WALL-E
So here we are with a 2008 film that reminds us the only things that’ll survive after the apocalypse are cockroaches, Twinkies, robots, and…Hello, Dolly? WALL-E everybody!
Despite what that opening sentence might suggest, I actually like this movie. I think it can be very visually stimulating with cute and lovable characters and a message that’s surprisingly optimistic for a movie of its kind. For what it is, it’s quaint, content, and satisfying to watch so long as you don’t read too much into it. That’s where I come in! Even with my tendency to over-analyze things nowadays I can’t say I find too many issues with this movie that would be grounds for calling it bad. Of course there are a few things I’ve noticed over the years, and I will be discussing them today, but at least it’ll be a fun journey this time.
Being what’s essentially 2001: A Space Odyssey for kids (I know that movie is rated PG, I mean little kids) it has plenty of creativity, humor, and passion for anyone of any age to enjoy even with very little dialogue. Considering what I’ve already written so far would probably be enough to fill half this movie’s script dialogue already, let’s just get right into it.
Put on your Sunday clothes and pick up your boot plant, this is Pixar’s WALL-E!
As the movie opens, the song ‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes’ from Hello, Dolly! plays and we zoom in on a horribly polluted planet Earth where there is a thick cloud of satellites surrounding the planet and there are stacks of garbage as tall as skyscrapers. We eventually find out that the source of the music is our protagonist: the Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class, or WALL-E for short. He’s voiced by sound engineering/design legend Ben Burtt and I’m using the word ‘voiced’ so charitably that I should be able to write it off as a charitable donation on my taxes. Not to say that he does a poor job voicing the character, but, as mentioned before, there’s hardly any dialogue in this movie. When factoring in dialogue from every credited character excluding song lyrics, the word count comes out to be around 1,700 by my rough counting, which, if you’re familiar with standard word counts for films, is hardly anything. Also yes, I counted. I probably didn’t have to, but I did anyway. I’m so extra.
Regardless of spoken dialogue, this intro showing us how WALL-E’s world works and what his character is like is about as pitch-perfect visual storytelling as you can get. You instantly understand what he does, why he does it, the kind of character he is, how he’s survived as long as he has, and how relatable he is. Since I just last week finished reviewing all the Indiana Jones movies, I feel compelled to compare this intro to Raiders of the Lost Ark in the sense that they both serve their purposes astoundingly well for setting up their protagonists. Of course this movie intro isn’t anywhere near as iconic as that film’s intro, it does still serve its purpose well and treats kids more maturely than they typically are with many other ‘modern’ types of kid’s media. While most of the set pieces and shots are monochromatic, drab, and unpleasant for this opening, that’s also to get across the grittiness of the environment WALL-E works in and creates contrast for the eventual arrival of the probe. I know her name, I’m just waiting until she actually shows up to mention it.
After the introduction of WALL-E’s special friend, a cockroach named Twinkie by the creators, and a private viewing of Hello, Dolly!, we see WALL-E come across a plant while working in the field one day which he ends up putting in a boot that he found. That may not seem important now, but it’ll be the main focus of the movie eventually. On his way home, WALL-E comes across a red dot which he follows to a ship’s landing site where they unload the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, or EVE probe (played by Elissa Knight). Right off the bat I love how they have a stark contrast between WALL-E and EVE because just seeing these two side-by-side is pretty interesting. Honestly looking at the poster with these two next to each other just sparks so many creative possibilities. One thing that is a bit confusing is how these robots managed to develop a personality in the first place, though.
We see when EVE is delivered on the planet’s surface she at first gets straight to work until her ship leaves which prompts her to blast off and have a bit of fun. With WALL-E you could assume that his personality is more or less a malfunction in his programming from being active for as long as he has, but EVE seems new. Like brand new. At least based off her look. So how was she able to develop a personality? I suppose you could infer that their personalities in some way stem from their original programming, but it is a bit glossed over. Besides that, we see EVE start to roam the place and WALL-E immediately fall in love with her per what we saw with him and the ‘It Only Takes A Moment’ clip and he tries his best to get her attention. At first I didn’t really like that they were doing a love story since I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of story I wanted to see that in, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. WALL-E has been by himself for an unbelievably long time and the film has already clearly established that he’s both lonely and longing for some kind of relationship with another…being, so this does seem to be the next logical step for his story to take. The film didn’t restore my hope in this direction when it did the clichéd ‘trying to get crush’s attention going horribly wrong’ gag after this idea was presented, but it’s at least short and painless. Not for WALL-E though. For him it’s super painful.
