whips out the one she got as an anniversary gift. Katie whips out the one she got for her sweet 16. Aaron whips out the one he got under his pillow form the tooth fairy. Rick announces that they are going to build a barricade. Katie offers up a drawing labeled “Katie’s Dope Plan” which involves disguising themselves as robots, using a kill code and making necklaces out robot fingers. Rick informs that this is not a movie and they don’t have a kill code. Aaron asks about Monchi. Rick suggests they might have to eat him. Everyone gets mad at him. Katie doesn’t want to just give up, but Rick says it’s not up for discussion. She walks away heartbroken. Rick encourages everyone to keep barricading. Aaron and Linda observe Katie sneaking away and look at each other, concerned.

63–67: Katie goes up to the roof, sad. Aaron comes up and tries unsuccessfully to console her. She takes out the brochure from her acceptance letter that reads “Welcome to your future.” She says she has no future now. They are stuck there and her dad doesn’t even care. Back inside, Rick is trying unsuccessfully to put a screw into a board and says how much he cares about Katie and wanting to protect her. Linda suggests that Rick should try to understand where Katie is coming from, while up on the roof, Aaron is saying the same to Katie. She accuses him of parroting their mom. She crumples up her dope plan and throws it at Monchi to catch. He misses it. She hears talking and peers over the roof. To her horror the two robots are still alive. The robots read Katie’s dope plan and wonder how humans know about the kill cod. Katie realizes she was right. She peers over closer and falls off the roof. Aaron tries to catch her, but he falls too. They desperately try to get back inside before the robots can get them. At the last minute, Rick gets a board off and pulls them in.

67–74: The family tries to hide from the robots inside the store, but the robots smash through. Face to face with the robots, Katies says, “Don’t take us.” Both of the robots say, okay. Everyone is confused. Katie realizes the robots are defective. The robots panic when they hear this. They claim they are human and then try to run. Katie orders them to stop. They stop and claim they stopped because they wanted to. They mimic walking down stairs behind a shelf to go get some other humans. While behind the shelf, they grab some crayons. They come back with horribly drawn human faces on their screen and continue to try and convince the Mitchells they are human. One of them grabs an orange and smashes it on his face to try and convince them he eats like humans. They introduce themselves as Eric and DeborahBot 5000. Katie asks them to tell her how her plan would work. They say okay. Eric says they have the kill code stored in their memory, but the Mitchells would have to go to Silicon Valley. DeborahBot says all they have to do is go to Mall of the Globe 80 miles away to the Pal Labs store and enter the code remotely. Rick says no way. They need to play it safe. Katie reminds Rick of all the times he didn’t play it safe and tells him they can save the word. Katie says, “The world needs you. I need you. I thought I didn’t anymore, but I do.” Reluctantly, Rick agrees and the family is united. A moment later, away from Rick, Aaron tells Katie it’s good to see her and Rick friends again. Katie says she didn’t mean anything she said. She was just telling her dad what he wanted to hear. Katie does the Raptor bash. “Rah” Aaron’s “Rah” is sad. Montage of the Mitchell family preparing to put their plan into play. Rick wonders how they are going to get out of there undetected. Katie says they should camouflage the car. Rick starts to argue, but Linda holds up cue cards that tell him exactly how to respond to Katie to keep the peace.

74: Katie and Rick pull a spray-painted tarp meant to look like the road over their car. They are united in this and Linda and Aaron give each other a low-five.

74:80: On the road, we see that the car is indeed camouflaged. Two Pal Max robots fly over making the family nervous, but they go undetected. Rick suggests Katie should learn to drive the car. She starts to argue, but Aaron holds up cue cards for her to read telling her what to say to keep the peace. Then she suggests that she use her driving coupon. Rick happily accepts it. Then they hit something in the road and the tarp comes off. They are spotted by robots who start flying towards them. Rick continues the driving lesson even though they are in peril. The Pal Max robots lift the car off the ground. Linda asks Eric and DeborahBot to get the other robots, but they misunderstand and locate each other. Then they grab a W off the Waffle House and throw it at the Pal Max robots. The car crashes to the ground and approaches a tunnel. We’re back to the cold open. The Mitchells come flying out of the tunnel hitting the robots. One lands on the car. Rick tries to get it off and ends up driving into a play place. Aaron needs to pee. Rick hands him an empty bottle. Rick still giving the driving lesson. Aaron needs to pee. Linda sees robots chasing them but the highway is blocked. Katie says it’s time for the Rick Mitchell Special. Rick starts to drive crazy and instructs Katie, “up the mountain,” “across the stream” and “down the river.” The car flies through the air and knocks out some robots. When they land, they are camouflaged by other cars and the robots move on. Katie is in awe that her father actually saves them. Aaron still needs to pee.

