It's an unfortunate reality that the quality of a movie doesn't always translate into box office success. There are a number of movies that were box office failures, and yet they are regularly included on lists of the greatest movies of all time. These include Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Shawshank Redemption.
Another factor in box office success seems to rely on marketing. Plenty of good movies have suffered at the box office due to poor—or a lack of—marketing. Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999) is a prime example of this. The executives at Warner Bros. didn't seem to have any idea what a treasure they had on their hands, and not only did they delay announcing a release date, they neglected to prepare a proper marketing campaign, and the marketing they did was sort of terrible.
Time has been kind to The Iron Giant, though. Even though it wasn't as widely seen in theaters as it should have been, it became a cult classic on home video, and is now regarded as one of the best animated films ever produced.
In the summer of 1999, I went with a friend to a drive-in feature of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace without realizing it was a double feature. The first movie, which I had barely heard about, was The Iron Giant. I had been—and still am—a lifelong Star Wars fan, but the movie that made a greater impact on my heart and memory was this random animated film about a young boy and his friendship with a giant robot.
Director Brad Bird and his animation team had so many things working against them during the production of this movie. They were a ragtag bunch, smaller than other "established" animation studios, and they were given approximately half the time normally allowed for a project of this scale and ambition. Members of that team have been open about the challenge of working under Bird, who they will admit is a driven, opinionated, visionary leader. But history has shown that—no matter the seemingly insurmountable demands—they got it right. They nailed it. They created a classic. And the film was critically acclaimed, no thanks to the geniuses in the Warner Bros. marketing and advertising departments.
Watching The Iron Giant again recently, I was struck by how timeless it feels. It takes place in 1957, yet somehow feels contemporary without ignoring the realities and sensibilities of the time period. The characters have enough sophistication to easily fit within a modern story, but 1957 was definitely a more innocent time. Although there are elements to the story that reflect things that were happening in the world when the movie was released (and are happening even now), that seems to be more evidence that history repeats itself. Things sometimes happen in cycles.
The movie opens in the fictional coastal town of Rockwell, Maine, where Hogarth Hughes (voice by Eli Marienthal) lives with his mother (voice by Jennifer Aniston). Fueled by rumors and mysterious sightings, Hogarth goes searching the woods for a giant robot, which he finds and ends up saving from electrocution. The giant (voice by Vin Diesel) then begins to follow Hogarth around like a puppy, and the boy takes it upon himself to educate the giant in all kinds of subjects. One of the best scenes involves Hogarth explaining what it means to have a soul.
When Hogarth needs to hide his new friend, he enlists the help of Dean (voice by Harry Connick Jr.), the beatnik who runs the local scrapyard and makes art out of junk. Dean turns out to be helpful in all kinds of ways, even supplying the dialogue that becomes the theme of the movie ("You are who you choose to be"). He "[stands] up for the kooks," but he also becomes a valuable ally to not just Hogarth, but to the giant and Hogarth's mom. He's not just the cool dude in the shades, he's a fully rounded character.
One of the most charming elements of the giant (and, really, all of the characters) is the body language created by the animators. For a character who is struggling to understand and learning to speak English, he wins our sympathy time and again throughout the story. He's a quick learner, curious and enthusiastic, and instinctively protective of Hogarth. Eventually it’s revealed that the giant has hidden abilities and equipment that could qualify him as a weapon of mass destruction. Part of the payoff for his character is what he chooses to do once he (sort of) discovers his intended purpose. For me, he's right up there with the best movie robots, including C-3PO and R2-D2 (and other assorted droids from Star Wars), WALL-E and EVE, the robots from Interstellar, and Data from Star Trek.
As any experienced moviegoer will know, where giant creatures tread, paranoid and ignorant reactionists will follow. In response to the rumors and sightings in the town, the government sends Kent Mansley (voice by Christopher McDonald) to get to the bottom of things. Mansley is exactly the kind of person you don't want to look out for the public welfare. His assumptions and tendency to panic bring things to the attention of General Rogard (voice by John Mahoney), who is more reasonable yet still ends up being duped by the conniving Mansley. I'm not sure that Brad Bird is using Mansley to tell us that all government is bad, especially when there is the more level-headed example of Rogard, but he's definitely pointing a finger at people who react without making any effort to understand, and twist the truth to accomplish their goals. The people who use the guise of good to do bad things are usually very effective movie villains, easy to dislike, and Kent Mansley fits that bill. Don't get me wrong, he's also entertaining. His character contributes to some of the movie's funniest moments. But his knee-jerk reactions unnecessarily escalate things to dangerous levels.
The movie clips along at an impressive pace, lasting less than 90 minutes, but it does so without feeling rushed. It's kind of amazing to think back over the story and realize how much happens, and how the friendship between Hogarth and the giant is given a full arc, where little things that take place between them early on are powerfully paid off by the end. By then we’ve laughed and cried and been taken along on a great adventure. Everything, from the voice actors to the writing, to the animation and art direction, to Michael Kamen’s score, combines to make a fun and moving and memorable experience.
Roger Ebert once wrote, "...I never cry during sad moments in the movies, only during moments of goodness." That is also true for me, usually, and, because of that, The Iron Giant is a doozy. Hogarth's attempts to teach the giant are so straightforward and funny, it's easy to overlook how sweet it really is. Some of it's funny because Hogarth is so young, and his understanding of the world is only so deep. But he's achingly sincere, and the giant takes it all in, trusting this young boy so completely that we can't help but be touched by the purity of their friendship.
The story is based on the 1968 novel "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes, but Brad Bird also connected it to the experience of losing his sister to gun violence. This inspired him to ask, in regard to the giant, "What if a gun had a soul?" This fed into what might be the main theme of the entire movie, which is about making choices, not only in what we do but about who we are.
Choosing who you are as a person is a seminal part of our collective development, a choice that some people somehow never make, which is heartbreaking. Maybe they're afraid of judgment from their families, or peers, or society. Maybe they haven't found a way to express themselves and have lacked the proper experiences or support system to do so. Maybe they don't know how to choose.
One of my favorite elements of The Iron Giant is how Hogarth introduces the giant to the concept of good guys and bad guys, simplifying things the way a comic-book-reading boy his age would. He gives the giant a truly awesome good guy to emulate: Superman! And the scenes of the nearly indestructible giant mimicking the Man of Steel . . . well, it gets me every time. When it comes down to it, though, I think he's really trying to be like Hogarth, the boy with crooked teeth and a quirky sense of humor, the boy who knows right from wrong, who befriends people out of an innate sense of kindness, and who likes to stay up and watch scary movies until he's scared silly. The boy who saved his robot friend . . . in more ways than one. And was saved by that friend in turn.
