The Wild Robot

On October 5, 2024, many Santa Barbara Jr High School students went to the Riviera Theatre to watch the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s screening of The Wild Robot with a Q&A with director Chris Sanders.

I can easily say that this was one of the greatest animated films I have watched in my entire life. There are multiple, powerful themes that teach important lessons to viewers. A lot of children’s movies have started to teach the same, exact lessons; refreshingly, The Wild Robot does an amazing job at teaching different lessons, and those  lessons are ones that people need to learn.

In the beginning of the movie, a robot, ROZZUM 7134 (Roz) is stranded on an island with no way back to where he came from. She tries to make friends with the animals in the forest and even learns to speak all of their “dialects”. She is not accepted by any of the forest creatures and is living all alone, trying to find a task.

One day, Roz accidentally falls onto a family of ducks, crushing them and leaving only an egg. Roz tries to protect the egg, but a fox named Fink snatches it and runs. Roz easily catches the fox and gets the egg back. In the process of trying to steal the egg, the fox runs into a porcupine and is covered in spikes. Roz picks up the fox and turns on a machine that looks like she is about to cut the fox into a million pieces, when she really, to the foxes surprise, plucks the spikes out of him and lets him go.

Soon after, Roz looks down to see the egg slowly hatching in her robot hands. Suddenly, an adorable duckling pops out of the egg. The little duckling imprints on her and thinks she is his mother. Roz doesn’t know how to be a mom. She’s never done anything similar to that before. Raising the duckling becomes her task. The duckling must eat, swim, and fly. 

Fink the Fox is very thankful to Roz for saving him from the porcupine spikes even though he stole the egg. Foxes are often shown as mischievous liars and the animals in the forest see Fink in this light, as “the guy everyone avoids.” Fink is an outcast, just like Roz. Fink and Roz raise the baby duckling together and name him Brightbill.

One day, Brightbill is learning how to swim when he runs into a group of ducks who bully him and try to drown him for being raised by a robot and being born with a mutation. They tease him for being raised by his parents’ murderer, which is something Brightbill didn’t know about before. Brightbill feels extremely betrayed by Roz for not telling him about the death of his parents. 

When Roz and Brightbill finally make up, it is almost winter time, which means Brightbill will have to migrate with the other geese. The only problem: he doesn’t know how to fly yet. A fox and a robot know nothing about flight, so they ask for help from the local eagle and the leader of the goose migration.

Brighbill finally learns to fly and it is that time of the year again: migration. Roz and Brightbill love each other very deeply, but neither of them have the courage to tell the other how they feel. As Brightbill takes flight and heads South, Roz stands on the edge of a cliff and watches as her son flies away from her, knowing that she never told him how much she loves him.

During the migration, the geese face a terrible winter storm and decide to take shelter in a dome-shaped building that just happens to be the headquarters (HQ) of the company that manufactures robots like Roz. Brightbill approaches one and thinks it is his mom. The robots suddenly attack the geese, killing many, including the leader of the migration. Brightbill uses his amazing skills and small size to get the geese out of the dome through a hole. He becomes the leader of the geese and leads them South to safety.

At the same time, back on the island, Roz and Fink are doing well in their warm cot. The rest of the animals, however, are not, and they are all freezing from the terrible winter storm. Roz and Fink get the animals out of their little holes and bring them all to safety in their cot. When Roz and Fink think they have saved everyone still alive, they realize that they forgot about the bear, who always tried to eat everyone and had no friends. No one wanted to save the bear, but Roz insisted once again, putting aside all the times she had almost been killed by the bear. She brought the bear to her cot as well.

The scene that comes next is my absolute favorite one and it definitely got some tears flowing down my cheek. In this scene, all the animals are in the cot and it is absolute chaos. All the animals are hitting each other, insulting each other, screaming at each other and just tearing the place apart. Fink, the mischievous fox, gives a small speech that shuts them all up for good and makes them feel completely ashamed of themselves and all their actions:

Fink:

QUIETTTTTTTTT!

(All stand still in shock)

Baby Otter:

The jerk wants to speak.

Fink:

We all got one chance to see next spring. Because of her. (Looks over at Roz) Well, her name is Roz. And while you all ran from her and stole from her and made fun of her, all she’s been trying to do is raise her kid. And despite my suggestion to let you all FREEZE, she risked everything to bring you here. 

The scene is called “The Truce.” It is a truce between all the animals and a promise that they will remain calm throughout the rest of the winter. 

When the winter is over and all the animals are back in their own homes, Brightbill returns. Roz does not think that she is a fit mother for Brightbill, and so, before even seeing Brightbill return, she decides to go back to HQ. A ship comes to take her back, but Fink helps her change her mind and stay. The people from HQ try to kidnap her and take her back so that they can study the way she rewrote her programming and was able to feel. The entire forest comes together and defeats HQ, saving Roz.

Roz and Brightbill reunite and are finally able to express their love for each other. Sadly, Roz ends up leaving the island to protect her adopted family. She has brought the entire forest together, including the bear. The movie ends with Brightbill once again migrating and visiting Roz in HQ.

This movie had some very strong messages and lessons such as perseverance, empathy, and most importantly, love. This movie was beautifully written and also beautifully animated. The movie really blurs the line between hand-painted animation and CGI, which is extraordinary. Much of the movie was hand-painted, and you can see the brush strokes in most scenes.

If you have not watched The Wild Robot yet, I absolutely recommend it. So, grab your friends and head on down to the movie theater to experience this wonderful, tear-jerking (I cried 4 different times throughout the movie) film. I hope you enjoy the movie and that you can incorporate the powerful lessons that it teaches into your day to day life.