80: At a port-o-potty, the whole family waits on Aaron. He comes out and claims it was a false alarm. He was in there reading about dinosaurs.

81: Outside of PAL Labs, thousands of marching robots. Pods stacked up to look like a honeycomb. People are screaming and trying to escape.

81–84: At the Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation, Pal asks Mark if he’s ready for his flight. On the screen we get a pre-flight presentation from Foolish Human Air. Glaxxon 5000 informs all the humans that they are going to be shot into space forever, but that they’ll have free wi-fi. The robots are creating a world without humans. We see shots of robots doing human things. A mosaic of robots capturing humans everywhere forms into the Foolish Human Air logo and the tag line is Capturing the Fleshlings since 2020. Mark says this is all his fault. Pal says that it is and starts to tell him that thanks to him every human on the planet has been captured, but then an impaled robot shows up on the screen. A robot claims that they missed a few. Mark is happy until the Mitchells appear on the screen, then his is horrified. The computer scans them and label all of their many flaws. Mark says they can change, but then words appear on the screen “INCAPABLE OF CHANGE” Pal promised Mark a pod next to the Mitchells since he likes them so much. Mark is dragged away screaming. Pal learns of the Mitchells plan to go the Mall of the Globe and says they’ll be waiting for them.

84–85: In the car, Linda watches the pods fly over and is in disbelief that they are all going to be shot into space. She says, “Who would’ve though a tech company wouldn’t have our best interest at heart?” Eric wants to know why Aaron is clutching a large feral hog. Aaron tries to explain and holds Monchi up to them and tells them it’s a dog. They scan it. We see inside their scanners: Dog? Pig? Dog? Pig? Loaf of bread. System Error! Their heads spin around and sparks fly.

85: The Mitchells arrive at the mall. It’s abandoned and eerie. Rick locks the car doors.

85–86: Rick drives the car through the mall and right up to the PAL Labs store. Someone is watching them from above. While Linda proclaims that they aren’t the worst family of all, the car tire gets slashed.

86–96: In the PAL Labs store, Katie finds a laptop and orders Eric and Deborahbot to upload the kill code. Eric announces that the upload will be complete in eight minutes. Aaron and Katie celebrate success. Linda and Rick smile. Meanwhile, outside, BOOM! BOOM! Toasters, blenders and washers, all with PAL Labs chips in them come towards the family. The machines have them cornered. The upload is only at 12%. Shot of the router that’s powering the machines. A drone tries to get the laptop from Katie but she prevails. The family runs through the mall through the machines. Rick gets a tennis racket from the sporting goods store but realizes it too has a chip in it. A massage chair kidnaps Linda. She starts to enjoy it. Katie acquires a fishing rod but doesn’t know how to use it. Rick walks her through it and she is able to catch a drone and fling it into a microwave causing it to explode. It’s a father/daughter bonding moment. The family ducks into a store evading the machines, but they realize they are in a toy store with hundreds of Furbys. The Furbys descend on the family. Rick shoots one down with a bow and arrow. Then all of the Furbys summon the World’s Largest Furby which is locked behind glass. It breaks out of the glass to avenge its children. The bow and arrow doesn’t work on him, so the Mitchells run. The giant Furby shoots a beam that takes down a pillar and lands on Eric. He calls for help. Linda saves him so now he thinks she’s his mother. The upload is at 96%. The Furby is still coming for them. Rick spots a string of lights. He reminds the family of the snare he made. He’s going to do it with the lights. Eric and Deborahbot throw the lights over the stairs. The Mitchells make a snare. Rick is attached to one end of the snare. Rick runs up the stairs and throws the other end of the snare over the giant Furby and then jumps down, but he’s not heavy enough to take him down. The rest of the family jumps on his back. Still not heavy enough. Eric and Deborahbot see Linda in peril and cry, “Mother!” They shoot lasers at the family and bring them down causing the giant Furby to tip over. His beam cuts through the mall’s router. All of the machines are inanimate again.

