Image from The Basingstoke Gazette

Sometimes you have to ask yourself why, don’t the bad guys know that they are bad guys?  I mean most of the time they’re doing bad guy things.  Theft, murder, oppression.  And once you’ve convinced yourself that you’re the good guy it is very very hard to see yourself as the bad guy.

Enter Mr. pickles and Mr. Trout.  They serve, if you will forgive an over-educated reference , as the chorus for Laika’s newest film “Box Trolls”.  They or characters just like them are not new to the literary and entertainment venue.  James Bond had Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, Neil Gaiman used the archetype of existentialist thug (Croup and Vandemar) to great effect in Neverwhere, you see them in Pirates of the Caribbean, you see them even in more “kid-friendly” movies like Aardman’s “Flushed away”.

However, what Laika did in Box Trolls is the rarest outcome for this archetype of baddies.  All their existential ramblings, all their discussions of good and evil, led them to one inescapable conclusion.  They *were*, in fact, the bad guys.

And this fits perfectly with the overall theme of the film.  The final message we take away.  The idea that who you become is a choice you have the ability to make (or you can not make).  Even if you started by making a bad choice, you don’t have to be stuck there.  You can make a different choice when the opportunity presents itself.