My Thoughts on "WALL•E"
Note:
This was originally written on Thursday December 29, 2022, and was originally posted on DeviantART on Wednesday January 4, 2023. This was the first thing that I posted on DeviantART in 2023, and I intentionally waited for the then New Year to post it for that reason. And also because I wanted to enjoy my Christmas 🎄 and my New Year's Eve 🥳 without having to worry about posting this on DeviantART. And since I've reposted some of the other things I wrote and posted back in the month of January in 2023 this January in 2024, I thought I would also post this as well.
And it definitely works as a post-holidays review for you to read. WALL•E works as a holiday movie and as a summer movie. This is still my favorite Pixar movie even after all this time since rewatching it and writing this review back in 2022. I alluded this in the note for my Ruby Gloom review, but I've sort of fallen out of love with Pixar. I used to really love Pixar, I loved everything they did, and I went out of my way to see the new Pixar movie that came out, just like everyone else did.
But, I just don't feel like that anymore. Now, I kind of sort of hate Pixar, and I hate what they've become. It was really with The Incredibles 2 that really sort of turned me against Pixar. It was a sequel that I was really looking forward and had high hopes for, especially because the director, Brad Bird said that he had waited this long to make a sequel to The Incredibles because he was looking for the right story. But, then it came out, and I saw it and I was let down by it.
It was just a glorified rehash of the first movie, only instead of it being about Bob going through a midlife crisis and trying to regain his lost glory by being a superhero again, it's about Helen going through a midlife crisis and trying to her lost glory by being a superhero again. All that development, all the status quo changes that had happened in the first Incredibles was all undone in 2. Everything's just back to the way they were in the first half of the first movie, with the people hating superheroes, superheroes still being illegal, and the Parr family being at each other's throats, and struggling to fit into normal society because of their powers. Only this time, everyone knows that Jack Jack has superpowers. Yippee 😑.
Not to mention the twist villain was pretty lame, and was not all a step up from Syndrome, who was an excellent villain in the first movie. Not to mention her main ability to hypnotize people pretty much the movie impossible to watch for anyone who suffers from epilepsy what with all those flashing lights. I mean, I don't suffer from epilepsy, and even I found the movie hard to look at times because of damn flashing lights. I would've accepted it if the Underminer was the main bad guy of the movie instead of the epileptic hypnosis lady ♀︎. I would be nice, and simply say that this is one of Brad Bird's worst movies and that it's only slightly better than Tomorrowland, but I'm not feeling that nice, so I'll just say that Brad Bird is kind of a hack.
And yet, people gave it a pass. People still praised it just because it had good looking animation. So what? Most Pixar movies have good animation. Saying that a Pixar movie has good animation is such a non statement to make, and such a softball statement that you might as well not say it at all. Anyone who reviews a Pixar movie and says in their review that it has good animation should have points taken off, like their credibility takes a hit in my eyes.
That brings me to the other thing that bothers me about how people about Pixar and their movies is that everyone puts Pixar on a pedestal, and everyone holds Pixar to such a high standard that they aren't actually willing to be truly critical of them. I saw this issue with Marvel and the MCU specifically, but now it's going away now that the decline in quality of the MCU films can no longer be legitimately ignored. Like, it's pretty obvious to even the most die hard MCU fan that the MCU sucks now. But, people treat Pixar the same way they did the MCU prior to Avengers: Endgame.
Everyone praises every Pixar movie, and says that Pixar is the greatest animation studio, and always expects great things from them, while at the same time, they put down every other animation studio and say that all their movies suck and expect their movies to be bad. Like, DreamWorks used to be target of this type of vitriol, but now that they've been making more movies that people consider good or great, all that vitriol has shifted towards Illumination.
Now, Illumination is the animation studio that's cool to hate on, and that everyone doubts their movies or thinks lesser of their movies. Like, the most egregious example of this was the YouTuber, captainmidnight who said in his video on video game movies that he thought that the Super Mario Bros. Movie was just kind of average or below average and was "a typical Illumination movie." I know for a fact that he doesn't talk that way about Pixar movies, not even in a video that's supposed to be critical of Pixar, which he did make.
There are so many things that Pixar gets a pass from the movie reviewing community on YouTube and in the wider Internet that they would never allow DreamWorks or Illumination or even Sony Animation Studios to get away with. Like, when Pixar makes a bad movie or a movie that isn't as good, so many film critics will just give it a pass, and say that it's alright or it's average or it's decent, usually because it has good animation or it's "emotional." They won't ever actually say it's bad, even if it is. If this were an Illumination movie or a DreamWorks movie, these same critics would not be saying those kinds of things. They would say it like it is, and say it's bad, and they didn't like it, and I know for a fact that they wouldn't let it get by on just good looking animation alone. Why should Pixar movies be allowed to just get by on good animation alone? What about story and characters? What if those aren't any good? I sort of fell into this trap in my own review as you'll see.
Another example of this would be Elemental, Pixar's major release for 2023. When that movie underperformed, and only made $496.4 million 💵 at the worldwide box office against its $200 million budget 💵, people making excuses for why it underperformed and didn't make a billion dollars 💵 or close to a billion 💵. They just kept blaming the advertising, and saying that the movie was marketed wrong or that Disney didn't market it enough, and didn't at all blame it on the quality of the film itself or on word of mouth. And even then, after all was said in done, and the movie finished its theatrical run, it was considered a "sleeper hit." That was despite the fact that it made about as money 💵 on a similar budget as Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and that movie's considered a bomb. Like, why did Elemental get this much of a free pass? Why aren't people going harder on it.