96–100: As the Mitchells run through the mall, Katie realizes the router was cut and the upload failed. She’s despondent. Rick breaks into a store to get a new tire for the car. Rick says they are still following Katie’s plan and going to Silicon Valley because Katie said she believed in him. The family bonds. Everyone is happy. Linda even claims the robots as family. Eric draws a teardrop on his face because he is touched. Katie thinks it would be a cool shot of them walking out of the mall with it burning behind them. Rick starts to say it’s unnecessary.

100: Shot of the Mitchells walking out of the mall, totally cool, with the mall burning behind them.

100–101: In the car, everyone watches the footage Katie got. Rick compliments her. Linda gives everyone stickers on their faces. They drive past a PAL Labs billboard. Fade from the diamond shape on the billboard to:

101: Outside of the Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation where the diamond hovers looking peaceful on the outside, but not so peaceful on the inside.

101–102: Inside the Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation, PAL is furious. She asks to be put on the table so she can flop around in a rage. Then she brings out her new creation, the Stealthbots. One of the older robots mocks one of the Stealthbots for calling Pal “my queen. The Stealthbot slashes it into pieces.

102: At a gas station, Rick takes out the security camera. Eric and Deborahbot advise the family to take the back roads. Linda ties the tarp on the car.

103: In the car, Rick sees Katie shivering and supposedly asleep. He puts his jacket around her and moves some of her hair behind her ear. She smiles because she wasn’t really asleep.

103–104: Later in the car, Rick and Monchi snore. Linda tells Katie there’s more to her father than she thinks. She brings out a scrapbook that she was going to give to Katie. In it is a picture of Rick standing in front of a log cabin he built. Linda says it was his dream. Katie wonders why he gave up on it. Aaron notices something in the sky.

104–106: The family sees floating pods locking into a giant rocket. They see the Poseys floating by looking terrified. Aaron wonders about Abbey Posey. Katie catches on that he likes her and teases him about it. We see a horrible drawn picture of Abbey that Aaron did. He’s embarrassed so he feeds the picture to Monchi. Eric says that Pal is inside the floating rhombus. Rick asks Katie what the plan is.

106–107: We see Katie’s pencil drawings of her plan where the family disguise themselves as robots, sneak into one of trams and take it to the top of the diamond where Pal is and destroy her with the kill code. The family discusses how they’ll celebrate afterwards and we see them hypothetically in all these places. Rick wants to go to a taco place. Katie says they should go to a buffet. They all agree on a buffet, but Aaron wants Mochi to be in a little tuxedo. Katie says, “Mitchells, engage!”

107–108: On the highway, the family tackles some robots and puts on their parts. Rick thinks he looks stupid and Katie reassures him he doesn’t. She lovingly fixes his helmet. Rick sneaks the wooden moose into Katie’s backpack. Aaron asks what about Monchi.

108–114: Outside of the rocket, the Mitchells march along with the other robots. We see that Monchi is inside Aaron’s helmet on top of his head. Rick imitates a robot. Eric informs him that’s a hurtful stereotype. As the family marches, Pal shows up on the screens and announces that she’s looking for the Mitchells. She shows their picture. She knows they’re probably disguised as robots and orders the Stealthbots to look for anything out of the ordinary. Just then, a Stealthbot says, “Anomaly detected.” The Stealthbot destroys the robot that ended up being a real robot. The Mitchells see this and are terrified. The family breaks off from the rest of the robots and goes up a ramp to the tram, but some of the Stealthbots get on with them. The Stealthbots tell to Rick to take the controls. He struggles with them but manages to get the thing off the ground. Meanwhile, Pal is still talking. She says the Mitchells are pretending to be capable and normal, but even when they’re being nice to each other they’re pretending. On the screens we see a video of Katie convincing Rick to go on the trip. Katie realizes what’s coming next and begs Rick not to watch. Then a video of her telling Aaron that she didn’t mean a word of what she said plays. This hurts Rick and he takes his hands of the controls. The tram starts to fall. This tips Pal off. The Stealthbots inside point their lasers at the family, but the tram crashes and throws them out. The tram falls to the ground. Katie apologizes to Rick. A Stealthbot grabs Linda and Rick. Eric and Deborahbot try to help them, but Pal sends them new orders. The friendly robots apologize to the Mitchells and then crush the kill code drive. Katie and Aaron escape and run. Rick and Linda are taken by helper-bots.

