Wall-E (2008)

Perhaps my favorite Pixar film! WALL-E is a perfect example how wonderful production and sound design can be superior when using animation as opposed to live action. For about a month now (ever since I saw WALTZ WITH BASHIR) I have been thinking that animation might be the more effective format to making film in. You can manipulate any element in an animated film in a way that is just impossible to do in live action. You can have everything worked out to the last detail; there are no restrictions. I do agree that there is a magic about filming live action that can’t be created on a computer, and I think that’s the point.

Anyway, let’s get down to WALL-E. This is the Pixar movie that isn’t particularly targeted at kids. I feel like there are so many goofy and obnoxious elements to children’s movies that make them “less serious works of art.” Examples of this are: 1) the surfer turtles from FINDING NEMO; 2) Fart jokes; and 3) The entire film CARS. I love children’s movies, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like WALL-E is targeted at a more sophisticated audience that doesn’t laugh at fart jokes.

WALL-E is a science fiction film that deals with an eminent threat: the Earth filling completely up with trash. Wall-E is a robot whose job it is to pick up all this trash and put it into neat little piles. Not only does he have to pick up garbage all the time, but he has the worst luck of any robot I have seen. He is constantly getting beat up by bad luck. If he is in a situation where he could get hurt, he does. It’s like watching a Chaplin with a robot as the tramp. The film doesn’t have very much dialogue for the first half . It relies all on the personality of Wall-E and the visuals. These two elements are strong enough to keep the interest of the viewer (well, my interest anyway. I can’t speak for everyone).

The opening of the film establishes the tone quickly. It starts with “Put on your Sunday Clothes” (something you would expect from a much lighter Disney picture) as we see images of deep space. As we move closer to Earth and see the garbage everywhere, the music begins to fade. From the start of it, it seems like this is going to be a pretty happy flick, but psyche! It’s sad as shit! That just said to me, “this isn’t your average Disney-Pixar movie.”

It’s a very simple, insightful and visually stunning film. It makes me want to jump ship from live action to animated, but I then I remember I have no talent as an illustrator. It would be ideal to work on the production design of an animated film, but actually animating it would be so painstaking. That is the drawback of doing animated film, the amount of work that needs to go into it seems like much more. Perhaps the hours it takes to animate a film are the same as making one in live action (pre-production, production and post combined). This is an interesting question… perhaps Yahoo Answers can help me out once again.

Wall-E meets a new sleek and sexy robot named Eve and falls in love. Eve is obviously something that is supposed to represent how awesome and sexy Apple computers are. It has a smooth white design and even has some of the same operations as a Mac. Once Eve finds the plant sample and goes into “plant” mode, it has a glowing green circle like when Mac computers are sleeping. Well, the Mac thing isn’t green, but it looks the same. You get the idea. And when Wall-E is fully charged from the sun, he makes the Mac start up noise. If you have a Mac, this is making sense to you. If you don’t have a Mac, what’s wrong with you?

I am going to try and squeeze in more movie tonight so I am going to cut this one short. Not sure what I am going to watch.

You should see WALL-E though if you haven’t already. It’s so damn cute and thoughtful. The best thing Pixar has ever done.