Originally intended to be an episode of the television show Amazing Stories, it was relocated to the film world by producer Steven Spielburg, who loved the story too much to let it received anything short of the best studio treatment. Real life husband and wife duo Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy came on board as the cafe-owning landlords, the Rileys with Frank McRae, Elizabeth Pena, and Dennis Boutsikaris serving as their broken-hearted tenants. But the real attractions were the mystical mechanical boarders, dubbed “the fixitsâ€Â by Tandy’s character Faye - who stole the show with their benevolent acts of reparation, restoration, and rejuvenation.
Frank and Faye Riley are the elderly landlords of a downtown apartment building and the proprietors of Riley’s Cafe downstairs. With Faye slowly descending into senility, Frank becomes more and more depressed, especially since the building developers around him relentlessly pressure him to sell his beloved establishment. The man in charge of the development, Mr. Lacey (Michael Greene) charges a troubled youth named Carlos (Michael Carmine) with “encouragingâ€Â the Rileys to leave through vandalism. But unbeknownst to Carlos, Faye has discovered two unlikely friends in a pair of flying saucers… literally! The dish-shaped robots have a knack for fixing things, and when Carlos trashes the cafe, he returns the next day to discover that “the fixitsâ€Â have put everything back together.

The other tenants enjoy the miracle as well: Mason (Boutsikaris), whose girlfriend left him because of his artistic and sentimental attachment to the old building; Marisa, pregnant and patiently waiting for her baby’s father to return to her; and Harry, the silent former boxer who speaks in commercial jingles and whose tinkering saves a stillborn “fixit.â€Â Brought together by their hopes and hardships, the tenants discover that the little robots have the ability to heal more than just objects. They heal hearts.

With a script from first time writer Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) and charming direction from Matthew Robbins (Dragonslayer), *Batteries Not Included fared moderately well at the box office with thirty-two million dollars in domestic receipts. More importantly than the strength of the numbers, many will argue, was the strength of the characters, who come together thanks to a little help from “the fixits.â€Â