Andrew Stanton: Wall-E

I got this brilliant idea a while back that I would blog about all the movies I see. In theaters, anyway. I'd write up a little review and post it on the blog. Good idea, in principle, so to speak. If only I wasn't so slow to blog about things that it took me practically months to get around to actually do it.

Oh well, better late than never. I've been keeping a list, and Wall-E (2008) is on the top of that list. I saw this movie a while back – let's say a couple of months. I forgot to list it last time I was writing about movies I want to see, but it should have been on the list, because I was actually really psyched about seeing this. Pixar make a lot of great stuff and I loved the concept of this movie. I saw it with my friends NyxRo and her husband N. at the best place for movies in Oslo – the big screen at Colosseum. (It's the biggest THX-certified movie theater in the world. It must be experienced. :-) So if this movie wasn't good there, it wouldn't be good anywhere. :-)

We were unpleasantly surprised by the commercials – not that they lasted forever, because of course we're used to that, but that they were to a large part toy commercials. :-o Like Wall-E Lego, stuff like that. Umm … aren't commercials aimed at children illegal in this country?! I think maybe I would have noticed something somewhere in the media if that had been changed … so there was something fishy about those commercials, I think they must have been exploiting a loophole of some kind. >:-( But that really ought to prejudice us against the city council (the movie theaters in Oslo are municipal property) and not against the movie. Poor little innocent Wall-E!!

This was a very good movie, one of the best animated movies I've ever seen, although of course there were things about it I didn't like. Let's start with those (then you can figure that I liked all the rest ;-). The animation kind of jars – everything is so realistic in the scenes from Earth, everything looks completely real. Ie, the images are 100% figurative. But then in the scenes from the, ahem, 'mothership', with the humans, that realism is lost. Real scenery with cartoon characters = loss of suspension of disbelief …

I also didn’t buy the ending [SPOILER ALERT!!] – it's very unrealistic, I don't buy it for a second. These people have lived in less than 1G gravity for many many generations, and have gotten hugely fat … then when they get back to Earth all they have to do is learn to walk properly again? Wouldn't their bones be crushed by the weight they're forced to carry, once they were exposed to standard gee? Ignoring scientific laws in favor of entertainment – not my favorite thing, but then what am I doing watching a cartoon. >:-(

The moral of the story too I find rather dubious. We, mankind, return to Earth and start the cycle again. But how is that a good thing? Various developments are shown alongside the credits to showcase the progress we're making along the way on our return to civilization. But then we will in all likelihood make the same mistakes over again and trash the planet again! IMO the movie should have ended with the stupid humans forever lost in space and the robots being alone on the planet. They would have taken much better care of it than we have. :-(

But as a whole I liked the movie a lot. It was a good movie experience. :-) The animation was fantastic, amazing, incredible. And I love the fact that this movie became such a huge hit. Because it really is very thought-provoking – it raises some very fundamental questions about our planet and the way we're treating it. So much of the focus in Western society is on growth, growth, growth … but how do we figure that we can have unlimited growth, when we have limited resources?? This is something that so many people never stop to think about, but it's something we all need to think about. We are all consumers and we need to be aware of the kind of impact we're having on this planet – the only planet we have. If an animated movie can get people thinking about that where politicians fail, I'm all for it. In fact, it's probably smart to use a movie meant for children to communicate something like this – it's probably too late to get the message through the thick heads of most adults. >:-(

Anyway. A movie well worth seeing. I may buy it on DVD. There were some really wonderful scenes with Wall-E and his bizarre environment … planet Earth covered in trash, everything broken and falling apart … and little Wall-E the only creature stirring, diligently tidying up. Bizarre … and almost ridiculous, if only it didn't resonate so strongly with some of my own fears. I wish I could laugh at it. :-(