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Connected Trailer Teases Spider-Verse Producers' Animated Robot Apocalypse
Producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller pit a family against the robot apocalypse in the trailer for Sony's animated comedy Connected. The duo behind hits like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, Lord and Miller made their triumphant return to animation in 2018 by producing Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (with Lord also co-writing the script). The Oscar-winning superhero adventure was a box office success and currently has a sequel in development for release in 2022, along with a women-led spinoff. But first, Lord and Miller are producing Connected, an original animated feature from director Michael Rianda (Gravity Falls).
Written by Rianda and Jeff Rowe (Disenchantment), Connected revolves around the Mitchells, an unsuspecting family of four who suddenly find themselves in the middle of a worldwide tech uprising. Sony released a pair of first-look images for the film back in February, teasing its sci-fi plot and animation style (which uses some of the same technology developed for Spider-Verse). The studio has since unveiled an official trailer for the movie, ahead of its scheduled release this year on September 18.
No doubt, the Connected trailer will play with Pixar's Onward on the big screen beginning later this week. In the meantime, you can watch the video online, below.
As the trailer reveals, Connected revolves around Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbie Jacobson), a creative teenager whose college plans hit a snag when her dad Rick (Danny McBride) decides the family should drive Katie to the film school where she got accepted, as part of a last-ditch effort to reconnect with his daughter. However, when electronic devices start to rise up against humans, it forces Katie, Rick, her brother Aaron (Rianda) and mother Linda (Maya Rudolph), and their pug Monchi to work together and save the day, with the assistance of two "friendly malfunctioning robots". The humans in Connected were animated in a rougher and more hand-drawn fashion compared to the cleaner CGI robots, as a way of visually representing the film's core theme about the differences between humanity and machinery. As a result, the footage in the trailer has a unique look that's reminiscent of Spider-Verse in the way it seamlessly blends 2D and 3D animation techniques.
Refreshingly, Connected seems to have a nuanced message about technology and the way it can just as easily allow people to properly express themselves and connect to others as it can make it difficult for them to relate to one another (especially if they're, say, a father struggling to keep up with his growing daughter). If so, that should - appropriately - allow the film to appeal to a broad range of moviegoers when it opens in theaters, keeping Sony Animation's winning streak going after Spider-Verse in the process. Of course, the studio isn't a trusted name like Disney or Pixar just yet, so it's probably a smart of them to release Connected at a less competitive time of year like the middle of September (where it will be the only new family movie in theaters). Still, given Lord and Miller's track record, the odds are in favor of Connected becoming yet another hit for the dynamic duo.
