Stanley Pickle evaluation and summary

 Summary

The story follows Stanley, an engineering genius that lives in a house situated in the middle of nowhere, with his two “mechanical” parents. In the story, we are shown about his daily life where he wakes up in his child sized bedroom, eats breakfast with his parents, in which seem to be “looping”. We then are introduced to a girl outside of Stanley’s house. Stanley is very shy and tries to talk to her but can not. That is when the girl’s pet bird dies and is buried. Stanley sees this and tries to revive the bird by mechanizing it and giving it to the girl as a gift. She is terrified and runs away. Stanley snaps back to reality and moves on with his life by burring his now broken parents. 

Evaluation

I think this story was a very interesting one and gave me a lot of views to what it might mean. The biggest one being that Stanley Pickle is a video for us to reassure ourselves about our future and to let go of what we no longer have. In this case; Stanley’s parents. During the short film, there is no hint of his Parents being mechanical up until the bird surgery scene. It is only then when us as the viewers realize Stanley’s intelligence and sort of wicked sense of love towards his family or “past” family members. I say past because of how his parents being mechanical symbolizes the death of his two former procreators. Stanley seems to not be able to let go of the fact that his family is no longer with him and chooses to keep them in a mechanical limbo state in as if they were alive. It is even more obvious when you look at his room. While he is a grown man, he is sleeping in a kids bedroom and playing with toys or reading books on his bed like a kid in his room. This leads me to speculate that his parents have passed away when Stanley was very young, and at a time where he loved his parents the most. This value of not being able to let go in Stanley is also prominent in the scene where he tries and revive the bird by mechanizing it and giving it to the girl. However, we get to see a state of change and growth in Stanley Pickle as well. When Stanley is rejected of the bird and scares off the girl, he was able to snap back to reality and revalue his love and affection for his family. He chooses to let go of his past he loved dearly, (so much that he forced to continue it) and we are met with a scene with Stanley dancing and running with joy and a sense of relief as if a huge weight on his shoulders were lifted off from him. This message is very important in our daily lives because we as humans, tend to love something so much that we forget the general value they used to have towards said thing and refuse to let go. We refuse to let go of the things we love although holding on to what’s left is what hurts the most and letting go as “it is what it is” and embracing the truth is far better for us.