Some thoughts on "The Iron Giant"

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2013)

Everyone's done the spoiler alerts and given some really good reviews, so I'll just share some thoughts I had. 1. What was Warner Brothers thinking when they marketed this work of art so poorly? 2. After about 10 minutes, the animation just fell away and for the rest of the movie, these were real people (and a real robot!) engaged in, and engaging me, in a marvelous story. 3. Any student of animation should make sure this work is on their list. Brad Bird is a genius, a master storyteller. It is no coincidence that he supplied the heart and magic of the early Pixar works. 4. During the last 10 minutes or so, there were so many emotions at play amongst the characters. As others have noted, I too was in tears by the end of it all. This is a story worth watching repeatedly. 5. The attention to detail is amazing; listen to the background sounds, there isn't just quiet in the background, but sounds that would be appropriate to the surroundings. Similarly, I noticed a number of nods to past animators, particularly Jay Ward with his simple hand-drawn characters (which were necessary because he had almost no money to work with) - like Jay Ward, and for that matter the South Park creators, Rankin-Bass, Hanna-Barbera, and others I cannot think of at the moment, Brad Bird fully understands that it was the story that mattered, not so much the animation.