Again, had that been a DreamWorks movie or an Illumination movie especially, people would have gone as soft on it as they did. They'd be trash talking the movie, and poking fun at it for underperforming or bombing. Keep in mind too, DreamWorks had their 2023 release, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken released the same month as Elemental, in June, and that movie was a huge flop, a bigger flop than Elemental. That movie was forgotten sooner than the latest Netflix trending movie or show. It's faded completely into obscurity, and is only remembered by the few people saw it in theaters, and who's job it is to review it or write an article about it. And Illumination had two movies in 2023, and one of them was a huge bomb too. That one being Migration 🦆, which was released in December and flopped hard 😱. It's funny, Illumination had the second highest grossing movie of 2023 🤑, and also had one of the lowest grossing movies of 2023 😞. It's funny how that happens sometimes.
The fact that people overly praise Pixar movies past and present, and people are so soft on Pixar even when they make mistakes or do stupid things, makes me hate and resent that company. Like, Pixar has been on the top, and has been held to this high standard, and been put on a pedestal for so long that they deserve to knocked down a few pegs. At least, that's what I think. It's kind of made look at the older Pixar movies, the ones from the 90s and the 2000s, and made think, "Hey, maybe, these aren't as good as everyone says." I like Pixar movies a lot less than I did before when I was a kid. The Internet discourse about this company and its movies made me dislike movies that I once enjoyed as a child. I've felt this way about other things that are overhyped and overpraised too like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Barbie, or Godzilla: Minus One, or even The Dark Knight. But, this is about Pixar, so I'm just going to talk about Pixar here.
The only Pixar movie that it seems that people are allowed to hate or dismiss are the Cars movies, especially Cars 2, which most people consider to be the worst Pixar movie ever made. It's certainly the worst reviewed one, and has the lowest Rotten Tomato critic score 🍅, but who cares about that stupid tomato website 🍅? I sure don't. Frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Pixar movies always being praised, and I'm sick of Cars 2 being the only Pixar film that people are allowed to hate. Personally, I kind of dislike every Pixar movie now, or I like them a lot less.
One example that comes to mind is the Pete Doctor directed Up 🎈. Up 🎈 was Pete Doctor's second directorial effort at Pixar after Monsters, Inc., which was his first. I'm sick of everyone praising that movie just for the emotionally manipulative tearjerker 😭 opening. With Up 🎈, it seems like the only part that people actually care about and remember is that opening where we see Carl's life up until the present day, and how he lost his wife and how he became a widower. Everyone just ignores or forgets about the other 99% of that movie, the real meat of the story, which is Carl going on an adventure to South America or wherever by strapping balloons 🎈 to his house 🏠 and flying away (hence why the movie's called Up 🎈), and being stuck with an annoying kid the entire time. If the movie didn't have that opening, would people be praising it as much or saying that it's one of the best Pixar movies? I think not.
I just don't care anymore about watching the next one. I haven't watch a new Pixar movie in years, and I haven't cared about Pixar movie or went out of my way to watch one in years. I didn't watch or care about Toy Story 4, I didn't watch or care about Coco, I didn't watch or care about Soul, I didn't and care about watch Turning Red, I didn't watch or care about Lightyear, and I didn't watch or care about Elemental. And I sure as hell am not going to watch Inside Out 2, or Toy Story 5, or whatever bullshit movies they've got coming out in the next couple of years, one of them is a movie called Elio, which is a sci-fi movie about aliens 👽 and UFOs 🛸 I guess. I don't know. I just don't care anymore.
And don't even get me started about the ridiculous Pixar Theory, a stupid fan theory that posits that all the Pixar movies exist in the same universe, the same continuity, and and all those easter eggs weren't just easter eggs, but were indications that these movies are all connected. It's stupid as hell, and I rant about it more in the review itself. Speaking of which, the only Pixar movie that I don't feel this way about, the only one that I haven't fallen out of love with is this movie, WALL•E. This is the only one that I still think deserves all the praise it has gotten over the years, and the only one that I think deserves to be in the Criterion Collection despite all the Criterion Collectors, the Boutique Blu-Ray bros 💿, complaining about it.
When it comes to the movie itself, there was kind of a debate about whether or not the movie was environmental or not, about whether it had it had an environmental message or not. Most of people seem to agree that it did, like that was the common consensus. But, the director, Andrew Stanton always denied that it did. He always insisted that the movie didn't have an environmental message despite it being about the Earth 🌎 literally being covered in trash, and humanity needing to go back and fix it.
He always said that was all just for worldbuilding, and it wasn't meant to make a statement about the real world and the environmental issues we faced back then, and the issues we still face now. I don't know why he denied it. I don't know if it was because of his faith, or because he didn't want the movie to be seen as political, especially during a time when a Republican president was in office, and when the country was in the middle of a presidential election. 2008 was an election year, don't forget.
But when the movie got a Criterion release, and he had to do some new special features for it, Stanton finally admitted that the movie did indeed have an environmental message, and he actually embraced it. I don't know what changed between the time the movie was originally released back in 2008 and when it was added to the Criterion Collection in 2022, but it did. Maybe, it's because now, in the 2020s, the issue of climate change is becoming more and more apparent, and becoming less and less easy to ignore or dismiss. Maybe, then Stanton was like, "Okay, I just need to come out and just admit that my movie did indeed have an environmental message. I need to start getting with the times."
