Flubber

Flubber is a 1997 movie starring Robin Williams, and a remake of 1961's The Absent Minded Professor.

Williams plays Professor Phillip Brainard, an Absent-Minded Professor-type searching for an energy-based scientific breakthrough in order to save his college from closing for lack of funding. He stumbles across such a creation in the form of "flying rubber" (the eponymous "flubber"), a physics-defying green rubber-like substance that can somehow both bounce with inexhaustable kinetic energy and defy gravity. With it and the help of his Robot Buddy, Weebo, Brainard hopes to save his college and his relationship with his long-suffering fiancee Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds (Marcia Gay Harden), while fending off an Obviously Evil rival and his corrupt Dean, who try to steal Flubber for themselves.

Since this is not only a live-action Disney film, but a remake of same from the '60s, you know there's a Mega Happy Ending in the offing.

Tropes used in Flubber include:
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Weebo's reaction to Brainard throwing an apple at Wilson for the latter putting the moves on Sara. Normally Weebo would care less if Sara was with another guy since that means she's got Brainard all to herself. However since Wilson is such a slimeball for stealing Brainards ideas in the past, Weebo can't help but react in her own way to it. In this case when the apple knocks Wilson out cold and shatters his wine bottle, her reaction to it is to show an old movie clip of an umpire shouting "OUT!" to add insult to Wilson's injury.
  • Absent-Minded Professor: A genius innovator of robots, flubber, and Rube Goldberg contraptions, but don't expect him to arrive at his own wedding on time (which he missed four times), or have the common sense to sell his inventions already rather than use them for slapstick humor and to win basketball games (or at least hire someone to do it for him). It's also a remake of the Trope Namer, The Absent Minded Professor.
    • On the other hand, Wilson does say that he stole Phillip's ideas, so maybe he got there first.
  • Adorkable: Brainard, Sara and Weebo fall under this category. Brainard is this whenever he's acting absent minded. Sara is this when she's trying to reign in Brainard's antics. Weebo is this whenever she's not in jealousy mode or whenever she's offering advice.
  • Aint No Rule: When the opposing coach in the basketball game calls shenanigans over the other team's Flubber-enhanced and physically impossible jumping abilities, the ref simply tells him that there's no rule about jumping too high.
  • And This Is For: Sara yells "This is for Weebo!" when throwing Flubber at the Big Bad.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Phillip's rival, Wilson, who not only admits he's been stealing his ideas for his own benefit, but outright boasts he now wants to steal his fiancée. As in literally. In his very first scene.

Wilson: "I'm here this weekend to steal your fiancee, and make her my wife."

  • Chekhov's Gun: Guess.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience The lights on Weebo's face emit different colors for different functions. Her green light is her power indicator, letting us know she's on. When her red light is on, she's recording images. Hence why she was able to show Sara Brainard's love confession. When Brainard is explaining the qualities of Flubber, her light blinks yellow. Meaning she's learning.
  • Deadly Dodging: At the fight at the end of the film, two of the mooks are taken out by Brainard using Flubber to bounce out of the way of their fists, forcing them to punch each other instead. Non-lethal.
  • Death of the Hypotenuse: The only real reason for Weebo to die in an otherwise slapsticky film was to clean up the Love Triangle. Verges on Spurned Into Suicide given that she deliberately hid her own blueprints.
  • Destination Defenestration: The Big Bad is knocked out a window, into a pool of water.
  • Do Androids Dream?: Briefly touched on when Weebo "dies". ("What happens to the soul of a machine, Sara?") Technically he should be able to just rebuild her, of course - but the film tries to explain that Weebo hid the knowledge from him for some reason.
  • Dude, He's Like, In A Coma! - Weebo eventually creates a holographic projection of herself in order to try and have a physical relationship with the professor... when he's asleep.
  • Dumb Muscle: Played with. Smith and Wesson are basically just thugs for hire and their entire purpose of the film is to do what Hoenicker tells them and suffer the consequences for it. However they are at least smart enough to try to get past the obstacles Brainard inadvertently set up with the Flubber-ized bowling ball and golf ball after trial and error. They are also competent enough to kill Weebo and steal the Flubber.
  • Emerald Power: The titular Flubber is a sentient mass of green goo.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: See Dude, He's Like, In A Coma! above. And it is not subtle at all.
    • When Brainard shows Weebo how the flying mechanism works on the car, he accidentally shuts the car hood trapping Weebo inside. When he realizes that she's in there, Brainard takes her out and the following exchange happens.

