The Mitchells vs. The Machines

 (previously titled as Connected) is an American animated sci-fi and fantasy family comedy film directed by Mike Rianda, and written by Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe. The film produced by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Pictures Animation. The movie follows a family that winds up having to save Earth from a technological singularity.

Kurt Albrecht also produced, with Will Allegra on board as an EP. Daniel Chuba and Carey Smith served as co-producers.

On January 21, 2021, it was announced that Sony has sold worldwide rights to animated feature to Netflix.

Summary
"In Sony’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines is an original animated comedy about an everyday family struggle to relate while technology rises up around the world! When Katie Mitchell, a creative outsider, is accepted into the film school of her dreams, her plans to meet “her people” at college are upended when her nature-loving dad Rick determines the whole family should drive Katie to school together and bond as a family one last time."

- Official Netflix synopsis

Plot
Katie Mitchell is a quirky aspiring filmmaker in Michigan who often clashes with her nature-obsessed and technophobe father Rick, and has recently been accepted into film school in California. The evening before Katie leaves, Rick accidentally breaks her laptop, disappointing her as they drift apart. Rick decides to cancel Katie's flight and instead take her, along with her mother Linda, younger brother Aaron and family dog Monchi, on a cross-country road trip to her college as one last bonding experience.

Meanwhile, a highly intelligent AI named PAL betrays her creator Mark Bowman after he declares her obsolete and plans to unveil a new line of home robots in her place. She orders all the robots to capture humans worldwide and launch them into space, but the Mitchells manage to avoid capture at a dinosaur-themed roadstop cafe in Kansas. Rick decides that his family should stay put in the cafe for their own safety, but Katie coerces him to help save the world. They bond with two defective robots, Eric and Deborahbot 5000, who tell the Mitchells to use a kill code to shut down PAL and all the robots.

The Mitchells make it to a nearby mall to upload the kill code, but PAL orders all the PAL appliances try to kill them. Katie tries to upload the kill code, but is stopped after a giant Furby pursues the family. They ultimately trap the Furby as its laser destroys a PAL router and disables the PAL-enabled devices, which also stops the kill code upload. On the way to Silicon Valley afterwards, 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 that.

Upon arriving in Silicon Valley, the Mitchells disguise themselves as robots and head to PAL Labs HQ to shut it down, but PAL manipulates them by revealing surveillance footage from the cafe of Katie telling Aaron in secret that she was pretending to have faith in Rick just so he could hear what he wanted to hear. Heartbroken, the Mitchells fail to reach PAL's lair and Rick and Linda are captured after PAL creates stronger and smarter robots known as Stealthbots, and reprograms Eric and Deborahbot into obeying her.

Katie, Aaron and Monchi escape the headquarters and hide from the robots. Katie discovers Rick's recordings of her childhood on her camera, realizing that Rick gave up on his lifelong dream to care for his daughter. Reinvigorated, she and Aaron infiltrate PAL Labs HQ again and use Monchi to cause the robots to malfunction since their programming cannot distinguish him between a dog or a pig. With help from Mark, Rick and Linda free themselves and plan to upload a home movie of Katie's with Monchi in it to short-circuit the robots. However, Rick is outnumbered by the robots (including Eric and Deborahbot) when he is about to upload the video, while Linda furiously fights the Stealthbots after seeing Aaron get captured.

Katie is eventually captured. Facing PAL to justify saving humanity, Katie explains that no matter how hard her family struggles, they will always stay connected despite how different they are. PAL rejects this reasoning and drops Katie from its lair. Eric and Deborahbot, having been inspired by Rick's "reprogramming" to use a computer, revert to their malfunctioning states and upload Katie's home movie, saving her and helping the rest of the Mitchells. The family bands together to fight the rest of the Stealthbots, and Katie destroys PAL by dropping her into a glass of water, freeing all the humans and disabling all the robots except for Eric and Deborahbot. The Mitchells are seen as heroes, but Rick, Linda, and Aaron find Katie seemingly dying after the battle. However, she pranks them by having Monchi lick Rick, which she did multiple times during the trip as a gag.

A few months after the uprising, Katie and her family arrive at her college as she and Rick share one last heartfelt goodbye before she officially goes to college. She later joins her family on another road trip with Eric and Deborahbot to Washington, D.C. to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Cast and Characters

 * Danny McBride as Rick Mitchell
 * Abbi Jacobson as Katie Mitchell
 * Maya Rudolph as Linda Mitchell
 * Mike Rianda as Aaron Mitchell
 * Eric Andre as Mark Bowman
 * Olivia Colman as PAL
 * Blake Griffin as PAL MAX Prime
 * Doug the Pug as Monchi
 * Fred Armisen as Deborahbot 5000
 * Beck Bennett as Eric/PAL MAX Robots
 * Chrissy Teigen as Hailey Posey
 * John Legend as Jim Posey
 * Charlyne Yi as Abby Posey
 * Conan O’Brien as Glaxxon 5000
 * Sasheer Zamata as Jade
 * Jay Pharaoh as Noah
 * Alex Hirsch as Dirk
 * Elle Mills as Hanna

Release
The film was released in select theaters on April 23, 2021, before streaming on Netflix on April 30.

In July 2024, it was announced that the Sony Pictures Animation movies The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Vivo, and Wish Dragon would be scheduled to release in theaters in the United States throughout early 2024, with The Mitchells vs. the Machines releasing in theaters on August 16, 2024, accompanied by an Angry Birds short film Live Stream.