Why WALL-E is a Success, Both Artistically And Commercially

I’ve never understood America’s love affair with summer blockbusters — year after year, the summer releases are largely made up of the most overhyped, under-ripe films Hollywood can deliver. This is particularly sad when you consider that most of the movies released in the summer are either sequels to successful films, remakes of old films, or licensed from a popular novel, TV show, video game or comic book.

The category of animated children’s films is particularly dismal, and most are barely worth remembering, let alone paying $8.50 to get in the door. Sure, every now and then you get a Shrek or a Lilo and Stitch, which is well animated and smartly written. But most of the time, studios put out films like Madagascar or Chicken Little, which are little more than a string of sight gags tacked on to a bunch of one-liners read by celebrities. Sometimes, you even get films like last year’s Meet the Robinsons, which bore the distinction of being both poorly animated and wretchedly written, despite the fact that it came from Disney, who should really know better.

I’m a big fan of animation, whether it’s CG or cel, and I hate to see the category being filled with so much dreck. The film industry treats these films like 90 minute fables that wrap sugary, forgettable jokes around a moral center that leaves a bitter aftertaste. I mean, really, how many more films can be made with the theme, “be true to yourself,” or “be nice to other people”? Do the people producing these films really think children want these moral platitudes? Is it really worth bludgeoning the audience with a lesson at the end just to appease the few soccer moms who want to be able to say, “Now didn’t that movie have a nice message?”

Since so many of these films exist, it’s almost a futile question to ask. Clearly, since so many of these movies are made, that must be what the audience wants, right?

I might have come to this conclusion had it not been for one studio that never sinks to the level of its competition (or its parent company!). This is a studio that dominates the CG half of the category, though I have no doubts that they would be equally good at cel animation if they chose to try their hand at it. This is a studio that has produced so many hits so consistently that even its weaker films are on a whole different level from the rest of the stuff out there.

This studio is Pixar, and I’m pleased to say that they’ve achieved yet another triumph with their latest film, WALL-E.

And though the film is receiving near-universal praise, it’s also receiving a lot of criticism from people who are saying that the film’s environmental overtones are too pronounced and that it has an anti-consumerism agenda.

I disagree, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment. But I’d also like to point out that if you look closer at Pixar films, you’ll discover that all of their films have something deeper to share than just a neat story…

But first, let’s start with WALL-E. For those who haven’t seen it (warning: spoilers will follow here), the movie is about a lone waste collection robot who is left on Earth to clean the place up after humans abandoned the place seven hundred years ago. The reason for their exodus was tied to a global corporation called “Buy N Large,” which apparently consolidated government and consumer care into one gleaming capitalist package. When the corporation realized a bit too late that it had destroyed any chance for life to thrive on Earth, giant colony ships were built and the BNL marketing minds talked the whole population into taking to the stars. The company left behind a multitude of robots to clean the place up. But as the movie opens, it’s clear that WALL-E is the only robot that still functions.

WALL-E is an eccentric little robot that eyes garbage with curiosity, keeping a collection of human artifacts in the home he shares with his pet cockroach. Since WALL-E wasn’t built with much voice functionality, he has to communicate through gesture and expression. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate human speech, though; he has a particular fondness for the film Hello Dolly, which he watches on a beat-up VCR.

WALL-E’s life is simple: he collects garbage, makes cubes, and builds garbage skyscrapers to imitate the ones left from the ruins of human civilization. But this is disrupted one day when a spaceship lands and drops off a white, pod-like robot named EVE who shoots at everything she sees and searches around in vain for some mysterious object. WALL-E eventually befriends her, takes her back to his home, and shows her, among other things, a unique treasure: a small plant he found growing in a refrigerator. EVE confiscates it, shuts off mysteriously, and doesn’t move until a spaceship shows up days later to retrieve her. WALL-E follows her aboard the ship, and the two are transported to a colony ship in the far reaches of space, where the descendants of the original humans are living large — literally, due to the effects of low gravity — in a society where their evey need is handled automatically by sentient and non-sentient robotic devices.

