Spoilers for “The Wild Robot”
Earlier this month I went and saw the new movie “The Wild Robot,” which was released September 27.
As the film began, I was thrust into a world I didn’t quite understand. But being unaware of the backstory was actually beneficial in helping me stay focused on the film and its details, and I ended up really enjoying that aspect of the movie.
The film starts with a shipwrecked robot named “Roz” attempting to navigate life without a task, as that is their primary function.
After crashing into a tree, the robot discovers an orphaned gosling, eventually dubbed Brightbill. Roz makes it their new task to take care of the gosling. Brightbill then imprints on Roz, making them the gosling’s mother. Roz is not programmed for this type of thing so their software begins glitching at the discovery.
I thought the scene alone was just too good. It juxtaposed the difficulty of parenting with a robot who was completely out of their depth. But it was handled in a way that kept the plot intact.
As the film progresses, we find that Roz has no idea how hard life is. That is until a fox named Fink comes along to help Roz take care of Brightbill. Fink teaches Roz what the gosling needs to learn to survive: find food, make a shelter and fly. At the same time, we find out Fink is a shady character who is using Roz for his own benefit.
By the end of the encounter, Roz and Fink have become co-parents in a sense, one thing us humans have not mastered. There is no romantic relations between the two, but they have developed a deep understanding of one another and a friendship that Roz doesn’t fully understand. They have become a family.
Roz takes an approach to the unknown with a bullhead, knowing that they cannot understand life fully and continue to move through it anyway. This was such a powerful message and opened the door for me to connect more with Roz.
The world of the movie was something novel. With Roz, we see that there is technology, but throughout most of the movie, we don’t see anything more than that. The environment is almost entirely flora and fauna. It leaves the viewer wondering where this movie is going to go if more robots will enter the plot.
I loved dangling on the edge of the unknown at every turn. The movie was so unpredictable, and I was completely enraptured.
“The Wild Robot” pushes for more than that though. It pushes for an idea: technology and nature can coexist. For the most part, there seems to be a general idea of how they can’t. Technology is something cold and hard, detached even, while nature is warm and heartfelt. In the movie, we see how that theory is not so sound.
When Roz loses a leg we see that technology and nature can coexist beautifully. A not-so-friendly and hypocritical beaver takes a log and carves a leg for Roz as a replacement. Roz then becomes of both worlds: the future and the past, technology and nature. And they don’t care even though they don’t understand the depth of it all.
By the end of the movie, I came to understand that one of the important aspects was that none of the characters had any idea how to handle life. Especially Roz. But that was the point of it all: to learn how to deal with not knowing how to live. Take it one metal and one wooden step at a time.
And the whole movie is more than a robot going wild, it’s about family and how technology and nature can coexist. It’s about love can do anything even when everyone else is against you. It is a wonderful family film that viewers of all ages can enjoy.
The multiple meanings of the story were probably my favorite thing about it and is what makes me want to see it again, even with the tears I know I’ll shed.
“The Wild Robot” won’t be in theaters forever. The film can be viewed at AMC Theaters and Wehrenberg Theaters in IMAX, so get to the theater before it’s done showing.