Wall*e

[cinemabon]

(Warning! This review contains spoilers)

Wall-e – a film by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo)

It is no coincidence that baby boomers are having their say this year, though nearly drummed out by loud chest beating by conservative old timers like Charlie Gibson (ABC News) and ex-Bush White House pundit Carl Rove, still pushing Republicanism. The most underwhelming political event of the season was boomer and environmentalist Al Gore’s endorsement of boomer Barack Obama, not covered by any network. Gore’s message to save the planet is especially relevant, seeing the last administration has been operating as a cheerleader for large corporations and ignored the issues.

For isn’t all of this global warming, diving economy, and threats to start drilling off shore for oil (John McCain’s little plug in Texas that only pleased the oil crowd. My brother lives in Texas. The majority of Texans aren’t thrilled with the white sands of Padre Island being muddied with oil), all tied into how we’ve squandered the moment.

What I mean to say, is that, with all of our advanced technology (wind is now so advanced, it can easily outstrip nuclear in efficiency and wattage) we cannot reduce our dependence on burning oil or coal and polluting our planet? That is the final lesson to be learned from Pixar’s little film, “Wall-e”, the story of the little robot that falls in love. While the love story is an important aspect of “Wall-e” the story centers around leaving the planet because pollution has rendered it unlivable.

The solution? Have robots clean up the place and return it to the pristine condition it was. Only, the robots fail in their job. Every living thing on the planet dies. Hundreds of years pass. Large space-faring vehicles carry the population of the planet around in luxury liners, whose passengers have become bloated, self-indulgent, reflections of their former, selfish, ancestors. They send out probes into the universe searching for a sign of life, and every year they come back empty handed… except this year.

Poor little Wall-e. He falls in love with a movie, Barbara Streisand’s version of “Hello Dolly!” He is especially enamored with the tune, “It only takes a moment,” which happens to be my favorite song from the film, mostly because I could play it on the piano. I loved that song. Michael Crawford, who would later become the Phantom of the Opera, sings the silly love song in the middle of the film, its melody becomes a mantra for the little mechanical device with a quirky personality.

The stark realism of a rusty-brown earth is a sharp contrast to the bright colors and pristine appearance of the modern and efficient liner, run by advanced robots with a built in hierarchy of purpose. Naturally, Wall-e falls in love with one of them, the robot designed to bring back the life form it discovers. Of course, the villain in this piece turns out to be none other than the computers themselves, content to keep humans a docile bunch. In one hilarious moment, one billowy man struggles to actually stand-up to the strains of Kubrick’s 2001 theme music, bringing down the house with laughter.

“Wall-e” is what we’ve come to expect from Pixar… fun, inventive, intelligent, relevant, and beautifully created with images never seen in any form. While the stories often have simplistic endings, as do most Hollywood films, we can rely on a Pixar film the same way we could always rely on a Walt Disney film in our youth, to see great art, great story with lots of heart, and a subtle message, that the call to fix the environment is on our doorstep. This is the last chance. Our vote should reflect that change. “Wall-e” is the most relevant film of the year.

[Chris Knipp]

You may be right. It may be most relevant film of the year in that this message that it delivers which comes from everywhere at us all the time, is encapsulated and thus made "relevant" in a lovable underdog hero with a cute love story and witty, advanced animation images--and in that millions of people will see it. (You can be "relevant" as hell but if nobody sees you, your relevance is academic.) There are already over 200 User Comments about it on IMDb. It's already the top grosser over the two blockbusters, Wanted and Get Smart, and to top it off the reviewers are falling all over themselves to praise it: Metacritic rating 93.

[Chris Knipp]

Andrew Stanton: WALL·E (2008)

Little robot makes good

Review by Chris Knipp

Earth is overrun with trash. Thus a little rusty robot has his lovely task: packing rubbish from humans, who've departed to space, into skyscraper cubes. WALL-E is a "he." We just know. WALL stands for "Waste Allocation" something-or-other (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), but of course it reads as "Wally." Wally looks a little like ET. Has some of the sprightliness of R2D2. Wally's in the survivor situation of Will Smith in I Am Legend, but has no vicious enemies, only a cockroach pal that follows him around. But Wally is lonely. Wally is a lonely guy.