However, something I do like about EVE’s arrival is how we see her scan things over and over. She’s constantly scanning and scanning, but we don’t know what she’s looking for and she can’t seem to find it which helps create intrigue and a bit of mystery. That is until she gets uncomfortably close to a ship’s magnet crane though. She shows it who’s boss.
WALL-E: Marry me…
This is when WALL-E musters up enough courage to ask EVE out on a da- I mean approach her and introduce himself. They get acquainted just before a dust storm hits and WALL-E leads EVE to safety in his house of knickknacks. She has a hard time understanding a lot of what she sees which I think is also a bit nice showing how EVE isn’t well-versed on Earth things while WALL-E isn’t well versed on Axiom things which gets both of them into trouble later. EVE warms up to WALL-E’s personality even if she only likes him as a friend (for now) until WALL-E shows off the plant he found. EVE scans it as she’s scanned everything up until now only to show both herself and the audience that that is in fact what she’s been looking for. She has a robo-seizure, absorbs the plant into her plant-holder chest cavity thing, and shuts down, blacking out all the power in WALL-E’s house. What happens next is more rom-com level stuff of WALL-E trying to look after EVE while she’s shut down, and while it’s not as funny as most of the other humor in this movie, it does at least serve more of a purpose than the previous rom-com level humor we saw with him trying to get her attention.
At least with this brief comedic sequence, while it’s not very funny, it does at least play a role later in the movie in helping EVE and WALL-E grow closer since EVE sees how much WALL-E cares about her. Granted if these characters were human this would be a horror film, but I digress. It seems no amount of love WALL-E gives to the unconscious EVE is enough to wake her up so he goes back to work, defeated. Soon after he starts though, the ship returns to pick EVE up again which begs the question: why did the ship leave in the first place? It was coming right back, so why not just stay on Earth until EVE combed the whole planet to save on fuel? Anyway, WALL-E leaves his good friend Twinkie behind and climbs aboard the side of the ship riding it all the way into space. Of course if this were more realistic WALL-E’s arms probably would’ve fallen off before he made it into space, but since this is animated I give it a pass. Not only that, but it leads to some of my favorite visuals in the movie.
These shots are just gorgeous and completely revel in the majesty of outer space which is something I would want to see from a sci-fi adventure film. They don’t last for very long but I always find myself loving every moment of them whenever I see them despite the fact that they don’t serve much narrative purpose. More than anything their job is to establish everything WALL-E’s been missing being stuck on Earth all this time, and while we’re marveling at the visuals, so is he. He’s finally having that adventure he’s been wanting to have for what’s likely centuries, which also makes him more relatable as a character in this moment seeing how his dreams and desires coincide with ours as the audience. It doesn’t last forever though as the ship finally returns to its base on the Axiom where we’ll be spending almost the entire rest of this movie.
Like I said before, we had EVE as the fish out of water back on Earth, but now we have WALL-E as the fish out of water on the Axiom which serves as a nice contrast as well. As EVE is unloaded and prepped for scanning we’re also introduced to the cleaning-bot M-O (also played by Ben Burtt) and his crew of maintenance bots which I should mention is pretty clever as well. What I like about them is how we see such a wide variety of robots on the ship and what their functions are supposed to be before we’re transferred to the Repair Ward later where we see the malfunctioning versions of those same robots which can be kinda funny, but also strangely feels like character development as well. After EVE is prepped, the protocol robot GO-4 scans her and senses she has the plant inside her which sets off an alarm causing the robots to strap her to a hovercraft and send her straight to the captain’s quarters. WALL-E follows close behind leaving a trail of dirt in his wake prompting M-O the cleaning-bot to chase after WALL-E throughout the rest of the movie cleaning up his mess which is pretty funny. My one gripe about this is that for the majority of the movie we actually don’t see WALL-E actively creating a dirt trail behind him. If you pay close attention during WALL-E’s scenes from here on he doesn’t actually leave a dirt trail, it just randomly appears later when they cut back to M-O cleaning it up. I know it’s more of a nitpick, but I would’ve laughed even harder at this concept if I saw it happening in real time. However, WALL-E does follow EVE’s hovercraft to Axiom central where we get some pretty on-the-nose commentary on human life.
