Daily Archives: May 6, 2025

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Animated Films (10) The Wild Robot

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(10) THE WILD ROBOT

(DREAMWORKS: 2024)

 

The Wild Robot is my wildcard tenth place entry for top animated film of 2024.

I mean, it’s essentially Robinson Crusoe with a robot as protagonist, isn’t it? Or is that Tarzan with a robot protagonist, given that Robinson Crusoe doesn’t interact with the animals of his island as peers (and is more Puritan)?

There’s something about the premise of shipwreck or similar circumstances returning us to a state of nature. The Wild Robot goes one step further returning our technological doppelganger to that state of nature, although I have questions with respect to what seems to be a significant problem with robot supply chains in the film.

It also has the added charm of a machine effectively becoming one of the animals on her new island home – which to me has the surprising philosophical depth of combining the two main counterpoints to humanism of comparing (or contrasting) humans to animals and to our machines. (I’ve got the body of an animal and the mind of a machine).

Anyway, robot Robinson Crusoe is essentially the premise of the film in a nutshell – service robot Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) is shipwrecked or washed up on an island and learns to survive in the wilderness among the local wildlife.

It was commercially and critically successful – “praised for its story, themes, animation, score, emotional depth, and voice acting” while apparently Dreamworks’ most nominated film at the Academy Awards.

I was surprised when looking up the film to learn that it was based on a book (for children and teenagers) – indeed a book trilogy, so it was not surprising to also learn that a sequel film is in development.

 

FANTASY OR SF

 

Well, the robot in the title gives it away as SF, although it has elements of animal fable.

 

COMEDY

 

Mostly of the fish out of water variety – or robot on the island.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2024

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention: Revised Entry) (10) Joyce Tydlesley – Penguin Book of Myths & Legends of Ancient Egypt

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(10) JOYCE TYDLESLEY –

PENGUIN BOOK OF MYTHS & LEGENDS OF ANCIENT EGYPT (2010)

 

“I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra…
‘Who was that
dog-faced man? ‘they asked, the day I rode from town…
Go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow,
I’m going into town after Set”

I’ll never tire of quoting Ishmael Reed’s poem when it comes to Egyptian mythology – or of Egyptian mythology itself.

What’s not to love about those funky animal-headed gods and those slinky goddesses? Especially the goddesses – lithe and svelte in their form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk.

“Here acclaimed Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley guides us through 3000 years of changing stories and, in retelling them, shows us what they mean. Gathered from pyramid friezes, archaeological finds and contemporary documents…Lavishly illustrated with colour pictures, maps and family trees, helpful glossaries explaining all the major gods and timelines of the Pharaohs and most importantly packed with unforgettable stories”.

The table of contents effectively encapsulates Tyldesley’s guide to Egyptian mythology, starting with introductory sections on Egypt’s gods, the Egyptian world, and dating dynastic Egypt. It then opens, aptly enough, with Egypt’s competing creation myths, and everyone’s favorite Ennead, the nine gods of Heliopolis – whom we all prefer to the inferior Ogdoad or eight gods of Hermopolis. Lost yet? Hang on – Egyptian mythology is a wild ride of shifting sands, gods (or creations) that keep swapping out with each other as they rose and fell within the pantheon.

After creation comes destruction – a section on the death of Osiris, the most famous death in Egyptian mythology (and up there with the most famous deaths of mythology), “the contendings of Horus and Seth”, and the afterlife.

My favorite section is of course on the great goddesses, foremost among them Isis, “great of magic”, but also warriors, wise women and cobra goddesses

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Stone Ages / Stone Age Iceberg (Part 3: 4-5)

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Close-up of Stonehenge (public domain image)

 

 

(4) MEGALITHIC STONE AGE

 

Yes, I’ve coined the term Megalithic Stone Age because I love megaliths – “a megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones”, such as a standing stone or stone circle respectively as at everyone’s favorite megalithic site, Stonehenge.

Of course, the Megalithic Stone Age is mostly synonymous with the Neolithic – corresponding to settled agricultural communities having the necessary resources for moving large stones around the place – although “earlier Mesolithic examples are known” and they continued to be erected in the Bronze Age (including as I understand it, some of the phases of construction at Stonehenge).

“There are over 35,000 structures in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean”.

 

 

(5) MICROLITHIC STONE AGE

 

From one end of the scale to the other – from megaliths to microliths, I bring you the Microlithic Stone Age!

And no – sadly, that doesn’t mean there’s a tiny Stonehenge out there. “A microlith is a small stone tool, usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide…were used in spear points and arrowheads”.

Microliths point to a greater sophistication of stone tools characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic or even Neolithic, although they generally declined with the introduction of agriculture (as their predominant use was for hunting weapons).