Warner Bros. gave Brad Bird $50 million to make this, less than 1/2 of what Disney spent on "Tarzan" the same year. Bird was also held to a 2-year production timeline, a tight crunch compared to the 4 years "Tarzan" got. He and his animators survived these limitations through their passion for what they were doing, and through a VERY, VERY PRECISE amount of storyboarding. Before Bird was hired, "Iron Giant" was going to be a musical. Songs were written by Pete Townshend (guitarist in The Who) based on a children's book by British poet Ted Hughes. By the time Warner Bros. finished "Space Jam", they realized Townshend's material wasn't working, but Townshend politely stayed on as a producer anyway. The comedy style throughout the film, and the way it's balanced with the drama, was brought by Bird directly from his 8 years writing and producing on "The Simpsons". He made his big-screen directing debut with this film, but it became very personal for him because his sister had been a victim of gun violence ... lines like "souls don't die" and "I am not a gun" are tied to Bird facing his loss. You are correct: Annie was voiced by Jennifer Aniston, back when "Friends" was her only popular role and (apart from TV) her big-screen career was struggling. ("Office Space", released the same year, bombed.) Other cast members: M. Emmet Walsh (Harrison Ford's boss in "Blade Runner") voices the fisherman, Harry Connick Jr. (acclaimed jazz singer) voices Dean, Christopher McDonald (the jackass husband in "Thelma & Louise") voices Kent, John Mahoney (Martin Crane on "Frasier") voices the General, and Vin Diesel (one year before he gained famed for the Riddick series) voices the Giant. The train crew that describe the wreck to Kent are voice cameos by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston, who trained Bird when he started in animation. The "Atomic Holocaust" thing in the classroom is a parody of an actual educational film called "Duck and Cover", which the U.S. Civil Defence Administration circulated to schools in 1952. Warner Bros. agreed to the Superman reference because it was the easiest way to advertise a franchise they were struggling with. The last Superman entry had been in 1987, and another one wouldn't be released until 2006. Hogarth on the coffee rush was the toughest character bit to animate, and to spare his crew the grief of constantly redoing frames to get it exactly right, Bird did the cleanup / inbetween work himself. The creepiness of Kent is becoming more noticeable to modern audiences, and I'm very sure Bird purposefully pushed it as far as he could, both for a PG rating and for Kent to better embody the unhinged, toxic quality of America's Cold War paranoia. (But I guarantee you, because the setting is 1957, Kent would've been court-martialed and executed for treason and endangering national security.)

This movie did deal with some deep and sad concepts, but in the end, the message I took from it was, `we are what we choose to be.` "You're not a gun!" Probably the saddest part of this movie for me, was that they never made a sequel.

'You are who you choose to be.'

You expected the animation to be sub-par because of the release year? Some of the greatest animations are near a half century old and even older. Back when people took pride in their work. Hand drawn art will always beat the new cookie cutter cash grab stuff.

"Don't just leave with a horror movie playing." It was cool to hear your brief movie reaction to a movie WITHIN a movie. Also, I am assuming you were referring to turning the TV off and not hitting pause.

A childhood movie, I used to watch this many times as a kid, we had the VHS edition, so it was like if I moved to the 90s.

9:41 You remember the one thing you're not supposed to remember. lol

From what I remember, the reason this movie was made the way it was, was because I think the lead writer/producer’s sister was shot. He wanted to make a movie that made you think “What if a gun didn’t want to be a gun?” or something similar to that

Thank you for introducing me to your channel with one of my favorite animated movies.

Jennifer Aniston... good call.

This movie only covers in general half of the actual story it comes from, the other half is about a bat like angel dragon creature from space that is the size of Australia and how the Iron Giant deals with it.

Childhood memories

As a kid, I hated kent and just saw him as evil, now as an adult, I still hate him, but I understand his point of view, he was in the right for the most part, the giant did almost kill a fisherman, destory a power station and cause a train wreck.

That was a great movie that I had forgotten about. Thank you for sharing it with us

Iron Man stole the re-assembly concept directly from Iron Giant. F you Tony Stark!

Let's go Classic

I'd love to recomnend my all-time favorite Anime movie Masterpiece Mind-blowing 90 million abimation and imcredible plot. APPLESEED!

31:09 He's the government...

You should have trusted your first impression when you recognized Jennifer Aniston's voice. Vinn Diesel voiced the giant.

Christopher McDonald(Kent Mansley) wasn't likeable in "Happy Gilmore" or "Superhero Movie," either.

What the hell WERE you expecting?!?!?!?!?

Now it's time for "Wall-E."

This film is so good. Kudos for the commenter who suggested this and to you for choosing it. I hope you would consider, when you're feel like watching an animated film again, try Atlantis or Treasure Planet. Both are excellent.

This movie may interest you ? *Batteries Not Included

You should watch the little toaster movie.

Awesome reaction/ can you please watch a movie called A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT.

What a lovely mind you have.

Great movie that just came out, on Netflix in fact. Godzilla Minus One. One of THE best! Recommend watching in Japanese and not the dub though.

29:11 Man, I really don't like that they added this to the movie. They cut it out for a reason. They wanted the Giant to be a mystery and a shocking surprise when he turned into a war machine. This scene is pretty much a spoiler for the climax. Lol

Few people know the tragic story of the creation of the IRON GIANT cartoon. And now I found a newspaper article that says it all. but unfortunately I can't post the link because the system deletes my comment. I'm sorry because I wanted everyone to know the background of this cartoon. A tragic story. Because this cartoon was inspired by a suicide and a murder