The Wild Robot is a brand new movie adapted from the book version also named The Wild Robot, and has been named by many as the best movie of the year. I found the movie amazing for all ages from children to adults.
Spoiler alert if you don’t want to be spoiled on the movie don’t continue reading.
The movie begins with a Universal Dynamics cargo ship crashing during a storm which intern lost six all-purpose ROZZUM robots. ROZZUM unit 7134 later known as just Roz, ended up on the shore in a box from Universal Dynamics. An otter’s curiosity ends up in Roz being activated, Roz then goes around looking for her customer. And ends up in many funny situations, and getting hurt along the way. After spending many days translating all the animals’ languages, when she finally completed translating, she still couldn’t find anyone who required her assistance.
Roz then decided to signal Universal Dynamics to retrieve her, but in the process gets chased by Thorn, a grizzly bear. When Roz was being chased, she accidentally crushes a goose nest that was in a tree, killing the mother, and only leaving a singular egg. This singular remaining egg had to be defended from Fink, a hungry fox. It hatches and the gosling imprints itself onto Roz causing Roz to break her long-range transponder, which is the one way to have Universal Dynamics retrieve her. Pinktail, a mother opossum, instructs Roz on her need to feed the gosling, teach it how to swim, and lastly make sure it can fly before the winter migration. Roz decides to name the gosling Brightbill.
Fink realizes he can benefit from Roz if he helps her construct a shelter but at the same time, before that Fink ends up taking advantage of Roz by telling her certain things. For example he asked Roz to cook mussels on the beach because it would help Brightbill survive and Fink ended up eating all the mussels himself. The three begin to build their shelter. Over time the connection grows stronger between Roz, and Brightbill, and develops into a parental bond for Roz.
Roz, and Fink begin to teach Brightbill on how to swim, and doesn’t begin well. When Brightbill goes to where all the geese are swimming in a large body of water they think he’s a freak. Partly due to his size because he’s a runt but additionally due to his unusual behavior acting like his robotic mother. This makes him devastated because one of the geese tells him Roz isn’t his mother, and that she killed his family. Brightbill is furious at having the truth being held away from him through his childhood. Brightbill yells at Roz and storms off, Roz returns to her crash site to learn of her purpose, and replaces her transponder with one from another ROZZUM robot.
She doesn’t give up just yet on Brightbill, and decides to recruit someone to help teach Brightbill how to fly, and finds Thunderbolt a falcon. Advice was also given by Longneck the elderly leader of the flock, Brightbill makes it just in time to fly out for migration, but both regret not saying much before he lifted off into the sunset. In the meantime as winter approached Roz, and Fink got all the animals one by one, and put them in the house they had built months ago, this was when they were in the freezing unforgiving terrain. Chaos ensues while a Roz injured from the terrain and cold conditions sitting in the corner, Fink ends up getting everyone to stop talking, and explains they can’t be doing these shenanigans in this type of situation. The animals all agree, and after a montage scene it shows the flock of geese flying back in the spring.
After the geese land down, and we sadly learn that Longneck the senior bird died on the trip. But then a Universal Dynamics ship came to retrieve the ROZZUM units. The robot crewing the ship is named Vontra, a retrieval robot. Roz first complies with Vontra but only to get off after hearing from Fink that Brightbill is looking for her. Vontra sends an army of robots to chase after Roz to retrieve her, and the animals band together to defend their lands from the army. This happens up until Vontra detonates all the destroyed robots, and causes the forest into ablaze. Brightbill leads the island’s geese to attack the ship, meanwhile the other animals extinguish the fire, but he finds that Vontra has already cut Roz’s power, and wiped her memories. However, Roz’s systems are restored by her love for Brightbill, and the two destroy Vontra before the ship explodes.
Even though they’re victorious, Roz chooses to leave anyway in order to protect the island from future attacks by Universal Dynamics. She promises the animals that her manufacturers can’t take her memories, and that she will find a way to return. Months later, Roz is working in a greenhouse at Universal Dynamics headquarters, and appears to have been reset to factory settings. Brightbill sneaks in during the migration, and approaches Roz, this reveals that Roz still has her memories. Lastly in a post-credit scene, Fink, and Paddler, a beaver, are planting a tree, as they leave, a squirrel comes in, and starts making noises, only for Fink to throw an acorn at the squirrel.
I thought the movie was great for all ages, and a teacher agreed, “I thought that the movie was amazingly creative, and unique for both children, and adults,” said Brianna Garcia. While others also believed similar thoughts “It was probably one of my favorite movies of the year. I was surprised at how emotional it was, and how engaging it was. I just really enjoyed it. I went with my daughter, and we were all crying a lot,” said Nurse Louie Riesch.
The favorite parts of the movie for many were heartfelt, mine being Brightbill learning how to fly montage, others liked the same scene “I like the kind of montage scenes towards the end when the gosling really starts to learn how to fly, and the robot would run real fast, and let the gosling fly off. Those scenes all together were my favorite,” said Riesch.
Many, including me, really enjoyed the acting for the wild robot believing Lupita Nyong’o did an amazing job acting as Roz, and showing emotion even when acting as a robot. For example, student Liliana Griffiths agreed. “The wild robot was really good because even though they’re a robot, you could hear the emotion, it was really good,” said Griffiths.
