From The Iron Giant, to Wall-E, to Big Hero 6, there's just something about a good animated robot movie that never fails to get us right in the feels. And it's a trend that looks set to continue with writer-director Chris Sanders' upcoming DreamWorks animation The Wild Robot, which sees domesticated droid Roz (Lupita Nyong'o) crash-land on a remote island and learning to make friends with the local wildlife, including adorable, Kit Connor voiced gosling orphan Brightbill and wily fox Fink (Pedro Pascal). Check out the beautiful new trailer for the film below;
Having co-directed both Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon, Sanders' uncanny knack for emotionally charged, anthropomorphic storytelling is on full display once again here. In this latest trailer, which really shows off DreamWorks' painterly approach to adapting Peter Brown's 2016 children's novel, the deeply expressive eyes of the otherwise near-featureless Roz and the playful physicality of her new woodland pals conjures fond memories of Stitch and Toothless. But in suffusing the technological with the ecological here — and introducing an intriguing parent-child dynamic between Roz and Brightbill — Sanders looks to be pushing his storytelling in bold new directions, offering up a journey of self-discovery that intersects with a timely exploration of what it means to be truly connected in a world increasingly cut off from nature. And if that sounds a little heavy, there's also Pedro Pascal, as a fox, booting a baby gosling into a pond for comic pratfalls too!
Here's the official synopsis for the film: "The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling."
Alongside Nyong'o, Pascal, and Connor, The Wild Robot's all-star voice cast also includes *deep breath* Catherine O'Hara, Stephanie Hsu, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Ving Rhames, and Matt Berry (!). Be sure to stock up on tissues for when The Wild Robot arrives in UK cinemas on 18 October — we learnt our lesson with Baymax!