He seemed completely detached from everything.The Argonaut wrote:Them not telling Michelle Pfeiffer about it bugged me, too.
My theory of how that happened is that Michael Douglass originally wasn't supposed to be in on it. It was just Hope and Cassie, and Hope knew her mom didn't like talking about Quantum Realm so she never mentioned it to her.
In fact, I don't think Michael Douglass was originally going to be in this movie at all. I suspect he turned down the role so they didn't write him into the script. But then he just showrd up on set so they put him in.
You mentioned that it seems like he was just being fed lines from off screen. Totally true. But they were also all terrible lines and unfunny jokes. "I like ants" over and over again. I think they were written on the spot.
Even his wardrobe is odd. The first half of the movie he's wearing a boxy, too-large flannel. I think he just showed up on set, they didn't have any wardrobe prepared for him, so they just left him in his street clothes for a while.
There are these cartoon specials where Tom and Jerry are inserted into these famous stories, like Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz, or Tom and Jerry and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. These are the famous stories adapted to animated form, with Tom and Jerry kind of inserted in but having no effect on the plot, just kind of running around within the story reacting to it but affecting nothing
That's what Michael Douglas looked and sounded like in this. Like he was haphazardly copy-pasted in.