We see how the Axiom passengers have all voluntarily confined themselves to their hover-chairs where they choose to be wired into technology 24/7 all the while getting fatter and lazier. You could make the argument that this is a somewhat painful commentary seeing just how obviously it is commentary, but you could also write several term papers explaining how poignant it is to modern society even 16 years after this film’s release, so in a way it kinda comes around full circle. To me I think it works because it ties into the central message of the film and also plays a role in the development of not just the side characters of this story, but also the development of the human race in the film. That’s my biggest thing about commentary in films is that if you’re going to have commentary, at least have it tie into the themes of the story so it can create a thoughtful discussion on the subject you’re commenting on after the credits roll. Of course even with films like this it can still come across as heavy-handed, but I really think this movie does a good job of it.
Anyway, WALL-E, in the process of following EVE to the captain’s quarters, ends up waking up two passengers on the ship who are suddenly amazed by the wonderful world they never knew they lived in up until now. Okay, at this point this movie is 2 seconds away from turning into Look Up. Luckily it cuts back to the main characters at this point where we’re introduced to Captain B. McCrea (played by Jeff Garlin) who goes about his day as normal until his autopilot (played by the text-to-speech program MacInTalk) tells him about how EVE has returned ‘positive’ (because she found the plant). I like in this sequence how we not only see that Captain McCrea secretly longs for a more fulfilling life since he grumbles at AUTO for not waking him up sooner to do morning announcements for the ship, but that as soon as he sees EVE has returned positive, he’s just as scared as any other passenger of the prospect of everyone going back to Earth. It’s something new, exciting, yet anxiety inducing since it could go horribly wrong, and Captain McCrea reacts accordingly to it making him a more interesting character as we see his attitude change over the course of the film.
I also like how his morning alarm is ‘The Blue Danube’ which is of course a nod to 2001 and how AUTO is clearly HAL-9000.
Before I continue I’d also like to mention the genius of having AUTO be played by a text-to-speech program. I know I’m dwelling a bit, but watching this movie after so many years, I’ve really learned to appreciate how many layers it has. The filmmakers are clearly aware that they’re never going to get a haunting performance quite like Douglas Rain’s as HAL-9000 from 2001 with AUTO obviously being their HAL stand-in, so they just decide to make him a complete robot. It also speaks to his character that each of the other robots in the movie are played by human actors such as WALL-E and EVE, but those robots actually have a personality. Having AUTO be a total machine with a mechanical voice also speaks to his stubbornness and possibly even his ‘choice’ to remain an emotionless piece of metal as opposed to doing what’s right in this situation like the other robots. They get across so much in this movie despite having very little dialogue.
Anyway, Captain McCrea is shown an informational video heralded by the mega corporation BNL’s CEO Shelby Forthright, which is a great name for this character by the way (played by Fred Willard), who tells the Captain what needs to happen in order to return to Earth. As soon as they get started they open EVE up to find that the plant is missing! This leads the plans for going back home to be cancelled and EVE being sent to the Repair Ward as mentioned earlier since they think she might be malfunctioning. Here we’re reintroduced to each of the extraneous robots we’ve seen throughout the ship until now, but now they’re malfunctioning and developing personalities. While EVE is getting looked at, WALL-E watches from his robot repair cell misconstruing everything that’s being done to EVE as torture which prompts him to break out and try to save her. In the process he breaks out the rest of the robots as well which gets them to praise him as a hero and parade him around the ship while EVE chases after. This whole sequence along with the other awkward moments with WALL-E and EVE back on Earth are the only moments of the movie that feel distinctly like ‘kid’s movie’ stuff to me, but at the very least they don’t last for too long and much like WALL-E’s interactions with EVE while she was out, it does at least come back into play later.