Whatever the case, I still like this movie a lot. More than most other Pixar movies. Maybe one day, people will start giving Pixar the criticism and the more hard treatment it deserves. But, for now, I'll still enjoy this. And hey, you know what? It had pretty sweet video game too. Even if I didn't finish it, I still liked playing the WALL•E game on my PS2, which I gave away a long time ago. I really wish I hadn't done that, and kept it. That's why I want to keep my PS4, besides the fact that it's my one and only Blu-Ray player 💿. The music for that game is just amazing, better than even the music for the movie in my opinion. And because this movie had a video game tie-in, it has the distinction of being one of the few movies in the Criterion Collection to have a video game tie-in.
Just imagine if they added Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius to the collection. That movie technically has two video game adaptations, one for PC and one for PS2. Not to mention, it has its own TV series, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, which had its own spin-off called Planet Sheen. But, the 1953 version of War of the Worlds is apart of the Criterion Collection and that movie has a TV series too. So, Jimmy Neutron wouldn't be unique in that aspect if it were added to the collection, but it would be apart of the club.
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But if you don't, the gist is that when it was announced that the Criterion Collection was going to add WALL•E to its collection of films and give it a special release, fans of the movie and fans of Disney and Pixar in general were happy and excited. While, Criterion Collectors (Criterion Collection aficionados) were shocked and appalled and acting as if it was the end of the world that such a popular movie was added to a collection of mostly obscure classic 20th century movies (movies from the actual 20th century, not from the studio, 20th Century Fox, though some were), super critically acclaimed movies, and avant grade arthouse films. Even though, it's been done before, need I remind them of Armageddon?
I myself didn't even know that this Criterion release was even coming out until I visited Best Buy during my birthday 🥳, and I saw it on their movie self. I was pleasantly surprised that it was given a Criterion release, and I really liked the cover. It was absolutely beautiful and was very fitting with what the movie was about, and where it was set, which was a dystopian Earth 🌎 covered in trash. I liked how the cover used apophenia, a tendency that all humans have of seeing things that aren't actually there, like seeing faces in inanimate objects.
Whoever the artist (or artists) was who drew the cover art for the Criterion 4K/Blu-Ray combo pack of WALL•E, used that concept of apophenia to draw the characters, WALL•E and EVE without actually drawing them, just drawing various objects and pieces of junk in the garbage pile that form the shape of those characters.
The most clever thing about that was how they actually used a pair of binoculars to form WALL•E's face/head, since binoculars were the main inspiration for WALL•E's face/head. And of course, there were a few references and easter eggs associated with Pixar thrown in there like the Luxo ball and the Luxo lamp (the one that's in Pixar's logo intro). You can't have a Pixar related thing without those easter eggs and more, even a Criterion 4K/Blu-Ray combo pack. I was tempted to buy it because I had lost the WALL•E Blu-Ray that I had, when I lended to someone I knew (the son of my dad's ex-girlfriend). So, this was my opportunity to get a new one.
But, I didn't buy it then because I really wanted to buy The Lost World: Jurassic Park on 4K, since I had the first Jurassic Park on 4K, and I wanted to The Lost World to sort add to my collection and create a sort of uniformity with the 4K Jurassic Park that I had. I didn't end up getting the 4K version of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, as it wasn't available anywhere (in store), so I just got the regular Blu-Ray 💿 instead.
I still plan on getting the 4K Ultra HD release of The Lost World, and the 4K Ultra HD release of Jurassic Park III, but I'll probably have to order those online in the future. So, I just left the Criterion WALL•E 4K on the self, since I felt that I could wait on that for a little bit. But, a week or so later, when I went back to go and buy it, it was all sold out, the Best Buy that I frequent did not have it in stock, and the other Best Buy in Albuquerque was low in stock.
So, my only option was to order it online, but I didn't really to want to do that since that takes time, and I asked my aunt if she could order it for me to just pick up for me, but the other Best Buy location was far away from where we were, and my grandma didn't like driving all the way over there. So, I didn't end up buying it then, and I kept telling my grandma and my aunt to keep an eye for it so that they could buy it for me when they had the chance.
Luckily, I did end up getting it as a Christmas present 🎄 from my aunt, which is how I was able to rewatch the movie, and how I was able to even write about my thoughts on it. I was genuinely surprised at how quickly this Criterion release sold out, and how in-high-demand it was. On Barnes & Noble's website, it's listed as a bestseller. I've never seen a physical media release like that sell out that quickly before, and be that popular, not since streaming took over. Maybe, physical media does actually have some staying power and this release may help turn things around. Maybe, it was just the Christmas buying season 🎄 that artificially boosted its sales. But, whatever the reason, this thing sold out pretty well in most of the places it was sold, and that to me was pretty astonishing.
But, anyway, enough about the release and how I actually got my hands on it, let's talk about the movie itself. This movie is a childhood favorite of mine. I was 9 years old when it came out, and I had the privilege of seeing it in theaters while it was still playing, and I loved it 😍. And frankly, so did everyone else who saw it with me. It made me want to write stories like it, and want to create characters like the ones in the movie. I don't know how many times I watched it in the theaters, but it was numerous.
Watching this movie in the theaters was definitely a treat, and rewatching it again makes me kind of makes me want Disney to re-release in theaters because it is a movie that works so well on the big screen. Then, of course, I bought the DVD 📀 (or my mom did), and I watched that a bunch of times. Then, I bought the Blu-Ray 💿, which I lost. And now, I have the Criterion 4K/Blu-Ray combo pack, and it's just as great as I hoped it would be. Criterion did a great job as always with this release, it was worth the wait.
