Spare Parts
Spare Parts is a 2015 American drama film directed by Sean McNamara and produced by David Alpert, Rick Jacobs, Leslie Kolins Small, George Lopez, and Ben Odell. It is based on the Wired Magazine article "La Vida Robot" by Joshua Davis, about the true story of a group of students from a mainly Latino high school, who won the first place over M.I.T. in the 2004 national underwater robotics competition. The film was released by Lions Gate Entertainment on January 16, 2015.
Directed by Sean McNamara
Produced by David Alpert,Rick Jacobs,Leslie Kolins Small,George Lopez,Ben Odell
Written by Elissa Matsueda
Based on La Vida Robot by Joshua Davis
Starring George Lopez,Jamie Lee Curtis,Carlos PenaVega,Marisa Tomei
Music by Andrés Levin
Cinematography Richard Wong
Edited by Maysie Hoy
Production company Brookwell-McNamara Entertainment,Pantelion Films
Televisa Films,Circle of Confusion
Distributed by Lionsgate
Release dates January 16, 2015
Running time 115 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Spanish
Box office $3.6 million
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Story of
Oscar Vazquez (Carlos PenaVega) goes to an American Forces Career Center to enlist into the U.S. Army, while he is waiting for his interview, he sees a video announcement and brochures about a Marine Underwater Robotics Competition, an event sponsored by NASA and the United States Armed Forces. Although he distinguished himself as part of the Carl Hayden High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, he is forbidden to join because of his status as an illegal alien and he is recommended not to present himself to any government office to avoid being reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Vazquez lies to his mother about his progress in the Army and starts investigating about the Underwater Robotics Competition looking for another way to move ahead in life.
Although he doesn't have any previous formal teaching experience, being between jobs, Fredi Cameron (George Lopez) interviews for a vacant substitute teacher position at Carl Hayden High School. The principal (Jamie Lee Curtis) questions his job stability record, but eventually hires Cameron because of his Ph D and engineer credentials. After the interview, while in the school's parking lot, Lorenzo Santillan overrides Cameron's car temperature safety sensor for $20 dollars, so he can avoid a more costly repair job.
As part of his normal teaching responsibilities, Cameron is assigned to oversee and engineering academic club, where he meets Vazquez who is looking for help, to build the remote operated underwater robot that is needed to enter the robotics competition. Cameron grudgingly accepts to help, even though he doesn't feel he is going to remain for long at the school.
Vazquez, looking for more kids to join the engineer group, talks to teacher Gwen Kolinsky (Marisa Tomei) who recommends Cristian Arcega (David Del Rio). After agreeing to help, Arcega takes the technical lead of the project and sketches an early design of the potential robot. Before starting to build it, Cameron suggests a prototype so they can do a proof of concept model.
Cameron starts to learn about the competition rules and requirements, which demands the robot to successfully complete a series of underwater tasks. Kolinsky offers to help teaching him about the BASIC programming language, which he is going to need to implement the robot's intelligence module.
After catching Santillan stealing from the principal's car, Cameron forces him to join the team and the now named Robotics Academic Club, so he can help with the mechanical design and building of the prototype. They later recruit Luis Aranda, for being strong enough to help lift the machine in and out of the pool.
Because of a lack of funds to see the project through, the team starts looking for spare parts and asking for donations from the local businesses, which raise $663.53 dollars, plus $134.63 dollars given by Cameron himself. The small amount of budget, forces them to scale back the original design and to innovate in how the robot is constructed, which they end up naming "Stinky", because of the smell it had when they glued it together.[5]
Needing to go from Phoenix to Santa Barbara, also created problems because three of the four boys were undocumented immigrants from Mexico.[6][7] The day before the competition, they had to fix a critical electrical problem, plus a leak in the case that protected the intelligence module, by using tampons to contain the water.
Facing several highly funded college teams, their robot finished the practical segment of the competition in fourth place with 75 points after missing three tasks. They were still hopeful for a chance to make it into third place because near half the total score would be based on the judges technical evaluation and interview of the teams.
The night of the awards ceremony, they are given a Special Achievement award, which the team assumes is their final result. They are later surprised when they are announced as the champions of the event.
Cast by
George Lopez as Fredi Cameron
Jamie Lee Curtis as Principal Karen Lowry
Marisa Tomei as Gwen Kolinsky
Carlos PenaVega as Oscar Vazquez
José Julián as Lorenzo Santillan
David Del Rio as Cristian Arcega
Esai Morales as Mr. Pablo Santillan
Oscar Gutierrez as Luis Aranda
Alexa PenaVega as Karla
Alessandra Rosaldo as Mrs. Vazquez
