In case you haven't seen it, Wall-E is a Disney/Pixar movie about a future dystopian Earth that is covered in trash and the only thing around to clean the litter is Wall-E, a portable trash compactor who is sentient. Due to his curiosity, Wall-E ends up following a high-tech robot called Eve into space and onto the space vessel that is carrying what used to be Earth's population (but it's been 700 years since they originally left the planet). Once there, Wall-E and Eve try to bring a single plant to the captain showing that Earth can sustain life once again and the people will be able to return.
Before we even meet the main character, the movie opens up with the camera panning through space, here we see all the vibrant-colored planets and the bright stars. But when the camera hits Earth, you see an atmosphere containing millions of trashed satellites and a permanent dust cloud over the planet. This really shows how Earth has become less of a planet and more of a ball of trash.
Before we even meet the main character, the movie opens up with the camera panning through space, here we see all the vibrant-colored planets and the bright stars. But when the camera hits Earth, you see an atmosphere containing millions of trashed satellites and a permanent dust cloud over the planet. This really shows how Earth has become less of a planet and more of a ball of trash.
Wall-E has a lot of scenes that are mainly exaggerated by color and sound, because the robots don't have much dialogue. There is a scene in the beginning where Wall-E is heading back to his home and he is only surrounded by massive piles of trash that stack higher than skyscrapers. This scene is mainly brown with hints of red and the only thing you hear is an echo of Wall-E's music. The colors show how dirty and polluted Earth is while the void of sound other than the one's Wall-E makes shows how empty and alone he truly is, the only other living thing appears to be his cockroach friend. Most likely added to make this empty world less depressing to the viewers.
When Wall-E leaves Earth, following Eve, there is a transition in color and clarity of the scenes. While earth has a dusty look and is mainly brown, space has vibrant colors and is very bright. When on Axium, the ship, the colors are crisp whites and some blues, almost like a hospital or insane asylum. This shows the uniformity and cleanliness of the ship, everything follows a path of light and there are service bots everywhere to make sure nothing goes undisturbed. One cleaner bot, M-O, finds Wall-E and his scanner declares he is a "foreign contaminant" all throughout the movie. This emphasizes Wall-E not belonging on this clean ship and how he, as well as Earth, don't fit in with this vessel.
Getting back to the actual movie, even though this film is "for kids" there are a few themes of Wall-E that very culturally relevant. Going back to the beginning of the movie on Earth, we explore the dangers of pollution and mass waste. There was a layer of trash in the atmosphere, people had to physically invent mobile trash compactors because waste was everywhere, and the trash on Earth was stacked high enough to be taller than man-made buildings. Human beings had to leave their planet because Earth could not sustain life at this point. This inability to sustain life can be related to current real-world situations such as the drought in California or just general issues risen from Global Warming. But what I enjoy about Wall-E is that it really highlights the mistakes that people make by taking advantage of the Earth but doesn't just harshly criticize them for doing so. This theme of waste loses some focus when Wall-E leaves Earth and gets onto Axium, but even there we see that people are wasteful and don't pay attention to their surrounding environment.
On Axium everything in this movie is sponsored by Buy and Large, a massive corporation that basically owns everything spanning from drinks to the ship the people live on. When Wall-E first enters the ship, the camera goes through showing everything in it, which is mostly obese people glued to their video calls and a barrage of advertisements by B&L. This has been compared to a lot companies in the world where you can't seem to go anywhere without seeing a logo or hearing an advertisement. The people glued to their video calls and not noticing the world around them is also very similar to how people today tend to be glued to their devices and shut out any face-to-face interaction. For example a character, Mary, was in the way of Wall-E getting to Eve. As he tries to get her attention, he closes her video call, "I didn't know we had a pool" is her initial reaction, showing that she probably had never looked away from her screen until then. Plus, Axium is basically a giant marketing campaign for Buy and Large. Yes they have advertisements on almost every inch of the ship but they also have a robot teaching babies the alphabet and giving examples such as, "B is for Buy and Large, your very best friend". This is a small but disturbing nod to brand loyalty being instilled in children. Wall-E is full of short scenes or dialogue that mocks problems with the world but does so in a simple way so that it is funny to someone who might not see or understand the connection.
In conclusion, Wall-E has a depressing plot because it shows that people, when given luxury, turn into blobs of nothing that don't appreciate what they have. But it is also cute and has some interesting characters and there is robot love.
Getting back to the actual movie, even though this film is "for kids" there are a few themes of Wall-E that very culturally relevant. Going back to the beginning of the movie on Earth, we explore the dangers of pollution and mass waste. There was a layer of trash in the atmosphere, people had to physically invent mobile trash compactors because waste was everywhere, and the trash on Earth was stacked high enough to be taller than man-made buildings. Human beings had to leave their planet because Earth could not sustain life at this point. This inability to sustain life can be related to current real-world situations such as the drought in California or just general issues risen from Global Warming. But what I enjoy about Wall-E is that it really highlights the mistakes that people make by taking advantage of the Earth but doesn't just harshly criticize them for doing so. This theme of waste loses some focus when Wall-E leaves Earth and gets onto Axium, but even there we see that people are wasteful and don't pay attention to their surrounding environment.
Cited Works
Photos:
Literary Works:
No comments:
Post a Comment