Jan 30: Wall-E (2008) dir. Michael Stanton

Wall-E tells a story of a world which has been ruined by mass consumerism, and where the human population has left the planet altogether and lives in large spaceships where they have let themselves go physically through a lack of exercise and been infantilised by screens. The first part of the film has no dialogue as the mise-en-scène is established and our robot protagonist is introduced.

Wall-E is a robot who spends his days compacting rubbish into cubes and piling it high, interspersed with sheltering from the terrible sudden storms which hit the ravaged Earth, and repairing himself from spare parts that he has stored in his home and watching vintage movies on a VHS. 

The opening few minutes of the film are a masterpiece in showing the ruined earth and the impact of our consumerism.

One day, Wall-E comes across a small sign of life... a plant.

From time to time, probes are sent back to Earth to check for signs of life, and one of these is EVE.

Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator

Wall-E falls in love, and tries to follow EVE back to the ark in space where humanity is hiding.

Buy N Large is a large corporation, which is behind much of the damage that has been caused, and the captain of the ship is also 'controlled' by the auto-pilot. It's a film also about rebellion and technology's impact on people. These are not usual themes for an animated film aimed principally at a young audience. Of course, Pixar is owned by Disney, which is a large multinational company not averse to creating consumer goods connected with its products.

There have been quite a few articles and writings about the ecological and sociological messages of the film of course. The criticism of our lifestyle is obvious.

This Wired piece explores the issue of the environment within the movie and the tensions involved.

It starts by mentioning some of the obvious 'targets'.

This piece in SF Gate also has a lot of geographical content in it, exploring the influence of the San Francisco Bay area on the movie's geography.

Here's a little look-back, with an interview by Kim Stanley Robinson which is well worth reading. Wall-E definitely deserves a space in any scheme of work involving films.

The final theme music was by Peter Gabriel, which was a bit of a surprise when I went to see the film and the end credits started rolling. I had to stay and listen to the end as I'd never heard it before that.

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Although the visuals of Wall-E, as with any Pixar film are wonderful, the sound design is also interesting, as described here: