I wasn't really interested when the TGV feed showed up on my fb featuring The Wild Robot, an animated tale about a robot ship-wrecked on an island with a bunch of animals. I am not into robots. But on a whim, I googled the movie reviews, which was very good by all accounts. So thinking there shouldn't be any crowd on a Wednesday afternoon, I drove to the nearby shopping mall, only to spend nearly 1/2 hour, going 3 times round the car park, before finally finding a spot alongside the loading bays. I was wondering where all the people came from; it's not the weekend, but a working day in mid-week! Well, at least the cinema wasn't at all packed.
It's been a long time since I last caught a cartoon. I grew up on all the old Disney favourites - Bambi, Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty & Beast, Little Mermaid. Then came Shrek, Sponge-Bob, Lion King, Frozen and many others. Dream Works has not lost its touch of beautiful animation and moving moments. Turning The Wild Robot, a best-seller authored by Peter Brown, into big screen entertainment certainly makes business sense in this AI age. It's a stroke of genius to use animals instead of people, as a very apt parody of the human race. Their jungle-life is indeed a reflection of the "jungle" world we inhabit, as the various animal characters are such an accurate reflection of human behavior, at its worst and yet at its best.
From the wily fox Fink with an unfulfilled longing for love, camouflaging his insecurity and loneliness behind a facade of up-shot confidence, to the herd mentality of geese rejecting one that isn't part of the "gang" to fear of the "stranger" personified in a robot that literally fell out of the sky. It's a beautifully woven tale that stirs the heart; even making me tear up at certain parts.
I only found out at the end of the credit-roll that the voice-over of Roz the robot was done by Lupita Nyong'o, the award-winning actress in the alien movie A Quiet Place - Day One . There it was her eyes; here it was her voice that brought life into a machine. Hats off to her intonation and nuances of speech that literally transformed a mere piece of programmed metal into a feeling emotional being, capable of giving and receiving love.
Roz or officially Rozzum 7134, a futuristic utilitarian machine, overrides her own program to relate to life on an island inhabited only by animals. She accidentally destroys a goose nest, birds and all but for 1 egg , which hatches into a (very cute) gosling, that attaches itself to her as its first imprint. So begins a touching relationship as Roz learns to be a mom, taking tips from an opossum with its own brood of 7 (also very cute babies) “I don’t have the programming to be a mother,” is her robotic reaction. “No one does,” the opossum (very wisely) retorts, “We just have to do the best we can.” And that is something all mothers can definitely relate to.
I love how typically robotic Roz is, especially in the beginning, when she keeps asking the animals "Do you need assistance?" seeking instructions to execute and to rate her performance in completion of tasks, on a scale of 1-10 - it's hilarious. Of course none of the animals need any assistance, they are just predators and prey, living off each other, in their automatic survival-of-the-fittest mode. It's the robot that needs assistance; for itself in adapting to a world that's totally outside its program, and in having to take care of something that's definitely not its own kind - a living breathing thing which in Roz' words "stalks me, and makes noise and makes simple tasks more complicated, or impossible."
But the robot turned mom takes her task seriously, having been told to teach her "baby" which she names Brightbill (a humanising touch instead of assigning it a number as to a robot) just 3 things - eat, swim and fly, in preparation for the annual geese migration during winter. Roz does it with much gusto, which makes for some funny moments, especially with Fink, the fox who has become part of the oddball family. Like a typical father, he hunkers down to telling bed-time stories to baby Brightbill. He has quite an imagination too; depicting Roz as perched in the heavens, answering the gosling's call by coming down to care for it. What an apt illustration of how God in heaven responds when we call out to Him.... "For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." (Romans 10:13)
So the day comes when young Brightbill ventures out to join the resident flock of geese on the island, only to be rejected outright as "not one of us" because he was raised by a monster without beak and wings. How real this is in human society. We may not say it, but prejudice and presumption against those who are not "like us" is a deeply embedded human trait. But there's saving grace, there are always those who can see beyond, as personified in the wise old leader-goose, who instructs Roz to train BrightBill to be fit enough to fly with them.
It's so touching when the moment of parting comes, without so much as a goodbye between the two. Only a fleeting glimpse as Brightbill is led to fly past a forlorn Roz on the cliff, leaving only a feather floating down to her. It's heart-wrenching when he realizes he never got to say I love you to the one who raised him up. All parents can totally relate to the unspoken pain when our "baby-birds" leave the home-nest to do their own thing.. I have watched two of mine walk out the door; it doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times we go thru it.
I thought that would be the end of the movie, but no, it gets even better from that point. Assignment completed, Roz could have beamed herself back to earth- for a factory re-set. But she chose to stay to save all the critters on the island, as the worst winter hit them. So Roz braves the elements to bring them all into the little house she had built earlier as her home. Expectedly all hell breaks loose in the confined space , as predators and prey behave according to their animal instinct, fighting each other in self-preservation mode. Roz is too exhausted after her heroic SAR mission, so it's up to Fink to rise up to the occasion. He deserves a standing ovation for delivering a fine speech about living and loving together to survive. And as Roz - the outsider - proved her willingness to give her all for them, they too, in turn, learn to give of themselves to each other. It was a poignant reminder for me of how Jesus came and lived in a messy human world, sacrificing His all for us all.
Again I thought this must be the end of the movie...what else is there left, with Roz' transformation from robot to mom to savior accomplished successfully. But hey, there's some more. The flock of migrating geese get into their own adventures, as they cross earth. Perforce Brightbill takes over as leader, finally coming into the place where he "belongs." And he gets to balik kampung to the island where he grew up, to reunite with his robot-mom. At least for a little while, until the island gets invaded by a robot mission from earth, bent on getting Roz, the rogue robot, back to be re-programmed properly so that she "should not feel anything at all.”
Of coz that leads to a climatic fight to rescue Roz. In the end it's Roz herself who decides to go back to "her kind," where she belongs, determined to make her world a better place, confident that the "heart" which has somehow evolved in her can't be over-ridden by any program inputted into her mechanical brain. So it's not happily ever after. Yet, the parting is not forever. For on the next winter-migration trip, Brightbill makes a little detour to planet earth. Will he find robot Rozzum 7134 or his mom Roz? I am so glad it ends well. And since the book is a trilogy-series, I hope there is more to come of the wild robot with a heart.