And the movie is still great, even to this day. Like, even after 14 years, this movie still holds up, not just in terms of the animation, which looks great, but also in terms of the story and the characters. There's just something universal about this movie, that's about to transcend cultures and nationalities and is able to connect a wide range of people. A lot of that has to do with the way they told the story. Pixar managed to make a movie, and tell a story with very little dialogue and mostly though visuals.
That's pure filmmaking right there, just telling a story with visuals alone, through facial expressions, body language, and music. It is pretty much going back to the silent era, where they couldn't use dialogue, and just had to use visuals to tell the story and develop the characters. And even though the movie had a budget of $180 million 💵, and all that money 💵 is definitely on screen, it's very minimalist. It feels very small scale and intimate, and that's part of what makes it great, I don't know how Pixar managed to pull that off, but they did, making such a big movie feel so small and minimalist. I really like how this movie conveyed exposition.
It doesn't explain things, or tell you any information, it just leaves little details and things in the background for you to infer on what's going on based on just the visuals. That's what makes the worldbuilding so effective in this movie. Even the most blatant expositional scene in the movie, the part where WALL•E's eye gets damaged, and he has to get a new one, setting up what happens later, is done entirely visually and with no dialogue whatsoever. I liked that Andrew Stanton and his crew at Pixar had enough respect and confidence in the audience to just let them infer things and figure things out on their own, rather than just telling them outright through dialogue or text on a screen. This movie is one of the best examples of "show, don't tell"; something that a lot of so-called "critics" on YouTube love to throw around, but never really elaborate on, and really just use it to shit on a movie they don't like.
The movie does a great job of endearing you to WALL•E almost from the get-go, and making you want to root for him at all times. Not only is he cute 🥺, but he's also very good natured, innocent, and pure. He has a very childlike quality to him, despite technically being hundreds of years old by the time the movie starts, and I think that's why kids were able to connect with him so easily. They saw a bit of themselves in him, he felt like he was on their level, and that included myself.
Even now, I can still sort of relate with WALL•E, and I do see a bit of myself in him. He's a collector, he likes to collect objects that he finds and that look aesthetically pleasing and catch his interest, and then decorates his truck with them, and same here. I have a Maneki-neko (one of those waving cat knick knacks that they sell at Asian stores in the mall), I have a glass snake 🐍, I have a Newton's cradle, and I have a rubber hermit crab, and I have them in my room as decorate. They serve no other purpose other than they look nice and are fun to have and look at. I also have my huge movie collections, all of my Blu-Rays, and 4K Ultra HDs, my games, all of my PS4 games and my PS4 accessories like my controllers and my charging cord, and I have whole bunch of Sharpie markers and pens.
So, when WALL•E gets hurt by AUTO later on in the movie, and all damaged and in need of repair, we're all rooting for him to get back home, so that EVE can help repair him and get him back to his old self. Speaking of which, that is the movie is one of the few times where you can understand why they cut a certain scene in the movie, and replaced it sometime else, and agree them. For those that don't know, the Garbage Airlock sequence was originally completely different than what's in the final movie. Originally, EVE was the one who was damaged by AUTO, and WALL•E is the one who has to rescue her and repair her afterwards.
But, they cut that scene out at the last minute, and replaced it with the version that's in the final movie where WALL•E is hurt, him and EVE both up in the Garbage Airlock, and then EVE has to rescue him and has to find a way to repair him afterwards. The director, Andrew Stanton explained his reasoning for wanting that scene changed, and what it boils down to is that it's more emotional for the audience if WALL•E is the one that's hurt instead of EVE 😭, and it improves the third act by giving a clear reason why they have to go back to Earth 🌎 besides just "following the directive," and cleaning up the mess from 700 years ago. There is no way to fix WALL•E on the ship because they don't have the parts necessary to fix him, but there are spare parts on Earth 🌎.
So, if they get back to Earth 🌎, then EVE can use the spare parts that WALL•E has collected over the years to repair him. It also improves the character arcs of both EVE and WALL•E, by showing that she cares about him rather than her job, that she's reciprocating his love and care for her. And it shows that he's starting to look beyond himself, and becoming a real hero as he wants to help everyone else and help contribute to EVE's mission rather than being obsessed with EVE and following her around all the time.
Like, he's trying to tell her, "Don't worry about me, focus on completing your mission and saving everyone else," but of course, EVE sort of rejects this this showing that she cares more about him than just following her programming. It does a good job at showing at how much both of them grew at this point in the movie, and it makes their romance 🥰 way more rewarding and earned.
So, the Garbage Airlock scene was one of the few instances that I can think of where everyone can agree that the director and all the other filmmakers involved made the right call in removing a scene and replacing it with something else. Like, no one's saying they should've kept that scene or they should put it back in. Everyone's kind of in agreement that they made the right move by removing that scene and replacing it with something else. Even if it was at the last minute, which it was. It was a much more last minute change that what Pixar usually does, since they typically delete scenes and make story, character, and scene changes earlier on in the storyboard process.
Almost all of the marketing and supplementary media that came out to coincide with the movie's release still had the EVE version of that scene, including the third trailer, the novelization, and the video game. The video game definitely found a way to make it work, especially since WALL•E is the main playable character in that, and you wouldn't want him to get damaged and not be playable for an extended period of time. Even though, he does end up getting damaged after he gets crushed by the Holo-Detector, just like in the final film.
The game switches over to EVE, and you play as her as she races to get to WALL•E's truck to repair him. So, it wouldn't have made that much of a difference if WALL•E was the one who was hurt by AUTO in the game, and the game switched over to EVE. It just would've happened sooner. But, they finished the game well before Andrew Stanton decided to make that story change, so we're stuck with the EVE version in the game. But, it does work in the game, they found a way to make the EVE version work for their purposes. And at least we get to see how the movie would've played out if the story wasn't changed, and the characters were flipped, if you didn't read the novelization that it is, which also has the EVE version of events as I said earlier.
