The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated science fiction film using both traditional animation and computer animation, produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation (which is now called Warner Animation Group), and based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. It is the fourth Warner Animation Group film and was directed by Brad Bird, scripted by Tim McCanlies, and stars Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald, and John Mahoney.

The film's development phase began around 1994, though the project finally started taking root once Bird signed on as director, and his hiring of Tim McCanlies to write the screenplay in 1996. The script was given approval by Ted Hughes, author of the original novel, and production struggled through difficulties (Bird even enlisted the aid of a group of students from CalArts). The Iron Giant was released by Warner Bros. in the summer of 1999 and received high critical praise. It was nominated for several awards that most notably included the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Nebula Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The film was a box office bomb, making only $31.3 million worldwide against a budget of $70 million. An extended cut of the film, titled the Signature Edition, was announced on July 7, 2015 for a limited US theatrical release in September.

Plot
In October 1957, shortly after the Russian satellite Sputnik is put into orbit around Earth, an enormous robot from outer space crashes into the ocean near Rockwell, Maine. During the stormy night, a sailor Earl Stutz who is out at sea on the Crawler Annabelle crashes into the robot and after he got washed to the shore. In the morning, nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes visits the Chat-N-Chew diner where his widowed mother Annie works, who is on the case of her son bringing stray animals into their home, following the previous incident with a raccoon. This time, Hogarth has brought a squirrel, which he kept in a box, but it escaped, prompting Hogarth to look for it and comes across a beatnik artist Dean McCoppin who tries to stick up for Earl Stutz who is being ridiculed when he tries to explain to his friends that he saw a giant robot. Eventually, Dean found the squirrel when it went up his pant leg, forcing him to unzip his pants to let it out, causing chaos in the diner.

After returning home, Hogarth gets a phone call from his mother who is going to be working late tonight and instructs him to not to watch scary movies, or eat any late snacks and be in bed by 8 pm. However, Hogarth ignores his mother's instructions and watches a science-fiction film on the TV, but after hearing something on the roof, the TV goes static. Hogarth soon discovers that the TV antenna has been bitten off from the roof and tracks down the footprints into the forest leading to a power station and the giant robot. As it begins eating the power-lines of an electrical substation and electrocutes itself, but Hogarth shuts down the power, saving the robot, and returns home after being picked by his worried-struck mother when she finds him not there at home and even disbelieves her son's story about seeing a giant robot.

The following day, because of the incident at the power station, a paranoid U.S. Government agent Kent Mansley arrives at the scene and after incredulously taking down notes from the foreman Marv Loach, Mansley loses his car and is convinced that The next day, Hogarth returns into the forest to find the robot and take a picture. After hours of waiting, the robot surprises Hogarth, who soon befriends him by dropping the power switch in front of Hogarth as gratitude for saving his life. Suffering amnesia, the Iron Giant accompanies Hogarth wherever he goes. When they come across a railroad, the Giant starts eating the rails. Hearing an oncoming train, Hogarth tells the Giant to repair the tracks. As he does, the train collides, breaking him into pieces. The Giant's parts start to reassemble, and Hogarth hides the damaged robot in his house's barn, where the parts can repair themselves.

Mansley arrives at Hogarth's home to use a telephone to report the incidents to General Rogard, who then laughs them off. Mansley soon realizes that Hogarth is connected to the giant upon finding the Hogarth's BB gun earlier in the power station. Later, after dinner with his mother, Hogarth reads comic books to the Giant. The Giant is impressed with Superman, but discovers the comic 'Atomo the Metal Menace.' Hogarth reassures the Giant, "you are who you choose to be". Seeing that the giant is hungry, Hogarth takes him out that night and eventually takes the Giant to the junkyard of Dean McCoppin, for shelter. Dean refuses at first, but reluctantly agrees. Hogarth is shocked to find that Mansley takes a room for rent at Hogarth's home and follows the boy around, hoping to learn more. Hogarth evades Mansley by secretly sprinkling coca-lax into his sundae and after spending fun and games with the giant, Hogarth soon had to discuss "death" with the Giant after they witness hunters shoot a stag in the forest.

