By now, everyone knows that the most ambitious, and arguably most anticipated, animated movie coming this summer is Disney/Pixar's WALL-E.
Any picture that features no humans, or dialogue, for the first 1/3 of the film deserves full marks for audacity, and early reviews suggest that Pixar has batted another one out of the park, with a movie that stands alongside the Emeryville-based studio's best.
The good folks at Movieweb managed to score 5 new screen captures from the flick, all featuring the titular robot in various situations, whether it's longingly looking towards the heavens, out on a hot date with the high-tech EVE, catching a little stardust, eyeing a battered Rubik's Cube, or lighting up the night with his main squeeze.
You can check out the screen caps by clicking here.
John Lasseter on WALL-E
"WALL-E is the story about the last little robot on Earth," John Lasseter, creative chief for Disney Animation, told investors on February 8, 2007. "Through . . . rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots . . . to . . . make Earth habitable again. Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he's left on Earth doing his duty all alone.
"But it's not a story about science fiction. It's a love story, because, you see, WALL-E falls in love with [EVE], a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth . . . And he follows her back up to her main spaceship, and you see a vision of the space and the future in this movie like you've never seen before. It is really spectacular. But with all Pixar films, one of the things we pride ourselves in, not only a great story, but the characters, memorable, appealing characters and these little robot characters that help WALL-E and EVE, these rejected, defective little robots, are the most charming group of characters we have ever created."
WALL-E comes to theatres on June 27th.
Fun Fact: WALL-E has a serious Star Wars connection. Pixar hired legendary sound designer Ben Burtt, who created the sound effects in that landmark science-fiction movie (Darth Vader's menacing breathing was in fact Burtt breathing through a Dacor scuba regulator) to do the same job for WALL-E.
Pixar also called on Dennis Muren, whose special effects credits include the space battles for Star Wars and the CGI for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, to help replicate the look of vintage sci-fi movies for WALL-E.