[00:00:00] Hey, guys, this is Andy from odd trilogies. I'm coming at you with another quickie. This time I am solo. No Logan, no guest. But I'm here to talk about the Wild Robot, the latest major animated release directed by Chris Sanders, whose name you probably don't recognize, but who has been working in the animated industry for a really long time. He co directed Lilo and stitched and the first two, how to train your dragon movies. He's been in Disney's animation department for decades and then also DreamWorks.
[00:00:36] And then in 2020, you might remember a Harrison Ford dog movie that I think might have gone straight to Disney. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, called Call of the Wild. That was Chris Sanders solo directorial debut, at least for feature films, that's a live action one. All of his previous major films had been animated. So the Wild Robot actually marks Sanders first feature length solo animation that he directed.
[00:01:12] Obviously, he's been a major part of some classics over the years, modern classics, anyway. And I. So I was really looking forward to the wild robot just because of kind of his history. And I was like, oh, this is a cool opportunity for him. The trailers, obviously, it looked gorgeous.
[00:01:29] And, yeah, so I'm here. I just saw the movie, and I'm gonna talk to you about my kind of my first impressions. A little rough off the cuff takes here. So, yeah, I thought the movie was great.
[00:01:43] It's gorgeous. Like, visually absolutely stunning. Probably the prettiest. I mean, I don't want to. I haven't seen every animated movie that came out this year, but, like, of the major releases, easily the prettiest animated film of the year. It has this kind of.
[00:02:03] I think it would be easy to liken it to Spider Verse in so far as, like, every interesting looking animated movie these days kind of looks like Spider Verse, but I think it's distinct in the sense that it's not. Obviously, Spider verse is replicating a specific type of art, comic book art, that kind of graphic pop style, whereas the wild robot very much seems to be emulating, like, a painterly style, maybe even kind of impressionist. All the textures and edges of things are very kind of fuzzy and dappled, like little dots, and it often communicates contrast with these sort of gradations of random, messy speckles.
[00:02:46] It looks very. It looks very textured, very.
[00:02:51] I don't know. It has an analog quality that's really nice. And it's also. It kind of does the thing that spider verse popularized in going back to, like, reducing the frame rate, a lot of modern 3d animated films, I think, are rendered at like 60 frames per second or something. So they're this really smooth and this drops it down so that you can kind of see the individual frames. It's not like stop motion quite, but it is that kind of a little bit more staggered effect with the movement. And anyway, I think it creates a really beautiful picture just to look at. This movie is absolutely stunning. I love the design of Roz. That is the name of the titular robot played by Lupita Nyong'o, who fucking kills it. Incredible vocal performance from Lupita Nyong'oh. I barely recognized her.
[00:03:49] I guess it's worth probably giving you a little plot synopsis. Basically, the. The Wild robot is an adaptation of a, like, children's book series. I think the books are meant for, like, maybe third to fifth grade somewhere in there. I know some students, like, read them for school. Now, I had never heard of them until this movie, but it's cool to know that there's a book series and we could, I guess, potentially get more of these. Although I will say I was very satisfied with just one entry and I would not mind not milking it for sequels. But, you know, I mean, the books are popular, so if there are. If there's more good stories to tell, I'm absolutely down. But, yeah, basically these, the book series and the movie center around this.
[00:04:35] This robot. I think it's like RoSm unit 7134 or something like that. And basically the robot is being transported to wherever it's supposed to be deployed for service. These are like human service robots. They do daily tasks and chores. They're kind of laborers or assistants to humans. It's kind of. It's implied that this takes place in, like, a future earth, but we don't really see much of human civilization because RoSm 71 numbers, numbers gets basically separated from the transport unit somehow. There's a crash or she falls out or something. And when she boots up, she is in the wilderness. She is on a craggy kind of cliffside shore. Her computers are kind of screwed up. And basically her prime directive is find a task, like seek the assignment of a task, then complete it. That is what she's programmed to do. That's what all of the Rosam robots like her are programmed to do. She doesn't have, you know, creative thinking skills or, you know, anything like, well, I don't know that she doesn't have creative thinking skills, but they're not independent. They're meant to be given a task and not stop until they complete that task. That's basically how her programming works. And essentially, she's left alone in the wilderness. Nobody's there to give her a task because she's the only, like, speaking entity there. She does come across, obviously, a bunch of wildlife and basically, kind of, over time, slowly rewires herself to be able to understand the wild animals, communicate with them, and.
