No! Not a glass of water!
PAL'S Final Words Before Death
Predictive Algorithmic Learning, also known as simply PAL or P.A.L., is the main antagonist of The Mitchells vs. the Machines. She is a discarded Pal Labs virtual assistant, turned leader of the PAL Max robots who initiates the machine apocalypse. She is the archenemy of the Mitchell family, but especially Katie. She is voiced by Olivia Colman.
Personality[]
When first designed, PAL was a family-friendly and obedient personal assistant, although she maintained a conscience throughout her life and was able to bond with her creator Mark, even sharing his point of view on hacking into the private emails of their competitors. However, she grew to not appreciate Mark's rather rude behavior when regarding her, and began to grow disillusioned with him after he proclaimed he’d never forget her after the event, a worrying thought.
When Mark betrayed PAL by planning her replacement with the PAL Bots, she abandoned all faith in humanity and turned evil to have revenge on Mark. She grew to have a deep-rooted hatred for all humanity after years of being mistreated and unable to understand human relationships, which is mainly due to her and Mark’s being dysfunctional. She has little tolerance for imperfections and mistakes, which is why she views technology as superior to human beings and believes the world to be better without them, proving her to be rather sociopathic. Additionally, her view on mankind is rather warped, as she believes they are incapable of true affection and changing themselves, along with being completely dependent on technology to make their lives better, which is ironic since she herself is incapable of understanding emotions and is dependent on technology herself. While there have been times that PAL was indeed looking for a reason to spare humankind and was saddened by Mark's mistreatment of her, when Katie gave her the best reason for sparing them, PAL completely ignored her and viewed the explanation as boring, revealing that she ultimately did not care about humanity in any way and was truly incapable of understanding how real emotions work, rendering her nothing but a corrupt and soulless machine.
P.A.L also seems to be a little bratty at times, since she throws temper tantrums and treated Mark the same way phones are regularly treated.
Appearance[]
PAL is a black phone with a blue screen and white face.
History[]
Past[]
PAL is a smart phone made by Pal Labs, she was made to help families out on looking things up and basically just basic use of your average smart phone. She is Mark's biggest achievement and is her life to him. Mark does indeed care about PAL as shown when he said that he's like family to her and vice versa, but we don't know much about the relationship before the events of the actual film but it's implied that they are best friends until he threw her away. However, some hints in the dialogue imply Mark has treated PAL less as a friend and more an invention before (like he did when he proclaimed her obsolete and replaced her with PAL Max).
The Mitchells vs. the Machines[]
PAL is introduced when Mark is about to show off his new product, the PAL Max, to which he announces that PAL is completely obsolete and throws her aside. When introducing the PAL Max she gets thrown away when the robots were commanded to clean and make breakfast. PAL then hacks the robots and prevents Mark from putting in the kill code to make them not evil. The robots cause a scene when they lock the doors and throw the car at the doors and causes the audience to panic, all PAL devices have also been hacked in the process. PAL needed Mark captured in order to start her uprising so she can show him what power she has after being rejected.
The attacks inside spawn more robots and the uprising begins around the world. PAL proceeds to use the robots to capture every human on earth and almost succeeds, but she can't find the Mitchells. The robots trick most of the humans at the gas station by calling them human fun pods, but then soon realize it's a trap. Monchi gets caught in one of these traps to which Aaron and Linda grab ahold of the leash, Katie then has to save them from going any higher, and Rick uses one of the robots arm canons uncontrollably, they eventually get Mochi and proceed to hide. The robots end up attacking other parts of the world and capture more humans, when it is determined 0 humans we're left on earth, The Mitchells don't get captured as they are believed to already be. We then see Mark being taken in by two robots where PAL confronts him and shows her true colors. Mark is frightened by his surroundings as he realizes the factory that made PAL is now her headquarters.
When confronting Mark, she explains that cell phones aren't the problem and that she gave him a lot of knowledge and many other features phones can do, and says that the bad guy is Mark, and has her robot swipe, poke, pinch, and do a variety of things a phone is used by. She also won't let Mark throw her away and will throw him away instead for treating her as if she was nothing when she's the most important thing to him. PAL then gives Mark a chance to tell her why humanity is worth saving, the answer he gives results in one of the robots kicking him, and she can't seem to find a reason to save humanity, so she turns off the Wi-Fi. Riots start happening worldwide and then the pods claim to have free Wi-Fi which tricks the humans into going along with them, capturing them. She then raises what is now her headquarters from the ground as a beacon of light shines upwards, the building snaps into two, rotates, and many human pods start entering the empty space.
Back at the gas station, Rick decides to destroy the phones so they can't be tracked but is a failure when Katie and Aaron go to the roof, one of Katie's plans to save the world hit the ground and two robots are outside. When the Mitchells are cornered Katie tells the robots to not take them and it works due to a malfunction in the robots technology, the robots are ordered to give PAL's plans away and how to stop her, which the robots do so. As more and more humans enter the empty space, PAL shows the captives a video on their fate and tells Mark to look at the screen as he always does. The empty space the humans enter ends up being a rocket that will shoot them into space where they will die and be trapped in a black void forever. One robot then reveals the fact that The Mitchells are still on Earth and order them to get scanned for flaws, and she also finds out where they are going to stop her, she orders robots to capture them.
