Space Cadet: Kid Koala’s Heartwarming Animation a Celebration of Visual Storytelling

By Alice Shih

Rating: A-

Film is a visual medium. The birth of cinema was celebrated with moving images being projected onto a screen with no sound attached.

Stories were told using intertitles with live music accompaniment. The audience could understand the story clearly without dialogue, until the birth of “talkies.” Heavy use of dialogue sometimes greatly weakened the power of visual storytelling in cinema.

Silent films gradually faded out, recurring only occasionally as arthouse experiments such as 2011’s The Artist and, more recently, through animations like the 2024 Latvian Oscar-winner animation, Flow. And now, too, with Space Cadet.

The film’s protagonist Celeste lives with her single mom. Juggling a busy work schedule and family, mom’s daughter is being cared for by a dedicated guardian robot when mom, consumed by her career as an astronaut, is unable to attend to Celeste’s needs.

This caring guardian-bot works like both a parent and a playmate when Celeste is young, graduating to helper and friend as she comes of age. Watching her grow and support her through the ups and downs in life, the robot’s sole purpose is lost when Celeste is old enough to leave home for her first solo space mission, following in mom’s footsteps.

Once a trusted companion, home-alone guardian-bot is now merely a housekeeper, and its reduced capacity is further complicated by its aging hardware.

Like someone getting old and forgetful, the robot holds onto the remaining memories of its life with Celeste by painting happy vignettes on canvas while awaiting her return. Celeste, however, runs into setbacks and danger during her assignment and her homecoming is delayed, up to the point when her guardian-bot seriously malfunctions.

To keep itself from breaking down, our guardian-bot tries to select and delete files to offload memories and preserve functionality but is unable to choose as all recorded memory files are precious in defining its life with Celeste.

Dialogue-free, Space Cadet is a heart-warming animated film created by Montreal scratch DJ and multimedia artist Kid Koala, based on his own graphic novel. Using materials from the book, the film is skillfully scripted by Mylène Chollet whose genius use of visuals amuses the audience scene by scene as the story unfolds with clarity and humour.

The animation is masterly illustrated by Toronto veteran animator Lillian Chan, who first collaborated with Kid Koala in her 2006 debut animated short, Jaime Lo, Small & Shy. All the characters are animated with distinct emotions and dead-on funny expressions, even our metal-faced guardian-bot. The meticulously drawn body movements and nuanced expressions are so easy-to-read that dialogue is not needed to “voice” the story.

Language is a means for communication, but it’s also a barrier when you don’t understand it. Born in Vancouver, Kid Koala (a.k.a. Eric Yik Keung San) is of Chinese descent but speaks limited Chinese.

When he was a boy, his non-English speaking grandparents would help take care of him when his parents were busy. He has fond memories of them sitting in the living room watching hilarious silent films by great comedians like Charlie Chaplin. The language barrier instantly vanished as the whole family bonded and laughed in accord.

Body language speaks louder than words in bringing people together. It is quite understandable why Kid Koala has dedicated this labour of love to his grandparents.

You will not space out watching Space Cadet. You’ll understand everything when you laugh and cry with the vivid characters and everyone else in the audience… and will call your grandparents after you get home!

Space Cadet. Directed by Kid Koala. Written by Mylène Chollet. In theatres March 13.