Love and loss, a cautionary tale about climate change, and the virtue of finding one's purpose. "The Wild Robot" may be a kids' movie at heart, but there's a lot of things in the film that only adults will notice.
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00:00Love and Loss, a cautionary tale about climate change and the virtue of finding one's purpose.
00:06The Wild Robot may be a kid's movie at heart, but there's a lot of things in the film that
00:10only adults will notice.
00:13When Razam 7134 initially arrives on the island, her behavior around the animals is marked
00:18by a comedic contrast between the harshness of nature and the robot's cheerful, upbeat
00:23tone and demeanor.
00:25Although a lot of that humor is pitched to children and adults alike, much of the fun
00:29in that early section of The Wild Robot gains an extra layer if you're a grown-up who's
00:34familiar with the 21st century aesthetics of Silicon Valley's products and services.
00:38In her factory-ready interactions with the island environment, Raz behaves rather like
00:43an avatar of tech world frictionless design and commercial foe helpfulness.
00:47Her smooth, metal body alone causes destruction and disturbance due to its clunking movement,
00:52loud noises, and sudden light flashes.
00:55She repeatedly offers help and assistance even though the animals don't need her.
00:59Do you need assistance?
01:04At one point, she starts handing out stickers with a code that offers a 10% discount on
01:08some product, meaning there'd still be more for a human to buy from Universal Dynamics
01:12even after purchasing her.
01:14She's essentially an intrusive ad and a parasitic free trial rolled into one.
01:19It's impossible to look at the image of various animals covered in discount stickers and not
01:23think of the many apps and services we have to deal with every day.
01:27Life in the wild is a cruel, unforgiving thing.
01:30The vast majority of family-friendly animated films go light in their depiction of what
01:35it's like for wild animals trying to survive, which is understandable.
01:39The Wild Robot also spares viewers from the graphic violence, but otherwise, it's shockingly
01:44candid.
01:45Very early on in the film, the animals surround Raz and ask if she intends to harm them.
01:49The second she says no, a moose headbutts her, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief
01:53at Raz's apparent demise.
01:55Having the entire cast pragmatically attempt to kill the protagonist in the first few minutes
01:59is not the kind of thing you see in most kid-friendly animated movies.
02:03However, it's a 100% realistic and sensible thing for the animals to do in this context.
02:09An important aspect of The Wild Robot and its storytelling is the fact that Raz is a
02:13completely benign robot.
02:15She specifically makes a point of telling the animals that her programming bans her
02:19from doing deliberate harm to others.
02:21Even after she's gone beyond her programming, it's still never even remotely within question
02:25if she might hurt any of the other characters.
02:28Which is not to say that she couldn't hurt the other characters.
02:30Although Raz doesn't actually use any of her tools and abilities for harm, the movie quietly
02:35demonstrates that she has immense lethal potential.
02:37For starters, of course, she's big and strong enough that she could easily kill any of the
02:42smaller animals on the island.
02:44And the fact that she's near indestructible means that most of the larger ones would probably
02:47be no match for her, either.
02:49On top of that, when Fink steals the egg and hides in a fallen tree trunk, Raz uses a powerful
02:54buzzsaw to slash right through the trunk with ease, stopping just shy of the fox's face.
03:01Every animal on the island is subject to the hostility of others, but in the case of Paddler
03:05the beaver, that hostility isn't merely physical, it's moral.
03:09The other animals mock and ostracize Paddler for his passion for carpentry and woodwork,
03:14and fail to understand why he enjoys that work and its results so much.
03:18In other words, Paddler is an artist, and he faces many of the same trials as those
03:22who create art in the human world.
03:24Just as artists are often judged and misunderstood for wanting to hone their craft instead of
03:28opting for a more economically useful field, the animals don't see why the beaver would
03:33go against the basic wildlife law of preserving energy and resources by focusing on things
03:37that are necessary for survival.
03:39And just as society fails to understand the necessity and the importance of artists until
03:44art proves crucial to people's lives, the animals on the island only really understand
03:48Paddler's worth when they suddenly need his tree trunk to put out a fire.
03:52In that moment, they understand Paddler's vision.
03:54It becomes clear that things that may not immediately appear to be useful in a day-to-day
03:58sense may still be of great value just for the fact that nobody else has thought to do
04:03them.
04:04In the end, Paddler's freedom of spirit saves the day.
04:07The plot of The Wild Robot essentially consists of a series of small, meaningful gestures.
04:12Each one leads Roz to stray further and further from her initial programming, thereby transforming
04:16her from a mere machine to a subject with the capacity to think and feel independently.
04:22Early on, she's depicted as an algorithm trying to feel her way through an environment for
04:26which she was not prepared.
04:27Even her decision to raise Bright Bill happens because of a task assignment given by Pink
04:31Tail.
04:32Things begin to change in one key moment.
04:34While building a shelter for herself and Bright Bill, Roz is still following the task pretty
04:39stringently.
04:40Then Bright Bill offers his help by bringing a tiny stick to stack up with the branches.
04:45Although Roz initially dismisses his inefficient participation because it will slow the process,
04:49she ultimately feels bad for him and lets him contribute just once.
04:53This ultimately turns into repeatedly lifting him up so he can add more and more tiny sticks
04:57to the shelter.
04:58In that moment, by letting Bright Bill help despite his ineffectiveness and accepting
05:02his inefficiency to humor him, Roz approaches humanity for the first time.
05:07She's no longer just trying to complete the task.
05:09She also cares about Bright Bill on an emotional level and wants to see him happy.
05:13I want to become more than I was programmed to be.
05:17Becoming human is not easy.
