mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Given the choice between live action and animated feature films, 9 times out of 10 I’ll choose the latter. I even find those lackluster ones, like, The Emperor’s New Groove, curiously engaging (Patrick Warburton’s terrific delivery alone is worth a spot in your Netflix queue).
For me, Pixar easily turns out the best animated features (to say nothing of their stupendous shorts – did you happen to catch Ransom’s awesome post on the early ones?). I really don’t recall ever leaving the theater feeling unsatisfied, uninspired, bereft, or bemused after a Pixar evening.
That is, until Andrew Stanton’s WALL-E.
Now don’t get me wrong – I still laughed, cried, kissed 40 bucks goodbye and all that clichéd rat-a-tat. It was a highly anticipated night out at the movies that more or less delivered, especially considering the film’s theme, ambition, and design execution (I couldn’t dream up a better post-apocalyptic world, that’s for certain). But as the credits rolled, I was left scratching my head over the following 5 points, and I’m hoping you guys have some answers:
(n.b.: major spoilers follow)
1) Why was Shelby Forthright, the BnL CEO, acted by Fred Willard? Every other “human” in the film was animated, as it should be. I happen to be a Willard fan, though I thought he was completely miscast in this role, which wasn’t really a comedic one. But never mind that: Why the live action? Am I the only one who was bothered by this anomaly?
2) Every time Eve was given the plant, a program was put into execution that shot her back to the ship. And it looked like that was going to happen again when WALL-E and Eve were freefalling through space. But then suddenly they were taking their good old time going back to the ship, enjoying the brief moment alone. Whenever writers create a world, they create rules that govern that world. Here the Eve-plant rule had been established but then broken willy-nilly and I was left wondering why. Any ideas?
3) A film like this usually employs the old ticking clock at the end: figure out how to disarm the bomb before it explodes, emerge from the depths of the ocean before running out of oxygen, etc. And Stanton & Co. wanted us to feel like there indeed WAS a ticking clock: get back to earth before… before… before WHAT? Where was the bomb? The mutiny had already been squelched and there didn’t seem to be any other threat. WALL-E was “dying,” but as we saw before, after a blast of sunshine, he’d be good to go whenever. I didn’t understand what was so pressing post-mutiny. Did you?
4) When WALL-E’s memory chips were fried and his circuit board replaced, it would stand to follow that he wouldn’t remember his former life, and Eve and the adventure he’d just been on. What, er, ON EARTH, was going on there at the end then? I’m all for suspension of disbelief folks, and I saw the happy ending with Eve coming way back in the concessions line, but the way it all came together didn’t work… not by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone else bothered by the memory chips/circuit board switcheroo? Did I miss something?
5) One of Pixar’s strengths is their ability to create films that appeal on many levels, to many different people. I loved Finding Nemo in a way altogether different from my 4-year-old nephew, who liked it differently than my friend’s 13-year-old daughter, etc. I’m still trying to figure out what 4-year-old would enjoy sitting through the first act of a film like WALL-E. Anyone take young kids to this? Any of those kids able to sit through the first 20 minutes or so, until WALL-E and Eve headed off on their adventure? Again, I really enjoyed the first act of the film, especially its ambition, but I couldn’t help but notice the fidgeting kids in the aisle below me, and the overall lack of children in the theater. It occurred to me that maybe WALL-E was really intended for adults only. But a quick Google search turns up plenty of Wall-E birthday party ideas, kids merchandise, etc. Any ideas?
Clearly I was just suffering from jetlag the night I saw the film and now you’re all going to tell me what a huge nincompoop I am and correct my misguided critique of this amazing film, right? Lay it on me.
Comments (43)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
For some reason I didn’t notice these points. My five year old didn’t seem too bothered by them either.
posted by Shawn on 8-18-2008 at 8:17 am
I took my 6 year old son to see Wall-E, he loved it. I well, thought it was ok. The first 20 mins were hard for both of us. My son kept asking whats that, whats that, whats that. But over all when it comes out, we will like the Disney brainwashed parents we are, will buy it.