And this is where critics of the movie point and say, “Aha! See? This movie is saying that consumerism is bad! It says that consumerism makes us into fat, lazy people who can’t do anything for themselves! It says that it makes us so oblivious to the destruction of our own planet that we have to leave once we’ve used the place up!”

That’s one interpretation, I suppose, but it really misses the point of the film, as well as the point of all Pixar films. You see, there’s no real villain in WALL-E; no central bad guy who is trying to oppose the little robot and prevent him from doing good. There is a robotic autopilot who gets in the way, yes, but to call him the villain of the film is unfair; AUTO is simply following his own set of orders, which are to prevent the humans from returning to Earth because it is, according to a 700-year-old secret message, beyond repair. The real villain of the film is protocol, or, in more philosophical sense, fideism — blind faith. The robots follow their protocols because they are programmed to do so. WALL-E breaks his directive over time as his curiousity leads him to develop a mind of his own; EVE breaks her directive when she discovers that WALL-E treated her with love and compassion during the time she was on Earth, even though she was unaware of it.

Likewise, the humans have come to a point where they have stopped questioning and simply accepted their lot in life to be served by machines. They float around on automatic chairs, morbidly obese and unable to eat solid foods. If they’re told that “blue is the new red,” they accept it, and change the color of their clothing accordingly. If they’re told that they should try a new product, they automatically adopt it into their routine. More than once, a human is heard commenting that “I didn’t know we had a pool!” Knowledge is not valued in this society, nor is exploration; life is a passive experience.

But there are three human characters who go against this norm in the film. The most obvious is the Captain, whose mind is awakened by the idea that it’s time to go back to Earth. He spends an entire day researching his home planet (again, demonstrating that knowledge is not valued in this culture) and decides that it’s a wonderful place that he is supposed to bring his people back to. The Captain sheds his passive life and takes an active role, eventually tangling with the autopilot and flipping the switch to “manual.”

There are two other humans in the movie named John and Mary who, because of chance encounters with WALL-E, meet each other and accidentally touch. The human contact between the two changes them both, and they are easy to spot for the rest of the film, because while everyone else is wearing a blue unitard, they have both reverted to red. The film also hints that they have fallen in love, which indicates that they, too, have taken an active role in their lives and begun to build something new, rather than accept life as it comes to them.

I bring these characters up because, at its heart, WALL-E is not a film about envrionmentalism or consumerism. Those themes are present, but in my estimation, it is really about the dangers of ceding control over our lives to wishful thinking. This film is the logical conclusion of trying to meet our every need such that we are no longer required to do anything. And in the end, the realization that there is an unmet need — that a desolate world needs to be rebuilt and kept safe — gives these people a brand new perspective on life.

What’s very curious about Pixar films is that all of their movies are about bigger themes than “good guys versus bad guys.” Consider the following:

