Wall-E

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Or why residents of a spaceship with artificial gravity would be subject to the deterioration associated with microgravity. ..

With the big bold disclaimer that these issues of science and physical consistency did not at all detract from my enjoyment of the movie. Just things I noticed, some other things I noticed and thought while watching:

Spoiler:

The Axion used some kind of FTL drive to return to Earth but the probe ship used subluminal speeds to return to the Axion from Earth. A speed that would have taken years, if not centuries, for the trip shown.

Using chemical reactive propulsion to land a giant ship and then take off again is a horribly inefficient way to get six Eve's down to the surface of earth. Especially when repeated to retrieve them. Especially when the technology for artificial gravity and anti-gravity apparently exists and is used widely (Eve flies without any apparent form of propulsion).

It is essentially impossible to evacuate earth. The planet's population increases by about 250,000 every day. Based on the size of the Axiom as seen when it lands on Earth, just to hold the population of Earth steady would require at least one new Axion be build every day and probably dozens if you want to evacuate the planet in any short period of time.

If the planet was evacuated, where are all of the other cruise ships out in space and will they be returning?

If the planet wasn't evacuated, where are the signs of 6+ billion corpses among all the trash?

Either that is the universes smallest nebula that the Axion is living behind or the Axion was much bigger in space than it was on Earth.

I'm pretty sure that 700 years far exceeds the data life of VHS (and in reality a VHS tape would be decades older than the Earth evacuation). An, really, the artifacts he was finding were amazingly well preserved for being 700+ years old in an area ravaged by severe storms.

Why is a short term probe designed to look for plantlife on an otherwise sterile planet so heavily armed and aggressively programmed? What is Eve designed to defend herself from?

It was pretty, but of course the rings of Saturn are not so dense that you can run a hand through them.

Why did the Axion have a complement of plant-seeking probes when they apparently departed on their 5-year cruise expecting it to be just 5 years and with earth still occupied by a clean up force consisting of at least Fred Willard?

Earth deprived of plant life for 700 years would be extremely oxygen deprived. The existence of a single photosynthesizing plant would hardly indicate that the atmosphere had returned to a survivable balance.

If there had been no plants on the planet for 700 years where did the plant found germinate from?

Presumably there are plenty of other cockroaches or is the one we meet 700 years old? If so, what are they eating since no new food is being created?

Since Wall-E is solar powered and the trip from Earth to the Axion must have taken days or weeks (even if not shown but obviously not the years or centuries of reality) and most of the would have been in the essentially zero-light of extra-solar space travel how was he still charged when reaching the Axion?

Yes, I know it is just a cartoon and I want to reiterate that the above questions/issues really didn't impact my enjoyment of the movie. They're just things that occurred to me from a purely technical point of view of the world presented.

[Gemini Cricket]

I don't know. Do you think it would have been kinda grim to show dead bodies scattered about while Wall-E and Eve make out robot style? I guess it's no worse than seeing the dead hanging rats in Ratatouille...

[Alex]

Yeah, it would have been grim.

I just gave the two possibilities because I assumed the entire planet was evacuated but Lani thought the Axion was the only ship out there. Either option brought to mind consequences unseen in the movie (not that they should have been seen, they were just things brought to mind).

[Ghoulish Delight]

I seem to recall that the first video we saw about the evacuation indicated multiple ships, with the Axiom being the flagship. But I could be wrong.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Alex

If the planet wasn't evacuated, where are the signs of 6+ billion corpses among all the trash?

Oh, simple... they use CALL-E - she's the Corpse Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class.

[Alex]

Mmmmm, that must produce some oozy cubes.

[innerSpaceman]

Um, you are spot-on about videotapes not surving 700 years (hahaha, not even 70) ... so why on earth (yeah, perhaps pun intended) would you expect any biological human remains to exist after 700 years?


That one's as big a physical gaffe on your part as any of the physical gaffes on the filmmakers' ... so I guess you're even.

[Gemini Cricket]

Hmmm. How would anyone know if videotapes last 700 years or not? There hasn't been an experiment that has lasted that long yet.

[Kevy Baby]

Those weren't VHS tapes: they were oversized digital video tapes on a new polymer base that has a half life of of just over 6,000 years. They were fine.

I can't believe you missed that detail.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Apparently there are few conservatives who don't think kindly of this movie.

Shannen Coffin: From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind. It’s a shame, too, because the robot had promise. The story was just awful, however.

Greg Pollowitz: It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment. … Much to Disney’s chagrin, I will do my part to avoid future environmental armageddon by boycotting any and all WALL-E merchandise and I hope others join my crusade.

Glenn Beck: I can’t wait to teach my kids how we’ve destroyed the Earth. … Pixar is teaching. I can’t wait. You know if your kid has ever come home and said, “Dad, how come we use so much styrofoam,” oh, this is the movie for you.

Dirty Harry: Have we lost Pixar? Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us The Incredibles and Ratatouille to Bush Derangement Syndrome? Here you have a winning streak going back ten-years, enormous amounts of public goodwill, equal amounts of credibility as serious storytellers, and they stop things cold, yanking you out of the story with the liberal nonsense. Quite a disappointment.

Jonah Goldberg: I agree with the charges of hypocrisy. I agree that the Malthusian fear mongering was annoying

Anyone shocked?