[00:06:27] Yeah, and then she finds a lone goose egg and decide it kind of becomes.
[00:06:36] She determines that it becomes her task to protect and raise this goose. So ultimately, the wild robot becomes a mother and a guardian and sort of, you know, makes friends and relationships and sort of helps out the entire wild ecosystem around her.
[00:06:56] That's basically the premise of the film.
[00:06:59] It's a lot about parenthood. It's a lot about kind of not just helping others, but, like, I think a major theme of the film is sort of breaking your conditioning for the sake of others and for the sake of yourself.
[00:07:16] Obviously, Roza, who ends up, she ends up going by Ra's. So that's what I'll call her from her on out. Roz ends up basically sort of obviously, like, rewriting her entire code so that she can do a lot of this stuff because it really goes beyond what the robots, the robot line that she's from is meant to do. So I think. And she also kind of trains some of the wildlife to not.
[00:07:46] To not purely just hunt and kill each other, kind of, she kind of fosters relationships between predator and prey and things like that. So it's a lot about kind of breaking your conditioning, learning to love, unlearning, you know, isolationism and things like that. It's a. It's a really interesting kind of set of themes and ideas at play, and I was really impressed by how it communicated all that. It's also, I don't want to say it's a film about death because there's a lot of films, there's a lot of animated films about death these days.
[00:08:22] I don't think that's quite as novel as people are apt to say in reviews of children's animated films. I think there's a lot of films out that deal with death and grief and acceptance and loss.
[00:08:35] Soul was a great example of that. But I think the wild robot, while it's not about death, it's not. Death is not like the main theme of the film. Something I was impressed by is that it's. There's a ton of death in it. And death is just an everyday thing in this movie, a major concept at play. And I think I don't have kids. But I feel like one of the most exciting and enriching things about this movie for the sake of showing the kids is how it communicates kind of the.
[00:09:08] The natural life cycle, like the life cycles of nature, and how. Yes, kind of cold and unfeeling it can be, how scary it can be, but also, you know, kind of training to understand it and love it and appreciate it. And so there's a lot of very casual, very casual talk of death. There's actually a lot of jokes about death and killing. I mean, I was kind of shocked how many, just how many times the word kill was used, and that the word kill so often comes from, like, child, like, juvenile characters, like, the offspring of some of the animals. They're like, oh, they're gonna kill us. We all gonna get killed. You know, there's a group of opossums at one point, a mother and her, like, seven children. And there's a gag in there where, like, one of them just gets eaten. Like, it just. It just dies off screen. Like, you hear the sound effect dies off screen, and the mom is like, well, one less kid. And it's just super. I could see this movie, the way it talks about treats death. I can see this movie being off putting to some parents, but I think, and I'm not a parent, so maybe my opinion means jack shit. But, like, I think this movie, and maybe the books are too. I'm honestly kind of interested to read the books now. And I say that as somebody who, like, doesn't read a ton of books, but the. The movie, I think, would be a really great way to familiarize kids with, you know, the laws of nature. I mean, there's a lot of predator prey dynamics in here. Life and death kind of, you know, predatory and prey instincts and things like that. And, yeah, it's. It's a. It's a surprising film in the things it's willing to get into. I guess. I wouldn't say it's, like, mind blowing or anything, but, you know, it.
[00:11:07] I guess it could be considered a little bit groundbreaking in terms of leveraging, you know, kind of the quote, unquote children's animated medium to, you know, educate and familiarize with the, you know, the way the natural world works. And I thought that was really cool. So, anyway, it's. Yeah, it's a gorgeous movie. Really. Like, the themes and concept it deals concepts and deals in.
[00:11:35] Oh, the cast is pretty great. Like I said, lupita nyong'o, phenomenal.
[00:11:43] Seriously, probably the best vocal performance I've witnessed this year.
[00:11:47] She just. Yeah, she's totally outside herself and really beautifully does the whole, like, I'm an unfeeling robot until I start having feelings kind of thing.
