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I thought the film - even though it probably wasn't intended - painted a pretty horrible picture of humans. I mean, no one in that entire spaceship ever got the urge to leave their chair and not conform until the idea of returning to Earth came into their minds? I guess across the generations the people just became complacent, but in order for people to become complacent they first have to accept what is given to them, and I find it difficult to believe no one would think "hmm, maybe this chair/car thing will make people incredibly lazy." Here is this large population of people and they are all unhealthy, fat, and ignorant, never looking up from their TV screens to even notice the ship has a pool.

My favorite character was the robot with Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Murdoch wrote:I thought the film - even though it probably wasn't intended - painted a pretty horrible picture of humans . . .

I haven't seen the film, but ... uh, are you saying that you think this is an inaccurate depiction of humans? Because your description sounds like most everybody I know, give or take a few degrees.

In the audience I saw the film with, there were two very distinct reactions to the depiction of life on the space ship. There were looks of wonder (the idiots) and looks of disgust (the rest of us). The looks of wonder far outnumbered the looks of disgust. And I saw it at a 10:30 showing with no small children in the theater. It wasn't until the film began to hit us over the head with its message that the idiots realized Stanton's agenda. Even so, there was something so wonderful about the film that I didn't mind having a message rammed down my throat. Probably has something to do with the fact that much of the theater was filled with people who would have fit in perfectly with the characters on the screen.

I suppose it depends on your experience, but I see it as very cynical. I'd say see it first because the chair/car plays a fairly significant part in the film, and that last sentence very literally applies to the humans in the film.

Svevan wrote:I'm having trouble discarding the end credits, or treating the re-arrival of the humans as "dark," especially considering the music and overall tone. I think it's a real stretch to say the filmmakers wanted you to leave on anything but an upbeat, "we-can-do-it" note.

I guess I find the captain's excitement over pizza plants more disturbingly ignorant than hopeful for the future. They are utterly unskilled, physically ruined children returning to an inhospitable wasteland. The "we can do it" message never overcomes the bleak image of the trash building collapsing as the ship lands, in my view. Before the credits rolled, with the earth shown as a desert world as the film fades to black, the happy hooray looks awfully unlikely to last long. But I'm probably taking it too seriously.

I think the credits are ultimately less a continuation of the story than they are a depiction of what the audience should be doing in their own lives. To that extent, it's very preachy, indeed.

bunuelian wrote:Before the credits rolled, with the earth shown as a desert world as the film fades to black, the happy hooray looks awfully unlikely to last long.

Er. The film ends with a pan of a steadily growing field of those small green plants which is as unsubtle a point--"things are becoming sustainable again"--as you can get. And considering one of the major points of the movie is not that people are ignorant, but that they've become complacent, and that it took Wall-E to knock them out of their complacency. Indeed, all of the 'fat slobs' we meet turn out not to be greedy piggish louts, but rather pleasant, decent people who've merely lost the need to look around them. The movie does not lambast the relative immaturity and ignorance of the captain so much as celebrate his final desire to think, act, and take control, for himself. The film's tone is nothing but hopeful at the end, especially when we do get that final pan down the back of a junk heap to find thousands of green plants springing up, rejuvinating through photosynthesis. The whole significance is that change is possible.

If the film were really trying for the bleak tone you, oddly, imagined, they would have shown the obvious truth: that the muscles of everyone in that ship would have long atrophied, and not only would they be unable to stand, but to move in any decisive way at all. That would have truly been bleak: to arrive at a possibly rejuvinating earth only to find everyone is unfit to survive on it, let alone help it; we would have failed earth (rather than it us), and that would have been as awful and bleak an ending as is possible. But, no, they walk, magically, which tells you everything you need to know about the tone. They can do it, and so can the Earth.

No spoiler tags, anyone? I would preferred if Wall-e went the route of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and no longer had his memories or past mannerisms. It would've been a Bambi moment, but a courageous one. And of course there wouldn't be as much box office... After all, I don't think Pixar is in the business of doing films like Grave of the Fireflies.