05:19When Roz is just a machine carrying out tasks, her life is pretty existentially breezy.
05:24Any problems she comes across are only problems insofar as they're deterrents to completing
05:28certain tasks.
05:30The ones she can solve are then dealt with as efficiently as possible, while any problems
05:34that render a task impossible to complete will simply result in its cancellation.
05:39When she starts developing a soul, things get significantly more complicated.
05:42You are defective.
05:44I feel fine.
05:46The melancholy, second-to-third act stretch of The Wild Robot, in which Roz is wandering
05:50the island alone and trying to figure out what to do now that Bright Bill has flown
05:53away with his peers, is colored by a realization that comes right on the heels of her burgeoning
05:58humanity.
05:59Now that she's able to love others, she also has something to lose.
06:03Caring that deeply about Bright Bill means that she'll always be at risk of feeling hurt
06:06if anything should happen to him.
06:08It also means that when he's not around, she's going to miss him.
06:11The greatest of all human capacities, the capacity to love, makes her immediately vulnerable
06:16in a way that she wasn't before.
06:19The Wild Robot largely plays coy about its post-climate catastrophe future Earth setting,
06:23but we do get at least one big piece of information.
06:26As the geese migrate, there is a shot of them flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, and it's
06:31completely submerged.
06:32The sea level has risen so much, in fact, that an entire whale can be seen swimming
06:36over the iconic San Francisco landmark.
06:39It's a consensus among climate scientists that sea levels around the globe are rising
06:43at an alarming rate due to the melting of the ice caps, and are likely to rise even
06:47higher if current carbon emission trends are not dramatically reversed.
06:52Absolute worst-case scenario projections currently indicate that the seas could rise by up to
06:5572 feet by 2300 if global warming reaches 5 degrees Celsius.
07:00This would be enough to wipe out entire coastal cities, but not quite enough to cover the
07:04Golden Gate Bridge, which stands 220 feet above the Golden Gate Strait.
07:09In other words, The Wild Robot seems to suggest a future in which humans have screwed things
07:12up so badly that there are no ice caps left.
07:15In that terrifying scenario, some entire countries would be submerged, in addition to virtually
07:20all coastal cities on the planet.
07:22It sure explains the greenhouses and the general absence of humans.
07:25That said, this is pretty much a post-apocalyptic movie.
07:29For all its surprising frankness, The Wild Robot is still a kids' movie, and as such,
07:34there's a limit to how dark it gets.
07:36This is true of the film's climate change angle.
07:38It's pretty bold for a family-oriented animation, but without quite going as far as it could.
07:44If The Wild Robot did go all the way, it would have to acknowledge that most ecosystems would
07:48not come out unscathed once humans were gone, most likely including the island.
07:52Despite the humans-are-a-blight-and-the-Earth-will-be-better-off-without-us takes you see going around sometimes, a cataclysmic
07:58climate scenario capable of rising sea levels by hundreds of feet would also dramatically
08:03impact wildlife.
08:04In this case, the higher temperatures alone would make life impossible for many of the
08:08animals seen in the movie.
08:09The Wild Robot critiques the Earth's destruction, but still falls back on the kind of bucolic
08:14humanless Earth imagery that sometimes renders misanthropes more or less unfazed about climate
08:19change.
08:20One of the most quietly puzzling things about The Wild Robot is the fact that Universal
08:24Dynamics expends so many resources, so much money, and so much effort on the task of retrieving
08:30Roz.
08:31It's because Roz is a Rozum unit that is hard to locate, does not want to be retrieved,
08:35and can easily be replaced in any of its functions by an identical Rozum unit.
08:39Equally mystifying is the fact that Universal Dynamics seemingly has access to some sort
08:43of military-grade control panel with which it can track down its units all over the world.
08:48This points to two things.
08:49First, it's a company with a lot of money.
08:51Second, it's got vested interests in Roz's capture that go beyond tending to basic consumer
08:57needs.
08:58Possible assistant robot applications could be augmented enough by Roz's forest experiences
09:02to justify the massive spending to capture her.
09:05What companies build advanced machines and make a ton of money but don't sell to casual
09:09consumers?
09:10Weapons manufacturing companies.
09:12That's the most viable explanation for Roz's helpful yet potentially destructive design.
09:16Rozum units may well be equipped for military action in addition to their assistant services.
09:21It would also explain why Universal Dynamics is so desperate to retrieve her and mine her
09:25for information.
09:26A Rozum upgraded with Roz's experiences would not be all that much more useful for someone
09:32who just wants to do gardening and banking.
09:34But for someone who wants to hurt and destroy more efficiently?
09:38She's a goldmine.
09:40At its heart, The Wild Robot is a story about what it means to have a purpose.
09:43The thing that differentiates Rozum Unit 7134 from Roz is the way in which she begins to
09:49wrestle with that question.
09:50When she's simply following protocols, Roz doesn't wrestle with her purpose at all.
09:54Because she's been designed to execute whatever tasks she's been given.
09:58The evolved Roz, meanwhile, doesn't need to follow any tasks.
10:01She is now able to choose whether to obey her factory directives or not.
10:05You are ordered to return home.
10:09I am already home.
10:12Past a certain point, she isn't helping Bright Bill because there is an externally handed
10:15reason to devote herself to that purpose.
10:17She's helping him because she wants to help him, and chooses to commit to that.
10:21She embraces raising and parenting Bright Bill in order to have a purpose.
10:25That moment in which Roz chooses to stick to a purpose is also the moment she achieves
10:29true psychological depth.
10:31That's what life is.
10:32We give it meaning ourselves, and commit to that meaning.