‘The Wild Robot’ and ‘Flow’ are quietly revolutionary climate change films

It’s easy to read Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot and Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow — two of the greatest films of 2024 — as companion pieces. Both are animated, both feature little to no human involvement, and both center on unlikely animal allies (and one incredible robot) coming together against all odds. But the similarities between these films go further than skin-deep. The true connective tissue here is the unspoken calamity that’s befallen the animals’ worlds, hinted at in shots of flooded cities totally devoid of human activity.

No one in either film will say the words “climate change” or “sea level rise.” (No one in Flow will say anything, as all the animals communicate via natural animal sounds.) But no one needs to. As The Wild Robot and Flow unfold, it’s impossible to deny the role climate change has played in shaping their worlds. Geese migrate over a submerged Golden Gate Bridge in The Wild Robot, while the entirety of Flow focuses on a band of animals trying to survive a flood of biblical proportions. These moments are enough to tell us that while climate change may not be the express message of either movie, it is an inextricable part of their settings — just as it’s become an inextricable part of our own real-life experience.

By simply using climate change as a world-building element, The Wild Robot and Flow manage to speak volumes about it. That feat is doubly important given that the films will primarily reach younger audiences who will grow up with climate change and its impacts. For many young viewers, this might even be the first time they experience art that deals with climate change at all. Thankfully, they’re in good hands. Sanders and Zilbalodis have created films that speak to these younger generations about climate change in a way that is accessible and honest, all without being bleak. Mashable spoke with both Sanders and Zilbalodis to learn more about climate change’s vital, yet carefully understated, role in their respective films.

Flow and The Wild Robot communicate the realities of climate change to young audiences.

The cat in “Flow” takes a swim.
Credit: Sideshow and Janus Films

Thanks to clear, deliberate imagery, The Wild Robot and Flow establish the presence of climate change in their films in mere seconds.

The Wild Robot first gestures to climate change in a jokey brochure for Florida that pops up at the film’s start. Boasting that the state now has “more shoreline than ever,” the brochure implies that sea level rise has changed our world. The film pays that gag off later with the reveal of the submerged Golden Gate Bridge, whose roadway currently stands 220 feet above sea level. According to the Los Angeles Times, the idea for this imagery came about during director Chris Sanders’ discussions with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) about how to portray climate change in the film.

“If we were to show landmarks that had shifted, it had to be things that we would really recognize,” Sanders told Mashable over Zoom. “That’s where the Golden Gate Bridge came from. I figure that’s a very iconic thing, not only in the United States but around the world.”

The use of well-known Earth iconography wasn’t an option for Flow director Gints Zilbalodis, as Flow takes place in a fantasy world. Yet early scenes — before the flood hits — take a similar tact to The Wild Robot, by presenting something familiar jarringly out of place. Here, a glimpse of a rowboat caught in a tree’s branches suggests that there has been a catastrophic flood before and that humans were once present.

“These environments are not decorative,” Zilbalodis told Mashable on a Zoom call. “They’re there to tell the story and help us understand these characters. So it’s all there for a reason.”

These environments are not decorative. They’re there to tell the story.

The Wild Robot and Flow don’t stop at these environmental cues to indicate how climate change figures into the lives of their heroes. Instead, the characters who inhabit these environments become a key part of why the films’ portrayal of climate change is so moving.

The Wild Robot and Flow‘s nonhuman focus asks, “Who will bear the brunt of climate change?”

The geese begin their migration in “The Wild Robot.”
Credit: DreamWorks Animation

None of the characters in Flow and The Wild Robot are human. The Wild Robot focuses on robot Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) and her animal companions, while in Flow, a small black cat hops onboard a sailboat alongside a capybara, a lemur, a secretarybird, and a Golden Retriever. Though not human, their collective point of view offers up a new perspective on climate change — one that is primed for sympathy.

“I think we care more about a cat in this situation than a person,” Zilbalodis said. “For better or worse, we care more about animals in film.”

That statement rings especially true in Flow and The Wild Robot‘s moments of crisis. After all, when we’re watching Flow‘s cat fight for its life on a flooding boat, or The Wild Robot‘s island animals struggling through an unusually intense winter storm, we’re watching innocents bear the brunt of something they don’t understand, and crucially, something they had no part in causing.

“When these events are happening to animals, it’s poignant, because they had nothing to do with it,” Sanders explained.

When these events are happening to animals, it’s poignant, because they had nothing to do with it.

The same could also be said of younger generations in our current reality, who are inheriting a world that’s been drastically altered by human-accelerated climate change. With this in mind, The Wild Robot and Flow don’t just speak to young audiences about the climate crisis, they also speak for them. The innocent animals become stand-ins for young viewers for whom these images of flooding and intense storms are becoming the norm. Similarly, older generations who won’t experience the full impact of climate change take on the role of the films’ absent humans. They won’t have to deal with the perils they’ve helped intensify, but those they’ve left behind certainly will.

The Wild Robot and Flow are honest but hopeful about a future defined by climate change.

The cat from “Flow” tours a flooded city.
Credit: Sideshow and Janus Films

Despite the daunting worlds they present, neither The Wild Robot nor Flow is all doom and gloom about climate change. Both instead present hopeful paths forward to their young audiences.

For Sanders, the humans’ absence from the wider world in The Wild Robot is a sign of hope. In the film, they have sequestered themselves in smaller, high-tech cities to reduce their impact on the environment. “I like the idea that people concentrate themselves in some places so that other places can heal,” Sanders explained, citing real-world incidents like the re-wilding of Chernobyl and the resurgence of animal life in urban areas during COVID-19 isolation as inspiration.

That sense of assurance comes through even in the Golden Gate Bridge scene. Whales swim over the bridge’s submerged roadbed, proving that nature can adapt to and even thrive in a shifting world. Nature thrives similarly in Flow, with fish and whales floating through flooded cities and forests.

In Flow, hope surfaces as the floodwaters recede, allowing the cat and its companions to set foot on dry land once more. But their survival is bittersweet. The earlier image of the rowboat in the tree, coupled with a post-credits shot of a whale in an endless stretch of water, suggests that the world is locked in a cycle of flooding that won’t be ending any time soon. That doesn’t necessarily mean our heroes’ journeys are over — it just means they’ll have continue to live with these environmental challenges.

“We see these characters going through these ordeals, and growing together and overcoming their fears. But still, there are some problems that they can’t solve about themselves or the world,” Zilbalodis said of the ending.

This is true of both films. Roz and the film’s many animals can’t put a stop to the harsh winter storms that buffet their island, just as Flow‘s animals can’t un-flood the world. Like in real life, the impacts of climate change in the films aren’t an easy fix.

Still, these films’ broader themes of cooperation point a way forward through a future defined by climate change. For all of Flow, animals from wildly different species put aside their differences to keep their little sailboat afloat. Even creatures as different as a cat and dog find a way to coexist. Then, during The Wild Robot‘s winter storm sequence, every animal on the island — predator and prey alike — comes together in Roz’s home to ensure everyone stays warm and makes it through the intense winter.

That collaboration, both films tell us, is how we survive and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. Not just for ourselves, but for all the generations to follow. That message of cooperation by itself might not be revolutionary, but The Wild Robot and Flow‘s subtle yet insistent delivery of it most certainly is.

Flow is now in theaters. The Wild Robot is now available to rent or purchase on digital.