Interestingly enough, in the original conception of this film the humans had become near gelatinous blobs.

exte wrote:No spoiler tags, anyone? I would preferred if Wall-e went the route of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and no longer had his memories or past mannerisms. It would've been a Bambi moment, but a courageous one. And of course there wouldn't be as much box office... After all, I don't think Pixar is in the business of doing films like Grave of the Fireflies.

Bold, perhaps. Courageous? I can't imagine how. Nor do I think the movie would have aesthetically earned something so depressing.

I just saw this today and was pretty blown away... The first 30 minutes were spectacular and the rest, although not quite as brilliant, was satisfying. I'm really glad that Lasseter is forcing Disney to make some contemporary classics.

Just got back from seeing this. As others here have been saying, the introductory stuff on Earth with WALL-E on his own, and then with Eva, is really magnificent. It's like a combination of the best stuff in Chaplin and Star Wars. The outer space scenes and the ending are indeed sort of preachy and silly, but still well-done and very satisfying. The emotional pull of the story of the two main robots, who don't say anything to each other outside of their names and "Directive!", is remarkably strong.

On a Criterion note, I'm going to take the chance to recommend Tati to some of my friends who loved this movie. I think the techno-humor of Mon Oncle and Playtime is particularly well-suited to appeal to people who are being exposed to that type of silent comedy humor and visual wonder for the first time via WALL-E. I'm hoping it'll have put them in the mood to enjoy Tati's unique style.

I saw a link on another site to an interesting article in Animation World Magazine about the cinematography of the film. I don't know the technical details they're talking about all that well, but it's definitely cool to hear about them bringing in Roger Deakins to discuss how he would have filmed this or that scene.

I was kind of surprised to hear that the director was focusing on Gus Van Sant's visual style, and with a specific nod to Finding Forrester. I haven't seen that movie, but I'm relieved that its influence wasn't quite strong enough to have any of the humans yelling, "YOU'RE THE MAN NOW, DOG!" when WALL-E saved the day.

Presto is available to view online here-- the short was nothing special, but then again, outside of the first Toy Story, the supposed charms of Pixar "magic" tend to leave me mystified anyways...

Watching this magnificent film a second time, I noticed a detail that makes it a little darker than I'd previously thought.

Spoiler

The BuyNLarge holographic ads that play in the city at the beginning advertise spaceships, plural.

Wall E being unresponsive to his favorite toys and to eve was probably one of the saddest moments in all of cinema.

my favorite character was also the robot that kept trying to clean wall-e and everything else.

also what is the buy n large logo after the credits supposed to mean?

margot wrote:also what is the buy n large logo after the credits supposed to mean?

I assumed it was just reinforcing the message to the masses (like I assumed was the choice to use a live-action Fred Willard when an animated character would have done) that the horrors of the fictional WALL-E world have begun and have relevance to you, audience viewer! -that amoral corporate hegemony is part of your world, not just the WALL-E humans.

Pushing that even further, it is equating Buy N Large with the Walt Disney Company.

chaddoli wrote:Pushing that even further, it is equating Buy N Large with the Walt Disney Company.

Can't wait till wall-e is on dvd so I can go buy it at wal mart

I just saw Wall-E and fell in love with it. As people have said, the beauty of this film distracted me from the message. Was the message a negative one? No.

The film was just so well made it makes shit like Hancock and Wanted small in comparison. Wall-E is an experience that makes you happy.

As I was wiping my happy tears away leaving the theatre, I couldn't help but think that come Christmastime, there will probably be hundreds of thousands of Wall E toys manufactured and then given as gifts to indifferent children, and they will probably end up in the trash dumps sooner or later. Not to get super-environmental, but that movie was soberingly prophetic. (The first 30 minutes at least)

A marvelous animated film. My heart was broken and healed more times than I can count over the course of watching it.

I noticed something, the song from "Hey Dolly" Sunday Clothes, seems to have some lyrics emphasizing their theme. Put on your Sunday clothes, there's lots of world out there

moviscop, there have been several articles and interviews about how they chose those songs, such as this one.

Haggai wrote:moviscop, there have been several articles and interviews about how they chose those songs, such as this one.

well that is one explanation, but i found the actual lyrics more suggestive toward the inactivity of humanity. and if we want to get technical, the only romantic portion of that song was the slow part when the two characters merged together.