The heartfelt animated film The Iron Giant came out in 1999 and quickly disappeared. Not because it wasn't good. It's fantastic. But, because it wasn't marketed with the faith that the studio should have had in the film. It got lost amid the other hot movies opening at the same time; The Sixth Sense, Mystery Men, and The Thomas Crown Affair. This wonderful animated classic asks the thought-provoking question "what if a "gun" had a soul"?

In The Iron Giant, it's the paranoid 1950's; the atomic age when everyone was seeing flying saucers and was sure that the "Ruskies" were gonna nuke us at any moment. Near a small coastal town, a 50 foot tall metal man from outer space crashes to earth and is first seen by a fisherman whom nobody believes. Next to spot and befriend the huge guy is a young boy, Hogarth Hughes who saves the giant's life when he is trapped in the electric coils of a power station. Of course the paranoid 1950's government sends a meddling agent to investigate the reports of this outer space phenom and the military is called in to destroy the giant. This makes the giant-sized transformer toy reveal his true nature as a weapon but, with the aid of Hogarth, the iron giant learns he can choose to be benevolent and make his own destiny.