As for the questions you bring up about Wall-es chip and Eves over ride the answer is simple. Its love. They want us to beleive that true love can and will over come EVERYTHING! Love!
posted by Heather Bishop-Dumka on 8-18-2008 at 8:18 am
Personally I loved WALL-E, it has become my favorite Pixar movie thus far (but I suppose we’re all inclined to our own opinions). As for all of your concerns about the movie the only one that also somewhat irked me was the live-action (now if I found out it wasn’t live-action at all and Pixar is just THAT good, I’d let it slide). I always go into a movie prepared for the inevitable suspension of disbelief and I knew from the get-go that WALL-E was just something I was going to love, so maybe that’s reason enough for my bias.
As for a children’s movie, I would say that it’s more than Ratatouille was (my 2nd favorite Pixar movie) and I’m OK with that. I don’t need Pixar to solely make children’s movies. This may sound selfish, but I was still a child when Toy Story came out so it was fitting, but as I’ve grown older (at least recently) they seem to have broadened their audience as well which is one reason I like them: They’ve grown up with me.
posted by Aaron on 8-18-2008 at 8:21 am
I agree with you on all 5 of these points. The circuitry one really got to me. How the heck did he forget everything, then a spark from Eve make him ‘remember’? Also, being 24 (almost 25) I was bored for the first 20min. The movie did get better as it progressed, but other than the stellar animation (wonder how crisp it will look on blu-ray!?) I don’t really see a reason to watch it again. Personally, I enjoy how the people were more than anything. Terrifying. Terrifying how that seems like an obvious path mankind is taking, constant connection via technology, but we forget the sense of real personal interaction, mostly touch!
What was the urgency to get back to earth? I dunno–stop the decaying of our civilization into a obese heard of cattle? Get back to living like humans and not the over fed pets of machinery?
I think the end animations of how humans had to relearn how to live on Earth, with the earth again, most intriguing. Its like we came out from a cave and discovered the world around us all over again.
Thoughts?
posted by Shivan57 on 8-18-2008 at 8:28 am
My 4 year old loved it. My 2 year old made it 3/4 of the way through (she is 2 afterall). I loved it, too! Suspension of disbelief is inherent in all movies so I didn’t even have a problem with the items you pointed out. I was more bothered by the “floating baggies” in Finding Nemo than your items. But, of course, you are entitled to your opinion.
posted by Loaki on 8-18-2008 at 8:52 am
About point 4 :
Nobody said that the fried circuit board was the robot’s “memory”.
Being a futuristic robot, it could very well have multiple backup system, all over its bod.. err case.
The friend circuit board could just be the one in charge of energy management, it’s destruction meaning “death” for the robot.
posted by manu on 8-18-2008 at 9:16 am
I took my 3 & 1/2 year old nephew…he actually was happy during the first part…with wall-e and the roach…he started getting bored towards the middle…after eve entered. he didn’t get the cute romantic gestures wall-e was making of course :D so i agree adults and a little older kids would enjoy the movie more than the toddlers.
and i never got to see how eve remembers wall-e again…’cause my nephew had to go to potty :-D
and though some questions like the ones you mentioned popped up in my head…i loved the movie so much i ignored the inconsistencies!
posted by septer on 8-18-2008 at 9:29 am
I took my 4 year old son. It was his first movie at the movie theater, and I was concerned that he wouldn’t behave that well. He was great, although I believe the soda, popcorn, and licorice played a big role in his good behavior. :)
posted by Damian on 8-18-2008 at 9:29 am
…how eve remembers wall-e or how wall-e remembers eve(?)….i missed most of the climax.
and btw, the part i did not like was the humans…very un-cute.
posted by septer on 8-18-2008 at 9:35 am
I think the live action character (who was from the past, before humans left) was used to contrast the lumpy digitized creatures that humans had become. Symbolically, it points to our species’ degeneration from warm-blooded vibrant creatures to lazy, consumer-driven pudding balls. I was under the impression that making them digitized allowed this point to be more visually salient.
posted by adam on 8-18-2008 at 9:36 am
About point 1, adam is right, I seem to recall reading that in an article. Also, he’s not the only live action human in the movie, the actors in Hello Dolly are too, furthering the point about humans deteriorating.
posted by Sarah on 8-18-2008 at 9:43 am
I agree with the commenters about live action being used to highlight the change in humanity.
I loved the first part of the film. The whole exploration of Wall-E’s life shows you so much about him and about what’s happened to the Earth. Pixar’s animators know how to use the slightest tweak of a body part to convey volumes of information.