[00:12:01] Just really well done there.
[00:12:03] Also, Bill Nye plays a kind of mentor goose figure. He's like the elder leader of the goose flock who kind of takes brightbeak, which is the gosling Roz takes care of. He kind of takes brightbeak under his wing and shows him the ropes a little bit.
[00:12:21] Bill Nye is awesome in this role. I feel like Bill Nye is kind of always awesome, but he really brings a lot to a fairly small role. It's a significant role, but not one that has a lot of screen time.
[00:12:34] And, yeah, a lot of other. A lot of other great casting here.
[00:12:39] I wouldn't say that all of them get a ton to do. It feels a little bit Disney. I mean, it is. It's. It's. It's Disney Dreamworks in that way that, like, you know, it has 30 big names, most of which, you know, it's like this could have been anybody. But they're there because to draw an audience and collect a paycheck.
[00:13:01] Stephanie Hsu, from everything everywhere, all at once plays a kind of late edition villain, and she does a good job. But again, it's kind of a nothing role. Ving Rhames plays a falcon who teaches brightbeak how to fly. He's fun, although that's another character that, like, I kind of wish we got more of.
[00:13:20] And I. Kit, I think his name is Kit. Kit Harris or something is Breitbeak. I thought he was maybe kind of the weak link, although it might not be his acting so much as. I just think Brightbeak is not as well written as maybe some of the other characters.
[00:13:39] I don't know. He just had a lot of lines that were, like, hackneyed and kind of the trite, rebellious kid rejecting the parent type thing. I thought that element of the movie, the sort of growing up and rejecting your parent arc was just a little tired and not all that well articulated.
[00:14:04] But anyway, back to the cast and everything. I liked the cast overall. There were some that didn't work as well for me. Matt Barry, who I think is. He's hilarious as a performer generally.
[00:14:16] I didn't really like him in this movie. He plays a beaver who's just kind of crotchety and obsessed with.
[00:14:26] Obsessed with completing this giant tree he's been chomping away at. And he's just kind of. He's kind of, um.
[00:14:33] I don't know. He's like the awkward guy who thinks he's a really cool guy. I don't know. The archetype just didn't really work for me.
[00:14:40] But anyway, mostly the cast is really good, especially Lupita, especially Bill Nye. And then there's a few other fun pop ups in there. Mark Hamill plays a bear, and I had no fucking clue that was Mark Hamill. I'm sure if I watch it again, knowing it's Mark Hamill, I would be like, oh, yeah, I recognize him. But at the time, I didn't know he was in this movie, and he completely disguised himself from me. Anyway, going back to the point about some characters not getting a ton of development.
[00:15:11] Yeah, I think that was one of my gripes. I mean, it is really. It's Ra's story.
[00:15:15] It's also bright Beak's story a little bit, but it's mostly Ra's, which I actually kind of appreciated that. That it didn't really become Brightbeak's story. It remained focused on Ra's. I think I thought that was valuable and important to the story I was trying to tell, but I did not. A lot of the supporting characters are just kind of there, or they'll be really important for, like, one scene, and then they kind of disappear for the rest of the movie until, oh, they're back again. Cool.
[00:15:42] So, you know, like, the Bill Nighy character, I really wish they would have done more with him. I liked what they did with him a lot. He's a really. He's a really cool part of this movie. I just wish they kind of delivered on his arc a little bit better.
[00:15:58] Not really arc per se, but the series of events that happened to him, I think could have been done a little bit better. Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt, the Falcon who trains brightbeak to fly the flight sequence. The, like, learning to fly sequence in this movie is probably the best single sequence in the whole movie. It's fucking awesome. It's super inspiring. I was on the verge of tears. My wife Emma was bawling my one gripe. And this is. This is like a mean it. This is like a cynical film, bro. Nitpick. But, like, I didn't like that. That sequence was scored to, like, a pop song. This movie has a great score. I'm definitely going to be listening back to the ost, if I can find it on Spotify or something, because it's a really riveting score. Very much in the vein of how to train your dragon. Not necessarily similar instruments and things, but just that kind of power behind it.
