finished watching the wild robot. it was highly recommended to me by some people i knew but i am so underwhelmed by what i've just seen. it is really disappointing and it's bumming me out. especially as i heard it was being compared to the iron giant of all movies. tbh i should have known then that it wasn't going to live up to the hype. that is not a comparison to be thrown around lightly. the iron giant is a masterpiece.
the writing is what ruined it for me. the most important part of any kind of piece for me is the story. it's why i care at all. something can be nice to look at, fun to play or enjoyable to listen to but the soul at its heart is what gives it meaning. the unmistakable human fingerprint that is more than simply a bullet list of plot points or a chaotic stream of consciousness. the story is what makes the experience the most worthwhile, for me.
and the writing that built this particular story sucked. thematically incoherent and all over the place. most of the runtime is spent seemingly too scared to exist within any level of genuine sincerity for too long before its undercut with some petty joke or cruel comment.
but then the heavy weight, of you know, actually telling the story, is dumped entirely onto these "meaningful" moments where the characters try and fail to have a emotion. these sporadic attempts at vulnerability and authenticity are so tonally dissonant from the rest of the movie that any suspension of disbelief i had was effectively shattered into teeny tiny bits and all that was left behind was a confusing mess of a story.
which was always going to happen in some shape or form because of its apparent dedication to the bit of playing up the causal cruelty of ironic dettachment so much so that any emotional foundation that could have existed to build off of was cut down and demolished in favour of a flimsy framework made of popsicle sticks that i hear is all the rage these days. i haven't seen a marvel movie proper in ages but this reeks of their horrible influence.
and it's not like this was a movie that didn't have a story to tell. it did! it had real potentional! it just failed to meaningfully engage with the core themes central to its plot in a way that made sense and was satisfying. which is even more frustrating then if it were just bad. it's like what's been said about the particular ire that's felt towards media that is average and mediocre. there was this beautiful soft bed that i went to lie down in but it had all these sharp rocks in it. i'm annoyed.
i'm not sure what the developmental process of this movie was or the conditions the writing team was under working on the script but throughout the movie i just kept thinking to myself, this could have used another draft or two. like i was somehow watching the product of a first draft where its like. okay. i see what you're going for but it needs a bit more work to draw it out. oh wait. this is the finished project. whaaaaaaat.
the writing is so flawed that if it were revealed that this movie was written by AI i would totally believe it. i'm already thinking it. it's the only thing that could explain the confusing delivery and inconsistencies in quality other than, of course, the writing really being just that bad.
I kinda agree with ya about this, not to the same extent, but that it felt as if it fell through on the themes of the book.
As a person who went to watch the movie after already being a big fan of the books, I felt disappointed in the movie with it not being a terrible or bad movie but with it missing the mark and draw of the original story. The inflation of Fink's involvement also kinda bothered me especially with the cutting out of the other interactions Roz has with the animals, which took away motifs of community.
Anyway even though im kinda disappointed with the movie im glad that this book is getting recognition and im curious if there will be more movies with there being more books.
As someone who watched the movie before reading the books (halfway through the third one rn) and loved it, I completely get fans of the books being disappointed by what we got.
Taking fink, a male character with a minor role in the book series, and turning him into a prominent character heavily involved in both Roz’s and brightbill’s life makes it so (I didn’t interpret it this way but a LOT of people did) it can easily be interpreted as a little family consisting of a mother, father and the child they raised together, rather than what the original story was truly about, which is a single mother who, with the help of the animals, was able to gain a community to help raise her kid. I fear someone in the creative department probably thought making them a family of three even though they didn’t give fink a canon family title, would make it more relatable to the general audience, but it fundamentally ruins the core of the series imo.
I do hope they lean into the community thing a LOT more in the sequel now that the animals actually get along.