As for Wall-E remembering Eve, who knows what the hardware and software structure of an autonomous, sentient, emotionally-active robot would be like? Chances he had a lot more logic and memory circuitry than that board that was replaced, but the replaced board automatically went into his default programming to start with.
Alternatively, Eve’s little spark was actually a complete transfer of personality and programming…
posted by MaW on 8-18-2008 at 9:51 am
Hi, I have some thoughts about your questions. The first one is that Fred Willard wasn’t the only live human in the film – at the beginning there is an ad showing real people getting massages and playing games on the space ship. The animated people are the ones who have experienced “loss of bone mass”. I like that, just for the difference from other animated films and since animators still can’t make extremely realistic humans, I thought it was a great way to extend the realism of the first part of the movie-to me it made the environmental issues more immediate and connected to the world I live in.
When Eve was able to override her directive, I saw that as a change in her. Wall-E had an effect on all of the robots he met, changing them a little into beings capable of thought and free will. He did this to Mole and to the robot that learned to wave, and to Eve. In the beginning, she obviously had a mission to complete and did as she was programmed – she blasted anything that moved and scanned the landscape and shut down once she found a plant. But once she met Wall-E and spent some time with him, she began to change and be able to have desires and act on them.
As for point 3: I think this movie has taken a different route in storytelling in a lot of ways. One is the mix of live action and animation in a really integrated way. Another is the break from the typical beginning, middle, end formula, and the great combination of two strong storylines. One of my acting teachers says that for each character in a play, this day is a beginning or an end. Either it is their last chance to do something or get something, or it the beginning of a new life and they have to make that new life happen. I think we are used to seeing an end – the last chance to save the world, the final five minutes to disarm the killer, the boy who might solve all of your past dating problems. Wall-E is more of a beginning. Things could just keep on as they are, Wall-E continues to clean up the earth one block at a time, or the humans continue drining milkshakes and playing virtual golf, it can’t really get worse, but what we get in the end is each character getting the chance to start a new life and make choices for the first time about what they want for themselves.
Okay, I am an actor so I think about these things a lot, and I saw the movie twice and have thought about it a lot. I loved it and all of the thing that make it different from more traditional movies. Thanks for letting my write my Wall-E essay.
posted by ashley on 8-18-2008 at 9:54 am
I thought Fred Willard was a good choice for the role. He’s got that “I’m in control but I have no idea what’s going on” act down perfectly. I’ll agree with the others said it was for the contrast with the future of humans. When I was watching, the thing I noticed was the robots were very realistic but the humans were obviously animated. I took this a a stylistic decision to illustrate that the robots were really the things that were in charge. The humans were the “cartoon” characters. The live action help drive this home.
posted by Bob on 8-18-2008 at 9:55 am
I loved WALL-E. Didn’t really notice the plot holes as I was too busy enjoying the animation. Valid criticism though.
posted by Emma M. on 8-18-2008 at 9:58 am
In one scene, Wall-E finds car keys and is able to activate the alarm to a nearby car.
I want that car and the battery it contains. Sitting unused for 700 years and it still has enough charge for the alarm to work? That is impressive!
Perhaps BnL replaced all batteries with small nuclear reactors. That would explain the longevity. Also, that much nuclear waste could easily make the world so toxic that the humans would need to flee to space. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
posted by n2y2 on 8-18-2008 at 10:12 am
1) Fred Willard was live action because of Hello Dolly. They made the decision to use live action people in the past, cartoon people in the present. It makes more sense than a cartoon CEO and live action Hello Dolly to me. And it would have been ridiculous to create an animated Hello Dolly.
2) One central thing Andrew needed the audience to believe was that Wall-E’s quirk, which allowed him to learn/make choices, was contagious among the robots. All through the movie robots begin disobeying their programming after coming in contact with him. Eve learned as soon as she realized the computer was trying to destroy the plant.
3) No good answer there, other than why waste time?
4) No really good answer here, other than that perhaps the quirk was contagious back to him? Doesn’t explain his memory but it’s the best I’ve got.
5) My 3 and 5 year old kids loved this movie. In fact, they understood the beginning of the movie better than the end, though they enjoyed it throughout. In fact, my 5-year-old turned to me about halfway through the movie and said “When I’m not a kid anymore, I want to be a science-man and make robots.”