That night, Mansley abducts Hogarth and interrogates about the giant's whereabouts by showing him evidence of photos that Hogarth took earlier from his camera which he dropped in the forest. After Hogarth is forced to reveal the giant's location, Mansley alerts the U.S. Army to the presence of the Giant and keeps an eye on Hogarth in his bedroom to stop him from warning Dean. After a long stare-off during the night, Hogarth eventually warns Dean and when Mansley and Rogard, backed by Army troops, force the investigation, Dean reveals the robot disguised as his scrap-metal artwork. Rogard furiously calls Mansley out for wasting his time, as well as the government's money, Kent is then fired from his position and he and the rest of the army leave. Later, Hogarth plays with the Giant using a toy gun, which automatically activates the Giant's weaponry. Dean saves Hogarth and demands the Giant to leave. Thinking the Giant never meant any harm, Hogarth runs after him. Dean finds the toy gun and realizes the Giant was only reacting defensively. He catches up with Hogarth with his motorbike as the Giant reaches town.

In Rockwell, the Giant saves two boys from falling to their death, to the amazement of witnesses. Meanwhile, Mansley is slowly driving back to Washington in defeat when he discovers the giant is in town and alerts the Army troops who then see the Giant, return, and attack while requesting Navy and Air Force support. The Giant flies away with Hogarth and even though being attacked by a USAF F-86, the Giant kept his original programming from taking over. However, after he was shot down, the Giant mistakenly believes the unconscious Hogarth is dead. The Giant becomes both saddened and enraged over Hogarth's death. He activates his energy weapons and battles the completely outmatched Army. Mansley lies to Rogard that the Giant killed Hogarth and suggests he can be destroyed at sea with a nuclear missile from the USS Nautilus. Hogarth wakes up and calms the Giant, causing him to deactivate his weapons. As Mansley keeps telling Rogard to attack, Dean says the Giant never harmed anyone. Seeing Hogarth alive, Rogard has the Army stand down, but before he can tell the Nautilus the same thing, a panicked Mansley grabs the radio and orders the missile launch without thinking. Furious, Rogard reminds Mansley that the missile, currently targeted on the Giant, will also kill them and everyone in Rockwell. When Mansley cowardly attempts to flee, the Giant stops him, allowing the Army to arrest Mansley and force him to stay and die with them. Hogarth tells the Giant of Rockwell's impending fate and the Giant bids a sad farewell to Hogarth before making the decision to fly off, smiling to himself that he chooses to be Superman. The Giant intercepts the missile, causing a massive explosion high in the atmosphere. The townspeople and soldiers are all very relieved to have survived, but the Giant's apparent selfless sacrifice leaving them, especially Hogarth devastated.

Sometime later, Annie and Dean are dating and Dean has built a statue in the park to honor the Giant. Hogarth receives a package from Rogard, a small bolt, the only piece of the Giant ever found. That night, Hogarth hears a familiar beeping coming from the bolt, which is trying to get out of the window. Remembering that the giant is self-repairing, he opens the window to let the bolt out. Somewhere on the Langjökull Glacier in Iceland, parts of the Giant approach where his head rests. The Giant wakes up and smiles.

