Perhaps it will fall in love with the toaster oven?

We have no toaster oven, but I noticed it sighing as it passed the microwave.

Well, it either means love or that its brushes need cleaning. ;)

Who better to highlight the evils of large corporations than those who experience it on a day-to-day basis? Especially those who were once part of a small company that got absorbed by a large corporation.

Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton...WALL-E! I'm a huge fan of silent film and loved seeing an animated robotic love story that maintained its subtleties and slapstick. The first half of the film had me glowing with happiness as I, with rapid heart beat, developed a real affection for the characters. I even had to bite back tears when WALL-E held his own hand. It is one of the best and most human love stories ever told, I think.

But I didn't care at all for the use of live action. It made sense at first. The more realistic animators try to make 3D animated / CGI people look the creepier they look. Even an ounce of something other than human, and it's a freaky golem . You cannot help but notice there is something off about the creation. Exaggerating human features in animation makes the artifice palatable somehow, and we more easily recognize them as human than their more human-like CGI counterparts. Given how realistic the WALL-E robot and his environment were animated, I assumed the animators decided live-action people would be more believable in context. I didn't much care for the actor they chose, but I could look beyond that.

I had a lot of trouble looking beyond the evolution of the human race. CP and GP mentioned a book they were reading at mousepod's that detailed the animators original plans for an evolved race of blob people, and I think I would have much preferred that. That, or a consistent use of live-action, similar to Happy Feet.

Regardless, I just didn't care enough about the human characters to maintain an interest in their story. The message interested me, and I thought that was beautifully conveyed in the first half of the film. And even in the animation that accompanied the credits. But something just didn't sit right about the lazy space cadets, and I didn't appreciate the tossed in bone density explanation at the end. Bah.

I dug the Hal reference but wished it had been a bit more subtle. I could have done without the 2001 music...

Anyhoow, overall, a love story to love and love again, but I'll probably fast-forward through the parts I enjoyed less whenever I watch it again.

I bet they do (I did note the lack of self-awareness). This sentiment is assuredly shared by many other people in assorted big large evil corporations. So if all of these big evil corporations are filled with people trying to basically do good, who are these big evil corporations again?

Shareholders, investment bankers, and MBAs

Pixar did poke fun at itself being a big corporation. At the end of the credits, after the Pixar Logo, the BnL logo popped up. I found that funny.
:)

To clarify what EH1812 said - in the art of Wall-E book it said that the original concept was that you weren't told that the blobby alien-like creatures were actually humans after 700 years of (de-)evolution until the very end. The concept drawings were much more jelly like and totally non-human. I think that might have been better but the book claimed that it confused people, and in a movie with little dialogue they ruled it out as too much of a risk.

I loved it the way it was. I didn't need any attempt at an M. Night "twist" ending.

And while the BnL company and the cruise ship Axiom were timely specifics, the "message" of Earth environmentally destroyed by humans, (with or without a surviving remnant of the species adrift in space) is a staple of science fiction ... an homage by Pixar rather than an invention they can be either blamed or praised for.

I have to say that the Pixar people's artistic ability has gone up another notch. I'm always amazed at the computer animation and how good its gotten. I completely fell in love with the story line and found it every bit entertaining and fun.