WALL-E!

God I love this movie.

I was just rewatching the movie and a wave of nostalgia flooded back and I remembered just how great it was.

Going with bullet-points, because the points are too different from each other; miscellaneous thoughts.

• So many awesome moments! So many charming moments! So many funny moments!

• As many people say, the film is masterful in establishing the character of the robots without much dialogue. There’s so emotion in their expressions and movements. But also, the captain provides a good human contrast to our robot protagonists. 

• The malfunctioning robots that WALL-E first saves, and then return in the climax, are really fun (I had toys of most of them too, so I have an additional connection). There’s the perfume droid, the out-of-control massage droid, the fatal defibrillator droid, etc. And MO is just completely hilarious, probably the funniest character in the whole movie. I just love that this droid is so completely dedicated that it follows WALL-E around the Axiom and is prepared to go all the way down to the garbage chute and out the airlock for the sake of cleanliness. The giant WALL-A’s in the garbage chute were something I don’t believe I noticed on the first viewing. But when they see WALL-E and Eve are going to be sucked out, they close the door, also shining their lights on the damaged WALL-E and wave goodbye to the leaving trio. It’s just a nice character detail. In that same moment, there’s also WALL-E letting MO come with them as they leave. Also, the subplot with the two humans, who are unplugged, so to speak, is small but nonetheless emotionally poignant.

• The scene where all the droids and people help to pass along the plant to Eve is touching. It’s the community coming together, literally helping pass this important object, everyone pitching in. Also, the wholesomeness and emotions contrast with the despair that both Eve and the audience feel, having seen WALL-E just getting crushed.
• It’s kind of like that moment in Spider-Man 1 (Spider-Man is at the mercy of the Green Goblin after saving a bunch of children, but a load of New Yorkers distract him by throwing stuff at him saying “We’re New Yorkers, you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.”) or Spider-Man 2 (Peter has his mask taken off after saving a train, and no-one reports his identity, they just give him back his mask and try to defend him for Doc Ock.) The Spider-Man examples are more cheesy, but they’re still effective.

• He holds the burden of humanity and doesn’t relent, doesn’t give in. And who can’t cry when he subsequently gets crushed? Important to note that WALL-E isn’t completely selfless. He mainly wants to be with Eve. But when the situation calls for it, he stands up (literally).

• I may just go a bit tinfoil-conspiracy-theorist, but what about this premise:

WALL-E is a sci-fi reimagining of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, though I actually prefer WALL-E to the Jesus story.
There is a lone individual who gathers followers and puts their own life on the line to save humanity. To allow humanity the chance to be reborn. Humanity faces a dilemma because of their past sin, and an outside force is empowering them to finally make a new start, with better choices.
Of course, WALL-E isn’t the son of God, or anyone particular special, a disconnect from the Jesus story. That makes me like WALL-E’s version more, it’s less constrained by fatalism and more people doing things of their own volition (although that goes into another topic.) I dislike the Chosen One trope, instead preferring characters with no divine intervention necessarily behind them.
WALL-E holding the Holo-Detector is very much like Jesus holding the cross or Atlas holding the very skies themselves. An impossible burden held up through willpower for the betterment of all (though the Titan Atlas is quite less altruistic).
On another note, like Harry Potter, it’s about the sins of the past and how the present can deal with them for a real future.

• The plant is a clever use of the MacGuffin plot device. A MacGuffin is an item that drives the story/plot (example: The Indiana Jones series). Here the plant is a MacGuffin, but it’s also a way of showing new life. Moreover, it’s basically just a key for the real objective.

• The Pixar animation is still, and always will be incredible. It’s a bit dated compared to current animation, but that’s inevitable. It seems a bit like the life energy that people expend making the film is now forever tied to the film. There’s a spirit imbued with the movie. Think of all the people behind the movie who shared this vision. All the people who saw it and felt such emotion, felt so compelled by the movie! Even though WALL-E and the cast are not strictly real, they’re still very real, but in a different way. A Coraline animator said that the best part of their job was breathing life into the inanimate. Through effort, the inanimate is forever imbued with life.

• It’s a film that will be relevant for a long time, given the climate crisis. On one hand, it’s depressing to see how little progress has been made, but, on the other, there’s still hope.

• I was realising more about how WALL-E is about following orders versus being autonomous. AUTO represents an unwillingness to change with the times, represented through him literally being a robot. WALL-E and EVE, among other robots, progress because they have gained individual personalities rather than following protocol. They accept the change that comes with life rather than clinging to a paradise that never truly existed; a stagnant life on the Axiom.

• With the ending, WALL-E regains his personality after briefly returning to a regular robot. This aspect reminded of fairytales, in a positive way. It’s like the Sleeping Beauty thing. Everything seems lost and then it isn’t. It just works out through love. This detail and the overall love story between him and EVE serve as a lighter contrast to the more heavier topics from the film.

• I like the detail of how WALL-E is a fan of that movie on his television. WALL-E has this idealised fantasy. Although it’s different than expected, WALL-E still gets to live and experience that love that he was yearning for.

• I love the Captain as a character, but I also especially love this one line he gives:

“I don’t wanna survive! I wanna live!”
I could see a connection between that and Finding Nemo. In Finding Nemo, Marlin’s desire to keep Nemo safe at all costs and over-protectiveness prevents him from living a satisfying life. Indeed, Nemo’s frustration with his dad’s approach is what causes the story in the first place. There’s a way to play things safe, to completely minimize your chances of being hurt. To live inside 24/7. But if you do that, you miss out. Life requires risk. Speaking of another Pixar movie, you can compare UP to WALL-E in that they’re both about rekindling the old. Carl finally accomplishes his long-held dream and humanity returns. Comparing them, UP is more of a personal journey where WALL-E is about humanity at large, though it also has many personal moments. WALL-E is macrosociology, while UP is microsociology.

• Also, I never noticed that the 2D credits are animated in different historical styles matching the new humanity’s progress. The art shift follows their progress. First, the robots and humans making their new society are in prehistoric cave drawings, then Ancient Egyptian art. Then it’s mosaics, followed by this effective animatic, showing a youthful exertion. (The art style of the basic animatic fits with the visual of a person getting fish. It’s imperfect, not done. But it’s getting there.) Then it’s continued by Impressionism and Pointillism, then Vincent Van Gogh’s style. We see a bird flying, the great metaphor, for accomplishing your goals (flying is a symbol for ascending, for going beyond the range of the normal/ground). They also represent innocence, the sheer beauty of nature and of life. Then we see WALL-E and Eve, holding hands, looking at each other. Then they look back at the tree, the final symbol. We see the tree go down to its simple roots, a humble plant in a boot. Something so big coming from something so small.

• It’s pretty much a perfect film.