Once EVE recovers her stolen arm cannon, she decides WALL-E is too much trouble since this little outing has resulted in the Axiom robot police wanting to capture the two of them. Instead, EVE makes her way to the ship’s escape pods and plans to send him away on it. WALL-E acts like any stubborn toddler would in this situation which almost leads to their cover being blown when someone else enters the pod area. It’s GO-4 and we see he was the one who stole the plant when he scanned EVE earlier. He plans to put the plant on the pod, send it out, and have it self-destruct. Soon after he leaves WALL-E goes to recover the plant since, as we’ve established, he’s pretty naive which results in him getting shot out into space while the ship’s AI voice (played by Sigourney Weaver) counts down to his eventual destruction. I bet it felt good for Sigourney recording these lines not having to worry about herself being blown to smithereens this time.
But, thus begins my biggest problem with this movie: they tease the idea that WALL-E might die way too much. In the end they do this at least twice, if not three times and it gets old real fast. If you’re going to tease whether a character is going to die or not, you do this once. Maximum. Even then it’s still a little overplayed because more often than not when you tease the fact a character might die it ends up not happening. Most movies that do this don’t follow through with killing the character off so we know what the outcome is going to be. But doing this three times is really annoying, and since they don’t follow through on any of them it drives me up a wall-e.
Of course the pod explodes and WALL-E survives while saving the plant, so he and EVE share a cutesy frolic through space together which is almost criminally adorable. During this sequence we’re treated to even more beautiful shots of space and the movie presents the idea that the two passengers who woke up earlier named John and Mary (played by Pixar’s obligatory John Ratzenberger cameo and Kathy Najimy) might fall in love. It goes nowhere so it ends up being ultimately pointless, but while all this is going on Captain McCrea is learning more and more about Earth which plants the idea in his head to want to save it. Here’s some more of those space shots because I love it:
Nevermind, I guess this was the only one from this scene I could find. Sucks.
After acquiring the plant, EVE takes WALL-E to the nearest linen closet to hide while she delivers the plant to the Captain. Upon doing so he gets so excited he has to scan EVE’s memory to see what Earth looks like now which is a major let-down. Since he’s been looking up all this stuff about Earth he’s expecting this vibrant world, and it just isn’t that anymore. As we’ve seen it’s just barren trash-filled wasteland now and this really disappoints the Captain until he notices the plant lose a leaf which prompts him to find some water for it. While he’s gone we finally get the payoff of WALL-E’s protection of EVE while she was unresponsive, because her memory continues playing to show all the things he did for her. This causes her to feel closer to him as a result and even mimic WALL-E’s hand-holding thing he’s done a few times already. Sure the scenes from before weren’t anything that great, but at least they’re building character later on in the film which makes them feel less pointless and it is believable to say the least.
Cutting back to the Captain and the plant, he’s given it water and comes to the realization that he needs to do whatever he can to help Earth with the power he’s been given. He was initially disappointed after seeing what’s become of Earth from EVE’s memory, but after realizing what difference he can make by watering the plant, he’s accepted this responsibility and decides he’ll do everything to return Earth to its former glory. This also leads me to the main message of this movie, that it despite it being a more environmentally oriented film, it has a surprisingly optimistic tone to it. Most other movies that have focused on this sort of premise in the past have come at it from the perspective of “We’re all doomed! The end is nigh!” This one however actually takes a different approach and acknowledges that sure things may be bleak, but we have the ability to do the right thing for our homeland and take care of it for the future of life and our descendants. It’s a pretty powerful message that puts power back into the hands of the audience and reminds us that still more can be done. Rarely is that something you see with an environmental film and I love that this movie takes a different approach, because this premise desperately needed some variety.