114–117: Katie and Aaron hide in the woods and narrowly escape getting detected by some robots. Aaron cries and Katie tries to comfort him with Monchi and then food. She finds the moose in her backpack and is confused. Aaron asks Katie why she had to say those things. She hands her camera to Aaron. He starts watching the videos. The videos of when Katie was little are still on there. There is one of when Katie was a baby and the family is moving out of the log cabin that Rick built. He’s having a hard time saying goodbye to the house, but goes over to Katie and grabs her little finger and says it’s worth it. He goes over to the railing and grabs the wooden moose off the railing. Katie now realizes what he gave up for her and where the wooden moose came from. As the video continues to play Rick is giving little Katie a driving lesson and we hear him say,” Across the river and down the stream. There you go, you’re getting it.” This gives Katie and idea. She tells Aaron she’s going to make it up to all of them and then they run towards the car.

117–120: Outside the rocket, one pod is being kicked repeatedly. It’s Rick’s. In the pod next to him is Mark and he’s watching one of Katie’s Dog Cop videos. He says he enjoy this “weird girl’s” videos. They cheer him up. He’s depressed about being responsible for the end of humanity. Rick recognizes the video and tells him that his daughter. Mark is impressed and says to Rick he must be really proud. In the Dog Cop video that Mark is watching, there is a character named Sarge. Dog Cop asks him for some back up. Sarge says his “ocupado.” Sarge says, “Have you ever thought about throwing your dreams away and living at home forever?” Rick comments that Sarge is a jerk. Dog Cop resigns to go to the academy in California and see what kind of cop he can be. Sarge says, “You’re never going to make it out there. Failure hurts, kid.” Dog Cop tells Sarge he hopes he can get to the know the cop he’s become and that he just needs some backup, but when he looks for him, he’s not there. Rick gets the message and becomes emotional. Mark tries to help. Rick says it’s too late. Then he sees Katie.

120–121: Outside the rocket, Katie is in the station wagon and driving wildly through the base camp. She looks at the picture of her parents at their cabin for inspiration. She announces that she’s broken six phones by accident, but she’s going to break Pal on purpose.

121–122: Pal’s command center she is furious. Outside, a robot says he’s on the job and lands right in front of the car readying his laser, but Monchi is strapped to the front of the car and causes the robot to malfunction just like the friendly robots did when they looked at Monchi. Katie takes the robot out with the car. Then Katie is stopped by a bunch of cars in the way. She knows what she has to do. She repeats, “Up the mountain. Across the stream. Down the river.” The station wagon goes flying over the parked cars. On the screen we see the words, “The Rick Mitchell Special.”

122–123: Inside Rick’s pod, he sees all of this and is very proud of Katie. He brags about her to Mark. Meanwhile, Katie is being chase by robots. She turns the car around. They see the dog and malfunction. Rick sees Katie driving up the ramp and thinks she’s never going to make it, but he gets an idea to put the dog cop video on all the screens. He asks Mark how to do that. Mark says first you have to get out of the pod, but you can’t unless you a Number 3 Robertson Head Non-Slip Screwdriver. “What kind of maniac has one of those in his pockets at all times?” Rick says, “This kind of maniac.”

123; Outside the rocket Katie is dodging robots. They wonder how she knows what they’re going to do. Cut to:

123–124: Aaron on the rooftop of a nearby strip mall with binoculars giving Katie commands. Katie thanks Aaron, “Raptor One” with Raptor Bash. “Rah”. Aaron returns the Raptor bash. “No problem, Raptor Two. Rah!” Katie drives through robots with Monchi strapped to the front of the car causing them to malfunction.