Voice cast

 * Eli Marienthal as Hogarth Hughes, an energetic and curious boy with an active imagination.
 * Jennifer Aniston as Annie Hughes, a widow and Hogarth's single mother.
 * Harry Connick, Jr. as Dean McCoppin, a beatnik artist and junkyard owner.
 * Vin Diesel as The Iron Giant, a fifty-foot, metal-eating robot. The Giant involuntarily reacts defensively if he recognizes anything as a weapon, immediately attempting to destroy it. The specific creator of the giant is never revealed. In a deleted scene, he has a brief vision of similar robots destroying a different planet. Peter Cullen was considered to do the voice.
 * Christopher McDonald as Kent Mansley, an arrogant, ambitious and paranoid government agent sent to investigate sightings of the Iron Giant. The logo on his official government car says he is from the "Bureau of Unexplained Phenomena."
 * John Mahoney as General Shannon Rogard, the military leader in Washington, D.C. who strongly dislikes Mansley.
 * M. Emmet Walsh as Earl Stutz, a sailor and the first man to see the robot.
 * James Gammon as Marv Loach, a foreman who follows the robot's trail after it destroys the power station.
 * Cloris Leachman as Mrs. Tensedge, Hogarth's schoolteacher.
 * Hans Zimmer, Paul Eiding, Phil Proctor and Bob Bergen as United States Army
 * Mary Kay Bergman, Sherry Lynn, Michael Bird, Bill Farmer, Jennifer Darling, Mickie McGowan and Rodger Bumpass as Additional voices
 * Jack Angel as Atomic Holocaust Narrator
 * Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston as the Train Engineers

Development
The origins of the film lie in the book The Iron Man (1968), by poet Ted Hughes, who wrote the novel for his children. In the 1980s, rock musician Pete Townshend chose to adopt the book for a concept album; it was released as The Iron Man: A Musical in 1989. In 1991, Richard Bazley, who later became the film's lead animator, pitched a version of The Iron Man to Don Bluth while working at his studio in Ireland. He created a story outline and character designs but Bluth passed on the project. After a stage musical was mounted in London, Des McAnuff, who had adapted Tommy with Townshend for the stage, believed that The Iron Man could translate to the screen, and the project was ultimately acquired by Warner Bros. Entertainment.

In late 1996, while developing the project on its way through, the studio saw the film as a perfect vehicle for Brad Bird, who at the time was working for Turner Feature Animation developing Ray Gunn. Turner Entertainment had recently merged with Warner Bros. parent company Time Warner, and Bird was allowed to transfer to the Warner Bros. Animation studio to direct The Iron Giant. After reading the original Iron Man book by Hughes, Bird was impressed with the mythology of the story and in addition, was given an unusual amount of creative control by Warner Bros. This creative control involved introducing two new characters not present in the original book, Dean and Kent, setting the film in America, and discarding Townshend's musical ambitions (who did not care either way, reportedly remarking, "Well, whatever, I got paid"). Bird's pitch to Warner Bros. was based around the idea "What if a gun had a soul?" He expanded upon his desire to set the film in America in the 1950s in a later interview:


 * “The Maine setting looks Norman Rockwell idyllic on the outside, but inside everything is just about to boil over; everyone was scared of the bomb, the Russians, Sputnik —even rock and roll. This clenched Ward Cleaver smile masking fear (which is really what the Kent character was all about). It was the perfect environment to drop a 50- foot-tall robot into.”

Ted Hughes, the original story's author, died before the film's release. His daughter, Frieda Hughes, did see the finished film on his behalf and loved it. Pete Townshend, who this project originally started with, enjoyed the final film as well.

Writing and direction
Tim McCanlies was hired to write the script, though Bird was somewhat displeased with having another writer on board, as he wanted to write the screenplay himself. He later changed his mind after reading McCanlies' then-unproduced screenplay for Secondhand Lions. In Bird's original story treatment, America and the USSR were at war at the end, with the Giant dying. McCanlies decided to have a brief scene displaying his survival, stating, "You can't kill E.T. and then not bring him back." McCanlies finished the script within two months. McCanlies was given a three-month schedule to complete a script, and it was by way of the film's tight schedule that Warner Bros. "didn't have time to mess with us" as McCanlies said. The question of the Giant's backstory was purposefully ignored as to keep the story focused on his relationship with Hogarth. Bird considered the story difficult to develop due to its combination of unusual elements, such as "paranoid fifties sci-fi movies with the innocence of something like The Yearling." Hughes himself was sent a copy of McCanlies' script and sent a letter back, saying how pleased he was with the version. In the letter, Hughes stated, "I want to tell you how much I like what Brad Bird has done. He’s made something all of a piece, with terrific sinister gathering momentum and the ending came to me as a glorious piece of amazement. He’s made a terrific dramatic situation out of the way he’s developed The Iron Giant. I can’t stop thinking about it."