On the other hand though, AUTO tells the Captain they can’t go back due to a second message that was sent to the ship by Shelby Forthright. Here he explains that the Axiom can’t return to Earth because life is unsustainable. Wait, but how do you account for the plant then? That’s exactly what the Captain thinks as he tries to show AUTO that the message is severely outdated and the info is no longer relevant, but AUTO isn’t budging. In the process, the Captain gives us my favorite line in this entire movie:
Even to this day, so many years after I’ve seen this movie for the first time, this line still sticks with me. Whenever I’m having a bad day or am struggling to keep going, I think of this line. It really is a powerful one.
The Captain’s passion doesn’t seem to be getting through to AUTO and he has GO-4 come in to steal the plant instead. At first the Captain tries to get EVE to arrest GO-4 and take the plant herself, but GO-4 throws the plant down the garbage chute. Wait, the plant just floats back up? Oh, WALL-E climbed up the garbage chute to reunite with EVE and caught the plant on his head! Not so subtly hidden plot-device. AUTO tries to get the plant back, but WALL-E hides it in his garbage compactor so AUTO tries shocking WALL-E to death. Chock this up to a death tease of 2. He falls back down the garbage chute with EVE being thrown in not long after and the Captain is confined to his room. Side note: this is also where I first learned the word ‘mutiny’. When I first watched this movie, I had my parents pause the movie right here so they could explain to me what the word ‘mutiny’ meant.
Beside the point. Back in the garbage disposal area, EVE wakes up and ends up saving both herself and WALL-E before they get blown out of the airlock with the help of the cleaning-bot M-O. Yeah, he’s still been following WALL-E cleaning up his mess this entire time and he gets himself lodged in the airlock door giving EVE something to grab onto to prevent from getting launched into space. M-O cleans up WALL-E and EVE tries to find a new motherboard for WALL-E since his old one was damaged by AUTO’s shock. None of the ones she finds are compatible though so WALL-E instead gives the plant to EVE so she can follow her directive. Weirdly though, EVE is no longer interested in the plant. WALL-E gives it to her and she tosses it aside saying that WALL-E’s life is her directive now. Again, while it’s not well explained it is at least…cute. However, what WALL-E meant was that if they take the plant back to Earth they can get him fixed up there because that’s where his home with all his spare parts is. EVE agrees to this idea and takes M-O along so he can help. I like how M-O isn’t really a villain he’s just a clean freak, so when WALL-E gets all clean he decides to help him. Only when he’s all clean though which makes his character even funnier.
On their way back from the garbage disposal, they run into more police bots which they quickly dispatch of after reuniting with the malfunctioning robots from earlier. Again it makes it feel more like a self-contained story when they have these little details that come back into play like we saw before with EVE’s memory of WALL-E taking care of her. It also just makes it feel more like a movie. The Captain gets a hold of WALL-E and EVE through the ship’s comm systems and tricks AUTO into thinking he has the plant so he’ll come back into his room and he can ambush him. I have a bit of a hard time understanding that honestly. Mostly because when the Captain contacted WALL-E and EVE he told them to bring the plant to the Lido Deck which clearly indicates that he doesn’t have the plant in his possession and AUTO obviously saw it, but when he bluffs AUTO not 1 minute later, AUTO totally believes him and thinks he has the plant. Isn’t AUTO supposed to be a logically oriented machine, why would this fool him? Well we want to keep this movie to around an hour and a half long so I guess we can cut corners here a bit, but to that same end, this climax is just okay to me.
The biggest part of the climax in my opinion is when we see the Captain stand up for the first time to fight against AUTO (also because they round out the 2001 homage with ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’), but pretty much every other part of the climax isn’t that suspenseful or heart-pounding to me. We see passengers being hover-chaired to the Lido Deck that nobody cares about and when the ship rotates on its axis causing the passengers to fall out of their chairs, that’s pretty much all we get for tension in that scene. What do they expect to happen, the ship to capsize? Did they forget they’re in space? Not only that but we get WALL-E death tease number 3 after he tries to hold up the holo-detector and prevent it from retreating back into the floor only to get himself crushed in the process. Of course they’re not going to kill him or any of these passengers so all of the scenes focusing on these characters during this climax are just…‘there’ to me. Sure the camera angles, lighting, and action are choreographed well for these scenes, but it ends up amounting to little except for those scenes between the Captain and AUTO.
