Review: Wall-E - Almost Something In There

Wall-E is mostly empty inside.

Literally.  You see, Wall-E is a robot whose body is shaped like an empty cube.  It is a functional design.  Wall-E's purpose is to scoop trash inside his hollow and then compact it and then stack it.  He's cleaning up the mess that people have made.  The movie is set roughly eight hundred years from our own time and about seven hundred years after humanity has left the earth because it has become uninhabitable on account of over consumption and waste.

It only takes about thirty minutes, however, for Wall-E to capture our hearts.  Many reviewers of the movie have noted correctly that the marvel of this film is the first half hour.  Only two characters appear, Wall-E and a cockroach.  Hardly a word is spoken.  But no dialog is necessary for the audience to appreciate Wall-E's sense of purpose, humor, innocence, nostalgia, ingenuity, and hopefulness. Pixar is just that good.  You hardly notice how much time has gone by when in one poignant scene Wall-E peers up longingly at the stars.  You almost believe there might be something inside this adorable, mostly empty robot.  Perhaps a heart?

Maybe.  Wall-E is a love story after all.  The movie is about how two robots, Wall-E and another named EVE, fall in love.  But if this movie is a romance starring two likable droids, it's nearly equally the story of how consumerism and waste have corrupted humanity's love for each other and the earth and even the heavens.  Essentially, Wall-E is a love story with an implication.

But what is inside the message?  Oh how it pains me to say it because I love Pixar.  They make the best movies and tell the best stories on film today.  But let me just cut to the chase, Wall-E provides neither an adequate wake-up-call nor a satisfying answer to the problem of unsustainable consumerism in our world today.  Despite all the beautifully animated trash, the film's subplot of run-away consumerism producing environmental catastrophe just doesn't stackup.

Over the last week I've been mulling over why the film falls short. Among several conclusions a couple of observations standout.

The movie depicts a lot of trash but almost no stuff.  Was I the only one who couldn't figure out how the spaceship Axiom produced so much trash when the only disposables in sight were thousands of styrofoam Big Gulp cups?  Where were all the consumer goods onboard?  Where was Buy n Large?  It was interesting that the humans could mindlessly change the color of their skinsuits.  That made a point.  But it didn't make trash.  And neither did any of the people, which seems like a plot hole big enough to fly the Axiom through.  The trouble with over consumption in our own time is that me and you are responsible.  Sure the Buy n Large corporations are able to scale production and make opportunity for waste on an order of magnetude.  But really, it's me and you who unnecessarily buy and regularly waste.  By making humans unconcious non-participants in the ongoing waste, the movie lacks the indictment of a wake-up-call.

My second criticism is the same.  You can call Pixar brave or inappropriate for giving George W. Bush a cameo appearance as the self-centered spin-talking president of the Buy n Large Corporation. But again the accusation lacks force because it is an abstraction without a nexus between our world's very real problem of consumer waste and the very real human beings who are responsible for the problem. Even if an answer to these problems should come from government and corporate leaders (and I believe some of the solutions must come from them), where were all these leaders in the film?!  What happened to Buy n Large?  Who was making all the shakes?  Sure, take a potshot at Bush and Wal-Mart.  On issues of consumer waste and environmental stewardship they deserve it.  But is there no way to sneak into this film an example of a more positive model of government and industry?

I kept thinking of Al Gore's excellent address at TED, "New thinking on the climate crisis."  In his conclusion Gore pleads with the audience regarding the environmental crisis that awaits the planet, "I wish I could find the words to convey this."  But Al Gore does not have the words to wake up and motivate a generation to action.  Worldwide his name is associated with the environmental crisis, but almost nowhere are his words thought of as the solution.  Unfortunately we also cannot expect a mostly mute robot to find the vocabulary to motivate our generation to action.

Pixar has given us a delightful love story for the twenty-ninth century.  I wish they too would have given us a sensible mission for the twenty-first.