The 5 things that bugged you didn’t but me at all. In fact the only thing that really bugged me was all the people sliding across the spaceship when the autopilot tilted. It’s implicit that they have some sort of gravity generation device in the ship, but wouldn’t that just pull them straight down, no matter how the spaceship was tilted? It can’t be pulling them down according to some arbitrary down vector independent of the ship’s orientation.
posted by Jared on 8-18-2008 at 10:27 am
1. Fred Willard was human because he was what humanity looked like before they left Earth. If you look at the ship’s captains, the first one is a real photo of someone and they get more cartoon-y with each captain.
2. Eve finally overcame her programming in a similar way that Wall-E did before the movie started. She was able to take a break from her directive because she developed a personality because of Wall-E.
3. If I remember correctly, a blast of sunshine WOULDN’T have helped. He was damaged and had to have his parts replaced before he “died.” They had to rush back to Earth for new parts. Maybe not the best explanation, but it’s the one I got from seeing it.
4. This is where the “it’s a story” part comes in. There is no explanation for this. They just wanted a happy ending and no-personality Wall-E would have been a downer. Chock it up to future technology if you want.
5. I’m 23 and I loved the first 20 minutes. They were the best part of the movie to me. I didn’t notice any kids in the theater. I try not to.
I haven’t seen the movie in a month or so, so my answers might be off. Apologies.
posted by Tonberry2k on 8-18-2008 at 10:27 am
1) I was not bothered with the live action… until you mentioned it.
2)By this point, EVE had realized that the automatic pilot was not in tune with going back to earth. If she had turned into the white-immobile egg when receiving the plant, she would’ve been at the mercy of it, thus being rendered useless (again). I would like to think that these really advanced robots had some kind of criteria.
3)EVE was in a hurry of going back to earth to repair WallE, and second, there is this moment where the captain waters the plant and says “there, there, all you needed was someone tho took care of you”, and has a Eureka moment: they need to foster life on Earth. that’s the hurry. Though, I agree with you, I didn’t notice this until the second time I saw it.
4)yeah, yeah, you’re right.
5) My 2 year old saw it two times, from beginning to end, without flinching. Maybe you are in a geographical zone with high levels of Attention Deficit Disorder.
Still, he preferred Kung Fu Panda.
Wall.E is a movie that reminds me more of Blade Runner than any other Pixar Movie. It can be read in different levels, and actually, my wife found it rather creepy.
posted by Bernardo on 8-18-2008 at 10:51 am
I thought it was a great movie.
1.) I think I heard a more mundane reason for the live action: Pixar is working on a project or projects that involve live action and animation. I like the above explanations too though.
2.)I didn’t notice that part. I was fully engrossed in the animation. Call it love as mentioned above.
3.) The ticking clock was getting of ot the hostile ship, taking our lives back and becoming real people now. BnL would have to wait to go home. We have to grow that pizza right now or were doomed.
4.) See the above explanations. Power supply being fried does not mean memory is lost. Access to the memory may have been blocked.
5.) My 3 year old loved it. He liked Kung Fu Panda more, but that was a more simple story. (Funny too)
Are you seriously asking about Disney and marketing? I’m sure there are some fellow diarists at M-F who know the whole history thereof. Hmmmm, I wonder if any kids would want to play with a robot toy? Iron Man, Transformers, Speed Racer, The Matrix, The Dark Night and Spider-Man are all geared toward the magical 15 to 25 movie audience (or whatever the range is) There are toys for all of those movies geared toward a younger set.
posted by mungley on 8-18-2008 at 10:53 am
1. i agree with ashley, i felt that the live action people were supposed to show how we used to be, and the animated fatties were supposed to be what humans have become, almost as if they are a different species. i noticed that in the captains quarters, the portraits of the past captains get less and less human until the current one.
2. i felt that once eve had made it to the captain (even though she was without the plant) her mission was over. since she wasnt on her mission anymore, she now had choices in her actions, and didnt have to go into lockdown mode when she contained the plant.
3. i dont think it was necessarily the ticking bomb kinda of rushed but more of the uncertainty as to what is going to happen. when im in a panic that something bad has happened or will happen, i usually rush to confirm if things are indeed bad. i want to know that if things are bad, can i fix it or is it hopeless? eve doesnt know if wall-e is salvageable, and the humans dont really know if earth can be liveable again.