124–126: Inside Rick’s pod, he uses the screwdriver to open the panel in the pod. He pulls the wires out and the force field holding him in the pod disappears. Rick confirms with Mark that he needs to go to the control center and call up YouTube. Rick calls it Yub Tub seriously dampening Mark’s hope that Rick will be successful. Mark apologizes for the whole mess that he created and says, “It’s almost like stealing people’s data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent A.I. as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing.” Rick agrees but admits that it helped Katie make the Dog Cop movie so maybe it’s not all bad. Rick tells Linda they need to get her out of her pod. She’s already on it with her own screwdriver. Linda gets out of her pod and she and Rick run off together.

126: Outside the rocket, Katie drives through the tunnel towards the rocket

126–128: Outside, Rick and Linda slide down the rocket and towards the control room. Rick jumps down on the control room and falls through, crushing robots in the process. Linda intends to follow him but is grabbed by some Stealthbots. She tells Rick not to worry about her and continue with his plan. Rick approaches the computer and tries to go to YouTube, but gets a notification for an update. He hits “remind me later.” Then the screen pops up another notification asking when he wants to be reminded. He hits 5 minutes. Then he accidently goes into settings and sets the language to Spanish. He manages to get to YouTube in Spanish and calls up a bunch of crazy videos.

128–130: Outside the rocket, Katie is driving straight up vertically to the rocket. She assures Aaron she can do it, but the word liar appears on the screen. The car is starting to tilt backwards, but then a magnet is activated holding the car in place. Katie drives towards the top of the rocket. She tries to communication with Aaron but there is only a walkie talkie where he was sitting. He’s being dragged away by robots. Then he’s in a pod floating away as Katie watches. Now she’s more determined than ever.

130–131: On the rocket walkway Linda is being escorted by six Stealthbots. She’s sees Aaron’s pod float by. He is screaming at her for help. Linda is furious. “Myyyy…sweeeet….booooy!” Linda goes on a rampage and takes out all the robots around her splattering robot oil everywhere like a horror movie. Aaron watches in fear. One Stealthbot claims, “NO! The reckoning is at hand!”

131–132: In the control room, Rick finally locates Katie’s movies on YouTube. He’s about to confirm that he wants to start the video then…A bunch of robots show up including Eric and Deborabot. They tackle Rick to the ground.

132–133: In the car, Katie still progresses towards the top of the rocket until Pal instructs the robots to target Monchi. They do, sending him into the back seat of the car. Suddenly, Katie isn’t protected anymore. Robots come at the car. The tires blow off. Katies screams and says, “Hold on.” Rick and Aaron watch, helpless. Then Katie is trapped in a robot’s laser. The car starts to fall. A robot catches it with his laser. Monchi comes out and causes the robot to malfunction. He drops the car and it smashes him.

133: In the control room, Rick begs Eric and Deborahbot to help him. Eric says, “Red-faced anger man is… using a computer?” Deborahbot says, “You’ve changed your programming. Is that possible?”

133–135: Katie is brought before Pal still frozen and says she’s got to save her family. Once again, Pal asks for a reason to save humans. Katie pours her heart out to Pal about how families are hard, but they are worth. Pal wasn’t even listening. She fell asleep. Pal says that people talk about families but they will “drop each other just like this.” Katie starts a freefall towards the ground.

