The Dark Herald Recommends: Wild Robot
This is the kind of film that Disney simply can’t make anymore. Truthfully, Hollywood can barely put it together at this point and I’m not sure how much longer they can keep doing it.
Chris Sanders is the product of Old School Disney. He fell in love with the animated features. Started scribbling pictures all the time. Then got into CalArts at about the same time as Jon Lassetter and Brad Bird.
Sadly, he didn’t appear to have made the cut. He didn’t get a job with Disney. At first. He landed a gig at Henson Studios doing character design. Which landed him a job at Disney anyway when the studio got bought out. He did design work on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, and (somewhat regrettably)* The Lion King.
He opted to stay at Disney after the Katzenberg walk-out. Which gave him a chance to pitch his idea of Lilo and Stich. It didn’t do great but the expenses had been kept under tight control so it did well enough. Sanders was one of Disney’s rising stars.
However, in 2006 Disney bought out Pixar, whenever there’s a merger one side’s the winner and the other is the loser. Disney was the loser, this is when the death of Walt’s corporate culture began. Pixar’s people assumed suzerainty over everything. The new CCO John Lasseter looked over Sander’s current project, Bolt, and removed him from it.
Chris Sanders was done with Disney. He called up Jeffery Katzenberg and asked if it was too late to still be friends. It wasn’t and he was brought on board Dreamworks for The Croods. It pulled in 5 times its budget, which meant he got another movie. That one was How to Train Your Dragon a series that has made $1.5 billion overall.
Sanders makes character-driven movies about families.
Normal families.
This has become a concept that repels Bob Iger’s Disney. It’s now a company that consists of warring DEI tribes constantly trying to win the Oppression Olympics. Whoever changes a movie into one that is primarily about their group’s “struggle” wins. White males, naturally, always lose.
I’ll say it again, Disney can NOT make a film about a normal family.
And in a nutshell that is what Wild Robot is about.
A brand new service robot washes up on an island due to a shipwreck and is activated for the first time by some curious and adorable otters.** The robot named, Roz, is looking for a directive to carry out. In consequence, it learns to speak to the island’s animals hoping to find one. Then due to a tragedy, it ends up in charge of a gosling egg that hatches and imprints on Roz. She, (Roz is a she) now has a directive. Raise the gosling, teach it to swim, fly, and then leave with the annual migration before winter comes. While carrying out this directive Roz goes from a simple AI to a concerned mother. And Roz pays the price of motherhood.
It’s a very sweet movie. Funny and well-paced. The characters are layered and the three main protagonists have great little, easily understood story arcs. Roz, her gosling – Bright Bill, and Fink the Fox all grow as characters because of each other and the love they share.
Granted there are some parts that are perhaps a little too Old School Disney. You’ll know what I mean when you see it. However, this picture earns the right to do that.
Wild Robot is a great little family film, about family, for the entire family.
The Dark Herald Recommends with Enthusiasm (4.8/5)
*Disney got accused of copying Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba. Truthfully, it is a pretty well-aimed charge.
**I just sold one ticket.