4. i look at walle as a computer. if your computer (at least with PCs, i have no idea about Macs) has a major failure and shuts down, it will want to reboot in safemode. when walle has a major trama and shuts down, i felt he rebooted in safe mode, where all he does is collect trash without his high memory usage. just the minimal processessing power to get the job done. once eve sparks him, he gets out of safemode and all his memory is now in use.
5. i dont understand why because there is no dialouge, people get bored. the movie castaway had very little talking, but was found to be entertaining. heck, even cartoons often have little dialouge and rely on sight gags and slapstick for entetainment. i felt walle had both of these aspects.
posted by Sean on 8-18-2008 at 11:13 am
My 6 year old hated the movie. It was boring and she wanted tp catch lightening bugs and run around. We were at a drive-in…go figure. I wanted to run around to, it didn’t hold my interest.
posted by Julianna on 8-18-2008 at 11:17 am
I have not seen the movie because the kids went with Grandma, but when I asked about it, my 8 year old boy said it was ok. My 11 year old daughter said she didn’t like the “in your face political message.”
I haven’t seen it so I don’t know, but I LOVE that she said that, even if nobody else agrees. At least she’s thinking…
posted by Karen on 8-18-2008 at 11:40 am
Julianna, you and your kid should grow an ability to pay attention. That response to Wall-E reminds me of Patton Oswalt’s rant at an audience member who couldn’t deal with silence during Patton’s set. He concludes his lengthy tirade on the audience member’s lack of impulse control and inability to cope with quiet with “You will miss out on everything cool.” You can listen to it on Patton’s album “Werewolves and Lollipops.”
N2Y2:
- It’s the future. This means that you shouldn’t apply current limits of power to the technology in the movie.
- “Must be nuclear-powered!” is an unoriginal and near-cliche critique of a film that stretches the truth about battery life.
- You seem like an absolute killjoy.
posted by tim on 8-18-2008 at 11:58 am
The only thing that bothered me about the magically returning memory was that he started behaving like a brand new bot at first and then managed to get it back together. I can accept that his memory was not in the broken circuit boards but why did he not just initialize and then go back to normal after starting up? Well, to add a bit of suspense, I guess, but it was inconsistent.
posted by OrigamiSlayer on 8-18-2008 at 1:29 pm
Really?? Those were the problems you had with the movie??? You didn’t happen to notice the whole “spaceship IN SPACE turns sideways and PEOPLE FALL OVER” thing?
But…I loved it anyway. And 3D animation typically outrages me.
posted by Sawicki on 8-18-2008 at 1:29 pm
Regarding the spark “rebooting” WALL-E’s memory, I felt it was more along the lines of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (sorry for the spoiler!) where even though they have no recollection of their past, they still go to the beach and fall in love again. Also, keep in mind that WALL-E has been on Earth for 700 years and shows a remarkable personality, an example of a good AI, which is a subtle hint at a “digital evolution” of WALL-E, giving him the ability to express genuine love. Considering this, his memory may not even be stored in a way we’re thinking, his AI might have changed the way memory is allocated, or his AI might have started up with the spark. You could say that the spark is equal to a kiss by someone you’re deeply in love with, a jolt restarting his evolved AI.
posted by Sandeep on 8-18-2008 at 1:45 pm
Funny what people notice. My big problem was this: they made a point of showing that the people on the ship didn’t interact much — they didn’t even know each other’s names — so where did all those babies come from? (And that’s not even mentioning their mobility issues…)
posted by Tina on 8-18-2008 at 2:36 pm
1. Jared said: “Fred Willard was live action because of Hello Dolly. They made the decision to use live action people in the past, cartoon people in the present. It makes more sense than a cartoon CEO and live action Hello Dolly to me. And it would have been ridiculous to create an animated Hello Dolly.” -BINGO! 100-plus points! ;)
2. Don’t forget the little happy zoom-zoom party Eve had when she was fresh off the rocket. She saw the rocket leave, then interrupted her directive to have a little fun/celebration. Obviously emotional from the start; I like to think she’s a wee bit bi-polar, actually!
3. No one was really in a hurry except Eve, really. Her directive had become Wall-e by then. She couldn’t fix what was wrong until they got back to Earth, where all the repair parts were, and not knowing something can really put a fire under your butt, perhaps especially so for a robot with a info-crammed data-brain.
