The Criterion Release for "WALL•E"

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I originally wrote this on Sunday December 4, 2022, and was originally posted on DeviantART on Monday December 5, 2022.

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(This is the cover art for the Criterion release of WALL•E.) 

 

Guess what I found yesterday while shopping at Best Buy for my birthday 🥳, I found out that WALL•E has a Criterion release. I was completely shocked and surprised, like they actually gave this movie a Criterion release? It makes sense, I mean, it is one of Pixar's best movies. It's certainly not as shocking as if Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius got a Criterion release, now that would really surprising. I mean, I would love it, like I think Jimmy Neutron deserves a Criterion release, but it's not the kind of movie that the Criterion Collection considers as "cinema worth respecting." WALL•E is, which is why it got a Criterion release.

I'm almost tempted to buy it because I had a copy of WALL•E on Blu-Ray, but I lost it. I lended it to someone I knew, my dad's ex-girlfriend's son, and I never got it back from him. So, I definitely need to replace it, and this maybe the perfect opportunity to do it. If there's one thing I can say about Criterion it's that they do treat the movies they do pick like royalty. Like, the cover-art for the Blu-Ray/4K Ultra HD release for WALL•E is amazing, and it fits perfectly with the themes and what the movie's about, which is two robots falling in love ❤️ on a future Earth 🌎 literally covered in trash, and on a giant spaceship out in space.

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Apparently, Criterion purists were upset when it was announced that WALL•E was going to get a Criterion release. Like, they were upset that such a mainstream movie was being added to such "prestigious" collection such as the Criterion Collection, and a children's movie no less. They felt that it soiled the good Criterion name. "How could they add WALL•E in a collection that includes the likes of Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, and Bergman?" they said. Of course, when these people say things like that, they completely ignore the fact that movies like Armageddon and the 1953 War of the Worlds movie got Criterion releases, movies that they consider "beneath them."

Oh sure, an asteroid movie ☄️ directed by Michael Bay getting a Criterion release, no one bats an eye, but a Pixar animated movie about two robots falling in love ❤️ in space, oh that's an outrageous! That's the one gets ALL the backlash 😑. Not to mention, the entire Showa era Godzilla series also got a major Criterion release, and most of these film snobs wouldn't consider those films to be high art or deserving of any real respect and esteem.

So, WALL•E getting a Criterion release is not as unprecedented as people try to make it seem. The Criterion Collection has added quite a few mainstream movies, movies that these gatekeeping film snobs would consider to be too mainstream for this collection. There's just so much elitism, snobbery in the Criterion community, like I really don't want to associate with these people at all. They don't represent me as a film enthusiast. I enjoy all sorts of movies, even movies that they would deem "low-brow."

I don't even own that many Criterion releases, the only one I own is the one for the 1954 Godzilla, which does get more respect and seen as more "high art" than the other Godzilla movies, but not by a lot. So, I don't hold this collection in as high esteem and I don't put as much stake in it as these film snobs do. Like, a movie all of a sudden doesn't become more important or valuable to me just because it's in a dusty old collection with a bunch of old, obscure, independent, or foreign films that most people have probably never even heard of. The fact that Wes Anderson keeps getting his movies into the collection even when they're not that great or that old makes me doubt the company, and the brand as a whole. Like, I'm sure The French Dispatch 🇫🇷 will get a Criterion release even though it really doesn't deserve it in my opinion.

Besides, if we are going to treat the Criterion Collection as the end-all-be-all of movie collections and the arbiter of film quality, of all the Pixar movies that have been made so far and could've been picked to have a Criterion release, WALL•E is the best choice. Like I said, in the main post, it is one of the best Pixar movies, it's certainly my favorite. It's the one that fits the best within the Criterion's usual sensibilities, especially since it's a film that has very little dialogue and is entirely based on visuals, at least until the humans show up. It's certainly a better pick than any of the Toy Story movies, or any of the Cars movies, or either of The Incredibles movies, or Monsters, Inc., or Monsters University,  or Finding Nemo or Finding Dory, or A Bug's Life, even though I do like those last three movies.

I think Finding Nemo is another one that could maybe fit in with the Criterion Collection, it would certainly fit in more than its sequel, Finding Dory. Ratatouille 🐀 too since it's about food and it takes place in France 🇫🇷, so it has that that European thing going on, and Criterion loves stuff that has to do with Europe. That's all I have to say about the backlash against the Criterion release of WALL•E, it's pretty ridiculous and think the people complaining about this are a bunch of snobby crybabies. I still want Jimmy Neutron to get a Criterion release too though, no joke 😁. Hey, if it was worthy of an Oscar nomination, then it's worthy of a Criterion release. Oh, and if there was any confusion, I do like Monsters, Inc., but not Monsters University, I didn't like that.