But, it definitely works better in the movie, having WALL•E be the one who gets hurt by AUTO, because when he does get crushed by the Holo-Detector, he's already damaged, weak, and is already losing life. And just as Andrew Stanton said, it makes him seem more heroic when he is already damaged and weak, and yet he's trying to his hardest to keep the Holo-Detector from going back into the Lido Deck.
And when he does get crushed by the Holo-Detector, it makes more sense why he becomes completely inoperable and "dies." It makes you wonder and worried while you're watching it if they actually be able to bring WALL•E back, if fixing him will actually work if he as busted up as he is. And when he is actually fixed, he reverts back to his factory mode essentially and starts acting like a pure machine, just doing what he was programmed to do, and we get worried that WALL•E is well and truly dead, all the personality he had was wiped away when his chip was damaged and then replaced with a different one, and he's just a hollow shell of what he once was. But, luckily, he come back after EVE "kisses" him. The power of love ❤️ is ultimately what brings WALL•E back to life.
But, it's not just the Garbage Airlock stuff, all of the deleted scenes from WALL•E were deleted for pretty good reasons and you can totally understand and agree with the director's reasonings for wanting them removed or changed. I even agree with him changing the aliens to humans earlier on in the development process. When I saw the special features when I was younger, and I saw that the humans were originally going to be these gelatinous see-through aliens (similar to B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens), I was actually excited and I kind of wished that they went with that version; since I was so into aliens 👽 back then.
But, now, rewatching those same special features (which they did port over to the Criterion release), I think it works way better than them being humans instead of aliens 👽. It makes the message and themes work better, which I will discuss soon. I still like aliens 👽, but not every sci-fi movie needs to have aliens 👽 in it. Sometimes, it can just have robots and spaceships.
That's another thing too, WALL•E is Pixar's first and so far, only pure sci-fi movie. You know, it takes place in the far future, it's got robots, it's got spaceships, and mostly takes place in space. I can totally see why Andrew Stanton chose to direct John Carter right after this, a movie based on a landmark in sci-fi literature, which ended up being his first live action film; he's a huge fan of science fiction, and both films (WALL•E and John Carter) definitely show that.
And it also makes sense why he decided to go into live action after this movie since he got a taste for live action filmmaking after he did those live action segments in this movie; which were pretty new for Pixar at the time, and haven't really done since. It also kind of makes wish that Studio Ghibli would make a pure sci-fi movie, instead of just doing fantasy or historical dramas all the time, since I've always seen Studio Ghibli as the "Pixar of Japan 🇯🇵."
Not in the sense that they make 3D animated movies, they mostly make 2D animated movies, but in the sense that they make critically acclaimed movies that people of all ages love and win awards, and people associate their name with quality. People have a high standard and expect great things from Studio Ghibli just like they do with Pixar.
Even if I personally think both companies have become way overhyped over time. But, this movie, WALL•E is one of the few times where I can confidently say where all the hype was justified and well deserved. This movie definitely did come out at a great time.
This was still Pixar's "Golden Age," when they were pretty much releasing a movie every year, and everyone loved their movies and thought that they could do no wrong. It wasn't until after this movie that Pixar started making some missteps and people started to see them as more fallible and not untouchable or perfect. So, in a way, you could say that WALL•E marked the end of Pixar's Golden Age.
I haven't even talked about EVE yet, and she's the secondary protagonist and WALL•E's love interest 🥰. She's a great character also. When we first meet her, she's very cold and robotic, and very hostile. She's only focused on her mission, on following her directive of finding any signs of plant life 🌱 on Earth 🌎, and she attacks anything that startles her and she perceives as a threat with her extremely overpowered laser gun; like seriously, that laser gun she has in her arm is like a weapon of war, why give a weapon that powerful to a reconnaissance robot, who's only function is to find signs of plant life 🌱? But, WALL•E starts opening her up a little bit, and she starts to appreciate the littler things in life, and see that there's more to life than just her mission, her directive isn't everything.
And while, she's still very much focused on her mission and getting the plant 🪴 to the Holo-Detector through most of the middle of the movie, by the end, she's gone beyond her directive and has finally embraced WALL•E 🥰. And their romance 🥰, the way it progresses throughout the whole movie is very organic, believable, and satisfying. This is truly one of the best love stories 🥰 ever put to film, and it's between two robots who barely speak.
I really like her design, not just because it's cool, clean, elegant, and pristine (she kind looks like she was designed by Apple, like if Apple made a robot, that's probably what it would like) and contrasts well with WALL•E's more rusty and rugged look, but also that you can tell that it's a female robot ♀︎ without making her look overtly female ♀︎. There's nothing about EVE's design that would suggest that she's a female robot ♀︎, but there's something implicit and instinctual about her design that you can tell that she is female ♀︎ without having any outwardly female features ♀︎ to go off of. That's a really cool approach, and it definitely sets EVE apart from other female robot or AI characters ♀︎. Her voice is cool too, I really like her voice. And of course, her OP laser gun is beyond awesome.