Animations anthropomorphize animals (as did ancient fables and the seventeenth-century poet La Fontaine), then moved on to broomsticks and other objects, and machines. Do machines have souls? Do androids dream of electric sheep? Will artificial intelligence rule? Will we have to rip out Hal's brain? These are perennial sci-fi dilemmas.

WALL-E is a robot love story. It's also a chilling if hopeful picture of humans exiled from a ruined planet and turned over many generations into consumer blobs wallowing in a space mall called "Axiom." This movie oscillates neatly between austere minimalism and cornball sweetness, with many Star Wars battles smashed together in between. It satisfies children and adults, but only by not quite fully satisfying either. That is still an accomplishment, the classic Shakespearean one of appealing to all levels of the audience.

Two ways WALL-E is wondrous are in the dusty, weathered look of its Pixar earth landscapes which Wally himself partakes of; and the endless mechanical business, the tricks and gestures of creatures and objects in constant, precise, often witty motion. But the loud sweeping music spoils the initial loneliness. How lonely can you be with a full orchestra at your back? And there is a limit to how much you can care about a machine. Or should be. Still, this movie for all its emphasis on tricks and images scores some surprisingly cool and resonant ideas along the way.

WALL-E is a triumph of the work ethic, the little guy who matters. He's also symbolic of the utilitarian, no nonsense life. When all else fails, when there's nothing but junk, he's there, sorting it. He throws away a diamond ring, but keeps the box: it looks useful. The movie also celebrates the baraka, the blessedness, of much-used humble objects that through human contact grow soulful and real. In his junk lair, where he sleeps (dreaming of electric sheep?), he plays a little piece of an old musical on a videotape, people dancing and happy, a couple singing of love. This is the kernel of humanity that's saved.

But WALL-E's a lonely guy, and when EVA comes, he's smitten. EVA is sent from "Axiom" to see if photosynthesis has returned. She--we know it's a she--is everything WALL-E isn't. He's rusty and clunky and articulated. She's round and smooth and white and her parts float in the air. He is indestructible, or nearly so, but she is higher tech, and emits sudden, alarming explosions, powerful and alien--yet somehow feminine. These are lessons in sexual differentiation for kiddies.

For adults are the bloated helpless future humans we see when EVA is returned to space and WALL-E sneaks aboard and follows her. The finale is simple and schematic--it's a letdown, despite the fun, comic reference to 2001, and the way Alien(s) is evoked by using Sigourney Weaver's voice for the malevolent controlling computer of "Axiom." Are we the prisoners of our own device? Even when it disappoints, WALL-E is thought-provoking. The little robots are real charmers, and there have been many ingenious delights along the way.

[tabuno]

Chris Knipp


WALL-E is a robot love story. It's also a chilling if hopeful picture of humans exiled from a ruined planet and turned over many generations into consumer blobs wallowing in a space mall called "Axiom." This movie oscillates neatly between austere minimalism and cornball sweetness, with many Star Wars battles smashed together in between. It satisfies children and adults, but only by not quite fully satisfying either. That is still an accomplishment, the classic Shakespearean one of appealing to all levels of the audience.

I'm really glad to have read this observation because I couldn't quite figure out why I didn't like the movie as much as the film critics. This movie has so far made my top ten list, yet I felt something was missing and it didn't quite make the classic list for all the creativity and innovative feelings it provoked. Chris has uncovered the problem that I had with the movie - something that would be understandably difficult to resolve.

Chris Knipp


But the loud sweeping music spoils the initial loneliness. How lonely can you be with a full orchestra at your back? And there is a limit to how much you can care about a machine. Or should be. Still, this movie for all its emphasis on tricks and images scores some surprisingly cool and resonant ideas along the way.