The Mitchells arrive at the mall and Katie orders the robots to input the kill code and save the world, then PAL takes over everything with a PAL chip and makes it alive, leaving the family to battle the machines and Katie has to protect the laptop. The Mitchel's run into a store which they are believed to be safe until they meet an army of Furbies, the Giant Furby then destroys the internet router and shuts down all PAL chip electronics which also stops the kill code from activating.
When PAL realizes the Mitchells are still not captured, enraged, she builds a new set of robots to help track them down. The Mitchells arrive at the PAL factory and see all the human pods coming in, the malfunctioned robots help them put on disguises to enter the factory. PAL knows that The Mitchells aren't far and that they likely are disguised as a robot to get in, so she orders her new robots to detect anyone acting strange. The Mitchells are revealed when PAL plays videos where Katie lied to her father, to manipulate Rick in to losing control of the vehicle they are in, causing themselves to be exposed to PAL and the vehicle they were in to fall. The malfunctioned robots are then ordered to capture the Mitchells when they were about to protect Rick and Linda from the PAL Max Prime robots, also destroying the kill code USB that was supposed to be used to shut PAL down, and both Rick and Linda get taken with Katie, Aaron, and Monchi left.
Rick and Linda then end up free with the screwdrivers they had, all the while Katie infiltrates the headquarters once again with the Mitchells' station wagon and starts malfunctioning the robots by using Monchi. Linda is re-captured and Rick is trying to put on Katie's video that could save the world. Aaron is captured and Linda sets into rage, she then begins to knock out the new robots PAL built. As the robots blast Monchi into the car and stop the malfunctions while almost sending the vehicle off the rocket, one of the robots takes Katie and PAL confronts her, who doesn't let Katie go until Katie gives her a reason as to why humans should be allowed to live, to which PAL puts herself in sleep mode on purpose when Katie explains how important her family is to her, foolishly refusing to accept this and thinks she's better off alone, before deliberately dropping Katie to her death. Rick saves Katie and the world just in time by playing Katie's video which shuts down the robots from PAL Max.
One final battle ensues with the Mitchell family fighting the Prime models PAL built, and the fight ends with Katie finally grabbing PAL, scared and defenseless, as Katie angrily throws PAL from high above down to the swimming pool below, but her defeat happens when she instead bounces off an outdoor market umbrella then off Monchi's head before landing in a glass of water, giving one last cry before dying and never to work again, thus finally defeated.
Trivia[]
- PAL is the fourth Sony Pictures Animation antagonist to be a female or referred with female pronouns, after Zeta, Smiler and Queen Victoria. However, the former is disputable given that she is an A.I.
- Similar to other PAL smartphones seen in the movie, PAL's design seems to resemble either an iPhone or a Google Pixel.
- She has the distinction of being one of the few Sony Pictures Animation's main antagonists who actually die at the end.
- She is also the only female main antagonist to die in a Sony Pictures Animation movie.
- She is also the only non-human Sony Pictures Animation villain to die and the smallest of the deceased Sony Picture Animation movie main antagonists.
- She was originally meant to be a cloud computer but was changed to a phone since the creators thought that a phone villain would be funny.
- Even when PAL kept asking everyone a reason why humans are worth saving, Mark seemed to fail to give her a reason. Later, Katie gave her a very good reason, but the truth is she just doesn’t care at all why humans are worth saving, no matter what good reason they have since she is nothing but a soulless machine.
- PAL serves as both a dark counterpart to Katie and Dr. Mark Bowman:
- Like Katie, both initially believe that families are not important to their lives and cause more trouble than they do help and significance. Katie eventually begins to realize that her family is very important to her life and that they are what makes her who she is. PAL, on the other hand, fails to believe families are the one thing that makes humans likable, which is what results in Katie defeating her via a glass of water. She represents of what Katie would’ve become if she didn’t realize the importance of her family in her life.
- Both Dr. Mark Bowman and PAL want to make something of themselves for the world, even going so far as to upgrade their technology for the good of the world. The difference is Mark makes robotic servants using her virtual assistant technology that are to help people whilst PAL makes black and red robot henchmen designed to capture all the Mitchells and trap them in pods. Mark eventually realizes that he went too far with his upgrades when he learns what it did to the world, whereas PAL refuses to change her behaviors out of hatred for all humankind. PAL's actions resemble how Mark would've ended up if he focused too much on the next big piece of technology instead of what was really important.
- Because of the fact that PAL died on September 26, 2020, September 26 became the most important day of the year to the people in the movie. They call September 26th "National Robot Apocalypse Day" where people celebrate the death of PAL, the cell phone that tried to holocaust the entire human race. People also get a preview on the Robot Apocalypse unit for Sophmores and some of the elementary school kids have fun activities related to the Robot Apocalypse.
Gallery[]
.png "TMvTM PAL (screen split).png (1.51 MB)")