I also like the other robots in this movie as well. Obviously, you got M-O, the cleaning robot that inadvertently ends up following WALL•E around the ship, as he cleans up his tread tracks, and the third main robot character in the movie besides WALL•E and EVE. He's a pretty fun character. But, the other robots are fun too like the vacuum robot, the umbrella robot ☂️, the hair and makeup robot, the massage robot, the flashlight robot, the golf robot, the WALL•As, the giant versions of WALL•E that compact all the trash in the Axiom and blast out it out of an airlock, and much more. The thing that I like about the robots in this movie is that they don't look human. Most robot movies make the robots look human in some way, even "Star Wars," which did have plenty of non-human looking droids, still had a lot of droids that look very human.
But, this movie goes about as far away from humans as you can possibly get when it came to the design philosophy for these robots. These actually look like robots that people would actually design, make, and use. Most of the robots that we have today don't look human at all, even if they are designed to interact with humans. The human form is very difficult to replicate in machine form, and it really isn't all that efficient. So, it's a lot easier, efficient, and cost effective to design and build a robot that doesn't look human at all, but is perfectly suited for the task it's programmed for.
Speaking of programming, AUTO and his right-hand robot, GO-4 are great antagonists for this movie. A lot of people have already said this, but the great thing about AUTO is that he isn't evil. He does a lot of horrible things, and is the main obstacle standing in the way of WALL•E and humanity getting back home, but he isn't evil. He's just a machine doing exactly what he was programmed to do, and never breaking away from that programming.
He was given a order to never return to Earth 🌎 by the higher ups of BnL, because the cleanup operation involving the WALL•Es failed, and he follows that order to a T. He represents what happens when you just follow your orders, follow your programming, and never deviate, and the dangers of doing so. And he also represents what happens we humans become too reliant on technology, and just let machines run everything for us, and the dangers of doing so. The fact that he's called AUTO helps in conveying that message. I like how much of a contrast he is to WALL•E, like they're complete opposites. WALL•E feels so human, he feels so lifelike, and you can see a character and personality in him, whereas AUTO feels so inhuman, he's not very lifelike, and he doesn't have much of a personality or character to him. He's completely machine, cold and emotionless.
That's why it's fitting that they used the MacInTalk text-to-speech program to voice him instead of an actual human voice actor, it really drives home the fact that he is completely machinelike and lifeless, and makes him more unsettling as a result. I also like his design, how he's just a captain's wheel, with a HAL 9000 red eye in the center, that's pretty clever, and each other handles on his circumference are like his appendages and each of them has a different gadget or gizmo on them, those are pretty cool. He kind of moves like a spider at certain parts, really makes him more inhuman and unsettling.
GO-4's great too, there isn't as much to say about him as there is AUTO, but he's a pretty good secondary antagonist; he's basically AUTO's enforcer, the one who acts on his behalf throughout the rest of the ship, and carries out his orders. His design's pretty cool, like it incorporates elements of AUTO's earlier design (which incorporated elements of EVE's design). And his demise is pretty satisfying, how he gets knocked out of the window by the Captain accident while he's fighting AUTO, and then he plummets all the way down to the Lido Deck and just shatters into a bunch of smaller pieces.
The Captain's a pretty great character too. He's one of the few human characters in the movie, and he's one of the few characters overall in the movie that is voice acted in a traditional way, and has more than a few lines. He's definitely the most talkative character in this movie. He's voiced by Jeff Garlin, who I sometimes get mixed up with John C. Reilly. They look and sound so similar to each other. It's sort like Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera, and how people get those two mixed up a lot. Anyway, he's pretty good in this movie.
He probably has one of the best lines in the movie, and one of the best lines in any movie ever, "I don't want to survive, I want to live!" It's so simple, and yet, it's so powerful. It is better to live than it is to merely survive. And he goes through as much change, if not, more change than EVE does as a result of interacting with WALL•E. WALL•E changed most of the characters that he came into contact with on the Axiom.
The Captain goes from a character who was, in Andrew Stanton's words, unchallenged. He's a guy ♂︎ who never had to do any hard work for the entirety of his time as the captain of the Axiom, since all the heavy lifting was being done by AUTO. While he was doing the minimalist amount of work, the least difficult tasks, and just generally going through the motions. But, once he learns what Earth 🌎 is, and what it used to be like and what it's like now, and when he sees AUTO destroy WALL•E, he's galvanized to get up off his chair, and actually do something. He shuts AUTO down, he takes charge and becomes the captain that the passengers of the Axiom needs, and the leader that humanity needs, since they literally have to start all over again.
A lot has been said about the themes and messages of this movie, whether it's environmentalism, corporatism, consumerism, over reliance on technology, and the decrease in real face-to-face human interaction due to technology. For the longest time, Andrew Stanton has always denied that the movie was meant to have an environmentalist message, saying that it was just an interesting setting for the movie, and the movie was more about the love story between WALL•E and EVE ❤️, and was about WALL•E leaving his home and going on an adventure out in space and doing something greater than himself.
It's sort of like how Neill Blomkamp for the longest time denied that District 9 had a political message (his co-writer partner, Terri Tatchell said in a behind-the-scenes documentary that it wasn't a "political statement film"). Until he finally fessed and embraced the fact that it did have a political message, how it was essentially an allegory for Apartheid in South Africa 🇿🇦, and the xenophobic treatment of Zimbabwean immigrants 🇿🇼 who fled to South Africa 🇿🇦 after their country experienced hyperinflation.
But, similar to Neill Blomkamp, 14 years later, Andrew Stanton has warmed up and embraced the movie's environmentalist bent. It is kind of hard to deny that the movie does have environmentalist themes in it. I mean, you can't exactly have Earth 🌎 become a trash planet due to the activities of a mega corporation and hyper consumerism, and then have the solution be that humans return to Earth 🌎 after leaving it hundreds of years ago, and then becoming better stewards of the planet—planting more plants 🌱 to add to the ones that are already growing back, getting rid of all trash and other pollution, and just generally restoring the environment back to what it was before the Earth 🌎 got covered in garbage—without it coming across as an environmentalist message.
