The Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, or FLDSMDFR (pronounced Flids-em-der-fer) for short, is the machine which creates the "food weather" in the movie animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It was created by Flint Lockwood so it could make food for Swallow Falls. The FLDSMDFR was originally designed by Flint to be a household appliance for the kitchen, similar to a microwave or combi oven. It converts water molecules into food molecules through microwave radiation. The FLDSMDFR's Radiation Matrix produces the microwave radiation that creates the Nano-Mutation effect, which is needed to reorganized the molecular structure of water into food.
Appearance[]
The FLDSMDFR is an amalgamation of household appliances, including a microwave and a colander.
it has a main screen with a display that shows the food it is about to produce. There is a keypad to the right of the screen and a control panel underneath the screen to adjust the flavor and texture and open the machine's USB port. To the left of the screen, a lever is raised and lowered for the level of water that the machine is set to intake.
Its color scheme changes throughout the film, starting out with a white base and orange decals. When it begins to produce vicious sentient food, its color changes to black with red decals. By the time Flint finds the FLDSMDFR in Big Rock Candy Mountain, it is once again white with orange decals, giving a visual cue that the FLDSMDFR was no longer acting as an antagonist.
History[]
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs[]
Flint immediately implements the finishing touches on the FLDSMDFR within the first few minutes of the film, securing the Radiation Matrix, uploading a "cool machine voice," and adding orange decals ("coolness enhancement"). The FLDSMDFR requires more power than is available in the Lockwood residence, blowing out the fuses and bursting lightbulbs.
Once Flint is able to connect the FLDSMDFR to the town's power grid, the FLDSMDFR has sufficient power to produce its first order - cheeseburgers. However, it is provided too much power, so it launches like a rocket into the air, dragging Flint along behind it as it ricochets through Sardine Land before flying into the clouds.
To everyone's surprise, the FLDSMDFR continues to produce food, suspended in the atmosphere. It rains cheeseburgers on the town, creating a bizarre and wondrous weather phenomenon that rescues weather reporter Sam Sparks's career and redeems Flint's reputation. Once Flint designs a control unit in his lab to communicate with the machine, he is able to order three meals a day, taking requests from the townspeople over the course of the next thirty days.
Unfortunately, the residents of Swallow Falls bite off more than they could chew. Their incessant requests begin to overload the machine, as indicated by a "Dange-o-meter" that Flint installed on the control unit. To the glee of Mayor Shelbourne and the concern of Tim Lockwood, the food drastically increases in size - an indication that the food is beginning to over-mutate.
The mayor convinces Flint to keep the machine running, ordering a spaghetti dinner to celebrate the grand reopening of the town (rebranded Chewandswallow). But dinner arrives in the form of a dangerous Spaghetti Twister, which ravages the town and wreaks havoc. Flint attempts to shut the machine off, but the mayor, in an effort to stop him, accidentaly destroys the communication device, causing the machine to become sentient. In the aftermath of the disaster, Sam Sparks determines that the dangerous food storms are just beginning, as a massive food hurricane threatens the entire world.
Meanwhile, the FLDSMDFR forms a massive cocoon of food for its protection, appearing like a giant meatball dubbed the "Meat-a-roid." This shell is protected by flurries of pizza, destructive gummy bears, and man-eating chickens, and is obscured by a pea-soup fog.
Flint attempts to decommission the machine with a kill code via his phone, but his dad sends him the wrong file. Enraged at the attempted attack, the FLDSMDFR tries to throw Flint into the abyss at the bottom of the Meat-a-roid. But Flint sprays the exhaust of the FLDSMDFR with Spray-on Shoes, plugging the machine and causing the Meat-a-roid, and the FLDSMDFR, to explode.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2[]
The FLDSMDFR survives its attempted destruction. Despite being significantly battered, it fell safely in a shallow pool of water on Swallow Falls as it lost power and went into hibernation mode. After it reactivated, it produces a further evolved version of the sentient food that protected it in the first film: a half-cheeseburger, half-spider called a Cheespider. The machine creates an entire ecosystem across the island using vines that attached to the machine's former chow-plopper.
When Flint finds the FLDSMDFR in the rock candy mountain, the machine produces Marshmallows, extending a metaphorical olive branch as a plea against its (second) destruction. Flint and Chester V to get into a fight about the FLDSMDFR, resulting in the BSUSB being inserted into the machine, which reprograms it to obey Live Corp orders.
Chester then proceeds to use the FLDSMDFR to produce Foodimals, which would be ground into Food Bar 8.0. Flint defeats Chester and returns the FLDSMDFR back to the rock candy mountain. Free from Live Corp's control, it reattaches itself to the ecosystem and continues to produce foodimals.
Abilities[]
The machine can make water into food. It winds up accidentally orbiting the air above the city which allow for the food to rain down on it when given commands. However it becomes overloaded and begins raining larger proportions of food all over the world, forcing Flint to try to manually shut it down.
In the sequel, it gains the abilities to make live food animals called the Foodimals.
Trivia[]
- It was voiced by actor Bill Hader, the same voice actor for Flint.
- FLDSMDFR announces orders of strawberry and marshmallow shortly before its destruction in the first film.
- The science behind the mutation of food molecules is complete pseudoscience, as changing the arrangement of molecules does not change the properties. It would produce hot-dog shaped water, not a hot dog. Molecules do not have a "genetic recipe," and the "giga-Joules" Flint uses to power the machine are units of force, not power.