Posted by Helen on: 07.01.2008 /
We went to see WALL-E on Sunday. I’ll comment on it without discussing important aspects of the plot beyond what’s in the trailers.
After the first trailer a while ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to go - it looked too cutsey and annoying and possibly lacking in plot. The recent trailer had more interesting content and the reviewers rated it very highly so I decided to go after all.
I liked it and found it thought-provoking. WALL-E is a clever, creative movie. The Pixar animation was amazing, as always. There are fun and funny touches throughout. I particularly enjoyed the robot repair ward where robots exhibit interesting, amusing malfunctions. It was fun watching WALL-E rescue interesting things he finds in the trash and come up with his own original uses for most of them (since he didn’t know what they were). One of his interesting finds is a tiny plant poking up through the trash. As the story unfolds this plant plays a key role.
My daughter said it was sad - no wonder, because she has been part of starting and maintaining a recycling program at her school (she received the Principal’s award for that). This movie is set on an earth 700 years in the future covered in and destroyed by huge mountains of trash, produced by irresponsible levels of human consumption. All the humans left for somewhere else when the trash got out of control.
I thought it was sad too - and convicting. The sci-fi movies which aren’t animated and show a destroyed earth affected me less than this animated movie. I think it’s because it’s so believable that we could destroy the earth this way. It doesn’t require aliens or a human-robot war. Just that the humans who can afford to overconsume continue to do so. At least it feels that way when watching the movie, which I found very sobering.
I liked how the movie was entertaining yet had a serious underlying message about the consequences of excess human consumption. Because I was watching a creative imaginative story I was engaged and didn’t feel beat over the head by the message - yet I also couldn’t ignore it. To me they got the balance right.
Not everyone liked it as much as me - my husband thought it was so-so and John Smulo was disappointed. They thought the reviewers rated it too highly (the reviewers did give it amazingly high ratings, I noticed)
Comment by: Elaine
1 07/6/08 12:17 PM | Comment Link |Well - we went to see it on 4th of July with our granddaughter. I have to agree with your husband - it was so-so.
The romance between the 2 robots was tooo predictable. AND making the villian the robot/computer - kept the blame off the humans. I wonder why they opted to take the safe way on that?
I didn’t get hooked into the story - which means it’s impact was diminished for me.
Comment by: David H
2 07/9/08 9:11 PM | Comment Link |I watched the movie with my younger daughter. In short, I loved the robots and hated the humans. I identified — perhaps overly — with the robots (especially the scrounging little garbage picker), but found the humans completely unbelievable on almost every level. After turning earth into a crap pile and then living a life of decadent ease for over 700 years they are going to suddenly wake up, want to see the universe and be glad to be back on an earth where their hardiest ancestors probably couldn’t survive? Puh-lease.
I think WALL-E may be the best Pixar character ever. And I did like the movie (the lack of dialog made the robot love story work for me). But this isn’t the best Pixar movie and I doubt it warrants all the plaudits being tossed its way.
Comment by: Helen
3 07/11/08 8:55 AM | Comment Link |Elaine, yes, the robot romance WAS predictable. I saw it in the previews so I suppose it was off my ‘is this predictable’ filter since I knew it was going to happen.
I didn’t think the computer being the villain took the blame off the humans because they programmed the computer in the first place. Also I think that was probably a deliberate allusion to the human-computer problem in the book and movie 2001.
David good point about whether these humans could survive and revitalize earth.
I was ok with the waking up part conceptually - maybe not the speed and universality of it, but I think that when humans get to indulge themselves as much as they want they do eventually realize they’re bored and unfulfilled. Well maybe I’m just speculating because I’m still attracted to indulgence. But there’s no challenge in it is there? So I could see humans who’d overindulged getting excited about having something that actually challenged and fulfilled them again. About having a purpose.
But yes, I can’t see how that would give them the skills and stamina needed to restore the earth.
I liked the non-verbal aspect to the romance too even though I do agree about its predictability.
I get what you’re both saying but I still think it’s good that the movie succeeded in shocking and saddening me with the piles of trash all over the earth. And all the space debris that surrounded the earth. To me one of the successes was that they could make a funny cute movie and at the same time not trivialize the seriousness of our over-consumption. To me they didn’t trivialise it at all.
Comment by: Jason Horton
4 07/16/08 4:27 AM | Comment Link |I saw this film the other day and I agree that it is very sad. I though it was interesting that the environmental impact of human over consumption and waste was played as a sad fact rather than something that could be avoided. Is it your opinion that we’ve reached the stage in western culture where we aren’t looking to fix the problem but to cope with it’s impact? I also knocked up a motivational poster here mainly because I’ve become addicted to them and the robot is cute.
Comment by: Helen
5 07/16/08 5:29 AM | Comment Link |Great poster Jason. I’d noticed your recent addiction to those on your blog :)
I saw it as a warning that this is the direction we’re headed in. Not necessarily an inevitability (hopefully not!)
Comment by: patrick
6 07/17/08 10:18 AM | Comment Link |Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course