Regardless, EVE puts the plant in the holo-detector and mourns the ‘loss’ of WALL-E along with the other passengers before being hyperjumped back to Earth. Upon return, EVE immediately rushes off to repair her fallen lover robot, and as she leaves, the Captain is so moved by WALL-E’s sacrifice he actually removes his hat in honor. This scene honestly gets me to laugh now! Just the idea that the movie is actually trying to trick us with the concept of WALL-E dying for the third time at this point and thinks it’s so incredibly moving that it deserves the equivalent of a fallen soldier’s salute is just hilarious to me! Of course EVE makes it back to WALL-E’s house, compiles all the necessary parts to repair him, does so, and he comes back. Hold on a minute, he’s acting kinda funny though. WALL-E doesn’t seem to be himself since EVE had to replace his motherboard and he lost his memories as a result. Yeah, this doesn’t go on for very long, but it’s both a little better and a little worse than I remember.
It’s better in the sense that considering all the buildup we had previously in the movie getting to understand WALL-E’s character, traits, and dreams, seeing him as this completely empty shell is legitimately jarring and can be difficult to watch. At the same time, it’s worse since we know it’s not going to last. Even with this movie and all the brilliance it has in it, we’re painfully aware that this isn’t going to be how the movie ends despite how much complexity that would add to the characters and their reactions to this outcome, so you just want it to end so the movie can end.
They do eventually get to that point where EVE confesses her love to WALL-E by finally holding his hand, humming WALL-E’s favorite love song (‘It Only Takes A Moment’), and resting her forehead on his creating a static spark. Through the power of love and/or static electricity this causes WALL-E’s memories to come back and happily ever after is finally achieved. There’s so much I could critique about this copout ending, but I’m sure you’re probably thinking it already. Our reject robots celebrate, the boot plant is planted, the humans recolonize, and we get to what’s probably my all-time favorite part of the movie: the credits. I know that sounds weird, but just look at how they do it:
Okay, John Lasseter is a bit cringey looking back…
I think this end credits sequence is the perfect culmination of everything this movie stands for from its message about love, humanity, and environmental protection. We see how humans essentially re-evolved starting from early civilizations such as ancient Egyptian culture back through history with the added bonus of having robots to help them along the way and reinventing classic art styles as well which is just beautiful. All that paired with the song ‘Down To Earth’ written by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman makes for a great ending. You could still nitpick and ask questions like “How did the animals come back?” but I think it’s still very satisfying to watch.
So after all that fussing about details and whatnot, do I think this is a good movie? Yes, I do. Despite those things I mentioned earlier, I still have to commend what was clearly a risky film for Pixar to make. Relying heavily on visual techniques to get across character details and story threads isn’t something you often see in children’s media since so much of it tends to be dumbed down for the sake of appealing to younger audiences. What this movie understands, unlike other films trying to do similar things, is that kids are able to pick up on more than you think. By treating kids more like adults it helps challenge children to think more critically about what they’re watching while giving them opportunities to grow and also engages the adults watching while appealing to their inner child as well which is very difficult to do. This movie, however, actually manages to pull it off in creative ways and ends up giving us a cute, rich, and unforgettable experience in the end.
Do those flaws I mentioned earlier still matter to me? Yes, but I think focusing on just the negatives is doing the film a big disservice. If you focus on only those aspects you lose sight of a film that has complex ideas, in-depth characters, beautiful visuals, and poignant commentary that’s still relevant today. However, the flaws I mentioned do keep the movie from being perfect, but I’m not sure that was really the filmmakers’ intention. If I were to describe this movie as simply as I can, I would call it ‘an experience’. Which it is. If you sit back, relax, and just let the movie take you on a journey to far unknown worlds outside of Yonkers, it really is an experience, and one I’m sure would be great to have on the big screen if they ever re-release it in theaters.
Considering the flaws I feel comfortable rating this film a 4/5 HAL-9000’s, but if I’m grading based off of the filmmakers’ intention, I have no problem giving it a 4.5/5 HAL-9000’s.
If you’re still looking for a movie for this weekend movie night, look no further than WALL-E.
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
