Batteries Not Included (stylized as *batteries not included) is a 1987 American science fiction comedy film directed by Matthew Robbins about small extraterrestrial living spaceships that save an apartment block under threat from property development. The story was originally intended to be featured in the television series Amazing Stories, but executive producer Steven Spielberg liked the idea so much that he decided to adapt it into a film. It was the feature film screenwriting debut of Brad Bird.

Plot

Frank and Faye Riley, an elderly couple who manage an apartment building and café in the East Village, come under threat by a nearby property development. The development manager, Lacey, sends a hoodlum named Carlos and his gang of thugs to bribe the couple and their tenants to move out. When the tenants resist, Carlos and his thugs punch through artist Mason Baylor s door, intimidate pregnant single mother Marisa Esteval, and break retired boxer Harry Noble s jar of tiles. After Frank Riley refuses to move, Carlos vandalizes the café.

This assault convinces three of the tenants to move out. Mason s girlfriend, Pamela is tired of living in an old, depressing building with a guy whose art career is going nowhere. She dumps Mason, packs up and before leaving, advises Mason to quit being an artist and get a steady job. The Rileys friends, Muriel and Sid Hogensin, take Lacey s bribe and decide to move to a retirement home in New Jersey. Frank feels a little betrayed by the Hogensins for taking Lacey s money but they explain that the building doesn t feel like home anymore. They advise Frank that maybe he and Faye should come live with them at the retirement home. With the assault and Faye s dementia growing, Frank contemplates giving in.

Things look bleak until a pair of small living space ships appear in the Rileys apartment that evening and start repairing many of the items that were broken. They also repair the vandalized cafe, putting Frank and Faye back in business. The two aliens take up residence in the shed at the top of the apartment building, and are dubbed The Fix-Its by the residents. Carlos comes back to threaten the tenants once again, but the Fix-Its lure him to the top of the building and into the shed where they scare him away.

Faye and Marisa learn that the female Fix-It is pregnant. After consuming plenty of metal and electrical objects, it gives birth to three baby Fix-Its, although one of them is stillborn. Faye buries the stillborn in a flowerbox the next day, but then Harry digs it up, takes it back to his apartment, and succeeds in reviving it by taking apart his precious television set. Frank and Faye see a boost of business in the café from the demolition crew, while the Fix-Its help in the kitchen.

Mason and Marisa grow closer. Marisa finds Mason s paintings very nice, which makes Mason feel better about his art and not to give up on it. Marisa s baby is due in 2 to 3 months. Her boyfriend, Hector, who is a musician and the father of her baby, comes over. Mason leaves Marisa and Hector alone, but when Mason returns, Hector is gone. Marisa explains that Hector and his band have found a steady gig in Chicago with good pay. Mason wonders why Hector would leave without her. Marisa confesses that she told Hector to go without her because their relationship just wasn t working out. But it also appears she has developed feelings for Mason. Mason has developed feelings for her as well.

With Carlos unable to prove the existence of the Fix-Its that had been foiling their plans, Lacey is furious with the delays in evicting the tenants and moves to replace him. Desperate to see the job done and growing more unstable, Carlos breaks into the building s basement to sabotage the building s pipework and electricity, and badly damages the father machine in the process. After Harry throws him out, the tenants discover the Fix-It children are missing and go searching for them in the city while Faye stays behind with the mother machine as it fixes the father . When the father machine is repaired, the now-wary Fix-It parents leave to seek out their offspring. After finding them with Harry, the machine family departs from the planet.

Tired of the delays, Lacey hires an arsonist. The arsonist attempts to burn down the building in a staged accidental fire . Carlos discovers the plan and in a rage sabotages the arson to make the entire building explode, only to then discover that Faye is still in the building. While the arsonist flees, Carlos unsuccessfully attempts to pose as her late son Bobby to get her to leave, but succeeds in rescuing her as the fire spreads. The tenants then return to find the blazing apartment block collapsing, and Faye being loaded into an ambulance.

By the next morning, the apartment block has been reduced to a smoldering wreck. To Kovacs fury the construction crew, out of respect for Harry, refuse to continue as he is sitting dejected on the steps. Harry is greeted by the mechanical family later that night, who have recruited countless other Fix-Its for repairs. By the next morning, the entire building has been seamlessly restored to brand new condition, ending Lacey s demolition plans and resulting in him terminating Kovacs. Mason and Marisa settle into a relationship while Carlos tries to start a friendship with the Rileys, with Faye finally having come to accept her real son s passing.