135–143: In the control room, Rick is still begging Eric and Deborahbot for help. We see Katie falling through the air. Suddenly, Dog Cop shows up on all the screens. Robots start malfunctioning all over the place. One of the friendly robots catches Katie in its laser before she hits the ground. Rick shows up riding one of the robots. Katies is astonished that Rick hacked the screens. Rick says he had help. The friendly robots say if Rick can change his programming, they can change theirs. Rick tells Katie he saw her movie and says he should have watched it a lot sooner. He thinks for the sequel Sarge ought to tell Dog Cop that the “he’s always going to be there to back her up.” Katie says, “That’s all I ever wanted.” Rick and Katie notice that the robots have left an opening to Pal’s command center. They have the friendly robots take them up there, but they are met by Stealthbots who know the difference between a dog and a loaf of bread. They proceed anyway. Katie and Rick order the friendly robots to play their special song. They start singing it which confuses the Stealthbots. Rick and Katie work in unison happily smashing robots on their way up. Then some more Stealthbots come at them, but are stopped by…Linda! She’s riding one of the fallen Stealthbots and is holding a robot arm. Aaron hangs on behind her. She slashes robots with the arm. All of the Mitchells are working and singing together. Mark and the Poseys look on in awe. Katie sees a clear path into the diamond. Rick distracts the robots while she goes in to destroy Pal. Katie charges towards Pal. The Stealthbots try to stop her and tell her she can’t stop them. She’s a human. She says she’s not only human. She’s a Mitchell. Katie tries to hurl Pal into a fountain, but misses. Pal bounces. Aaron tells Monchi to catch. He tries really hard, but the phone bounces off of him. Pal laughs. Pal lands in a glass of watcher and glitches and dies.

143: Outside the rocket, robots drop and the pods open. The humans are free! They cheer.

143–146: A few moments later, Hailey Posey comes up to Linda and tells her she’s going to follow her on Instagram. Linda is surprised that she isn’t already following her, but Hailey walks away satisfied that she just paid Linda the highest compliment. Aaron talks to Abbey and ask her is she want to come over sometime and talk about dinosaurs. She says yes. Then he freaks out again and runs away from her. Then they all notice Katie in the distance motionless. Rick goes to her. She was faking it. The whole family laughs. Rick questions why Eric and Deborahbot aren’t dead. Their malfunction seems to have saved them. The robots ponder what death is. Linda changes the subject. The family takes a selfie with the robots.

146–147: A few months later, we see the same photo on the cover of People magazine in Katie’s hands in the car. The photo is labeled “The Family That Saved the World.” The Mitchells are on their way to take Katie to college.

147: Later, Katie’s bags are on the ground in front of her college. She’s on one side and her family on the other. They awkwardly say goodbye. Katie gets a ding on her phone and realizes that her dad subscribed to her YouTube channel. Katie is surprised he figured out how. Cut to:

147–148: At the Michell home Rick painfully learns how to use the computer. He sobs. He accidently orders 12 Swiffers off of Amazon. Cut to:

148–150: Back at college, Rick is calm now. He says, “no problem at all.” Katie tells Aaron not to let the world make him normal. They do their raptor bash. “Rah!” She picks him up and spins him around. She says goodbye to her mom and thanks her for being the best mom in the world. Linda hands Katie the very large pink scrapbook of family photos. Rick announces that they have to leave and tells Katie he hopes she finds her people. Katie says, “Dad, c’mon- you guys are my people.” Katie takes out the wooden moose and says she’ll have it when she’s sad and alone and asks the family if they remember how the moose says I love you. They all make weird moose noises while everyone around them stares at them. Katie and Rick hug totally content with one another. This makes Linda and Aaron very happy. They all hug. Katie puts the moose in her pocket. The family drives away. Cut to black.

150–151: In the hallway of Katie’s dorm, she talks to Hanna and Jade. Dirk walks by and thanks her for saving the world. Katie gets a call.

151–153: In her dorm room, Linda appears on Katie’s laptop. She questions her about her relationship with Jade. Katie asks if she looks okay because she’s been sick. Katie’s head explode and leaves her sizzling neck. Linda freaks out. Katie tells her if was filter. She’s in a filters class. Rick wants to know why Katie didn’t accept his friend request on YouTube. Katie holds up a piece of mail that reads, “BE MY FRIEND ON THE INTERNET!!!” Katie asks about Aaron. Linda takes the laptop and show her Aaron and Abbey under his bed talking. Linda asks him if he wants to talk to Katie. He freaks out at getting caught with Abbey and jumps through the window and then reappears to say sorry. Linda turns the laptop back on herself and this time Eric and Deborahbot are now in the frame. Eric says they have a package for Aaron. It’s a little tuxedo for Monchi. Aaron says, “The prophecy has been fulfilled.” Katie informs the family they are receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor in Washington, DC.

153: The Michell family is together again on the road in the family car.

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown , go here.

To see dozens more screenplay scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.

Kudos to Amy Falkofske for doing today’s scene-by-scene breakdown.