This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Foxtrots With Foxes, Goose-Steps With Geese
Plot Overview
A shipment of six android helper bots runs afoul of a typhoon and is washed up
on an uninhabited [?] arctic island (Aleutians?). One of them
labeled Rosin (“Call me Roz”) 7134 (voiced by Lupita
Nyong'o) gets activated by curious otters, and being unable to
communicate with the critters—porcupines, foxes,
cougars, vultures, raccoons, otters, wolves, bears, deer, and
geese—goes into a stasis learning mode after which they all
speak in English to our ears. Nobody requires any of its help, so
it's about to beacon home a Come get me signal when a newly
hatched gosling imprints itself on this bucket of bolts and
“she” becomes “his mother.”
Wily fox Fink (voice of Pedro Pascal) becomes Robinson's man
Friday giving her crucial survival & coping skills for this
environment. To raise a chick requires teaching it to
“eat, swim, and fly.” It's also got to fit in with the
honking flock. It takes a village to raise a child, and various
creatures step in to help. Brightbill (voice of Kit Connor)
acquires a raptor, flight instructor Thunderbolt (Ving Rhames)
to take over from ground crew mom. In the fall migration,
Brightbill, previously shunned, gets to lead the flock on
needed non-goosey maneuvers much as did red-nosed Rudolph to the
benefit of his reindeer wingmen.
The animals winter in a spacious wattle
built by Roz where the predators suppress their instincts, and they
all share a Kumbaya truce. When Roz's manufacturers
arrive to get her, she wants to stay in her new found home, and her
beastie goombahs take her side in the ensuing wild goose chase.
Ideology
Let's use the perspective of sociologist Bennet Berger (66–7):
The literary critic Malcolm Cowley wrote Exile's Return, a book about the experience of American literary expatriates in Europe in the 1920's. In it he treats to some extent the history of bohemianism, starting back in the middle of the 19th century with that important document of bohemian history, Henry Murger's Scenes of Bohemian Life. By 1920, Cowley says, bohemia had a relatively formal doctrine, “a system of ideas that could be roughly summarized as follows”:
¶ The doctrine of self-expression: “Do your own thing,” Relating it to the example of the horse for courage in the book of Job: (Job 39:19-25) “Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.” Roz refuses the ride back to the factory, choosing instead to do her own thing, to live free (against much opposition.)
¶ “The idea of living for the moment. ...”—Cowley. From Job we have the example of the motionless eagle for time standing still: (Job 39:26-30) “Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she.” Roz has periods of arrested movement as well as eureka scenes where she suddenly gets something.
¶ “The idea of paganism.—The body is a temple in which there is nothing unclean, a shrine to be adorned for the ritual of love”—Cowley. Typical hippie behavior relates in the book of Job to a lion who is not ashamed of its body: (Job 38:39-40) “Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?” Animals, of course, do not wear clothes, but Roz takes it a step further and dismembers appendages to act separately.
¶ “Cowley's final point in the bohemian doctrine is the old romantic love of the exotic. ‘The idea of changing place. … “They do things better in ”’ (you name it)”—Gagnon & Simon. The raven flies far and wide to scavenge. (Job 38:41) “Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.” Roz integrates with nature here, literally growing moss and sprouting flowers and having a tree bark shin guard.
¶ Following along in Job: (Job 39:1-4) “Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows. Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them.” “The first point in the bohemian doctrine is what Cowley calls ‘The idea of salvation by the child.—Each of us at birth has special potentialities which are slowly crushed and destroyed by a standardized society and mechanical modes of teaching. If a new educational system can be introduced, one by which children are encouraged to develop their own personalities, to [listen!] blossom freely like flowers, then the world will be saved by this new, free generation.’”—Gagnon & Simon. These young ones in good liking, grow[ing] up with corn are precisely the flower children of the 1960's but referenced way back in Job. In “The Wild Robot,” special attention is given to the opossum's brood and how their mother raises them.
¶ “The idea of liberty.”—Cowley.(Job 39:5-8) “Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.” That's talking of freedom, In Palestine wild asses lived up in the hills, just running wild, nobody owning them. They represent freedom. Individual freedom is a major theme in “The Wild Robot,” that Roz becomes a wild robot.
¶ (Job 39:9-12) “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?” This “unicorn” was a kind of large untamable kine living in the area at the time. Not even the calves could be domesticated. I believe the idea here is that we cannot harness our needs by work alone. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. “‘The idea of psychological adjustment.—We are unhappy because ... we are repressed.’ To Cowley, the then-contemporary version of the doctrine prescribed that repression could and should be overcome by … a daily dose of thyroid. Today, … it is not thyroid but LSD, … or some other meditational means of transcending the realities that hang one up”—Gagnon & Simon. In “The Wild Robot” Roz is obsessed with performing tasks. She needs some escape and she finds it in story time viewing promotional videos scavenged from the wreckage of her craft. Of course there's no accounting for taste.
¶ “‘The idea of female equality.—Women should be the economic and moral equals of men ...’ with respect to cultural differences between the sexes, and evident in the insistence that men may be gentle and women aggressive, and in the merging of sexually related symbols of adornment (long hair, beads, bells, colorful clothes, and so on).”—Gagnon & Simon. (Job 39:13-18) “Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labour is in vain without fear; Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider.” In Job the ostrich hen is described as not fulfilling her sex role. Roz is androgynous and must be forced into a motherhood role.
Production Values
“” (2024) was written and directed by Chris Sanders based on a book by Peter Brown. It stars vocalists Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal and Kit Connor. Fink the fox was brilliantly voiced by Pedro Pascal. Lupita Nyong'o developed emotional depth in her voicing of a machine and had clear diction throughout.
MPA rated it PG for action/peril and thematic elements. The animation style is remarkable. The story is children compatible. The heartfelt score by Kris Bowers adds a full audio measure. Runtime is 1 hour 41 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
I loved this hippie robot character and the story should be especially profitable for children learning what matters. Kudos for a film well made.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed fun. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Absolutely amazing special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture was cited from the King James Version, Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software. Print.
Berger, Bennet. “Hippie Morality – More Old Than New,” From Transaction/Society magazine, reprinted in John Gagnon & William Simon, The Sexual Scene. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1973. Print.
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