Wall-E

[flippyshark]

Cars got me a couple of times, but especially during the nostalgic montage with the Randy Newman song. (Indeed, ditto for the two Toy Stories. Darn those winsome Newman montages.)

Yes, the last few seconds of Monsters, Inc slays me every single time. (mists up thinking about it...)

Wall-E for exactly the reasons GC states above- WOW!

[innerSpaceman]

Ok, that settles it. I'm putting Toy Story 2 and Bug's Life on my netflix queue and giving each a second chance. Because right now, they are at the slimy bottom of my Pixar list ... which, for the sake of thread continuity and meme-ish participation runs as follows.


1. The Incredibles
2. The Incredibles
3. The Incredibles
4. Finding Nemo
5. Ratatouille
6. Toy Story
7. Wall-E *
8. Monsters, Inc.
BIG GAP
9. Cars
GIANT MEGA GASH OF A GAP
10. It's a Bugs Life
11. Toy Story 2



* I have to assimilate Wall-E some more before its proper placement. It's a testament to how much I love the movies above it on the list, since I'm absolutely in love with Wall-E.

[Disneyphile]

We loved it, and can't wait to see it again, because it was so captivating.

I also liked...

Spoiler:

...the fact that they touched on a very real issue about the increasing sedentary lifestyles that people are succumbing to these days. I especially liked the display of showing how people get so caught up in the screen in front of them, that they don't even notice people actually next to them, or that they can socialize outside the screen. Again, that's a very real aspect of today's society, because a lot of people are spending more hours online than they do offline, thus ignoring the real world around them.

Visually, it's an absolute masterpiece, and I almost wondered what sets they used for filming.

I'm very happy we finally have a film that not only provides breath-taking entertainment, but provokes thought as well.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Ah, the Pixar Debate - one that is Everlasting and always Intriguing.

[innerSpaceman]

And to touch on something GD said pages or so ago, I don't think the societal skewering was without enough substance. Satire does not need to go too deep to be satire. Quite the contrary, when a barbed point is so on point it's instantly recognizable and humorous, what's more to tell about it other than the pointing itself?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

And to touch on something GD said pages or so ago, I don't think the societal skewering was without enough substance. Satire does not need to go too deep to be satire. Quite the contrary, when a barbed point is so on point it's instantly recognizable and humorous, what's more to tell about it other than the pointing itself?

It's not so much that the satire didn't go anywhere, it was that the characters within the satire didn't go anywhere. All we saw was a bunch of half-baked random encounters with no character arc. There was nothing for me to care about, no emotional connection to these non-pedal decedents of mine that had me caring one way or another whether they made it back to Earth or not. Pixar movies are usually far better about that, where characters aren't just set pieces to push a plot along but actual emotional beings the audience cares about. Starting with an excellent social commentary is not enough to make up for lack of good story telling. Especially when that social commentary isn't all that unique (a lot of the same stuff was brought up by Idiocracy, and even that highly imperfect movie covered far more interesting ground than this did, imo).

[innerSpaceman]

Well, to be honest, there were only 3 human characters, and two of those were barely cameos. There was the lady and her potential beau, voiced by the Pixar perennial John Ratzenberger, who were "awakened" from their hover-stupor to view the world with wonder and the promise of love. That was their entire arc, admittedly weak. But they were the most minor of minor characters.

The other human, the Captain, I thought had a rather decent character arc, no less thoroughly predictable than the more fully realized arc of Eve.

Did Wall-E even have any kind of character arc? I don't think so. He was likeable ... but besides falling in love, was he any different at the end of the movie than at its start?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Well, to be honest, there were only 3 human characters, and two of those were barely cameos.

That's kind of my point in considering that part of the story weak. Since we never get to learn anything really about the humans why should I care whether they return to earth. Or the sense of wonder they have when they do. Or why it is that you can stack them 20 deep in a steeply tilted spaceship and none come to harm (or why tilting a spaceship with artificial gravity would even have any effect on the humans inside).

Did Wall-E even have any kind of character arc? I don't think so. He was likeable ... but besides falling in love, was he any different at the end of the movie than at its start?

While Wall-E is the central cute character, I don't really think his was the story arc but rather it was Eve that provided it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

(or why tilting a spaceship with artificial gravity would even have any effect on the humans inside).

Or why residents of a spaceship with artificial gravity would be subject to the deterioration associated with microgravity. Or why WALL E breaking someone's display screen causes sudden onset of awareness whereas the emergency robots chasing rogue robots can knock people off their chairs with reckless abandon. Or why Fred Willard would have bothered with giving the autopilot special orders to stay away from earth since if the reason was that life was unsustainable then there would have been no plant life to start the return process anyway, or........

I've thus far avoided going into the many many weaknesses I found in that plot. It's full of gaping holes. But I don't want to dwell on them because it's just going to make me like the movie less and I'd really prefer to keep liking it. So I'm trying to just kinda ignore it and focus on the far superior element of the movie.

As for WALL E's character arc, perhaps he himself doesn't have an arc, but he is intimately involved in one (EVE's/the relationships's) and one that is done in a thoroughly artistic manner. He may not grow much, but he is a fully fleshed out character that the audience can actually connect to, not a prop piece.

[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.