Brainard: What were you doing in there.
Weebo: Flirting with the alternator.

Ginny: I want him to have what he wants. Even if it means you instead of me.
Weebo: No no!! You love him, don't give him up!!
-Webber Vacuums-
Weebo: Hey I'm Watching something!! WEBBER!!! -As Moe- WHY DON'T YOU BE QUIET!! I'm watching tv!! Download some manners!!
-Webber stops-
Ginny: But he ain't in love with me Miss French.
Weebo: Tell me about it.

  • Mood Whiplash: Weebo's death adds a disturbingly tragic end to that subplot and serves as a surprisingly dark element to an otherwise cheerful film. A film that also showed people getting smacked in the head with bowling balls from so high in the sky that they can't be seen until just before they hit you without suffering any dramatic pain.
  • Nepotism: The Big Bad doesn't like Phillip because he gave his son a failing grade, resulting in his being dropped from the team.
  • No One Should Survive That: Wesson is repeatedly hit on the head by a BOWLING BALL, either falling from a great height or (in the first instance) moving at an incredible speed.
    • Sara jumps on Smith's head, although as he does not get back up after this it is left ambiguous as to whether he is dead or unconscious.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The film's excuse for why Weebo is unique and Phillip won't be able to repair here after she is killed. Phillip even claims her sentience was an accident, and he tried several times to recreate with no success. Later, in Weebo's post-mortem video file, she explains that she hid the plans, notes, and ideas to make her... though she actually did save an improved backup of herself in case she died. Still creates some problems as to how Weebo pulled this off.
  • Perpetual Motion Machine: Flubber is a perpetual motion substance.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: The film treats it as a-okay for Brainard to continually abandon his fiancée at the altar, stalk and antagonize Wilson, and cheat at basketball so his college will win the Big Game.
  • Punny Name: The two thugs are named Smith and Wesson.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Phillip is more concerned about coming up with a new energy source that will help save his college... despite having a hovering robot capable of speech, emotions, and sentient thought, never mind the flying car. He does eventually sell the flying car, but the idea doesn't even occur to him until Sara reconciles with him, though Weebo did apparently prevent Phillip from making a duplicate somehow.
  • Runaway Groom: Brainard skips his own wedding three times - by simply forgetting to show up. A rare example of the trope where the man does the leaving and is presented as sympathetic, while the jilted bride is presented as being unreasonably angry for not wanting anything to do with him anymore.
  • Running Gag: The boy keeps seeing Brainard's antics.
    • The Golf Ball and Bowling Ball Brainard tests, fall and land on the same spots from greater heights. Sometimes still hitting Smith and Wesson on the head whenever they are present.
  • Slapstick: The movie clearly uses the laws of slapstick regarding the ability of objects to bounce and violently (but harmlessly) knock people over. Strangely averted when Weebo actually dies. Then played straight again for the rest of the film.
  • Social Darwinist: One of the reasons Wilson claims justified stealing Phillip's ideas. And also cause he's a Jerkass (see previous trope).
  • Spoiled Brat: The Dean's son, who bribed his teachers for good grades.
  • That Came Out Wrong: It takes a few tries for the Big Bad to elucidate that "give it to him" means handing Phillip the squirt gun, rather than squirting him with it.
  • Those Two Bad Guys: Smith and Wesson.
  • What Does She See in Him?: Considering all of Phillip's many faults, how did Dr. Reynolds ever get to the point of marrying him? Though considering that she did get to that point, why do they still bug her so much and she does nothing to accommodate them? (One could easily ask why he continues to put up with her, when she apparently makes no effort to meet him partway, but instead apparently expects him to spontaneously change to suit her.) It isn't until the film's finale that she lets the Weebo successor take his place at the wedding to ensure he's there in some form while he works.
    • It's also worth asking what she saw in Wilson since he's openly a slimeball. Admittedly, if she was willing to put up with Brainard's constant ditching of her, she was probably just happy to date a guy who actually showed up.
    • Same could be said about Weebo's attraction to the professor. True much of the professor's problems are the result of Weebo's jealousy such as deleting his wedding from his schedule. However he's still got certain issues with his own personality that it's a miracle anyone likes him let alone his fiance and his Robot companion.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: While not his girlfriend (Much to her dismay), Weebo embodies this trope when she catches Smith and Wesson breaking into Phillip's garage and stealing Flubber. It cost her her life.
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