Summary
DreamWorks’ upcoming movie, The Wild Robot, is poised to elicit tears from viewers, resembling a Pixar release with its emotional depth.
The trailer for The Wild Robot showcases dialogue-free footage, emphasizing the touching and devastating journey of the title character.
The film’s poignant and sincere tone, reminiscent of Pixar movies like WALL-E, signals a potential shift in DreamWorks’ traditional irreverent style.
While DreamWorks might be more associated with comedy than tragedy, its upcoming movie, The Wild Robot, seems destined to have viewers crying in the aisles – more akin to a Pixar release. When DreamWorks and Pixar became the twin titans of 3D animation in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the two studios defined their output in opposition to each other. Pixar and DreamWorks have both produced a range of projects that varied in terms of tone, but the best Pixar movies are associated with sincerity, sentimentality, and a sadder, more thoughtful approach than many animated family movies.
In contrast, the most popular DreamWorks movies are comparatively zany and cartoony. From the Shrek franchise to the Madagascar movies to the Trolls series, DreamWorks became known for goofier, sillier, more traditional, fun-focused blockbusters. Even occasional outliers like The Prince of Egypt can’t shift the perception that Pixar is the company who devastated audiences with Up, while DreamWorks made Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. However, the trailer for 2024’s The Wild Robot suggests DreamWorks is set to demolish this perceived difference between the two studios.
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DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot Already Looks Emotionally Devastating
The Wild Robot’s trailer alone proves it will be a tearjerker
Based on the book of the same name by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot follows a robot who acclimates to nature when he is stranded on an uninhabited island. In an undeniably bold choice, the trailer for The Wild Robot is an almost dialogue-free teaser of the title character’s journey through the island and his attempts to acclimate to its environment. While it might arrive over a decade after Pixar’s sci-fi movie, The Wild Robot has the same touching tone as Wall-E, judging by its promotional materials, and looks just as devastating as Pixar’s sci-fi classic.
The trailer doesn’t feature a single joke, but it does include a heartbreaking vignette wherein the eponymous robot locates an abandoned bird’s nest, finds an egg, nurses the chick that hatches from the egg, and then has to bid a bittersweet farewell to the fully grown bird as it migrates away from the island with its flock. The Wild Robot’s trailer alone could get viewers tearing up, which is a big departure for DreamWorks.
Pixar Usually Relies On Sad Moments More Than DreamWorks
DreamWorks isn’t known for its tragedy
Although every DreamWorks movie has its sad beats, the studio is not known for prioritizing tragic stories. Some of the most underrated DreamWorks movies, like Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, are forgotten partially because they stick out among the studio’s back catalog of titles like Shark Tale, Over The Hedge, and other outlandish children’s comedies. While Pixar has developed a reputation for infusing family films with a surprising degree of pathos, many of the most popular DreamWorks movies share a self-aware sense of humor and a flippant narrative voice that subverts audience expectations.
Shrek became a hit precisely because its crude humor and few heart-rending moments were in opposition to the Pixar blend of action, melodrama, tragedy, and comic relief. Shrek’s winking self-referential humor can be seen in other DreamWorks releases from Mr. Peabody and Sherman to Megamind, and carried over to franchises like Kung Fu Panda. While not as overtly silly as its earlier releases, modern DreamWorks is markedly less sad than Andy’s toys almost getting incinerated in Toy Story 3, or Bing Bong sacrificing himself in Inside Out.
Pixar’s knack for emotional devastation has taken a backseat with more recent movies. Amid a period of controversial Disney+ premieres, critical misfires, and mixed box office, Pixar has not delivered a truly hard-hitting emotional moment that resonates through popular culture for at least five years. The last example was perhaps Woody and Buzz’s parting scene from Toy Story 4.
The Wild Robot Already Feels Like A Pixar Movie
DreamWorks’ next movie has the tone of a Pixar release
Not only is the movie’s story close to Wall-E’s in thematic and narrative terms, but The Wild Robot feels like a Pixar movie because of its sincere, touching tone. DreamWorks has struggled at the box office in recent years, so this pivot makes sense. Ruby Gilman, Teenage Kraken failed to find an audience, despite embracing the zany visual stylings and over-the-top humor of earlier DreamWorks releases, so The Wild Robot offering a more sedate story is an understandable experiment. Spirit and The Prince of Egypt prove that DreamWorks can successfully deliver more serious stories.
The simplicity of The Wild Robot’s poignant plot also feels more like Pixar than DreamWorks, and this could mark a major shift in the tone of the studio’s future output. If The Wild Robot proves successful, DreamWorks may produce more movies that abandon the irreverent tone long associated with its animated adventures, and move toward the kind of tear-jerking fare Pixar is – or was – renowned for.
The Wild Robot (2024)
Director Chris Sanders
Release Date September 20, 2024
Studio(s) Dreamworks
Cast Lupita Nyong’o , Pedro Pascal , Catherine O’Hara , Bill Nighy , Kit Connor , Stephanie Hsu , Mark Hamill , Matt Berry , Ving Rhames