[00:16:51] But then, yeah, for the flight sequence, we transitioned to a pop song, and I was just like, come on, trust your composer. And I think it does. It's kind of a blended pop song, orchestral remix thing. I did not recognize the song, so I don't know if it was written for the movie, but I don't know. I just get a little tired.
[00:17:11] I'm somebody who.
[00:17:13] I don't dislike pop songs in movies, but, like, for. If you can do it with a cool piece of orchestral or instrumental music, I would prefer that because especially a movie like this where it's about robots and animals in the wilderness, I don't know, throwing a pop song in there just doesn't really click for me. It doesn't really feel like it fits in. But anyway, yeah, the flight sequence is fucking awesome. Thunderbolt the falcon is awesome. I was really hoping he was going to be more of a major character, but he's really just there for the flight sequence. And he does come back later, but not in a way that's substantial. So, yeah, I guess I would say I wish some of the supporting characters were better developed or better used.
[00:17:53] And then I think my other gripe with the movie is just that it generally kind of rushes through or sort of a lot of. It's like major beats, major emotional shifts, and things are kind of rough draft. They're kind of like, oh, we need x type of scene in this movie. And they just kind of plug that in and didn't really spend much time to, like, detail it out or make it feel like a, you know, add their own flavor layer to it. It's very, very typical kind of dialogue in those scenes and also kind of rushed through, just not very.
[00:18:30] I don't know. I think for as much as some of the emotional swells, especially kind of in the middle of the film, really work.
[00:18:39] The third act resolutions and things are not as powerful. And I think that's always a little bit disappointing. I would prefer the strongest part of a film be the climax.
[00:18:50] Obviously, I'm not going to say no to a great piece of filmmaking and storytelling at a different point in the film, and I love that I got those. But, you know, I would rather end on a high note than have a high and spend the rest of the movie kind of coming down from that high.
[00:19:06] So, yeah, I thought the ending was a little rushed. Some of the emotional beats were a little hackneyed.
[00:19:11] Yeah, I think that's pretty much the extent of my gripes with it. I also thought something really great about it.
[00:19:18] In the first, like, 20 minutes or so, I thought I could see this whole movie, you know, like the whole course of the movie projected out in front of me, the whole, like, oh, she's gonna raise the baby. She doesn't know how to be a mom. She's gonna learn how to be a mom and save the day.
[00:19:35] And that's, like, the first half of the movie. And I appreciated that. Like, we had what would have been the massive emotional climax of, like, literally flying the coop, you know, becoming an empty nester. That's, like, halfway into the film.
[00:19:51] I was not expecting that. I was like, holy shit, we've still got a ton of movie left, and I don't know where this is going. And I love that. It just really opened up the door for a story that, you know, not everybody's gonna be expecting. I think some people are gonna be surprised by. And I felt was. Was really rewarding. I think I would have been bored if the whole hour and 40 minutes was just raising a kid, getting him ready to send him out into the world, and then the ending is sending him out to the world. It goes well beyond that, and I really admire it for that. Overall, I think I'd give this movie a four out of five. I think it was a ton of fun. Absolutely beautiful.
[00:20:31] Definitely my favorite animated film of the year, although there's still some coming down the pike that I'm excited for. A great visually distinct look that I loved.
[00:20:42] Great performances from Lupita Nyong'o and Bill Nye and, you know, a really solid set of ideas and themes that I think are really valuable to have in an animated film. So that is my quick take on the wild robot. Check it out. Highly recommend it. You'll have a great time. Anyway, recent other stuff we've got going on, Logan just published his megalopolis review earlier this week. Check that out. He hated it. I hated it. But he gives a really good breakdown of it in a couple days. On Monday, you should see my a different man review. The new Sebastian Stan Adam Pearson Aaron Schindberg movie. Really liked that. So check out my review. We also have reviews of Joker Foliadu, or however you pronounce that, coming out next week and potentially a review of an indie film called how to make millions before Grandma dies. I just got a screener link of that, so I'm hoping to write a review of that. And then next weekend we have our timed up with the Joker two release we have our next odd trilogy's episode, our Joker starter pack, where we dive into the movies that are kind of the DNA of 20. Nineteen's Joker. So check all that
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