I didn't find the use of music intrusive of the emotional, thought provoking emptiness, loneliness of the opening scenes. I fact, I rather appreciated the music, enabling me to maintain my enjoyment and melodic feelings of loneliness. I shudder to think what it would have been like to experience these scene without music - it would have been like having to watch the long, long, long scene from Solaris (1972) watching the freeway and tunnels continuing to go by and by and by and by... (and that even with music of some sort I recall).

[cinemabon]

I would have thought you made more of the symbolism, Chris; such as "Axiom" a self-evident truth. Or perhaps the computer in the form of the navigation wheel, taking over the decision to guide humanity (the red eye referenced again to 2001's HAL). Perhaps you noted comparisons of the Supermega Store (mentioned in the film) to the mounds of waste generated by corporations like WalMart and Sams Club on a daily basis (an overheard comment on the fairgrounds last night generated this comment: "For all the people who spent their refund checks at WalMart, should have simply mailed them back to China!")

While the story of a sentient computer is nice to consider, we saw the real fate for all Wall*e's at the beginning, the trash heap. To find that one in a billion with something extra took more than programming. Eve referring to a Biblical sense, would refer to the fact that as the couple surveyed the scene and held hands, something else took place, the rebirth of planet Earth and the effort to restore Eden (which takes place in the end credits).

Wall*e has so much more to offer than a love story, if only one scratches the surface. The fact that so many critics found this as fact is apparent to some.

[Chris Knipp]

I preferred to keep it simple. There are tons of visual and other messages and references but I leave that to others to observe. It's the fundamental simplicity of the film that makes it work so well, is my feeling. That's why I stressed that Wally is a "lonely guy." Many of the points about pollution, junk, and commercialism are hardly subtle enough to need pointing out to anybody. Nonetheless I'm glad you pointed these things out here for the discussion, as well as the points about Walmart, China, "Axiom" (is the "self-evident truth" that we are doomed to give up the planet?), and the ship's wheel that's a controlling computer that won't let them go anywhere. I don't think any of it would matter or maybe even work if it weren't for Wally and his loneliness and the wonderful playful physical business and the rusty look of the earth images.

Wondering why you write it "WALL*E" instead of "WALL-E" I found out the title is "promoted with an interpunct" and that an "interpunct" is a dot used to separate words: "The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "DONA.EIS.REQVIEM", and is therefore also called a middle dot or centered dot," etc: Wikipedia. I guess that's symbolic of something too, like ancientness, since it was used by Romans for inscriptions.

[cinemabon]

Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini is certainly not separated by dots. Nor is grant them rest (dona es requium), at least that I could find. (I once knew the whole mass in Latin) Since no such key exists on my keyboard, I chose to use the astrisk.

I believe you miss the subtlties laced throughout that you label obvious. To your mind things are obvious, perhaps, but not the common dullard, which you are far flung from! How's that for alliteration. True the sign for Big Giant Store is both big and giant. However, the film has little if no dialogue or narration to direct where we should look or how we should interpret what we see. Rather like watching newsreel footage without some running commentary telling us how we should feel. This creates a liberating feeling in interpreting the visual.

You see the film centered around a lonely character. The opening of the film is significant. I see dull, emptiness that fills a place once abuzz as the center of human thought. For isn't that New York City out there? Do they not pride themselves in being the center of world finance? How humbling to see this world 'Madison Avenue' created reduced to empty symbols of greed, avarice, and pride.

Do you not think it odd that of all the musicals from Hollywood, they chose "Hello Dolly" and the song, "Put on your Sunday clothes" to open since this was the most expensive musical film of all time and broke the bank of 20th Century Fox, sending the Zanuck studio into bankrupcy. Barbara Streisand was in 90% of that film. The only scene she didn't play in was "It only takes a moment." What is it that only takes a moment? Does it only take a moment to loose one's loneliness, fall in love? Is that the only message of Wall*e?