Some years later, the developments have been built, but this time flanking either side of the tiny apartment building, with Frank s café now doing a roaring trade as a result of the new employment brought into the area.

Cast

• Hume Cronyn as Frank Riley
• Jessica Tandy as Faye Riley
• Frank McRae as Harry Noble
• Elizabeth Peña as Marisa Esteval
• Dennis Boutsikaris as Mason Baylor
• Michael Carmine as Carlos
• John Pankow as Kovacs
• Michael Greene as Lacey
• Tom Aldredge as Sid Hogenson
• Wendy Schaal as Pamela

Production

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Principal photography started in New York in August 1986, but location scouting began almost a year before. Since the story called for a solitary building amidst rubble, explained producer Ronald Schwary, we had to find a vacant lot with burned-out buildings all around it. We finally settled on an actual building on 8th Street between Avenues C and D on New York s Lower East Side (the building no longer stands, and was probably located on the site of the current Housing Bureau substation, or the building to the east. 40°43′27.33″N 73°58′40.49″W / 40.7242583°N 73.9779139°W / 40.7242583; -73.9779139). Production designer Ted Haworth designed a three-sided, four-story tenement facade and oversaw its construction on a location that covered most of a city block. In the name of authenticity, he brought 50 to 60 truckloads of rubble to cover the one vacant lot. It was so remarkably realistic that the Sanitation Department came by and took away prop garbage one morning, potential customers stopped by to eat in the diner, and the business agent for the Plumber s Local of New York visited, demanding to know why there wasn t a permit down at City Hall for the construction.

Reception

The movie gained a mostly mixed reception but debuted at #4 at the box office. It has a rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews. Gene Siskel described it as a comic book with the best pages torn out and accused the film of having forced warmth. Roger Ebert defended the film, saying it had a lot of good feeling in it, it had a few nice laughs, it had a few interesting special effects, and…it s better than most of the stuff out there.

Awards

Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Outcome
Saturn Awards
	Best Fantasy Film		Nominated
	Best Actress	Jessica Tandy	Won
Young Artist Awards	Best Family Motion Picture – Comedy		Won