Bird combined his knowledge from his years in television to direct his first feature. He credited his time working on Family Dog as essential to team-building, and his tenure on The Simpsons as an example of working under strict deadlines. He was open to others on his staff to help develop the film; he would often ask crew members their opinions on scenes and change things accordingly. One of his priorities was to emphasize softer, character-based moments, as opposed to more frenetic scenes—something Bird thought was a problem with modern filmmaking. "There has to be activity or sound effects or cuts or music blaring. It's almost as if the audience has the remote and they're going to change channels," he commented at the time. Storyboard artist Teddy Newton played an important role in shaping the film's story. Newton's first assignment on staff involved being asked by Bird to create a film within a film to reflect the "hygiene-type movies that everyone saw when the bomb scare was happening." Newton came to the conclusion that a musical number would be the catchiest alternative, and the "Duck and Cover sequence" came to become one of the crew members' favorites of the film. Nicknamed "The X-Factor" by story department head Jeffery Lynch, the producers gave him artistic freedom on various pieces of the film's script.

Animation
Following the financial failure of Warner Bros. Feature Animation's previous animated effort, Quest for Camelot, which made the studio reconsider animated films, helped shape The Iron Giant's production considerably. "Three-quarters" of the animation team on that team helped craft The Iron Giant. By the time it entered production, Warner Bros. informed the staff that there would be a smaller budget as well as time-frame to get the film completed. Although the production was watched closely, Bird commented "They did leave us alone if we kept it in control and showed them we were producing the film responsibly and getting it done on time and doing stuff that was good." Bird regarded the trade-off as having "one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule," but the payoff as having more creative freedom, describing the film as "fully-made by the animation team; I don't think any other studio can say that to the level that we can." A small part of the team took a weeklong research trip to Maine, where they photographed and videotaped five small cities. They hoped to accurately reflect its culture down to the minutiae; "we shot store fronts, barns, forests, homes, home interiors, diners, every detail we could, including the bark on trees," said production designer Mark Whiting.

Bird stuck to elaborate scene planning, such as detailed animatics, to make sure there were no budgetary concerns. The team initially worked with Macromedia's Director software, before switching to Adobe After Effects full-time. Bird was eager to use the then-nascent software, as it allowed for storyboard to contain indications of camera moves. The software became essential to that team—dubbed "Macro" early on—to help the studio grasp story reels for the film. These also allowed Bird to better understand what the film required from an editing perspective. In the end, he was proud of the way the film was developed, noting that "We could imagine the pace and the unfolding of our film accurately with a relatively small expenditure of resources." The group would gather in a screening room to view completed sequences, with Bird offering suggestions by drawing onto the screen with a marker. Lead animator Bazley suggested this led to a sense of camaraderie among the crew, who were unified in their mission to create a good film. Bird cited his favorite moment of the film's production as occurring in the editing room, when the crew gathered to test a sequence in which the Giant learns what a soul is. "People in the room were spontaneously crying. It was pivotal; there was an undeniable feeling that we were really tapping into something," he recalled.

He opted to give the film's animators portions to animate entirely, rather than the standard process of animating one character, in a throwback to the way Disney's first features were created. The exception were those responsible for creating the Giant himself, who was created using computer-generated imagery due to the difficulty of creating a metal object "in a fluid-like manner." They had additional trouble with using the computer model to express emotion. The Giant was designed by filmmaker Joe Johnston (best known for designing the Star Wars trilogy), which was refined by production designer Mark Whiting and Steve Markowski, head animator for the Giant. Using software, the team would animate the Giant "on twos" (every other frame, or twelve frames per second) when interacting with other characters, to make it less obvious it was a computer model. Bird brought in students from CalArts to assist in minor animation work due to the film's busy schedule. He made sure to spread out the work on scenes between experienced and younger animators, noting, "You overburden your strongest people and underburden the others [if you let your top talent monopolize the best assignments]." Hiroki Itokazu designed all of the film's CGI props and vehicles, which were created in a variety of software, including Alias Systems Corporation's Maya, Alias' PowerAnimator, a modified version of Pixar's RenderMan, Cambridge Animation's Animo (now part of Toon Boom Animation), Avid Elastic Reality, and Adobe Photoshop.

