Mark Hamill made a surprise pit-stop at “The Wild Robot” panel on Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con, joining director Chris Sanders and voice actors of the film Lupita Nyong’o and Kit Connor to discuss DreamWorks Animation’s new feature film.
Hamill, who voices a grizzly bear named Thorn in the film, says when he was first asked to be involved, he immediately read Peter Brown’s novel of which the film is based. “I was just knocked out. I thought if they can capture just a small percentage of this effect of this book… I have to tell you, they just did a fantastic job.”
“The Wild Robot” follows a hyper-intelligent android named Roz (voiced by Nyong’o) who finds a new purpose on an uninhabited island living amongst the wildlife and raising an orphaned baby duckling named Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor).
The panel revealed three new clips from the film depicting Roz crash landing on the remote island, how she begins to interact and eventually communicate with its animal inhabitants, as well as the somber reason why she accepts the “task” of being Brightbill’s mother.
In one clip, Roz faces off with the RECOS (short for reconnaissance robots) who are the main antagonists of the story and sent to capture Roz. “You are defective,” one of the RECOS says.
“I feel fine,” Roz responds, to which she is told “You should not feel anything at all.”
In another clip, Roz is seen being chased by a bear and careens off a cliffside. As she assesses what has been damaged, she notices her fall took down a tree, and with it, a mother goose. As it is in the books, Roz realizes she has killed a mother goose and there is one egg left unhatched — and that hatchling will be Brightbill.
“What I loved about Roz is she is an adult character but she has a beginner’s mind, like a child,” Nyongo’ shared. “She has to learn morality and ethical code.” The actress added that Roz learns from the animals to be “secretive” about how Brightbill’s mother died, and instead takes on the role of his mother herself.
Speaking of mothers and their nonpresence in animated films, Sanders revealed that while working on 1992’s “Aladdin,” for which he served as a storyboard artist, artistic director, production designer and character designer, the character Aladdin initially had a mother.
“When I was working on ‘Aladdin,’ one of the early versions of ‘Aladdin,’ Aladdin had a mom. She was in town,” Sanders said. “She was in the story for awhile and I began to understand why moms aren’t in these movies… one of them is if your mom is an okay mom, she knows better than to let you do dumb things. He’d be like ‘Hey mom, I’m going to go steal some food from the market.’ And she’d be like, ‘No you’re not!’”
“Moms keep adventures from happening in a good way,” he jokingly added.
A final clip shown during the Comic-Con panel revealed a humorous “swim test” for Connors’ Brightbill, who ends up being jettisoned down a hill by Pedro Pascal’s pesky fox named Fink.
Also lending their voices to the film with Nyong’o, Connor and Hamill are Catherine O’Hara as Pinktail and Matt Berry as Paddler.
“The Wild Robot” hits theaters Sept. 27.
