The Hotdog Laserhouse

It has been many years since I have seen The Iron Giant. Or at least, all the way through. I do remember enjoying it, and it has kind of the hallmarks of a Brad Bird animated feature - I absolutely loved Pixar’s The Incredibles, and that’s got a lot of the same kind of feel to it - it’s the sort of movie that as you realize you’re growing up and becoming older, that it doesn’t treat you like a kid.

There’s a really great scene in The Incredibles where Helen pulls her kids aside and basically warns them that this isn’t a cartoon and that the bad guys out there will kill them if they’re allowed the opportunity to. “Don’t give them that chance,” she tells them. That’s not just an important scene for Dash and Violet, it’s an important scene to the audience. It is a gesture of respect to all parties involved. Brad Bird is saying, “I know you’re all mature enough to know that these characters are in legitimate danger now.”

The Iron Giant is a lot like that, too. It’s this weird subset of kids movies that doesn’t pull punches, which I think has two effects:

1. It makes kids feel more grown up by providing them with content that has a heightened sense of danger and drama over what they commonly see.
2. It makes adults feel like kids again (in a good way) by providing them with content that, while for kids, is still similarly engaging.

I really need to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (I’m borrowing the DVD from a friend), because I bet that’s pretty cool, too. Brad Bird seems like a smart dude. Hope he does another cartoon again some day.

Chiptunes are okay. I am not a chiptune fanatic or anything though, every now and then I will find the odd chiptune pretty catchy.