THE IRON GIANT (1999) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | MOVIE REACTION

In the words of Ted Lasso “around the 75 minute mark, there's gonna be a room full of grown men crying.”

After the box office failure of an animated movie called Quest for Camelot, Warner Bros. decided to shut down its animated film department. The Iron Giant was still in production at the time, so the animators had to finish the film with a skeleton crew and a shortened production schedule. The studio planned to just dump the film into theaters and write it off, but the film received high scores from test audiences (the highest the studio had received since The Right Stuff). The studio executives were not prepared to advertise the film in time for its theatrical release. So instead, they aggressively promoted its VHS release in November of ‘99. That’s where most kids first saw it.

I like how Brad Bird didn't fall into the lazy trap of portraying General Rogard as a psychotic Buck Turgidson clone. A lot of directors would've portrayed him as a paranoid warmonger who shoots first and asks questions never, but Bird instead portrayed him as an intelligent and grounded man just trying to do his job of protecting his country the best he can with the information he is given (which is deliberately falsified by Mansley, the ACTUAL paranoid McCarthyism analogue).

I´m a 33 year old man who has seen this movie many times and I have no problem saying that I cry to this movie every time I see it when the Iron Giants sacrifices himself. Not because it´s sad, but because it´s one of the purest depictions of what we can all accomplish. He is a creation of war and yet he fights his very nature as said war machine because he wants to be much better. He wants to be Superman! And just like the Iron Giant, we can all strive to be better than what we are. Beautiful movie with a beautiful message!

Mansley's a jerk, but even more so, he's a STOOOOPID jerk. "Where's the robot, Mansley?!" That really cracked me up the first time I watched this movie. RIP, John Mahoney/General Rogard. You left behind a magnificent legacy.

“What if a gun had a soul?” “You are who you choose to be.” … Superman. 😭

Brad Bird directed this along with The Incredibles and MI Ghost Protocol. When he closed eyes and says "Superman" just before he hits the nuclear missile, I always cry.

24:20 There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

My two favorite jokes in this movie both involve Dean. 1: Dean: "I wish I could pay you more, but it's got this... big... bite... out of it." Man: "Yeah, that's why I'm selling it. Because it has a big bite out of it." 2: (After Dean gets washed away by the Giant's tidal wave from jumping in the lake, he floats away in his chair and comes to rest on a road. A driver comes by.) Driver: "Hey!" Dean: "Yeah?" Driver: "You're in the middle of the road! Dean: "Yeah?!" Driver: "...Okay."

“Where’s the giant, Mansley?!?!” lives rent-free in my brain.