Year	1987
ReleaseDate	1987-12-18
RuntimeMins	106
RuntimeStr	1h 46min
Plot	Aliens help a feisty old New York couple in their battle against the ruthless land developer who’s out to evict them.
Awards	Awards, 2 wins & 1 nomination
Directors	Matthew Robbins
Writers	Mick Garris, Brad Bird, Matthew Robbins
Stars	Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Frank McRae
Produced by	Kathleen Kennedy,Frank Marshall,Gerald R. Molen,Ronald L. Schwary,Steven Spielberg
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography by	John McPherson
Film Editing by	Cynthia Scheider
Casting By	Penny Perry
Production Design by	Ted Haworth
Art Direction by	Angelo P. Graham
Set Decoration by	George R. Nelson
Costume Design by	Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Makeup Department	Susan Germaine,Tony Lloyd,Susan Carol Schwary,Rick Sharp
Production Management	Joe Johnston,Ted Kurdyla,Gerald R. Molen,Arthur F. Repola
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Sally Andrews,Bruce Cohen,Jann Dutmer,Lewis Gould,Jerry Grandey,Joe Johnston,Ken Ornstein,Stephen Wertimer
Art Department	John Bell,Paul J. Campanella,Joe Griffith,Ed Larkin,David Lowery,Patrick J. Marchese,David L. McGuire,Larry McGuire,Ralph McQuarrie,James J. Murakami,Bruno Robotti,Paul Rylander,Ken Scaife,Robert Scaife,Alex Scutti Jr.,Terry Shugrue,Edward Swanson,John Villarino,Steven Westlund,Clyde Zimmerman,Joseph Alfieri,George Hugel,Greg Knapp,Andrew Probert,Mark Sparks,Drew Struzan,Mike Villarino
Sound Department	Gene S. Cantamessa,Steve Cantamessa,Michael C. Casper,Kim Costalupes,Doreen A. Dixon,Mark Gordon,Mark Jennings,William L. Manger,Tom C. McCarthy,Bob Minkler,Michael P. Redbourn,Louis Rivera,Tanya Sharp David,Ian Underwood,Bill Varney,Don S. Walden,Burton Weinstein,Paul J. Zydel,James Ashwill,Jeffrey Kaplan
Special Effects by	Connie Brink,Danny Lester,Harold McConnell Jr.,Ken Pepiot,Al Wininger,Bill Traynor
Visual Effects by	David Allen,Craig Barron,Patricia Blau,Marty Brenneis,Wade Childress,Donald Clark,Robert Cooper,Dick Dova,John Ellis,Chrissie England,Nicholas J. Esposto,Christopher Evans,Ellen Ferguson,Warren Franklin,Joe Fulmer,Michael Gleason,Ralph Gordon,Caroleen Green,Joanne Hafner,James Hagedorn,Sandy Houston,Tony Hudson,Peg Hunter,Gregory Jein,Steven Kosakura,Tad Krzanowski,Jack Mongovan,Rodney Morgan,Charlie Mullen,Bruce Nicholson,Jeff Olson,Lorne Peterson,Mark Setrakian,Tom St. Amand,Peter Stolz,Marc Thorpe,Bruce Vecchitto,Jeffrey Wilkins,Nelson Cabrera,Peter Daulton,Timothy Eaton,Steve Gawley,Ellen Lichtwardt Goodchild,Ian Hiebert,Ira Keeler,Crit Killen,Jay Riddle,Thomas Rosseter
Stunts	Denise Amirante,Kenny Bates,Jerry Brutsche,Harold Burns,Dick Hancock,Steve Kelso,Erik Koniger,Thomas Rosales Jr.,Tom Sierchio,Alex Stevens,Guss Williams,Lila Finn
Camera and Electrical Department	Stewart Barbee,Ron Batzdorff,Terry Chostner,Don Duffield,Selwyn Eddy,Ray Gilberti,Louis Goldman,Bob Griffith,David Hanks,Connie Holt,Ted Holt,Craig Hosoda,Billy Kerwick,Richard C. Kratina,Norman G. Langley,David Lindeman,Gary Muller,Hank Muller,Reggie Newkirk,Peter Norman,Michael Orefice,Richard Quinlan,Ed Quinn,Martin Rosenberg,Pat Sweeney,Mike Tapp,Mitchell Block,Raymond Fortune,Randy Jonsson,Thomas Landi,Jim Shelton
Animation Department	Timothy Björklund,John Hays,Nick Stern,Wes Takahashi,Sean Turner
Casting Department	Mickie McGowan,Mae Williams
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Thomas Costich,Sue Moore,Laurie Riley,Joan Joseff,Sydney Urshan
Editorial Department	Elizabeth Canney,Patrick Crane,Phil Downey,Robert Yamamoto
Location Management	Thalia Harithas
Music Department	Else Blangsted,James Flamberg,Billy May,Greig McRitchie,Shawn Murphy,Ellen Segal,Tony Terran,James Horner,Bob Sanders,James Thatcher,Louise Di Tullio
Script and Continuity Department	Marshall Schlom,Heidi Strom
Transportation Department	Bill Gray,Tom Marshall
Additional Crew	Kate Barker,Dennis T. Benatar,Nicholas Bernstein,Sal Carino,Michael Crane,Kathleen Gallagher,Robert Garcia Jr.,Iris Hedrick,Cynthia Henrich-Woodbyrne,Paul Huston,Katie Jewitt-Spillman,Harriette Kanew,Joe Litto,John A. Machione,Judith Marlin,Ralph McQuarrie,David Clayton Miller,Leanne Moore,Julie Moskowitz,Brian Pulido,Bonne Radford,Mary T. Radford,Lata Ryan,Christine A. Sacani,Brian Steward,Diana Tinkley,Carole Wattles,Nancy Willen,Linn Zuckerman,Evelyn Fitzgerald,Daniel Wheatcroft
Genres	Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Companies	Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment
Countries	USA
Languages	English, Spanish
ContentRating	PG
ImDbRating	6.6
ImDbRatingVotes	35697
MetacriticRating	54
Keywords	elderly people,cafe,cafe owner,property developer,elderly protagonist