It’s one of those movies I just never got around to seeing. I even taped it a couple years ago when it was on Cartoon Network all day for some reason with no commercials, and never watched it. I saw the last 45 minutes of it or so today. My 3yo daughter wasn’t interested, but my 5yo son watched it too. He was scared when the military when chasing the Giant and shooting at him, but he sat through it. And when the Giant intercepts the missile, which I feared would happen, I had to explain to my son what happened to the Giant, and where he went, all the while my voice was just about to crack because I was on the verge of tears. I need to see the entire film now, it was a very funny movie and obviously it touched me emotionally as well, but I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. I was very excited at the end when the little peice of the Giant the boy had was beeping and rolling away on its own. But I still was about to cry. I think I’m over it now.
Yep, it’s a great movie. There’s a special edition DVD coming out on Tuesday. Also, the director Brad Bird also directed The Incredibles, so you might be interested in that one as well.
I’ve been waiting for The Incredibles for some time, and I think the family will be seeing it tomorrow. Looks to me like Brad Bird is two for two. And I just might be ordering The Iron Giant Special Edition too.
Watch the whole thing. It’s truly fantastic - beautifully written and animated, very moving in parts, and Harry Connick’s hipster sculptor is a crack-up. Oh, and the kid’s mum is the sexiest cartoon character since Jessica Rabbit. Can’t understand why it didn’t do better at the box-office, but I think it’s destined for the same kind of must-see cultdom as The Princess Bride. “Suuupermaan!”
It was deliberately badly marketed by Warners. Sometimes, if some goon in the top echelon of the system doesn’t like a film, they’ll deliberately mess things up for its release. They couldn’t exert any control over the content of the film, it wasn’t silly and cartoony enough for them I suppose, so they decide to bury it.
That’s what I figure, anyway.
Guanolad, if there is some egotistical senior executive who purposefully planned the tanking of this movie, I can only hope that s/he is now working in another company. Or another field, preferably.
I cry every single time I see the end of that movie. It is one of my all-time favorites.
Has any animated film done will lately. Seems like CGI has sucked up thier marketshare and $$. I saw that Disney has decided to do a CGI Ducktales movie, which seems kind of…wrong. I like CGI as much as the next guy, but Iron Giant is a great example of why studios should keep producing traditional animation as well.
Plus, I’d presume (perhaps incorrectly) that traditional animation is cheaper, so studios can afford to take more risks when it comes to creating them. One gets a feeling that some of the last set of CGI films were overly tweaked and market tested and as a result, came out sort of souless.
I’m not so sure about relative costs anymore. While CGI has traditionally been extremely expensive, prices are dropping and processing power is skyrocketing. Meanwhile, traditional cell animation techniques have remained more or less static and are extremely labour intensive. Not to mention It’s also difficult to draw a solid line between the two anymore. Afterall, many seemingly traditional cartoons have used computers for colouring and other enhancements that wouldn’t be immediately obvious to the casual viewer (including Iron Giant) for a number of years now.
As for Disney, not only are they doing a CGI Ducktales movie, they’re actually closing their cell animation studios altogether and moving to strictly computer animation. Home on the Range was their last traditional effort. However, since the line between traditional and computer animation has lately become so blurred, I find it hard to mourn this development. There’s nothing really preventing animators from using computers to do 2D animation if the style suits them. Besides, The Incredibles RAWKS!!
To continue the hijack.
Disney doesn’t know what it’s doing and the creative crisis in the company is stunning. Eisner needs to go.
They think that because the so called 3d animation of Pixar has made them lots of money, but their own 2d animation movies have tanked, it’s the technique. They seem to have forgotten that the reason the Pixar movies work is because af the stories. The novelty of 3d animation is gone and now we’re back to what’s important, the telling of a good story.
Disney had an amazing stretch in the early 90’s: Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and of course Lion King. It went downhill from there.
And yes, Iron Giant deserves a spot among the most magic animated movies of all time. Jennifer Aniston does the voice of the mom.
I’m not reading any of the posts in this thread because I’m planning on buying the DVD this week or next. I have not even seen the movie yet.
Would you say that it is a movie you would enjoy rewatching? Or is it a one-time view thing?
Plan on keeping it and watching it quite a few times.
Again, I’ll invoke The Princess Bride: it’s just one of those movies you don’t get tired of watching. Works for kids {although possibly not for VERY young kids - no spoilers, but some of the scenes which are the most moving do involve self-sacrifice and death…} and adults both.
On the subject of studios ditching conventional animation, they’re throwing the baby out with the bath-water: Pixar movies don’t succeed because they have flashy computer graphics {remember how Final Fantasy, for all its cutting-edge CGI, tanked}, they succeed because they’re witty, well-written, and have strong characters. They’re accessible to children and adults for all the right reasons. Disney and Dreamworks conventionally animated movies don’t do well because they’re just bland, formulaic marketing exercises.
In contrast, conventional animation in Japan has never been stronger - I’m discounting anime, because I don’t know much about it {no foreigner living in Japan wastes time with it}, but the work of Hayao Miyazaki and his studio is immensely successful, on a popular and crictical level: Mononoke No Hime {The Princess Mononoke} outgrossed Titanic there, and Titanic in Japan was HUGE.
About as far removed from Disney blandness as you can imagine, but truly riveting stuff - check it out. Be warned, again, this stuff may not be suitable for very young kids - not because of sex or violence, but some of the material can be frightening and disturbing - as art often should be. Pokemon this ain’t, and no one will ever sell a Happy Meal off the back of it.
Even more hijacky goodness:
I really liked The Emperor’s New Groove, dammit! 
Best Disney movie evar!
“WRONG LEVEEEeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr!!!”
Whoda thunk David Spade could be funny?
We adored this movie when it came out, got it on VHS (it came with a mini-Iron Giant which still cheerfully perches on our computer),and plan to get it on DVD.
I just never got tired of the quirky characters, lovely animation, and symbolic but not overly instructive story.
My kids are 21 and 15 now and I bet I could get them to watch it with me on Thanksgiving Day.
And yeah, it’s definitely got that Princess Bride-cult-sleeper thing going on.
Something I just learned: it was written by Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath’s husband.
I’ve watched it many times, and will watch it many times more. One of my favorite movies of all time.
Can’t agree more strongly with this - the CGI animation is a thin layer of frosting on incredibly well-made cakes. With something like Final Fantasy, CGI is more like frosting on a turd. (sorry for the visual, but you get the idea)
Back to the OP, Iron Giant is one of my all-time faves, and my kids’, too. It has more heart than most movies out there. I completely agree with the Princess Bride comparison - both are movies that will endure.
I got on eBay and found a little 3- 4" Iron Giant action figure which is now one of my son’s favorite toys…
Usually I can watch a movie and a sad part will have me in tears. Take the scene in Dumbo, for example, where the mom sticks her nose out of the cage.
Then I heard about how great Iron Giant was so I watched it.
Nothing.
Nada.
Not one tear.
I didn’t even think it was all that great, really.
Go figure.
I thought it was a great movie right up until this point. For me, the last couple of minutes knocked it down from “Great” to “Eh, same ole crap.”