The Iron Giant
| The Iron Giant | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster for The Iron Giant | |
| Directed by | Brad Bird |
| Written by | Tim McCanlies Brad Bird Ted Hughes (book) |
| Produced by | Pete Townshend Des McAnuff |
| Starring | Jennifer Aniston Harry Connick, Jr. Vin Diesel |
| Cinematography | Steven Wilzbach |
| Edited by | Darren T. Holmes |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Running time | 86 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $48,000,000 |
The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated science fiction film, directed by Brad Bird, produced by Warner Bros. Feature 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" that fell from space, 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 such as 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!
Synopsis
The story starts during the Cold War in the fall of 1957 with a large flaming object plunging through space towards Earth and crashing 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 implies 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, which closely resembles Fiend Without a Face or The Brain from Planet Arous. He goes outside with a flashlight 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 an electric power substation. There, he comes upon the Giant in the process of trying to eat the metal at the substation. 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 is still in the woods as they drive off.
The next day, Kent Mansley, a pompous and self-centered U.S. Government agent, arrives at the substation 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.
Apparently Mansley was sent to Maine to see if the meteorite report and smashed substation 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.
After finding Hogarth's smashed BB gun with part of his name ("Hog... Hug...") on the remains of the gun stock, Mansley is preparing to leave the substation and drop the whole investigation as not being important enough for him, when he 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 the two meet, the Giant tries to follow him home, not understanding or heeding Hogarth's pleas to remain behind. When the Giant accidentally causes a train wreck, Hogarth changes his mind and lets the Giant follow him home, hiding it in his barn. There he shows it 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 is capable of self-repair, that its body parts can function independently and that it 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. From Hogarth's home 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 it to a nearby scrap yard; the Giant is happy with the massive amounts of metal present for it to eat. The yard's proprietor, a beatnik metals artist named Dean McCoppin, reluctantly agrees to let it 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 that the deer had been killed by hunters. Hogarth explains to the giant about death and how guns kill.
Meanwhile, Mansley has rented 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 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.
While playing with Hogarth as the army is leaving town, the Giant unwittingly 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 it after identifying the gun as the provocation for the Giant's defensive mechanism.
The Giant passes the town, causing much excitement, including two boys who fall from a balcony trying to get a better look at it. The Giant rescues the boys, but Mansley and the army see him apparently attacking the town. As the Giant proudly tells Hogarth "I am not a gun", tanks open fire on it.
The Giant flees with Hogarth, deliberately not returning fire. Eager to be proven right, Mansley tells General Rogard that it has killed Hogarth, provoking an escalation of the situation to the president. When the Giant regains consciousness after being shot down by a group of three F-86 Sabres, it sees Hogarth laying on the ground unconscious and assumes that its best friend is dead; it is grief-stricken and mourns the apparent loss.
When the military recognizes that the Giant is still "alive" and attacks it at Mansley's command, the Giant becomes enraged. Spontaneously, the dent in its head is repaired and its body transforms into a heavily armored battle machine. The Giant begins using the full force of its superior alien weaponry. The 1950s U.S. military machines are devastated by the attack and have no choice but to retreat, as their weapons prove useless. The military tries to divert it away from Rockwell with some battleships in the harbor, which fire their cannons unsuccessfully at the armored behemoth.
By this point Hogarth has regained consciousness, and he eludes the army to talk to the Giant. Averting the destruction of the battleships, he is able to calm the Giant, who reverts to its regular form. Seeing the Giant stand down, General Rogard takes to heart Dean's warning that the Giant will only kill if it is 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.
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 it saw killed by hunters, the Giant decides that it must not allow this to happen. Turning to Hogarth, it declares, as Hogarth told it when they met for the second time, "You...stay. I...go. No following." With that, it launches into the sky headed for the missile. As it leaves the lower atmosphere, it recalls Hogarth's words: "You are who you choose to be", and utters the word Superman before colliding with the missile. The detonation can be clearly seen by everyone on the ground. 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 sent a screw by General Rogard, the only piece recovered from the explosion. In bed that night, he hears a tapping noise at the window; the screw is attempting to leave, presumably 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, summoned there by its self-repair mechanism so that they may combine with the Iron Giant and rise again.
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 |
Box-office and reception
According to RottenTomatoes, the critics' reviews were 97% positive, with praise from many major film critics such as Roger Ebert. Despite critical acclaim, it did poorly at the box office, grossing only $23 million in the U.S.; its poor box office performance can be attributed in part to anemic marketing on Warner's part (on account of director Brad Bird fighting tooth-and-nail to not make The Iron Giant into the Disney-like film Warner wanted it to be; singing characters, talking animal sidekicks, etc. [citation needed]). 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 0-325-00580-X) takes the Iron Giant as a classic example for this case study.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (May 2007) |
- 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.
- A parody occurs in Duck Dodgers, where the final scene is recreated. A robot sacrifices himself to save the undeserving Dodgers.
- In the movie The Incredibles, also directed by Brad Bird, the call sign of the jet that gets blown up is IG99. This is a reference to Iron Giant and the year that it was released 1999.
- The character Hogarth Hughes is a tribute to the author of the original book, Ted Hughes (The original character in the book was named Hogarth, and his name was combined with Hughes' last name)
- Though the ending seems to suggest the possibility for a sequel, as of 2007, one was never made.
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 Tormé
- 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
External links