[Chris Knipp]

I'm sure WALL-E has many "messages," though for my taste people who talk about it tend to dwell a bit too much on that, as if having a message could make a film good. For me first of all it's little Wally and the wonderful textures of the visuals of the decayed planet and the wrecked city and all the little details of motion and things, of which the videotape of the musical is definitely one of the important ones, a motif as it were. Certainly part of what makes the film a fine one is the way it works to say so many different things to different people of all ages on all levels. I don't know what I can add to my review now but I'll quote to you what I read today in David Edelstein's movie column in New York Magazine for this week. He covers some of the bases, lays out some of the themes you're referring to in his own way and better than I could..
The big film opening of June was the latest Pixar triumph, Andrew Stanton’s Wall-E, which screened too late (Why, Disney, why?) to be reviewed in this magazine’s double issue of two weeks back. You can read my full paean to its beauties here, but it’s worth restating the thesis: that the movie is essentially a parable of two children, Wall-E and Eve, who restore the connection between humans and the natural world. Pixar, a beacon for the future of film technology, has defined itself by telling stories of loss, decay, and the dark side of materialism, with a tension between childhood wonder (inspired by old toys, cars, movies) and the disengagement brought on by growing up in a fast-paced cyber world (CG-ennui, anyone?). It’s as if simple machines hold memories that aging humans forget. What a peculiar company this is, forward- and backward-looking, a technological Janus head, using all its computer resources to warn us that computers are stealing our souls.
--New York Magazine (http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/48323/index1.html)

[Chris Knipp]

What I should have said about "interpunct' that I learned from Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct) for the word, is that it was used in ancient Latin inscriptions, meaning carved in stone. You would not find it in printed books and certainly not in the Catholic mass printed in a book in Latin, but you will find it in modern inscriptions in marble occasionally, to evoke the ancient style. Check out the movie Caligula, maybe. Most people are using a simple hyphen for WALL-E (including David Edelstein), and true, an interpuhct or centered dot is not on computer keyboards, but apparently there is an html code for it. Wikipedia:
An interpunct ( · ) is a small dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script, being perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries in written language. The dot is vertically centered, e.g. "DONA·EIS·REQVIEM", and is therefore also called a middle dot or centered dot. In addition to the round dot form, inscriptions sometimes use a small equilateral triangle for the interpunct, pointing either up or down. Such triangles can be found on inscriptions on buildings in the twentieth century. Ancient Greek, by contrast, had not developed interpuncts; all the letters ran together. When a wave of enthusiasm for all things Greek swept ancient Rome, the use of interpuncts disappeared, presumably being inadequately fashionable.[citation needed] The use of spaces for word separation didn't appear until much later, some time between 600 and 800 AD.

In Unicode, the interpunct is code point 0183, or 00B7 in hexadecimal. The HTML entity for an interpunct is · (introduced in HTML 3.2). * See also "Similar symbols", below.

*[ampersand+"middot"+semicolon] I am not sure if this vBulletin forum software will preserve the interpunct in this text; it doesn't even take French and Spanish accent marks. they appear at first and then they disappear.

In ancient Latin they didn't have punctuation. So they used these middle dots to show the separations of words. That was only in ancient Latin. The Widipedia article goes on to show that the interpunct by various names is used in a lot of other languages including Catalan and Chinese, and is used to set off rubrics or subject headings, and in mathematic and science and on and on and on. I now realize we used to use it as an abbreviation for "multiply" instead of X. Here's another discussion: http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2008/03/middle-dot-inte.html

Let me see what happens if I try html code:

WALL·E

Here's an online discussion of what the heck a triangle was doing in a subway mosaic wall sign for the name of "PRINCE ST. in between Prince and St. "It's just a freakin' interpunct!" somebody said. On the website there's a photograph of the mosaic wall sign.

http://www.painintheenglish.com/post.php?id=1530

They used to use little triangles because carving in stone , that's easier than making a circle.

[cinemabon]

Vir sapit qui pauca loquitor (the wise man speaks little)

[Chris Knipp]

cinemabon--

Sorry I was too verbose for your taste and judging by that Latin tag played the fool. But I just got interested in this (to me) new word and thought others might be too. It does relate to the layers of meaning of WALL·E since the movie's name has an interpunct right in the middle of it.

I think you mean "Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur."