Ron's Gone Wrong

I've apparently turned into a curmudgeon in my old age. I didn't like it. It struck me as an ode to consumerism, conformity, and giving out your personal information to big business. It's weird the producers thought the moral they gave would change that subtext, but it doesn't. Ron being funky and unusual is considered a good thing at the end of the movie. But all that does is suggest consumerism should only apply to good products, and that fitting in with other kids is still down to how well you relate to the robots. I don't even think the subtext of giving out personal information changes too much, even if we are taught to disapprove of the bad guy using it spy on people. After all, the cameras may supposedly be off, but despite Ron's code being in the Bots, they still connect with each other and gather information. We are just supposed to trust that Marc won't take advantage of that. Believe it or not, that's not actually a good cautionary tale for kids at all.

I think the one thing that interested me was Ron questioning whether or not Barney was his friend. Because I can see why Barney didn't have any before. His ideas of what constituted a friend were pretty narcissistic. Granted, it may have been all right to project those selfish wants onto a robot. But I don't think Barney was aware that what he was asking for in a friend was actually bogus when he did so. He wasn't mistreating Ron because he was a robot. He was mistreating Ron because he doesn't actually understand how friendship works. And I disliked everything else, but that was the one piece of character growth that felt solid to me.

Honestly though, I did not dig that. *1/2.