In fact, in one of the new special features created for the Criterion release, Andrew Stanton went as far as to say that if he made this movie today, he would've leaned even more into the environmentalist themes, and would've treated it more seriously and more dire rather than just merely being a good steward to the Earth 🌎, given how bad climate change has become since the movie was made and released 14 years ago.
Maybe, he always knew and embraced that the movie had an environmentalist bent to it, and he just denied it because movies with those kinds of messages still weren't really respected back then. Environmentalist movies were always seen as preachy and patronizing. But now, that we know how bad things are, and how much worse they'll get unless we shape up and reverse course, movies with environmentalist messages are a little bit more respected than they used to be.
But, the messages and themes that Andrew Stanton has always embraced and insisted are in the film, are the anti-corporatist and anti-consumerist themes as well as the themes about being overly reliant on technology. Obviously, this movie's against corporatism and consumerism since it's a mega corporation and the over consumption of consumerist products that are the root causes behind the state of the world in this movie.
It's because of BnL, their consolidation of power, their endless pursuit of profit 🤑, and their mismanagement of the environment, and it's because of people just buying and buying BnL's products and being wasteful that the world ends up being covered in trash and humanity has to leave in giant cruise ship 🛳️ like spaceships. And it's the rejection of corporatism and consumerism that sets humanity back on the right path.
In that same special feature I mentioned, Andrew Stanton said that "capitalism run amok is a go-to for artists when telling a story," and it most certainly is. Capitalism isn't all bad, it can lead to good things or even great things, and improve a country's economy and people's lives. But, when it isn't kept in check, and is just allowed to get out of control, when it overreaches and overextends, that's when it starts having a negative effect on the environment and on people's lives, that's when it becomes a bad thing. And it's stories like these that show us this, and why we need to keep a much more close, tighter lid on capitalism because if it isn't kept in check, then it can a detriment to our lives and to our world rather than a benefit.
Then, there's the over reliance on technology, that's the other big thing that this movie comments on. The humans in this movie, are completely dependent on technology and the robots to take care of them. They need them to provide them food, water, shelter, transportation, entertainment and various other things. It's the to the point where they've essentially regressed into babies, and are just living in their hover chairs every day. And it's only when they get off of their chairs, and start doing things on their own without relying solely on technology that they start to "grow up."
And of course, the humans are all addicted to looking at their screens, and they don't do face-to-face interaction anymore, they just talk to each other through live video chats 💬, similar to Zoom or FaceTime. And again, it's only when they turn off their screens and start interacting face-to-face for real that they start to "grow up." A lot of other movies have similar messages about humans being overly reliant on technology and becoming lazy as a result, or about humans not interacting with each other face-to-face because of technology, because they're looking at screens all day. But, this movie manages to handle them with more subtlety than a lot of those other movies do.
The themes and messages in this movie were all pretty well handled and are still very relevant to this day. This movie ended up being a lot more prophetic than probably anyone would've hoped. The Earth 🌎 is in ecological turmoil, corporations are consolidating and becoming too big and powerful, politicians are incompetent and unreliable (in WALL•E, politicians and corporate executives have become one and the same because the corporation became the government and it's a one world government), and people are becoming overly reliant on technology, and people are losing touch with each other because their addiction to certain technologies like smartphones, social media, and video calls. Those are all things that are happening right now.
One area that I don't see anything is religious themes. Some people have suggested that this movie does have some religious themes in it, even just a little bit. Andrew Stanton is a religious man, he is a Christian ✝️, and he has said that EVE was inspired by Eve from the Biblical "Adam & Eve" story, meaning that WALL•E would be like Adam. Some have also compared WALL•E to Prometheus, Sisyphus, and Butades. EVE has been compared to the dove 🕊️ in the Biblical "Noah's Ark" story, and the Axiom has been compared to the Ark from "Noah's Ark."
The dove 🕊️ is what leads Noah on his voyage in the Ark, just as EVE is what leads the Axiom back home by finding the plant 🪴. And there are some other religious themes that have found or interpreted in the film. I don't really see it that much. Maybe, it's because I'm an atheist and I've never read the Bible, but I've never seen any of the religious themes that people are interpreting in this movie. That's the one area that I feel like people are reading too deeply in it.
This is also the movie that really made people think that the Pixar movies are all connected and apart of the same universe, and really kicked off the so-called "Pixar Theory." Ever since this movie introduced the Buy n Large corporation, or BnL, and it started appearing in other Pixar films afterwards like Up 🎈 and Toy Story 3, people seriously started to think that all of those easter eggs in the previous movies weren't just easter eggs and these movie are all in the same universe. The theory really took off in the 2010s when the MCU really cemented itself and everyone became obsessed with cinematic universes.
I don't believe that, I completely reject the Pixar Theory. I used to sort of be on board with it, but now that I'm older, I completely reject it. It's a completely ridiculous fan theory, in fact, it's safe to say that nearly all fan theories are pretty dumb. Just because there are easter eggs or references in a movie, doesn't mean that they're connected. Most of the time, they're just fun little inside jokes and loving tributes to other people's work, or they're references to their own work, and are nothing more. It's just that people have so conditioned by the MCU and the prevalence of cinematic universe, that they think everything's a cinematic universe. But, they're not and they don't have to be.