The art of Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper and N.C. Wyeth inspired the design. Whiting strove for colors both evocative of the time period in which the film is set but also representative of its emotional tone; for example, Hogarth's room is designed to reflect his "youth and sense of wonder." That was blended with a style reminiscent of 1950s illustration. Animators studied Chuck Jones, Hank Ketcham, Al Hirschfeld and Disney films from that era, such as 101 Dalmatians, for inspiration in the film's animation.

Music
The score for the film was composed and conducted by Michael Kamen. Bird's original temp score, "a collection of Bernard Hermann cues from 50's and 60's sci-fi films," initially scared Kamen. Believing the sound of the orchestra is important to the feeling of the film, Kamen "decided to comb eastern Europe for an "old-fashioned" sounding orchestra and went to Prague to hear Vladimir Ashkenazy conduct the Czech Philharmonic in Strauss's An Alpine Symphony." Eventually, the Czech Philharmonic was the orchestra used for the film's score, with Bird describing the symphony orchestra as "an amazing collection of musicians." The score for The Iron Giant was recorded in a rather unconventional manner, compared to most films: recorded over one week at the Rudolfinum in Prague, the music was recorded without conventional uses of syncing the music, in a method Kamen described in a 1999 interview as "[being able to] play the music as if it were a piece of classical repertoire." Kamen's score for The Iron Giant won the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production on November 6, 1999.

Editing
Bird opted to produce The Iron Giant in widescreen—specifically the wide 2.39:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio—but was warned against doing so by his advisers. He felt it was appropriate to use the format, as many films from the late 1950s were produced in such widescreen formats. He hoped to include the CinemaScope logo on a poster, partially as a joke, but 20th Century Fox, owner of the trademark, refused.

Bird later recalled that he clashed with executives who wished to add characters, such as a sidekick dog, set the film in the present day, and include a soundtrack of hip hop. This was due to concerns that the film was not merchandisable, to which Bird responded, "If they were interested in telling the story, they should let it be what it wants to be." The film was also initially going to feature the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment logo at the beginning of the movie, featuring mascot Bugs Bunny in a tuxedo. Bird was against this for a multitude of reasons, and eventually got confirmation that executives Bob Daley and Terry Semel agreed. Instead, Bird and his team developed another version of the logo to resemble the classic studio logo in a circle, famously employed in Looney Tunes shorts. He credited executives Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Courtney Vallenti with helping him achieve his vision, noting that they were open to his opinion.

According to a report from the time of its release, The Iron Giant cost $50 million to produce with an additional $30 million going towards marketing, though Box Office Mojo later calculated its budget as $70 million. It was regarded as a lower-budget film, in comparison to the films distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Themes
The film is set in 1957 during a period of the Cold War characterized by escalation in tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1957, Sputnik was launched, raising the possibility of nuclear attack from space. Anti-communism and the potential threat of nuclear destruction cultivated an atmosphere of fear and paranoia which also led to a proliferation of films about alien invasion. In one scene, Hogarth's class is seen watching an animated film named Atomic Holocaust, based on Duck and Cover, an actual film that offered advice on how to survive if the USSR bombed the USA.

The film also deals with the concepts of nonviolence and individualism. When the Iron Giant sees a deer get killed by hunters, the Iron Giant notices two rifles discarded by the deer's body. The Iron Giant's eyes turn red showing hostility to any gun. It is repeated throughout the film, "Guns kill." and "You're not a gun." Despite the anti-war and anti-gun themes, the film avoids demonizing the military (one scene depicts Hogarth next to a picture of his late father, a fighter pilot, while wearing his father's flight helmet), and presents General Rogard as an essentially rational and sympathetic figure, in contrast to the power-hungry civilian Mansley. Hogarth's message to the giant, "You are who you choose to be", played a pivotal role in the film. In a deleted scene, the robot dreams of seeing many robots like it marching through a war zone on an alien world, suggesting that the robot was created to be a weapon in a long-ago war.

