The Iron Giant (1999) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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A friend is a friend, nothing can change that. And all that implies.

The Iron Giant is a wonderfully entertaining and emotional animated film about family, friendship, and choosing your own direction in life. It is the first American animated film featured on this article series, and the feature-length directorial debut of Brad Bird, who would go on to work for Pixar and create one of the best loved films of all time.

First Impressions

In this animated trailer, a meteorite crashes into the ground and is found by a young boy. It turns out to be a giant robot that befriends the kid and they have various adventures together. Unfortunately, government agents are concerned that perhaps the creature is part of an invasion or a Russian plot and seek to stop it. It’s the time-honored story of a boy and his robot. Also known as The Iron Giant.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the late Fall of 1957, days after the Russian satellite Sputnik is launched, a mysterious meteor crashes off the coast of Rockwell, Maine, witnessed by Earl (M. Emmett Walsh), a local fisherman. The next night, 9-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) investigates a disturbance in the woods after his TV antenna is damaged. He discovers a 50-foot tall alien robot, the titular Iron Giant (Vin Diesel) eating metal at the electrical substation. The robot electrocutes itself on the transformers, and young Hogarth turns the power off, saving the giant machine. Hogarth’s mother, Annie (Jennifer Aniston) finds him on the road nearby, but won’t believe his tall tales of metal monsters.

The next morning, government agent Kent Mansley (Chrisopher McDonald) arrives in town, investigating the strange reports, thinking it’s a wild goose chase until he sees evidence. Hogarth returns to the woods with some scrap metal, leaving it for the Giant to feed on, and hoping to get a picture. The creature startles him, but soon befriends the boy, imitating his movements and speech patterns. Hogarth tells the Giant he must go home for dinner, but the metal machine follows him, causing a train derailment when he attempts to cross the tracks. The Iron Giant is able to repair itself after being damaged and Hogarth hides the mysterious visitor in his barn and heads home.

Kent investigates the train crash and stops by the Hughes house to use their phone to call Washington. Hogarth is attempting to hide evidence of the Iron Giant from the agent, but the G-Man’s curiosity is piqued. Hogarth removes the hungry creature from his barn and takes it to the scrapyard to feed. He shares some of his comic books with the alien visitor from another planet, including Hogarth’s favorite, Superman. Hogarth runs into beatnik artist Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.) who is initially shocked to see a walking, talking metal man. Hogarth convinces Dean to let the Giant stay overnight, as long as he eats the scrap, and not the artwork.

Kent, certain that some strange invader is in town, calls General Rogard (John Mahoney) in Washington DC, telling him to send the Army as soon as possible. Unaware of the threat from the military, Hogarth and Dean take the Iron Giant to a local lake to swim and Hogarth teaches it to do a cannonball into the water.  In the woods they witness hunters killing a deer, and the Iron Giant doesn’t understand what happened. Hogarth explains death and the soul to the childlike robot. That evening the Iron Giant dreams of his past as an advanced weapon of destruction.

The Army arrives in town the next day. With Kent having proof of a giant monster, and believing it’s a Russian plot to invade, he has the Army search the scrapyard. Dean shows them the “Iron Giant,” a sculpture he’s been working on, fooling the General for now. Later as the Giant and Hogarth play, a toy gun used by the boy triggers a defense mechanism in the robot, who nearly kills Hogarth. Dean explains to the giant that he can choose who to be if he doesn’t like who he is. But the creature runs away, worried he will harm his only friend.

As it begins to snow, the Giant sees two boys fall off a roof in town. It saves them in front of a group of townsfolk, and is heralded a hero. But the Army sees the creature as a menace and opens fire. It goes into kill-mode and attacks the army and naval vessels. Kent, paranoid and certain the Giant means harm, orders a nuclear missile launched at the Giant, who is still in town. Understanding the danger to Hogarth and his new friends, the giant flies into the sky–like Superman–detonating the warhead in space. Dean builds a statue of the Iron Giant for the town square. Hogarth is given a screw, the last recoverable piece of the Giant by General Rogard. One night the screw begins moving on its own. Hogarth releases it from his house and it travels, along with other parts, to an Icelandic glacier where the Giant puts himself back together.

