• Warning: Major spoilers ahead for Chris Sanders’ movie, ‘The Wild Robot.’
• Sanders says working on “The Lion King” helped him deliver a shocking moment in “The Wild Robot.”
• “You deal with it in a certain way so that you don’t throw punches,” the director told Business Insider.

Chris Sanders has a history of incorporating serious topics into animated films for children. Before directing modern classics like ‘Lilo & Stitch’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, he was lead storyboard artist at Disney Animation and helped develop iconic titles like ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘ The Lion King’. (he received “Story By” credits on all three).

So when it came to making another heartwarming yet tear-jerking animated classic, he drew from his work on “The Lion King” and the film’s most devastating moment.

Based on Peter Brown’s critically acclaimed book series, ‘The Wild Robot’ follows a robot named ROZZUM 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o) – ‘Roz’ for short – who first sets foot on an island inhabited only by wildlife . Programmed to tend to people’s needs, Roz goes to see if any of the animals on the island need help.

Roz struggles to get used to the island and accidentally crashes into a goose nest, killing the mother. If only one of her eggs survives, Roz plans to raise the gosling until it is old enough to join the winter migration.

While the scene won’t traumatize a generation of children like the death of Bambi’s mother in “Bambi,” it’s still a shocking moment for a children’s film. But Sanders knew it should be in the movie because it’s a major action point in Brown’s books.

“It’s the core of his story,” Sanders told Business Insider. Every good story needs effort, even a story intended for children. “Death is everywhere on this island because it has to be a place with consequences.”

Some of that death is addressed with comedy. In one scene, a mother possum, voiced by Catherine O’Hara, is relieved to learn that one of her babies has been eaten because she has too many (the scene ends with the baby still alive).

But after the death of mother goose, Sanders knew he had to be honest. That’s why he used Mufasa’s death in “The Lion King” as a guideline.

“I learned in ‘Lion King’ that you can do things like that, but you have to deal with it in a certain way so that you don’t take a hit,” he said. Softening the blow will increase the effectiveness of the will only hurt the story later, but it’s a delicate dance: “You want it to be really powerful, but you do it gently.”

“The Wild Robot” does this by making the death of the actual mother goose happen quickly — it’s less than a minute of screen time, and the focus is more on Roz discovering the egg and caring for it than on the death itself.

The scene sets the tone for a film that is an emotional ride, one that stands on the shoulders of the classic Disney titles that Sanders was a part of decades ago.

‘The Wild Robot’ is in theaters now.