Writer McCanlies commented that "At a certain point, there are deciding moments when we pick who we want to be. And that plays out for the rest of your life." McCanlies said that movies can provide viewers with a sense of right and wrong, and expressed a wish that the movie would "make us feel like we're all part of humanity [which] is something we need to feel." Some film critics compared the film to E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, including Roger Ebert. In response to the E.T. parallels, Bird said, "E.T. doesn't go kicking ass. He doesn't make the Army pay. Certainly you risk having your hip credentials taken away if you want to evoke anything sad or genuinely heartfelt."

Marketing
The Iron Giant was largely a theatrical failure because of the part to poor promotion from Warner Bros. This was largely attributable to the reception of Quest for Camelot; after its release, Warner Bros. would not give Bird and his team a release date for their film until April 1999. After wildly successful test screenings, the studio was shocked by the response: the test scores were their highest for a film in 15 years, according to Bird. They had neglected to prepare a successful marketing strategy for the film—such as cereal and fast food tie-ins—with little time left before its scheduled release. Bird remembered that the studio produced only one teaser poster for the film, which became its eventual poster. Brad Ball, who had been assigned the role of marketing the film, was candid after its release, noting that the studio did not commit to a planned Burger King toy plan. In an interview with IGN, Bird stated that it was "a mis-marketing campaign of epic proportions at the hands of Warner Bros., they simply didn't realize what they had on their hands."

The studio needed an $8 million opening to ensure success, but they were unable to properly promote it preceding the release. They nearly delayed the film by several months to better prepare. "They said, 'we should delay it and properly lead up to its release,' and I said 'you guys have had two and a half years to get ready for this,'" recalled Bird. Press outlets took note of its absence of marketing, with some reporting that the studio had spent more money on marketing intended summer blockbuster Wild, Wild West instead. To perhaps soften the potential blow, Warner Bros. scheduled Sunday sneak preview screenings for the film prior to its release, as well as a preview of the film on the online platform Webcastsneak.

Box office
The Iron Giant premiered at Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on July 31, 1999, with a special ceremony preceding the screening in which a concrete slab bearing the title character's footprint was commemorated. The film opened in Los Angeles and New York on August 4, 1999, with a wider national release occurring on August 6 in the United States. It opened in 2,179 theaters in the U.S., ranking at number nine at the box office accumulating $5,732,614 over its opening weekend. It was quick to drop out of the top ten; by its fourth week, it had accumulated only $18.9 million—far under its reported $70 million budget. According to Dave McNary of the Los Angeles Daily News, "Its weekend per-theater average was only $2,631, an average of $145 or perhaps 30 tickets per showing"—leading theater owners to quickly discard the film. At the time, Warner Bros. was shaken by the resignations of executives Bob Daly and Terry Semel, making the failure much worse. T.L. Stanley of Brandweek cited it as an example of how media tie-ins were now essential to guaranteeing a film's success.

The film went on to gross $23,159,305 domestically and $8,174,612 internationally for a total of $31,333,917 worldwide. Analysts deemed it a victim of poor timing and "a severe miscalculation of how to attract an audience." Lorenzo di Bonaventura, president of Warner Bros. at the time, explained, "People always say to me, 'Why don't you make smarter family movies?' The lesson is, Every time you do, you get slaughtered."

