The Iron Giant
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| The Iron Giant | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster for The Iron Giant | |
| Directed by | Brad Bird |
| Produced by | Pete Townshend Des McAnuff |
| Written by | Tim McCanlies Brad Bird Ted Hughes (book) |
| Starring | Jennifer Aniston Harry Connick, Jr. Vin Diesel |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
| Cinematography | Steven Wilzbach |
| Editing by | Darren T. Holmes |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Running time | 86 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $48,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated science fiction film, directed by Brad Bird, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Script (written by Tim McCanlies), and for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It is loosely based on a 1968 children's book by Ted Hughes, The Iron Man.
A young boy named Hogarth Hughes discovers an amnesiac "iron man", and saves him from electrocution. Grateful, the childlike Giant becomes friends with him. Hogarth, with the help of a beatnik named Dean, has to stop a military force led by a general and his egotistical federal agent from finding and destroying the Giant out of paranoia. There are many references to the Cold War, the McCarthy era, cautionary instructional films (Duck and Cover), and science fiction films and TV of the age.
The characters are voiced by a cast that included Harry Connick, Jr., Jennifer Aniston, John Mahoney, and a then relatively unknown Vin Diesel.
Tagline: It came from outer space!
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The story starts in the fall of 1957, when a large, flaming object plunges through space towards Earth, where it crashes into the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Rockwell, Maine. This meteorite turns out to be the Iron Giant, a 50-foot tall robot of unknown origin and purpose.
The next night, Hogarth Hughes is home alone as his mother, Annie, has to work late again waitressing at the local diner. We never see or hear anything about Hogarth's father, but a photograph of a man standing next to a military jet in the boy's room leads one to the possibility that the father was a fighter pilot killed in the Korean War.
Hogarth is watching a cheesy science fiction film on the television about a disembodied brain that comes alive in a tank of water when its reception fails. He goes outside with his flashlight in hand and finds the TV antennae chewed up on the ground. Seeing a trail of destruction leading off into the woods, Hogarth gathers a battered pilot's helmet and BB gun and then follows a path of wrecked trees to the power station. There, he comes upon the Giant in the process of trying to eat the metal at the power station. When the Giant gets shocked into nearby power lines and is electrified, Hogarth saves it by shutting off the station's main power link. Annie comes looking for him, and despite his best efforts, Hogarth cannot convince her that the Giant was real, or that it was still in the woods as they drove off.
The next day, Kent Mansley, a pompous and self-centered U.S. Government agent, arrives at the power station as part of his investigation into reports of a strange object that landed off the Maine coast. With the recent launch of the satellite Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957 (seen orbiting Earth as the movie begins), a shocked America became even more paranoid of the Iron Curtain nations during the Cold War.
Apparently Mansley was sent to Maine to see if the meteorite report and smashed power station were all part of a secret Soviet weapon aimed at the United States. At that time, Americans feared that if the Soviets could place a satellite into Earth's orbit with their rockets, they could just as easily launch a nuclear bomb on the U.S. with very little warning in a matter of minutes.
After finding Hogarth's smashed BB gun with part of his name ("Hog Hug") on the remains of the gun stock, Mansley is ready to leave the power station and drop the whole investigation as not being important enough for him, when he suddenly discovers that half of his car is missing. He tries to find a witness to verify what has happened, but by the time they return, the entire automobile is gone (the Giant was hungry).
Meanwhile, Hogarth goes into the woods with a camera to find the Giant again. When he does, the Giant tries to follow him home, not understanding or heeding Hogarth's pleas to remain behind. But when the Giant accidentally causes a train wreck, Hogarth changes his mind and lets the Giant follow him home, hiding him in his barn. There he shows him comic books depicting Superman as an alien visitor who becomes a hero, but also some evil robots and alien invaders. We also learn from these scenes that the Giant's parts can function independently to reassemble themselves and that he can survive the impact of a speeding train.
At the same time, the engineers of the wrecked train (who are caricatures of and voiced by veteran Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston) tell Mansley that the train ran into "a giant metal man" and points to Hogarth's house as a likely place to find a telephone. Mansley calls his superior, General Rogard, in Washington, D.C., who angrily tells him to get more evidence. As he leaves, Mansley realizes that the BB gun he found belongs to Hogarth.
In order to conceal the Giant, Hogarth relocates him to a nearby scrap yard; the Giant is happy with the massive amounts of metal present for him to eat. The proprietor, a beatnik metals artist named Dean McCoppin, agrees to let him stay the night. While exploring the woods, Hogarth and the Giant find a deer. The Giant is entranced by it and disappointed when it leaves. Shortly afterwards, a gunshot is heard and the two find the deer was killed by some hunters. Hogarth explains to the giant about death and how guns kill. At the same time, Mansley rents a room in the Hughes house so he can keep an eye on Hogarth. Little by little, he uncovers the truth, finally tracking the robot's whereabouts to the scrap yard and summoning the army. Hogarth, however, warns Dean, who disguises the Giant as a massive statue, which he proudly displays and even offers to sell to the Army. General Rogard is not happy with Mansley at this point.
While playing with Hogarth as the army is leaving town, the Giant unwillingly reacts to Hogarth's toy gun with automated defensive fire. Hogarth fails to realize what's happening, but Dean rescues him and sends the Giant away, only to help Hogarth chase after him after identifying the gun as the provocation for the Giant's defensive mechanism.
