WALL-E The Next Animated Feature by Pixar
A Hopeful Film With a Subtle Message: We Are What We Waste
Pixar makes hopeful films. There was Toy Story, the little film about toys looking for their place in a community of other toys—a community built on the hierarchy of a little boy’s acceptance and favoritism. Then there was Monters Inc., a film about monsters working to maintain a community fueled by fear. There was also Finding Nemo, a film about fish in the sea; one clown fish’s journey to find his pride and joy and, in the same slippery movement, to finally confront his very real fears of a dangerous and unpredictable world.
And while these plot conflicts may not seem very hopeful, Pixar films are quick to climax with hopeful solutions. After all, all the toys find a place in Andy’s heart after they resolve their differences; the monsters learn love and laughter can be even better than fear; the clown fish finds his son and regains his hope.
Wall-E: The Little Robot that Could
This same pattern of choosing the hopeful solution in the face of overwhelming despair is revisited in Pixar’s latest feature, WALL-E, the tale of a lone robot with a passion for Hello Dolly!, a craving for human-like interactions with a robotic counterpart (*sigh* wherever she is), and a monotonous mission to clean up the earth, which has basically become a world wide junk yard.
While completing his mission, Wall-E finds a plant growing in the trash and, after that, nothing is quite the same. After a series of rather titanic arrivals and departures, Wall-E and his new companion Eve, a probing robot sent to discover if life had become sustainable again on earth, deliver the plant to the captain of the mega cruise spaceship where human life has been chillin’ for the past 700 years, sucking liquidized food from half-gallon cups, zooming around aimlessly on levitating recliners, viewing electronic screens, oh, and gaining significant body fat from lack of physical activity.
And though the robotic auto pilot of the cruise ship is less than inclined to let the humans return to earth, the plant, juxtaposed against the might and majesty of the mechanical technology aboard, is the tiny, feeble beginning of a new life and a new start on our planet.
"Buy N'Large" We've Got a Bleak, Obese Future
In addition to the stunning visual effects and cinematic brilliance of this film (the art design and character behavior is flawlessly beautiful), the film is, if examined more deeply, a poignant scenario of what could happen to our world if we let it. The mega-corporation, Buy N’ Large, becomes the monopolistic controller of human life. In the future, it seems, consumption, without consideration of the lasting consequences to the environment (or our bodies), is unchecked and, furthermore, is exponentially increased by our intellectual capabilities, which allow us to build a whole other world floating on a space ship in a far away galaxy.
Pixar's Finger-Wag: We Design Our Demise
Without much dialogue (they are robots), the film invites viewers to look a little more closely at what is happening (and, more importantly, who has let it all happen). In fact, WALL-E seems to suggest we are the designers of our own demise. The humans in the film made the robots and they are completely dependent on these mechanical beings. And yet, with the deep sadness this message inspires, Pixar still offers a kind of hope, one that is found in the E.T.-like eyes (or, well, cameras) of a little robot that found a little plant in a pile of used things—we can choose to change. There is still hope, even in the midst of our own mess.