Critical response
The Iron Giant received widespread critical acclaim from both critics and audiences. Based on 134 reviews collected by the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, The Iron Giant received an overall 96% approval rating; the average score is 8.2/10. The consensus reads: "The endearing Iron Giant tackles ambitious topics and complex human relationships with a steady hand and beautifully animated direction from Brad Bird." On Metacritic, the film achieved an average score of 85 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, signifying "universal acclaim". In addition to its response from film critics, CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an "A" grade. The Reel Source forecasting service calculated that "96–97%" of audiences that attended recommended the film. As of 2015, Rotten Tomatoes ranks it the third most-acclaimed animated film made in the 1990s.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "straight-arrow and subversive, [and] made with simplicity as well as sophistication," writing, "it feels like a classic even though it's just out of the box." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times compared it, both in story and animation, to the works of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, summarizing the film as "not just a cute romp but an involving story that has something to say." The New Yorker reviewer Michael Sragow dubbed it a "modern fairy tale," writing, "The movie provides a master class in the use of scale and perspective—and in its power to open up a viewer’s heart and mind." Time's Richard Schickel deemed it "a smart live-and-let-live parable, full of glancing, acute observations on all kinds of big subjects—life, death, the military-industrial complex." Lawrence Van Gelder, writing for The New York Times, deemed it a "smooth, skilled example of animated filmmaking." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal felt it "beautiful, oh so beautiful, as a work of coherent art," noting, "be assured that the film is, before anything else, deliciously funny and deeply affecting."

Both Hollywood trade publications were positive: David Hunter of The Hollywood Reporter predicted it to be a sleeper hit and called it "outstanding," while Lael Loewenstein of Variety called it "a visually appealing, well-crafted film [...] an unalloyed success of The Lord of the Rings, The Land Before Time and The Lion King." Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly commented, "I have long thought that I was born without the gene that would allow me to be emotionally drawn in by drawings. That is, until I saw The Iron Giant." Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle agreed that the storytelling was far superior to other animated films, and cited the characters as plausible and noted the richness of moral themes. Jeff Millar of the Houston Chronicle agreed with the basic techniques as well, and concluded the voice cast excelled with a great script by Tim McCanlies. Amid the positive reviews, a mildly negative review came from The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter, who opined, "The movie — as beautifully drawn, as sleek and engaging as it is — has the annoyance of incredible smugness."

Awards
The Hugo Awards nominated The Iron Giant for Best Dramatic Presentation, while the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America honored Brad Bird and Tim McCanlies with the Nebula Award nomination. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave the film a Children's Award as Best Feature Film. In addition The Iron Giant won nine Annie Awards and was nominated for another six categories, with another nomination for Best Home Video Release at The Saturn Awards. IGN ranked The Iron Giant as the fifth favorite animated film of all time in a list published in 2010. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated The Iron Giant for its Top 10 Animated Films list.

Legacy
The film has gathered a cult following since its original release.

Signature Edition
A remastered and extended cut of the film, named the Signature Edition, was shown in one-off screenings across the United States and Canada on September 30, 2015, and October 4, 2015. The edition is approximately two minutes longer than the original cut, and features a brief scene with Annie and Dean and the sequence of the Giant's dream. Both scenes were storyboarded by Bird during the production on the original film but never finished due to time and budget constraints. Before they were fully completed for this new version, they were available as deleted storyboards on the 2004 DVD bonus features. They were animated in 2015 by Duncan Studio, which employed several animators that worked on the original film. The film's Signature Edition was released on DVD and for digital download on February 16, 2016. An official Blu-ray release was available on September 6, 2016. Along with the additional scene, it also showcases abandoned ideas that were not initially used due to copyright reasons, specifically a nod to Disney via a Tomorrowland commercial, which was also a reference to his then-recently released film of the same name, and a joke regarding the film being shot with CinemaScope cameras.

Trivia

 * This is the first Warner Bros.' animated film to be produced in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio; all of that company's previous films were produced in 1.85:1.
 * This film was dedicated to Ted Hughes, the author of the book The Iron Man where the film is based on, who has passed away an year earlier during production and before the film's release. This film also marks the tribute for Brad Bird's sister Susan Bird, who was shot and killed by her estranged husband as a result of domestic abuse.
 * Computer-generated imagery was used for the title character and has black lines on the edges in order for him to blend in with the 2D traditionally-animated characters. Prior to The Iron Giant, Quest for Camelot also used CGI for not just the forest or parts of Camelot, but to render and animate the giant rock ogre.
 * This is the only Warner Bros. Family Entertainment film to not have its logo, except it had the custom Warner Bros. Feature Animation logo. This was suggested by the director Brad Bird himself.