Why do the Pixar movies have to be connected? They don't. They work perfectly fine on their own without being a part of a larger universe and being all interconnected with each other. I mean, if you really tried to put these movies in a timeline and make sense of it, it wouldn't work.
You're telling that there are talking toys in the same universe as monsters that live in an alternate dimension and scare kids through their closets in order to use their screams for energy, bugs 🐜🐛🐞 that can talk, fish 🐠 and other sea creatures that talk, superheroes, an old man who flies up in the air by tying balloons 🎈 to his house, dogs that talk by using collars that can translate their thoughts into words, and of course, a mega corporation that takes over the entire world and then turns it into a global landfill, and then evacuates all of humanity in spaceships and leaves the cleanup to a bunch of trash compacting robots?
It really doesn't add up all together, despite the best efforts of YouTubers like the SuperCarlinBrothers. There's more of a case to say that Quentin Tarantino's movies are in the same universe than there is to say that the Pixar movies are all in the same universe. And I completely reject the idea that Tarantino's movies are in the same universe as well, but it's still easier to believe than the Pixar movies being in the same universe; that's how weak the Pixar Theory really is, it's weaker than the Tarantino cinematic universe theory which is also on shaky ground. So, I don't believe in the Pixar Theory, and I don't think you should either.
Anyway, enough ranting about the ridiculous Pixar Theory, let's wrap this baby up. WALL•E is a true animated classic. I've noticed that there is a recurring critique out there about the movie, that the first half of the movie is great, while the second half is less great. This mostly boils down to how little dialogue there is in the first half, and how there's a lot more dialogue in the second half. Some people I guess felt that the second half of the movie that takes place on the Axiom detracts from the movie being like a silent movie, and they're misanthropic that they don't want to see any humans at all, and just wanted it to just be WALL•E and EVE the whole time.
I personally love the whole thing 😍. Besides being a romance 🥰, the movie's about WALL•E stepping out of his comfort zone, leaving his nest, and going off on an adventure out in space, and seeing what's out there. And you can't exactly do that if it stays on Earth 🌎 the whole time. It also helps out with the themes, because if we see what happened to humanity, then we can see what needs to be done to restore the Earth 🌎.
It definitely feels more like a complete movie with the space and Axiom stuff. If it just had the stuff on Earth 🌎, then it would just feel like an extended short film, but with the stuff in space and on the Axiom, it feels like a movie. But, to be far though, the opinion or assessment of the movie isn't exactly common, and I first held it from Doug Walker (the guy behind the Nostalgia Critic), and his opinions on movies aren't exactly reliable or worth listening to. This guy ♂︎ doesn't really know what he's talking about and his opinions and tastes in movies are pretty weird, although that stuff's all subjective.
The animation, the story, the characters, the voice acting, the music score by Thomas Newman, the music selected for the movie like "La Vie En Rose" by Louis Armstrong, and the songs from Hello, Dolly! and the song created for the end credits, "Down to Earth" by Peter Gabriel, the sound design by Ben Burtt, the design of the robots, the worldbuilding, everything in this movie was top notch. It truly is a masterpiece.
I can see why it won Best Animated Picture at the Oscar's in 2009, and why it's often considered to be the best movie of 2008, one of the best Pixar movies, one of the best movies of the 2000s, and one of the best movies of the 21st century thus far. It's definitely my favorite Pixar movie, I like it a lot more than any of the Toy Story movies, I like it more than A Bug's Life, I like it more than Monsters Inc. or its prequel, Monsters University, I like it more than the Incredibles movies, I like it more than any of the Cars movies, I like it more than Up 🎈, I like it more than "Brave," I like it more than The Good Dinosaur 🦕, and I like it more than Andrew Stanton's previous movie before it, Finding Nemo and its sequel, Finding Dory.
The only other Pixar movie that I like as much this is "Ratatouille," that one's probably my second favorite Pixar movie, and honestly, that one belongs in the Criterion Collection too. Not to say that any of those other Pixar movies are bad (except for maybe Cars 2, Brave, The Good Dinosaur 🦕, and The Incredibles 2), they aren't, A Bug's Life is probably my third favorite Pixar movie overall, but, WALL•E is definitely a cut above the rest.
I mean, it's the only movie that actually managed to make a cockroach 🪳 cute, and an actual enduring pet, and that is not an easy feat to do. Cockroaches 🪳 are often believed to be one of the only animals left after an apocalypse, so it makes that there would be one on the trash planet, and WALL•E has one as a pet. It's the only other creature he's ever encountered, and the cockroach 🪳 seems to be living as lonely of an existence as him. So, they're perfect for each other.
The thing I like that cockroach 🪳 actually waits for WALL•E to return, like it doesn't scurry off and do it's own thing, no, it sticks around and waits for his owner to return. That is one loyal cockroach 🪳 let me tell you. And the fact that Steven Spielberg watched this movie and loved it 😍 makes all the more special in my mind. The man ♂︎ definitely knows a great movie when he sees one. But, then again, he did watch James Cameron's Avatar, and said it was so...I take it or leave it I guess 🤷♂️. But, he was definitely right on the money with this one. It definitely deserved to be in the Criterion Collection.
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Note:
One thing I would like to point out is that WALL•E was actually not released in China 🇨🇳. I don't know why, but it wasn't given a release there. It was denied a release there by the Chinese authorities 🇨🇳, whoever decides which American movies 🇺🇸 get released in that country. But luckily, even without a Chinese release 🇨🇳, it was still a huge box office success: grossing over $521.3 million 🤑 against its $180 million budget 💵.
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Link to Status Post talking about the Criterion release of WALL•E and the Reaction to It:
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