“You are who you choose to be” – Dean McCoppin

History in the Making

Please welcome our gigantic robotic overlord. The Iron Giant represents itself as a unique film. It was a modern, animated story that used modern techniques to tell a period story from the Cold War era, directed by a first time director and based on a children’s book. It had so many things that could have gone wrong or could have detracted from the overall film, but it stands tall as an emotional film about friendship and loss. Animated films of the 90s were rarely science-fiction related. While Hollywood created other sci-fi projects, there were very few American animated sci-fi films. Instead, that genre was relegated to Saturday morning television with shows like Voltron and Transformers. Leading animation studio Walt Disney was in the throes of their second renaissance with fantasy based releases like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Animation was cool again, as well as Oscar worthy, but usually more suited to fantasy or musical genres.

All of the animated projects that have been featured on Sci-Fi Saturdays so far have been Japanese productions. Mobile Suit Gundam, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell were all light years ahead of American productions in both maturity and technology. Animated films in the 80s and 90s were still mostly targeted towards children, with sci-fi fare being adaptations of toy lines (Transformers: The Movie), reboots of classic shows (Jetsons: The Movie), or blatant franchise rip-offs (Starchaser: The Legend of Orin). The Iron Giant was different. While still directed towards a younger audience, it did not shy away from adult themes and heavier emotional content, much like Disney films were doing. iI used the guise of science-fiction to create an even bigger tale.

Based on a book, called The Iron Man, by English poet-laureate Ted Hughes, the film combined elements of 1950s culture, specifically Cold War paranoia, classic science-fiction films, comic books, and Greek folktales to create a modern story of an alien helping humanity. The film was directed by Brad Bird, and was his first feature length assignment. He had previously directed two episodes of The Simpsons, and an animated episode of Amazing Stories (“Family Dog”) before tackling this movie for Warner Bros Animation. His future credits include the Pixar films The Incredibles (and its sequel) and Ratatouille, plus the live action films Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (the fourth film in that franchise) and Tomorrowland (a love letter to the popular Disneyland world).

Genre-fication

The Iron Giant is rife with nostalgia for a simpler time, but also shows that there were real threats both domestically and internationally. Set in late 1957, the town of Rockwell, Maine is an idyllic, coastal town with a quaint Main Street, a diner, and good folks. That’s probably why it was named after iconic American artist Norman Rockwell, who depicted everyday moments of Americana. With the film occurring in Fall, the colors of the trees and leaves creates a nostalgic look that everyone can appreciate, depicting a simpler time. But the late 50s were not as simple a time as people seem to remember. The film shows the other dangers that lurked in everyday American life. The children of the town are shown duck and cover films, which taught them how to survive a nuclear missile attack. The film also depicts the grip of paranoia that some people would get believing that they were under imminent attack by Russia. Between Sputnik winning the race into space, and other strange goings on, it’s no wonder Kent believed that the town (and country) was in danger.

But apart from that tone, The Iron Giant is also nostalgic for science-fiction properties from the 50s. With 1950 being the advent of sci-fi as a popular film genre (here’s the first Sci-Fi Saturdays article to prove it), the film takes some of its tone, pacing, and characters from films of that type. It namechecks one of the more popular, and appropriately themed films from the era, Invaders From Mars, a tale of a young boy wrapped up in an alien invasion which brings the Army to his small town. The character of Kent represents any number of evil scientists or paranoid town folks that showed up in films from the time. The movie even has Hogarth watching The Brain from Planet Arous on television, a low-budget B-grade sci-fi movie from 1957. And while the major references come from films about invading aliens from outer space, Hogarth shares his love for another alien that came to help the planet.

Hogarth introduces the Iron Giant to his favorite comic book superhero, Superman. This alien from another planet is the antithesis of all the 1950s and 60s aliens, which sought to conquer the world. Instead, Superman was a person that fought for his adoptive homeworld, and country, using his strength to right wrongs, and make the world a better place. It was rare at the time (in 1999) for films to mention superheroes, especially when they were not films about superheroes. But this was a Warner Bros film and Superman was owned by DC Comics, which Warner had acquired decades earlier. In this way, The Iron Giant bridges the gap between classic science-fiction and super hero films. In many cases, superhero films are a form of science fiction. Superman, The Hulk, and Iron Man are all heroes that have origins based in classic sci-fi tales, from alien visitor to mad science gone wrong and advanced robotic suits. In most cases the sci-fi and superhero genres tend to branch apart from one another. But here, the Iron Giant is actually a superhero.

