The One That Matters

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2017)

More of a retrospective commentary than a review; what follows is completely spoiler-free in terms of plot points, but is intended as an admiring post-script annotation to the film's thematic legacy and resonance.
The Iron's Giant is simply the best animated feature ever made and one of the most subtly sophisticated conscience driven "films" in all of Cinema. In addition to the elegant old-school cell animation, wonderful adventure, and truthful humor -- auteur Brad Bird's tour-de-force quietly and magnificently emerges as much more than just another innocuous warm-hearted family friendly diversion.
Set in cold-war paranoia & post nuclear Rockwellian/Capra-esque New England/Americana nostalgia, this all-time classic gem -- with sublime eloquence and earnest maturity -- beautifully dignifies powerfully principled pronouncements on prejudice, xenophobia, alienation, anti-authoritarianism, nonviolence, and moral identity; Of lonely boyhood reverie and single-working-mother/son repport; surrogate family in father figures, secret bonds & empathetic brotherhoods; tolerance, compassion, free will, devotion, sacrificial love, and the nature of consciousness and the concept of a spiritual soul. But far from heavy-handed frothy proselytizations, it wisely finesses those virtues subtextually into the nuances while rendering a completely involving fantasy story of a boy coming of age through a symbiotic relationship with an otherworldly friend that rivals Spielberg's "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" in pure exhilarating enchantment! This movie is all lunch-boxes, no soap-boxes.
Perhaps The Iron Giant's most profound platform however is the bitterest pill: running against the modern hedonistic zeitgeist of coddled indulgence and fickle fluidity to shrug, "The Iron Giant" gracefully drives its primary message that each sentient individual of seminal volition is autonomously responsible for the decisions that ultimately define their position as a cognizant being. Regardless of birth or influence, every conscious entity with the capability to express love or hate beyond self preservation, has the self-agented obligation in full context of their ethical effect upon the existing morale they help mold to mindfully choose what and who they are -- even at the rejection of core inclination. It's the total opposite to excusing one's self because of proclivity. In this life each Soul is sole, but the lone quest to find purpose through harmonization, because all are connected beyond the dirt we return to, and everything counts, every attitude ripples, and every action reveberates. No one who is able, can dismiss that ability by citing implement or impediment as the deciding factor to their path. It doesn't espouse the total embrace of what one wants most, but rather the total thoughtfulness to what wants most from one -- what is right and worthy of one's "oneness", and where one fits into carrying that through for the sake of togetherness.
Disney will glorify the vapid virtue of "being yourself", while The Iron Giant will implore the existential ethic to find yourself by being beyond just yourself. The high-road will always be up-hill, but "you are who you choose to be".
In empathetic powers, anyone can resolve to become "Super" by submitting to a supreme ethos/pathos/logos which reciprocates the sacrifice of superficial selfishness with the significance of synthesis in shared sacredness.
Who you choose to be is dependent on what you will choose to service.