Among the Movies of My Childhood: The Iron Giant

What more could a young film fan want?

My brother recently told me he was trying to get tickets to an in-theater screening of the film The Iron Giant (directed by Brad Bird, screenplay by Tim McCanlies and Bird, screen story by Bird). I also saw articles about the film online over the past few weeks. That’s when it hit me: The Iron Giant turns twenty-five years old this year.

Life comes at you fast.

The film was always on television when I was younger, and I often caught the second half of it. Through bits and pieces, I eventually watched the whole thing. What’s amazing is that, at such a young age, I loved so much about the film, but I adored the film even more as I got older and revisited it. A lot of the complexities and details in the film were lost on me when I was so young. In this way, it is a classic example of a film that can move children and adults. Certain aspects resonate with both age groups, while other elements impact one group more than the other.

In other words, it’s timeless.

The animation is incredible and part of the reason I was so into the film as a child. It’s clean and elegant while also being expressive and dynamic. The character models are perfect. Protagonist Hogarth (Eli Marienthal) has wide eyes and a big smile, conveying the young boy’s innocence and optimism. The artist Dean (Harry Connick Jr.) who becomes Hogarth’s surrogate father exudes a cool attitude and also carries a worldly wisdom. Hogarth’s mother Annie (Jennifer Aniston) conveys warmth and care, and she also gives the sense of having the weight of the world on her shoulders raising her son all by himself, especially when he gets involved in extraterrestrials and government investigations. On that note, the government agent who comes to Hogarth’s town after a strange object lands from the sky, Kent (Christopher McDonald) is scary. He has such piercing eyes; he’s like the strict father a child could never find a respite from.

Then, of course, is the titular Iron Giant (Vin Diesel). He’s a robot from outer space. The film uses CGI animation for the Giant in a way that sets him apart from his surroundings, but his design integrates him. His bolts and panels across his human-shaped body are cool in the way that a superhero’s costume is cool. His design excites the imagination, begging the questions of who made him and where he came from. The question of where he belongs is a central one to the story and is resolved by the end. But, his face, with his perfectly circular eyes and square jaw, is so childlike. How can you not love him? 

The story, at its heart, is about the loving friendship between Hogarth and the Giant. Their bond endures even through the forces trying to tear them apart. This includes the government, fearful of the Giant’s origins. This also includes the Giant’s programming; he has been designed as a weapon, and his destructive capabilities come online at different moments in the movie in response to different stressors.

The film’s theme that love can redeem you hit me when I was young, but I wouldn’t have used those words to describe the theme. I would have described the theme as one of sacrifice and heroism. The climax of the film has Kent angrily ordering a missile to launch at the Giant. Hogarth explains that the missile will also kill everyone in the town when it lands. The Giant sacrifices himself, flying into the sky to intercept the missile. Earlier in the film, Hogarth shares his comic books with the Giant, who becomes inspired by Superman. The Giant understands his sacrifice is something Superman would do.

The ending does have a positive final beat, with a sequence showing that the Giant has survived and is repairing himself. I remember the final shot being of his big, bright eyes.

The endearing characters, awesome robot, and fun action scenes all excited me as a child. It had everything I could want in a film.

As I grew older, I came to understand that the film takes place during the Cold War. The fear that Kent embodies can be mapped onto the paranoia and prejudice of that time. His fear is the fear of anyone who is considered different, foreign, other. The film, I’ve learned, can be seen as a story of love and trust triumphing over prejudice.

Furthermore, Kent’s horrific actions can be interpreted as a critique of those who abuse their power. There’s a chilling scene in which he questions Hogarth to learn about the Giant and ends up using chloroform to knock the boy out. 

The fact that the film takes place during the Cold War means that the missile launched at the end is a nuclear bomb. When I learned that, the ending carried a newer, heavier dramatic weight. The fact that Kent orders the nuke to be launched even though doing so would end his life can be read as a warning about the danger of nuclear proliferation and as a call for disarmament.

I also came to see the film as one of the best Superman stories ever made. The Giant, like Superman, is from outer space. Hogarth teaches the Giant that we are who we choose to be, and that the Giant can choose to be the weapon he has been designed to be or to be a hero. In this way, he also echoes Superman. Superman is a hero not because he is powerful, but because he uses his powers to help people.

Therefore, my appreciation of the film grew as my knowledge of its subject matter increased.

However, the most recent time I watched the film, I was home during break from college, and I was sobbing at the end. My brother was, too. I couldn’t understand my tears. I usually don’t cry in movies. Also, I had seen the ending so many times. I knew the Giant survives.

Maybe, because I was much older, the concept of death, something that I think is always unfathomable, became a bit more understood. Its finality, its absolute inevitability, weighed more on my mind because I was older and had lived more. Dead is dead, I more clearly comprehended.

The presence of death permeates the film, both in the atmosphere of the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over the characters, and in the particular details of the characters’ lives. Hogarth’s father, Annie’s husband, has passed away before the start of the film. There are details indicating that Hogarth’s father was a pilot. In the film, whenever Hogarth needs to muster courage, he wears a pilot’s helmet; this may very well be a helmet that once belonged to his dad.

In a pivotal scene, Hogarth and the Giant interrupt hunters who have killed a deer. The Giant doesn’t understand what has happened and tries to gently nudge the deer so the deer will move. Hogarth has to explain that the deer is dead, that it was killed by a gun.

Indeed, it is Hogarth’s own perceived death that causes the Giant to unleash his weapons and wreak havoc. It is Hogarth, not dead but having recovered from losing consciousness resulting from the military attacking him and the Giant, who inspires his friend to stop fighting. The Giant says, “I am not a gun.” He chooses not to be an agent of death.

The weight of the Giant’s decision to accept death in order to save those he loves, to die so that Hogarth, Dean, Annie, and their town would survive, wrecked me during my most recent full viewing. It’s hard to imagine a greater act of love than trading one’s life for someone else’s. At that moment, he doesn’t expect to survive. I was able to imagine his feelings as he leaves his beloved ones behind and flies into the sky, and I shed tears.

This film possesses magnificent depths. On one hand, it’s a great sci-fi story. On top of that, it’s an animated period piece that serves as a love letter to American pulp fiction of the middle of the twentieth century, to the books and comics with superheroes, spies, aliens, and robots. It’s also a warning against war and a condemnation of nuclear weapons.

It’s a navigation of the deepest aspects of life, which includes love and death.

This is a classic film, and I’m grateful it filled the airwaves during my childhood. I think many of the messages that I wasn’t consciously picking up on in my childhood still reached me somehow. Every return I’ve made to this film has had the sweetness of nostalgia and memory without the sadness or regret over time’s passing.

That might be because, as thoughtful and wise as the film is, it’s still optimistic. It’s aware of the sadder and more painful aspects of life, and through reckoning with them, it still asserts that love prevails.

Here’s to this film’s legacy lasting twenty-five more years, and beyond.