Oh, wow. Just so much wow. That was wild indeed!
That would be the tl;dr version, but I’d also add some more context.
Expectations#
I’m a very special person, considering watching all that media. Not your average Joe (nor Joey too). I’m not an arthouse person either. Maybe not just quite yet.
I don’t have time and energy for that now. And there’s a war happening all around us, you know. I’m not in the position to meditate upon too complicated cultural matters right now.
I watch all that popular shit Hollywood throws at us. I’m pretty much not addicted to watching all that, nor do I have any related habits. I have zero issues with, say, stopping the TV series in the middle on the random moment and come back to it a week later. My wife is not, she is the person who can finish the whole season overnight, and she won’t sleep if she has that episode unfinished. And I’m just trying to be supportive and tame that unreasonable consuming habit.
Before her, I could spend a year without watching a single thing. I just, how to place it in words, I’m not too much interested. To me, it’s all just second-rate by-products, they’re mass-market thing for normies. I apologise, my dear reader, if I offended you. Probably the issue with me, after all. That’s all my persception.
I’ve adapted, and turned out it’s not that complicated. Not at all. I don’t expect much. Possibly that’s some trauma. Possibly that’s the wisdom. Possibly both. I don’t have expectation to most of the things in life. Even my kids. (I hope that’ll make me a great father, otherwise I have very little to offer, unfortunately.)
I just know things will unfold how they unfold. I won’t say it’s fatalism, I don’t believe in that. Rather the opposite, I would say: I believe in the butterfly effect, and in chaos theory in general. I think psychologically I’m ready to anything. Some days a month, when the air alert is too aggressive, I’m considering I can be killed as much as my little kids and wife. There’s not much I can do about it, so in a way I embrace that fear and accept it too.
I embrace this state of having no expectations. If there is any shit happens, well, it happens, I need to deal with it. If something great happens, cool! I’m happy about it.
Sometimes it feels like I’m a bit broken, but mostly I enjoy this wisdom.
The Wild#
This movie was exactly like that. We watched no trailers and knew nothing before it happened. It was a spontaneous decision to watch it. It was like, ‘hey, let’s go watch this new motion picture’ and we were watching it within a couple of hours.
The therapeut suggested us to force Nadia watch new things, because she doesn’t like anything new, and that’s bad for a kid. Some days (and the days easily become months) she wants to watch Moana (2016), or Frozen (2013), or Zootopia (2016) if we’re lucky. When she was 1, she loved Klaus (2019) too much for a kid of her age.
It was a wild ride. Hnat, he was scared of the fox. He is easily scared, I hope I comfort him enough. He didn’t enjoy some parts of the movie, but at least he allowed us to watch it till the end. Nadia, hard to tell, she wasn’t too impressed either (not Moana!), but she wasn’t against it too.
For us, it was a shock. So. Good. It. Was.
No, really. I didn’t have any expectations, and it was destined to exceed them, obviously. Still, I have this ‘oh, it’s goona be shit, more likely’ attitude. Maybe, the wisdom isn’t just too developed in me, and instead of having no (literally, no) expectations, I have these expectations, and they’re mostly negative. Yeah, right, probably that’s more correct way of how I see Hollywood. Sorry for that pretensious attempt at playing a wise elder. I’m a negative grumpy old fart, who’s bubbling ‘oh, it’s gonna be shit, more likely!’
Dream Works#
And it’s DreamWorks. They gave us fantastic Shrek (2001), they gave us Madagascar (2005), and they gave us Kung-Fu Panda (2008). And How to Train Your Dragon (2010) too. And other great pictures too. But these three are just so popular, they’re a part of our shared culture. They’re cult-like, I’d even say.
They do make these works with a great sense of humour. Disney+Pixar, I’d say they have more money, yet many of their works are just too bad, too typical. Personally, I just hate this princesses parade of weirdness. My most hated movie is their The Little Mermaid (1989). It’s 35 years old, and I have this feeling it’s some dark ages, when women are just fucking property. I hate this movie for what it is, and its treat of these women. It’s our shared culture, and is engraved in many things, that’s correct. Yet, still, personally, I don’t like it. Not my cup of tea.
DreamWorks, I’d pick them over Disney+Pixar most times, for their sense of humour. (Not saying Disney has no great works, they’re just too disney-ish to me, too much.)
Yet, Disney was de-facto the founding father of all this world.
The Robot#
DreamWorks, yet my expectations were very low. And the movie exceeded these expectations so much.
Animation is just too good to be true. I would say that DreamWorks was way behind Disney on animation. It’s too obvious, they had very little resources compared to the conglomerate Disney is. Well, Disney is 71 years older, after all.
Looks like, in this department, the animation, you cannot compete any longer. Technologies are available, and there are plenty of great talents.
Deep meaning, though. Disney cannot compete on here, they’re too much restrained by their status, or their being too Disney themselves. There are absolutely fantastic works, Zootopia (2016), Soul (2020) to name a few. Yet, en-masse Disney is still Disney.
DreamWorks is different, as much as other new companies are.
- Take a look at Wolfwalkers (2020), it’s a fantastic work! It’s mostly unknown underdogs, Cartoon Saloon and Mélusine Productions.
- Also, check out their Song of the Sea (2014).
- The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022) is exceptionally good.
- I wrote a story about it.
- That Christmas (2024) is also very good. Not Disney, Locksmith Animation.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) is also not Disney.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
- and its sequel too, is even better! Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
- I wrote a story about both.
Disney is just unable to produce this level of love for their works. They’re good, sometimes they’re great, but they’re not exceptional. But their role is just different. They started this party.
The Wild Robot is just exceptional. And it’s not only the animation, it’s its plot too, the characters, the whole story. It’s just exceptional. I’d dare to say, it’s the best work of DreamWorks so far. All these 30 years, they were approaching this level of production, and they arrived at this point.
I have no intention to try to describe the story, it’s not even something too-complicated. It’s a story of an unusual parenting, and that’s it. Yet, this story is so beautiful, I’d put this work alongside other masterpieces.
Generally, I’d prefer to not spam this blog of mine with… things cinematography. As I’ve said before, I’m not that guy who respects all this too much. I can perfectly understand this industry from a business point of view, and that way I just adore it. I applause. But to me, it’s not art.
Yet, there are pictures that are must-see, so to say. Masterpieces. This is one of them.
I expect, it’ll never get this cult status, the one Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung-Fu Panda achieved. And How to train your dragon too, I just missed it. Yet, it’s a work of love, and it’s so very good, I’d like this story to live as one of my stories.
Thank you for your attention. If you have your chance, go visit this work in cinema. If you have not, it’s on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, and possibly some other streaming services.
I don’t know if it’ll get any awards, I think it should. Although, as I’ve said before, I have no expectations here. (As if I even cared.) I think, I just too disappointed in this industry to care. To me, it’s all mostly unnecessary noise.
It’s exceptional, and I believe it’s the best work DreamWorks produced so far.
Reply by Email