• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Iron Giant: An Alternate Take From The Target Audience By Katie Hartlove (almost 12) The Iron Giant is a great movie. It is told it still makes sense today. People are paranoid it’s not just *bang* oh well I broke my face. (I from the point of view of a boy my age named – we always think there’s something out to get should know because I’ve hit my head on low Hogarth. Hogarth finds a giant robot from out- us, even though there’s not. And then this out hanging branches too.) er space, and the two become best friends. of this world thing shows up and we don’t know The Iron Giant is one of my favorite The robot is like a big six year old. Hogarth what to do with it, so we go bang-bang and it movies. It has a good moral. The robot sacrific- has to teach it to do everything, like speak, not gets mad. Instead, we should try to befriend it. es itself to save his friends and even the people to freak out if he sees people, and to stay away The animation in this movie is very real- who wanted to blow him up. I like the ending from towns, because people will freak out. In istic, kind of like you’re looking through a win- that they gave it more than if it just ended with return, the robot teaches Hogarth that putting dow into a world that is made of cartoons. They the robot blowing itself up, however. other people’s needs ahead of your own wants actually put color and texture on the trees and I recommend it to anyone who likes sci- is sometimes important. on the metal. Even when Hogarth hits his head ence fiction movies about children and their Even though the movie is set in the 1950s, on a tree, the branch shakes and there’s blood, strange friends. Letter Graded Mail Sent to [email protected] By Our Gentle Readers Loc to Drink Tank 328, 26 Oct 2012 … with one big, glaring exception. Mind you, this was not too huge a plot From Taral Wayne! The sacrifice of the Iron Giant at the end hole to fix. A little tinkering with the script makes no sense whatever. Only moments be- earlier to establish that the Iron Giant couldn’t If there’s nothing else you have in com- fore, he has shown ample potential for destruc- help being what he is – that, even knowing it was mon with Marc Schirmeister, the fanartist, it’s that tion at a distance. Why did he choose to collide wrong to kill, he was designed as a weapon and you both have a reaction to The Iron Giant that with the incoming ICBM and sacrifice himself would always be one – would have explained approximates that of having eaten tainted meat when he could have simply laser-phasered it out sacrificing himself needlessly. His collision in a lunch cafeteria. Schirm hates that movie – of existence, without ever leaving the ground? course with the missile removed both threats along with a few others – to a degree I’ve never Think about it. A child is chasing a ball into traf- to the people below – the Iron Giant as well as understood. When I’ve asked him about it, his fic and you could grab him by the arm to stop the nuclear missile. Instead of mumbling “Super- reasons never seem to amount to anything. For him, or you could jump out in front of the on- man” to himself, he might have said something instance, Dean, the Beatnik artist in the scrap- coming bus. Both would save the child, I sup- more meaningful, like “I am just a weapon too.” yard, is out of his period – that sort of Karouac pose, but … Or maybe, “I yam what I yam, and that’s Beat is more in character with the early 1950s, all what I yam.” according to Schirm, than with 1957. Or may- What can I say? Animation is full of be it was because the right period for that sort missed opportunities. of Beatnik was the early ‘60s. I dunno. A knife In defense of the Iron Giant – a film I like switch that Hogarth uses to turn off the power very much for its period-feel and design – it must transformer in which the Iron Giant has gotten be pointed out that there were quite a lot of tangled isn’t the right kind of switch, said Schirm, details it did get right. I don’t know about knife and furthermore, it wouldn’t be out in the open, switches in power substations, but I do know where any kid could come along and plunge half that those warships out in the bay were specifi- the county into darkness like that. Schirm may cally Baltimore class heavy cruisers. The tanks have a point about whether that switch – what- were accurate Pattons or Pershings. And while ever sort it might be – would be so easy to get the film might have filled the air with any generic at, but it seems a minor cavil to me. Schirm’s fighter planes, the jets scrambled to attack the other points seemed to grew weaker after those Iron Giant were all-weather interceptor models of the Sabrejet, the F-86D. By 1957, the Sabre the diagnosis, Sailor could not have been treated, incidents. I still had an apartment that smelled was a second-line defense aircraft mainly oper- so she would have had to be put down. That like a public urinal, but that too had a solution. ating from National Guard units throughout the alone might cost $75 to $100. Her only chance, I paid rather handsomely for that solution – an country – a day fighter model such as the F-86C then, was to have nothing wrong with her. So enzyme spray cleaner – and used about half the would have been wrong because of the snow. that became my first hypothesis. bottle on my bed and chairs. It took several It’s interesting that a single film can pro- Eventually, I worked out a second hy- applications, but I’m happy to say that my apart- voke such radically different reactions in so pothesis – that she didn’t like the new cat litter. ment has returned to its usual musty, stale, dirty- many viewers. Me, in most respects I’d put the It wasn’t the brand I usually get, and I had laundry odour. Iron Giant up there in lights with Cats Don’t no idea what I had bought. Instead of ground The old dame is dancing yet. Dance. (Incidentally, Schirm hates Cats Don’t up bits of clay, which is all most that cat litter is, To my readers, my next contribution to Dance too.) the new stuff was made from recycled newsprint Drink Tank will be the 99th. While I don’t al- So, even though my reasons for disliking The bag read “environmentally friendlly.” So far, together know what I’m writing for it, the title it are much more emotional than logi- so good. I pictured little bits of compressed pa- is “99 Down and 1 to Go.” Number 100, of cal, I KNEW there were massive logical per, ground-up, similar to other cat litter. But course, will have to be something Very Special. problems! I finally saw Cats Don’t Dance this stuff was pressed and formed into noodles, Awesome! I can’t wait to see it! Also, (after your piece on it!) and I thought about the same size and shape as something there is no phrase I thought I’d say less that it was pretty good! you’d boil, add pasta sauce and serve with mush- frequently than “I’m glad your cat is no From the moment I sent you “Troubled rooms! It was horrible! It got wet and never longer peeing all over the place...” Waters,” I knew I’d have to loc my own article. dried, forcing the user to dispose of it right away How could I just leave the readers hanging in the – so much for cutting down on waste. It also And now we start with Mr. Eric Mayer! air about Sailor’s fate? Did she stop peeing on wouldn’t flush down the toilet, so I had to keep a Chris, my stuff, or was my optimism misplaced? plastic bag of stinking, green piss-noodles in the Okay now, imagine this. Here’s a real true Unfortunately, she didn’t stop. There bathroom – at a time when Toronto has passed blooded sf fan. Goes to the Worldcon. Loves were repeated incidents, in which I dismissed a by-law to phase out plastic shopping bags. I Doctor Who. Reads all the Hugo nominated one speculative explanation after another. Prov- could see I’d end up having to buy bags to throw novels, sees all the new sf movies. So this fan for identially, one fan I was in touch with – Sheryl away, too. The whole business was growing more the first time ventures to eFanzines to down- Birkhead – is also a veteranarian, and she spent “environmentally hostile” by the minute. From load a zine by the illustrious Christopher Garcia, a great deal of her time gathering information Sailor’s point of view, I suppose the paper kitty Hugo award winner, and behind the enticing ro- for me, and finding ways I might have Sailor litter must have been like walking on a surface of bot cover he finds that long time staple of sci- tested for feline leukemia, diabetes, bladder or rolling pencils, not to mention that she couldn’t ence fiction -- an essay about an incontinent cat! kidney infections, and possibly even alien pos- dig in them very well, or bury her scat.

Load more

  8

Copy Link