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Twenty two years ago we saw the debut of someone who appeared to be an exciting new talent in American animation. Across the 90s Chris Sanders had worked as a writer and visual development artist on some of Disney’s biggest movies, including Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King and then he took the helm, along with creative partner Dean Deblois, on 2002’s Lilo & Stitch where it was clear that he was ready to take the studio in a new direction. Here was a film with a clear vision and a very contemporary voice that Disney had been struggling to find with recent cartoon features such as The Emperor’s New Groove and Atlantis. Rather than run with this though the House of Mouse returned to backing acclaimed filmmakers Ron Clements and John Musker with a passion project of their’s called Treasure Planet and everything changed. You can see why they went with Clements and Musker, they had directed The Little Mermaid, the aforementioned Aladdin and Hercules but due to poor marketing and the need to stick with a release date tied to a deal with McDonalds Happy Meals, Treasure Planet went up against the second movies in both the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series and died a death at the box office. As a result no more traditionally hand drawn animation films were commissioned at the studio and Sanders seemed to disappear in the shake up. 

It was another eight years before we saw him and DeBlois again and once more the film he gave us, How to Train Your Dragon, showcased his individual style and strong ability to combine design and story to great effect. Since then though Sanders has only directed The Croods and The Call of the Wild, the latter of which is not even animation – unless you count the CG dog. The second two How to Train Your Dragon movies went ahead without him and good as they are they do suffer from his absence. Now though he has come back with The Wild Robot and it feels like this film is the masterpiece we could have got from him sooner had circumstances allowed. This is the work of a proper visionary and while I’m not sure why we’ve had to wait for it for over two decades, we’ve got it now. I hope this time it puts Sanders where he should be, firmly in the pantheon of Western animators. 

The story, adapted from a 2018 book, finds a service android stranded away from human civilisation so turning instead to care for the local wildlife, in particular a stranded gosling and a lonely fox. This gives Sanders the chance to showcase his usual passions for disconnected characters, pseudo family building, cross species relationships and weird creatures falling from the sky and learning to live with the inhabitants of an isolated island. More than ever though, despite there being barely an actual person in the whole thing and having the protagonist be a machine, Sanders finds the humanity in his narrative and it is beautifully heartwarming. In fact I’m not sure how he has made this so affecting but by God he has. If you don’t get swept up in this I think you might be a robot yourself. Like he did with the great design and expressiveness of Stitch and Toothless, two creatures with more than a passing physical resemblance, he has made us fall for lead player Ros even though she had no real facial features, just rotating eye lenses and a range of different coloured lights. Her detachable hand has more obvious characterisation than her face but it all still works. To be fair a large part of this is due to the great voice work of Lupita Nyong’o but it’s also in the perfect combination of narrative and design, the two things Sanders excelled at from the start. 

The overall animation here is also spectacular. It has a similar painterly feel to things like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and elements of the Spider-Verse movies but in this largely nature based setting the style comes into its own. Here the trees, the water, the snow, and butterflies all look beautiful (and the otters). It may not push boundaries like the Miles Morales superhero movies but it is no less accomplished in its achievements. It is interesting that, wonderful as they are, Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse lack a single creative force (the two films come from six different directors) and when you see something like The Wild Robot you begin to see what this means they are missing. 

I’m not entirely sure why the work of Chris Sanders has been so spread out then, and maybe we can appreciate it more because it is, but twenty two years and four animated films in he has achieved what has been long promised. When he returns this time is anyone’s guess. Sanders recently announced Dreamworks had ordered The Wild Robot 2, but don’t suppose that guarantees his full involvement. Whenever  he comes back though, it will be something to anticipate and celebrate. With this movie he has really, and finally, announced himself.