Eager to be proven right, Mansley lies to convince General Rogard that the Giant is a threat. Just as the Giant rescues two boys who have fallen from a balcony, tanks open fire on him. The Giant tries to avoid fighting back, as Hogarth has tried to instill in the Giant that he can be whatever he chooses to be in life and does not have to "be a gun." When the Giant is shot down while flying with Hogarth in his hands to escape a group of three F-86 Sabres, he sees Hogarth laying on the ground unconscious and assumes that his best friend was killed by the missile attack or the fall to Earth; he is grief-stricken and mourns the apparent loss.
When the military arrives on the scene and attacks him at Mansley's command, the Giant becomes enraged. Spontaneously, the dent in his head is repaired and his body transforms into a heavily armored battle machine; at this point, the Giant begins using the full force of his superior alien weaponry. The 1950s U.S. military machines are devastated by the attack and have no choice but to retreat, as their own weapons prove useless. The Giant blasts his way towards Rockwell, automatically assuming that everyone and everything is his enemy. The military tries to divert him away from the town with some battleships in the harbor, which fire their cannons unsuccessfully at the armored behemoth.
In the meantime, Hogarth has regained consciousness and makes his way to try and talk to the Giant. Averting the destruction of the battleships, he is able to calm the Giant, who reverts to his regular form. Seeing the Giant calm himself, General Rogard takes to heart Dean's warning that the Giant will only kill if he is himself attacked. He is ready to call a ceasefire, but Mansley, who is now obsessed with the Giant's destruction, seizes General Rogard's radio transceiver and orders the crew of USS Nautilus (SSN-571) to launch a nuclear missile. (A use of artistic license: Nautilus was not armed with missiles, nuclear or conventional. A Regulus missile submarine would have been more appropriate but less recognizable.) However, the missile is targeted at the Giant's present location in the center of the town. When the nuclear explosive completes its exospheric flight and returns to Earth, Rockwell will be destroyed.
When General Rogard points this out to him, Mansley panics and tries to escape in a jeep, but the Giant blocks his escape, causing the jeep to be wrecked, and Mansley falls out. The soldiers train their guns on him and prevent him from retreat. As the missile soars into space, the Giant asks what has frightened the townspeople, and Hogarth explains that when the missile comes down, everyone will die. Reminded of the deer whom he saw cruelly killed for sport, the Giant decides that he must not allow this to happen. Turning to Hogarth, he declares, as Hogarth told him when they met for the second time, "You...stay. I...go. No following." With that, he takes off into the sky and heads straight for the missile. Just as he is about to collide head-first with the missile, he remembers Hogarth's words: "You are who you choose to be"; the Giant then thinks of himself as Superman, and impacts with the missile. The detonation can be seen clearly by everyone on Earth. Hogarth takes refuge with his mother and Dean, who can offer him no consolation.
A few months later, Dean and Anne have started dating, and Dean has sculpted a metal statue of the Giant that is placed as a monument in the town park. Hogarth is given a screw by General Rogard, the only piece recovered from the explosion. As he goes to bed that night, the piece awakens him, apparently activated in order to reunite itself with the rest of the Giant. Smiling and realizing what the piece's activity means, Hogarth opens the window and lets it roll away.
The movie ends with the Giant's body parts traveling to the Langjökull glacier in Iceland to reassemble themselves.
[edit] Voice Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Vin Diesel | The Iron Giant |
| Eli Marienthal | Hogarth Hughes |
| Harry Connick, Jr. | Dean McCoppin |
| Jennifer Aniston | Annie Hughes |
| Christopher McDonald | Kent Mansley |
| John Mahoney | General Rogard |
| James Gammon | Marv Loach General Sudokoff Floyd Turbeaux |
| M. Emmet Walsh | Earl Stutz |
[edit] Box-office and reception
According to RottenTomatoes, the critics' reviews were 97% positive. Despite critical acclaim, it did poorly at the box office, grossing only $23 million in the U.S.; this failure can be attributed in part to anemic marketing. The total worldwide gross was only $80 million.[1] It has since gained a cult following through VHS, DVD sales, and 24 hour marathons on Cartoon Network, and is now regarded as a classic.
It is a classic case study for 'acting in animation' and storytelling. Ed Hooks' book Acting for Animators (ISBN 032500580X) takes the Iron Giant as a classic example for this case study.
[edit] Trivia
- In 1989, Pete Townshend of The Who released a concept album based on the book The Iron Man titled The Iron Man: A Musical. Townshend and stage director Des McAnuff developed a stage version that had a successful run at The Old Vic Theatre in London in 1993. They originally wanted to produce a film version of the stage production, but McAnuff and Warner Bros. agreed it would work better as a non-musical animated feature. Although this film is very different than Townshend's concept, he is still credited as an executive producer.
- The weapons used by the robot to attack the military forces were based on designs from The War of the Worlds (1953).
- Noted critic Christopher Macarthur-Boyd thought this film was trash.
- The basic design of the Iron Giant is an allusion to the classic robot "Rico".
- The F-86 Sabre fighters that shot down the Giant fought in the Korean war, scoring well against MiG-15's.
[edit] Soundtrack
- Blast Off - The Tyrones
- Rockin' in Orbit - Jimmie Haskell
- Kookies Mad Pad - Edd "Kookie" Byrnes
- Salt and Peanuts - The Nutty Squirrels
- Comin' Home Baby - Mel Torme
- Cha-Hua-Hua - Eddie Platt
- Let's Do the Cha-Cha - The Magnificents
- Blues Walk - Lou Donaldson
- I Got a Rocket in My Pocket - Jimmy Lloyd
- Searchin' - The Coasters
- Honeycomb - Jimmie Rodgers
- Destination Moon - The Ames Brothers
- You Can Be... - Michael Kamen
- ...Who You Choose to Be - Michael Kamen
