The new DreamWorks Animation film The Wild Robot opens this weekend in the Czech Republic and cinemas worldwide, and advance word has been overwhelmingly positive: among 55 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it currently has a sparkling 98 percent on the Tomatometer.
The Wild Robot tells the story of a utility robot who ‘wakes up’ on an uninhabited island after a shipwreck. She learns to survive in a natural environment and begins to care for the island’s animal species during a harsh winter, but a threat surfaces with the arrival of other robots from her manufacturer, who seek to retrieve her for reprogramming.
Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o voices the main character, whose name is Roz—short for Rozzum. It’s a reference to the name Rossum from Karel Čapek‘s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), where the word robot originates. In Czech, the reference even makes it to the film’s title, which is localized as Rozzum v divočině (Rozzum in the Wild).
“Most people don’t know that the word ‘robot’ comes from a 1920’s science fiction play by Karel Čapek,” Peter Brown, author of the original books that The Wild Robot is based on, writes in a blog post. “The play is called R.U.R., which stands for Rossum’s Universal Robots. Karel Čapek (with a little help from his brother) invented the word ‘robot.'”
“[Čapek] also invented one of the most familiar tropes of science fiction. In R.U.R., robots realize they don’t need their human masters, so they rise up and destroy all of humanity. And sci-fi writers have been telling variations of that story ever since.”
“However, I wanted to tell a different kind of robot story. I wanted to tell the story of a robot who finds harmony in the last place you’d expect. I wanted to tell a robot nature story […] What would an intelligent robot do in the wilderness? To answer that question, I invented a robot character named Rozzum (a subtle nod to Čapek’s play), and tried to imagine how she’d handle life in the wilderness.”
The voice cast of The Wild Robot also includes Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Ving Rhames, and Catherine O’Hara. The movie is directed by Chris Sanders, who previously made hits such as Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Croods.
Being the source of the word robot, R.U.R. has been referenced in numerous other works throughout the years, including episodes of the TV series Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Futurama, and the video game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which also happens to be set in Prague.
Čapek’s original R.U.R. hasn’t, however, had an official film adaptation. But that’s set to change in the near future as a new version of R.U.R. is set to begin filming this fall in Australia, from director Alex Proyas (The Crow, Gods of Egypt) and starring Mallory Jansen and Anthony LaPaglia.
In Prague, you can catch The Wild Robot in its original English-language version, without Czech subtitles, at Cinema City Slovanský dům and Kino Světozor from Thursday, Sept. 26.
One Response
I had no idea robot was a Czech word!