4. I agree with Sean’s comment about Safe Mode. Then, Wall-e probably had a backup drive that had to be initialized – I saw the movie in a digital theater (the 1st time anyway!) and the sound was REALLY good. When Eve ’sparked’ him, you could hear a sort of hard-drive starting up noise!
5. Seen plenty of kids each time I went, but also lots of non-breeders too. Myself included. All the kids I saw seemed to enjoy it. Online, one of the funniest comments from a parent was that the kid cried at the END of the move – because he didn’t want it to be over!
Karen – that’s cool of your 11 y.o.; sounds like me at her age. Mayhaps she can go see The Dark Knight? Methinks she could use some Joker’s “Why so serious?” exposure! ~kiddin’ :)
Tim – good job on bringing Patton to the table, but she-of-short-attention-span might not even come back to this thread. Also, flies to vinegar man. There’s the sort we need to get the Wall-E message to the most! I for one am glad to see at least one naysayer on the Wall-E front. Dissent has it’s place too.
Tina – You’re so right! How do babies happen? I wonder if was all just cloned petri dish babies? Virtual dating probably meant virtual everything else!
Lemmie throw out what bothers MOI the most:
A. In the footage of the past, the Axiom wasn’t the only ship that left Earth – what happened to the others?
B. Obviously not everyone could afford to leave Earth on those ships in the past – so they must’ve died! Did whole nations perish?
C. Where were all the old people? Teens? I think I saw a couple of black people, but no hispanics, asians, etc.! And everyone was certainly pure USA demographic…
posted by tona b. on 8-18-2008 at 4:33 pm
Just a stupid thing i noticed: why the heck did they were dropping waste out of the ship? Why didn’t they recycle? It’s not as if a ship can make things out of nothing!
posted by stygyan on 8-18-2008 at 5:27 pm
I wanted to know why they would show how use a lighter in a kid movie. Maybe that’s where all the trees went…
posted by sil julie on 8-18-2008 at 10:29 pm
The live action didn’t bother me too much. I wondered about it for sure, but it kinda sorta made sense… I guess… >.>
I was mostly wondering where all the other people were. There was only one ship… and it only held one city’s worth of people. In the begining, there were a few ships… but still not enough for the whole world. What happend to them anyway…
The memory chip thing bothered me too. Seriously. I mean, either he remembers everything, or he remembers nothing. He dosn’t forget, then remember all of a sudden. That just makes no sense.
As well as the Eve thing. Seriously. At first, I was sad that Wall-e was gonna have to find his own way back in, ’cause Eve was gonna go zoom to the controll center, but she just floated around all happy. My guess was that, after reporting to the controll room once, she would no longer have to report there again.
Something else bugged me, that you didn’t mention. They left Earth because it was all toxic, right? And there were no more plants? Well… they only found one tiny plant. How did that one plant manage to make enough oxygen for all those people to come back and live? I assume the toxins disapated over time, but there still wouldn’t be enough oxygen….
posted by Stephanie on 8-18-2008 at 10:30 pm
1. I noticed that too and thought it was a little odd that they’d just toss in a bit of live-action with Fred Willard (have NO clue why they chose him for such an obscure role.)
Another thing that confused me: why did the BnL CEO leave a classified message to ROBOTS through a VIDEO that can be easily queued as it was in the film? Logically, the information would have been a data file or coding wired into all of the machines or something.
2. I think Eve’s disobeying the command was part of the story. When Eve saw the plant (which was somehow surviving in the vacuum of space) she oberrode the ‘return to the ship’ command ’cause she was so darn happy that Wall-E was alive and not…blown up. That’s what I thought anyway.
3. I think the ticking clock mechanism used in the film wasn’t as much ‘get there before X happens’ as it was ‘Woohoo! Our planet is liveable again! No more pizza in a cup!’
4….I was wondering about that too. I know the creators made the robots to have more human-like personalities and behaviors, but Eve’s singing jump-starting Wall-E’s memory seems too unlikely.
5. As you said Pixar’s trademark is their ability to create a story that is interesting and entertaining for many age groups without selling out on quality. In this case, I think they simply focused a little more on the older demographic than the younger. But hey, as long as they can sell movie swag to little kids afterwards, it’s all good lol.