Comments

[EDW]

I think you have a great point about not showing individual choices and thus personal responsibility, but I disagree about our President making a cameo. Unless we saw a different film, neither my husband or I thought the CEO of BNL was supposed to be George W Bush. In fact, I thought the actor, Fred Willard, was good choice because he so often plays a role like that. Has Pixar said that Willard was a stand-in for the President?

[Unspending]

I'm also a little confused about the George Bush reference. It is indeed Fred Willard playing the BNL CEO role. In this WALL-E featurette, http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=A_X1cbiJS1Q Andrew Stanton (director) says they were looking for a "lovable car salesman" to play the CEO role.

[Dave Bruno]

@EDW and Unspending - thanks for the comments. I think the Bush insinuation was pretty clear. Not only was the Buy n Large press room a nearly exact replica of the White House briefing room, but the BnL CEO even used the Bush line, "stay the course." Look more closely at the signage in BnL press room. There are clear allusions to "Bush". And while I'd have to watch the movie again to be sure, I seem to think that any time a globe made it into a scene, it was always showing the United States.

Anyway, I'm not in any way saying there was a hidden "liberal" agenda or something. My point is that the BnL CEO clearly alluded to Bush and that created distance between the problem of wasteful consumption and the solution we must all create.

[EDW]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I did notice the briefing room - it's so obviously the White House briefing room - but I thought it was to mean that BnL had taken over the country to such an extent that their CEO spoke as if he were the President, and even used the terminology of our President. I saw it much more as an attack on global corporations encouraging consumerism than a slight to our President.

But, regardless, the point remains the same - the onus is off the individual and on big business.

[Dave Bruno]

On another note, just came across this:

http://makerfaire.com/press/bayarea/2008/disney/

[Walkeezy]

Loved your article until I got to the second paragraph.
Did you really even watch the movie? Trash wasn't made on the ship, the trash was made on Earth. All the Wall-E bots you see on Earth in the begining were put there to clean up the mess while all of humanity were sent away on a ship...so they didn't have to deal with the mess they made.
Anytime you saw a person having a shake (obviously made by robots...get it? futuristic movie? they can do that stuff in the year 2750?) it was delivered and then removed when the person was finished. Where did the waste go? NOT TO EARTH, otherwise I'm sure we would have seen a shot of the garbage falling from space, dont you? Maybe the cup was used as a form of renewable energy for the ship to run? Not so wasteful anymore, huh?
And last, George Bush wasn't in this movie. not once. Fred Willard was the President/CEO of BnL
oh, and BnL owned the ship, Axion. And there were numerous shots of the old BnL stores on Earth and I believe all of the shake cups said BnL on them.

[Dave Bruno]

@Walkeezy - thanks for the thoughts. I must not have been clear. The trash I'm referring to on the Axiom was in the scene when Wall-E and EVE almost got tossed out into space in a huge cube of junk. It was toward the end of the movie. I was not sure where all the trash had come from.

While quite a few people disagree, I feel like the President of BnL was meant to remind us of the current President of the U.S. Again, watch for the clues.

It's not that it is a bad movie. I just don't think they gave us a movie of action. Since they clearly did not give us another kids movie, I'm assuming they were going for message. I think they fell short.

[Look closer]

Look closer, people. There was a deliberate -- though extremely subtle -- reference to George W. Bush in there. It goes beyond the hand movements. It goes beyond "Stay the course." How about when Fred Willard first appears at the podium and the only letters of "Buy 'N Large" are the BU on the left and the RGE on the right? Bush, George.

Yup.

I hand it to everyone who helped to delicately place this reference into the movie in such a subtle and inoffensive manner as to spawn debate without definite conclusion.

Of course, everyone associated with the movie MUST avoid any admittance of this occurrence, because people are freaks and can't handle the fact that their beloved Commander in Chief is a failure, worthy of blame far beyond this.

Mommy slipped your culturally relevant vitamins into your Cocoa Puffs without you even knowing. Don't worry -- they are good for you!

[ravert]

I am sure there should be more such movies like wall-e ( http://rapid4me.com/?q=wall+e ), which show all negative impact of civilization, which in the long run devastates all around.