Toy Story features a villain named Sid, but he is not the antagonist of the film — rather, he represents a force of cruelty, an innocence lost that results in the destruction of wonderful, magical things. The true villain of the film is jealousy; Woody covets Buzz Lightyear’s position as Andy’s favorite toy, and he must overcome his shortcoming to do what is right in the end. Still, the film doesn’t beat the audience over the head with its moral lesson; the lesson is there, but it requires quiet reflection to uncover.
Toy Story 2 features three villains — a toy collector named Al, the evil Emperor Zurg, and a prospector toy named Stinky Pete. Once again, the film has a deeper message, this time about the vileness of greed. Al steals Woody because he wants to complete his collection; Stinky Pete tricks Woody into staying because he wants to achieve his chance at stardom. Zurg is really present as a force of menace, but there is a certain symbolism in his humorous relationship to Buzz Lightyear; all of these toys truly want to be complete. Andy’s toys are complete when they are with him, and even though Andy will outgrow them one day, they realize that they should make the most of their time together and enjoy their lives as beloved toys.
A Bug’s Life features a definite villain in the character of Hopper, but the real antagonist is fear. The ants have the power to rise up against the grasshoppers, but they’re afraid to do it until Flik and his friends encourage them to summon their inner courage. This is more than a message of “be true to yourself” — it is a message that we are all strong, both as indviduals and as members of a society, and if we work together, we can right wrongs.
Monsters, Inc features two villains – Randall and Waternoose. But once again, these seeming bad guys are not the antagonist — corruption is. Monsters Incorporated has a dark side, and it needs to use the scream extractor to traumatize children in order to keep the monster society thriving. There is a utilitarian sense here that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. But fortunately, Mike and Sully find a way around the problem that results in even greater utility… and an ethical business.
Finding Nemo doesn’t have a villain, per se; the little girl who kills fish is more of an omen. But the film has an antagonist once again in the sense of despair — Marlin can only find his son so long as he doesn’t give up his search. He has to hold on to hope and summon courage whenever possible. This results in him finding his son, but also in growing as a father and a personal being. This story most closely represents the heroic epic, with each character taking a different journey in order to save the day and return home transformed.
The Incredibles is often regarded by fans as a straightforward story from Pixar — after all, it uses the superhero archetype to tell a fairly simple story about a superhero family pulling together and battling a villain. But once again, Syndrome is not the antagonist; the true villain is society. Syndrome is, rather, a catalyst — he is the force that draws the family out of their shell and into a heroic state of being. The idea of the film is not that anyone can be a hero or that good triumphs over evil — it is that society pressures us all to conform and fit in, when we should instead celebrate our gifts and abilities. Syndrome is particularly interesting in that he longs to be like Mr. Incredible, but instead becomes bent on destroying him when he realizes that he, too, is special. Mr. Incredible (Bob) is interesting in that he cannot stop being his heroic self, even in his office job, where assisting people in need costs him promotions and raises.
Cars is my least favorite of the Pixar films, but once again, its villain is more of a rival than a true antagonist. Cars tends to beat home its point that the villain of its world is urbanization — city life is great, but it causes people to forget about the simple pleasures they’ve left behind.
Ratatouille was a pleasant surprise when it arrived, because many people did not expect it to be as good as it was. The story was particularly interesting because it did not follow a standard structure — it focused on Remy for awhile, and then switched over to Linguini, and then over to Ego, and then back to Remy for the finale. The villain seemed to be the scheming chef Skinner, or perhaps the foreboding review by Ego, but really, the antagonist of the film is pride — Skinner only serves to complicate the story, and Ego’s redemption from his own arrogance is at the heart of the film’s theme. Though the movie repeatedly states that it is about the mantra that “anyone can cook,” the real theme is that “greatness comes from finding what you’re good at and doing it well.”

And that’s what I love about Pixar — their feature films are not simply cartoons. They have a depth to them that approaches art. Pixar films appear to be nicely animated cartoons at first glance, and they appear to contain sound stories upon a full screening. But break them down, beat by beat and frame by frame, and you’ll see a level of artistry that is unparalleled by any other animation studio except for perhaps Disney itself. There is much more to a Pixar film than celebrity sound-offs, one-liners and ho-hum messages; there is skill and technique underneath the computer graphics. (This is even more obvious when you watch Cars, since it is the closest to what the competition is offering in terms of content, and yet still manages to be unique and memorable despite its flaws.)

And that is why I would argue that WALL-E approaches a level of artistic achievement that really resonates with audiences. We all know that we need to take care of our environment, and we all know that massive consumerism is probably not a healthy thing. We also know that allowing machines to take care of our every need will make us fat and lazy. The evidence is certainly around us; simply take a trek through a Wal-Mart and you’ll see morbidly obese people riding around on provided scooters, demonstrating a total unwillingness to do anything for themselves. It’s not hard to see where that is going. But it is hard to create a film that can cast such a vision and still manage not to make the humans into evil, vile creatures. It’s even harder still to make the robots in such a film sympathetic, since they are enabling humanity to sink so low.

But we need stories like this, to remind us where the boundaries are. And it doesn’t hurt that this particular story is gorgeously rendered, and full of warmth, and depth, and some pretty funny jokes.

Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan