The Ending of DreamWorks Animation's The Wild Robot, Explained
How does The Wild Robot end for Roz and her forest family?
**SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers below for the ending of DreamWorks Animation's The Wild Robot**
Director Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) triumphantly returns to DreamWorks Animation with this weekend's The Wild Robot. Critically acclaimed since its debut at the TIFF film festival in early September, the CG animated adaptation of Peter Brown's book of the same name features the voice performances of Lupita Nyong'o as Roz the robot, along with Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, and more big names.
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Like most book to film adaptations, changes happen in the translation from one medium to the other. Such is the case with The Wild Robot, as the end of the film is expanded for a much bigger cinematic climax and resolution. We break down how it all comes together for Roz, Brightbill and their animal family on the big screen.
What happens at the end of The Wild Robot?
The final act of The Wild Robot finds the monitoring team from Universal Dynamics, the company that created Roz, responding to her transponder, detailing her current location. A drop ship arrives with a fleet of ROZZUM security units made for extraction. They're directed by the floating robot Vontra (Stephanie Hsu), who seems to be programmed to have independent thought and curiosity. Her mission is to bring back Roz, so they can extract her data for their research, then wipe her memory banks and restore her to factory settings. Since Roz has defied her programming, Universal Dynamics want to find out how that could have happened and prevent it from spreading to their other robots.
Roz is almost ready to go with them when Fink (Pascal) arrives and tells her that Brightbill (Connor) has returned and wants to see her. However, Vontra opposes that and sends out her ROZZUM security robots to retrieve Roz immediately. The animals rise up to battle the robots, who respond by trying to shoot them with their lasers. Then Vontra orders the robots to self destruct, causing huge explosions that set fire to the woods.
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Exploiting the chaos of the fire, Vontra catches Roz in a tractor beam and puts her back in the drop ship for lift off. Brightbill gathers his geese family to follow the ship and attack. He's able to enter the ship and find Roz, who's been decommissioned. When he tells her that he loves her, she comes back online and is saved from the imminent memory wipe. Together, they escape and the ship crashes and burns.
Meanwhile, the animals use Paddler's (Matt Berry) massive tree excavation project to fell the largest tree in the forest to change the direction of the main river, which floods the valley that's on fire. Safe once more, Roz and her animal family celebrate their good fortune together.
Does The Wild Robot set up a sequel?
The Wild Robot ends its story as a complete film, but leaves the proverbial door open for more story to be explored. After the huge battle with the Universal Dynamics robots, Roz leaves the island to protect her son, Brightbill, and her animal family, so there will be no reason for more drop ships and destructive robots to return to the island. While her family is worried that Roz will be restored to factory settings and forget them, she promises that who she is inside can't be erased.
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In the last scene, it's some time later and Roz is working in the human fruit grove that Brightbill and the other geese escaped from during their first migration together. In the sky over the dome, the next year's worth of geese are seen flying over. However, Brightbill has separated from them and snuck back into the garden to see what has happened to his mother. Roz sees him and immediately picks him up and embraces her son. They touch foreheads, proving that their bond remains strong and she will find a way to safely return to them, someday.
Does The Wild Robot have an end-credits scene?
Yes, there is a post-credits scene in The Wild Robot. It's meant to be a last joke to close the film, and features Paddler, the beaver, and Fink after they've planted a replacement sapling for the massive tree the animals took down to vanquish the fire threatening all of their lives. As the two saunter away into the sunset, a squirrel arrives to observe their handy work and is clobbered by an acorn.
The Wild Robot is now playing exclusively in theaters. Click here to pick up tickets!