Good lord, can I ramble or what?
Either way, I thought the move was amazingly made and a very cute movie. And as soon as they come out with a Wall-E action figure I’m getting one cause he’s so friggin cute!
posted by heather on 8-19-2008 at 2:55 am
Fortunately for me, I didn’t notice any problems or “glitches” with Wall-E – I loved it so much, I was glued to the screen throughout the movie.
I think the fact that everyone is analysing this movie so much is very sad. We’ve forgotten to see the wonder of this imaginary world Pixar has created. I’m probably still a child inside and can still let my imagination go to a level beyond fact. Love conquers all and one small, humble person can change perception and the world around it … even if in real life it doesn’t always work that way. Just forget the reality and see the movie’s message.
posted by Nanette on 8-19-2008 at 3:25 am
@Tina: Scientifically created babies are a fairly standard distopian sci-fi feature – like Brave New World. I figure robots must have been growing and nuturing them.
posted by Sawicki on 8-19-2008 at 12:12 pm
1. I think the actress who did the voice for Genevieve said it best: “Why ask questions you don’t want answers to?”
2. The animation sequences were filtered through several layers of mono-chromatic polymers. That’s what gave it the effects you mentioned above.
3. In the early 1920s the culture was more erudite, and I think this film is intended to echo that era.
4. I had to run to the bathroom after drinking a big slurpee, so I actually missed that part.
5. If you take into account the gravitational pull of the nearby star systems, it should have negated any of these effects.
posted by Dave on 8-20-2008 at 12:56 pm
I was actually peeved that the human blobs weren’t crushed by their own weight and lack of muscle density when they returned to Earth. :)
posted by Yonit on 8-21-2008 at 4:23 pm
I personally feel, in a way, it is intended for a more mature audience. If you think back to Pixar releasing its first feature, Toy Story, back in 95, I would have been 9 years old. I like to think that in a way, Pixar is growing with me, starting at childhood, going through the adolescent years and working it’s way towards maturity, while keeping a definitive child-like persona and attitude.
posted by Kyla on 8-28-2008 at 4:31 pm
It’s a Pixar movie. I mean…you shouldn’t really get too bothered by it. It’s just a cartoon. I did like the ultimate message though, as far as taking care of the environment.
posted by Sara on 9-4-2008 at 9:43 pm
My nephew who just turned 3 loves this movie, and that’s it! My kids (8-10-12) couldn’t sit through it, my 6 year old niece hated it, and so did the 5 year-old twins. I missed most of the points you mentioned because the sounds he made reminded me of teletubbies, and I always hated those pot-head babies
posted by Lorelei on 9-17-2008 at 1:26 am
Ok so I went to see this movie with a friend and had very high expectations. It is Pixar we’re talking about right?? Althought, I thought the movie was cute I left the theater feeling VERY unsatisfied. I agree the movie didnt come together and I think the message tried to be a good one, but most children seeing the movie would not understand it. I did not like the fat lazy people, I did not like that the CEO was not animated, and I did not like that through the first thirty minutes there was no communication. Maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish.
posted by Kaitlyn on 11-7-2008 at 10:14 am
Dude! It’s a robot love story! Nerds everywhere rejoice! My fiancee and I anticipated this movie for months and were not disappointed!!! The noises Wall-e made where created by the same guy who did the sounds for R2-D2…clearly this is a nerd movie. I wasn’t bothered by anything the article author mentioned at all (didn’t even notice the live action to be honest. I think this was because the live action sequences were always on a screen or some video being watched not walking along with the animated characters, that would have been more upsetting). Basically don’t over think it. It’s a sweet smart story with a very powerful message.Go Pixar, well done!
posted by Teddy on 1-2-2009 at 6:52 pm
i thank they should make a nothe walle when the humans are slimmer a littel bit and walle and eve are still friends and go-4 gets atos memory chip and rebulds him in a big machene and he builds robots out of junk and they are called junkers they have to destroy walle and eve eve and walle go acrose the world and find him in a valcno an eve stopes him and she gets hert and a new carectur comes in he is a littel dif rent frome eve hes in red or black he has 2 guns and he is nucler he is a re-t robot enderince trooper the fuirst of many and he gets hacked at night by ato.
posted by robert on 2-2-2009 at 11:38 pm