Societal Commentary

The Iron Giant speaks to children that were not even alive during the era of the Cold War, but paints an accurate picture of the paranoia and hate that can come from fear. It’s not an attitude expressly from the 1950s, and is one that is (unfortunately) still alive today. People fear what they don’t understand. They fear things that threaten their way of life. And that fear can translate into bigotry and hate speech, towards those they disagree with. At the time, this was called being patriotic, as America was in real danger from Russia and other countries. But times and minds change. Having narrow views of others is not something that is tolerated anymore. Ignorance of a thing is no longer acceptable in the world of Wikipedia, Social Media, and instantaneous communication. As Hogarth, and the town, sees the good inside of the Iron Giant, so must the audience open their eyes to bigger issues using tolerance and love.

But the real thematic crux of the film is the quote above from Dean. What may be lost on modern audiences, is the fact that Dean is as much an outsider as the Iron Giant. Here is a beatnik artist living in a small northeastern fishing and farming town. The lifestyle was considered anti conformist, and the precursor to the hippies and counterculture of the 60s. However he becomes the most tolerant, and prophetic, character in the film. He gives the Giant, and Hogarth, permission to march to the beat of their own drum. Don’t be defined by what other people say you are. You can define yourself. You can choose who you want to be. These were possibly heretical words in the 50s, stronger words in the 90s, and ones that still ring true today. It’s as important a lesson to the kids watching the film, as it is to the adults.

The Science in The Fiction

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, which became the first artificial Earth satellite, and kicked off the space race that would culminate 12 years later with the United States landing men on the moon. It was an important step for Russia, but also for humanity as well. Without the outside pressure, America might not have been able to mobilize its leaders and scientists to complete plans for landing on the moon. This film uses that moment as a touchstone for the cultural change that occurred from that one small orb being launched into space. The first shot of the film is the satellite orbiting Earth. A satellite that was visible with the naked eye to people below. It signaled a change as the dawn of a bright new era in science and dark place in politics.

In terms of real-world production value of the film, it was one of the first mainstream animated  studio movies to utilize computer generated imagery in concert with traditional hand drawn cells. Disney had been using computers for the past two decades to aid with digital inking and coloring of its films, as well as using computers to help plan complicated shots, such as the  ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast. CGI animated shows and films were becoming more normal, with Toy Story being a major step forward for computer animated stories. Bird utilized computers to create the accurate model of the Iron Giant. Yet the work by the artists created a character that was as-alive as any of the hand-drawn humans. The Iron Giant did not stand out from the other elements in the film as a 3D model in a 2D world. It did allow the team to build something that looked foreign in the rustic nature of the Maine town, yet still blend into the aesthetics and style of the film overall.

The Final Frontier

The Iron Giant was not the first adaptation of Ted Hughes’ book. In 1989, The Who bassist Pete Townsend released an album called The Iron Man which was his musical adaptation of the novel. The album produced a hit single with “A Friend Is a Friend,” and reunited The Who for several new tracks. Townsend was able to receive an Executive Producer credit on the film due to his work on the album and his passion for the story.

Amongst other references in the film, I was struck this time by the parallels to the Greek fable of Androcles and the Lion. This is a story about a man who came upon an angry lion, and noticing it had a thorn in its paw, removed it. The lion, grateful for the help, became a friend to Androcles. Hogarth assumes the role of Androcles as he saves the Giant from being electrocuted. And that, as they say, was the start of a beautiful friendship.

The Iron Giant feels like a prototype to the work that Pixar would create in the 2000s and beyond. It uses animation as a low-barrier entry into audiences imaginations, and tells a story that is so warm and pure of heart that it immediately sucks people in. The amount of pathos and emotion derived from simple hand drawn images presented in succession, and the love audiences feel for the titular character are as strong today as they were in 1999. The sacrifice that the Giant makes for his new friend is both sad and inspirational. And that’s why The Iron Giant is still on the top of my must see list.

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