THE IRON GIANT (1999) **1/2 The players on the first Little League baseball team that I ever coached decided to be called the Giants. That reminded one of them of this film, so they decided Iron Giants would be even better. When our sponsors sent our uniforms they read: "Lions." And so we were the Iron Giant Lions! Yea!! So this is a film that inspired youthful baseball players, with its old style built-to-last feeling animation and cool '50s soundtrack. It also has some interesting commentary on the American government of that era, profound only in the sense that the obvious can be. It's enough to make you worry what author Ted Hughes talked about to his wife Sylvia Plath, and it takes a great to make me wonder anything much about Ms. Plath. In fact this story, The Iron Man, was written to comfort his children after the death of their mother. I understand that Mr. Hughes was more "renowned for violent, foreboding poems on animals." Figures, I guess. But a step removed, there's something foreboding about this violent tale as well: idiotic assholes are attracted to the power of government, nuclear weapons do exist, but benevolent iron giants from space are nowhere to be found. Could affect the dynamic of the story.
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