Archive for the ‘WALL-E’ Category
September 9, 2008
Over at Jim Hill Media, the eponymous webmaster received this e-mail query:
Can you please help me win a bet at work? A co-worker of mine says that WALL-E makes a brief cameo appearance in “Ratatouille.” More importantly, this guy has bet me $100 that I’ll never ever be able to find that robot in this movie. I’ve watch my kid’s “Ratatouille” DVD three times now and haven’t seen hide nor hair of WALL-E yet. So if I offer you a percentage of my winnings, will you please tell me where I can find this robot in the movie?
J.H. has done more than answer this guy’s question: he has written an exhaustive article detailing almost all of the Pixar self-references he could find. Some of them are so hard to spot, you need an expert like Mr. Hill to do the legwork for you. So, click over to brush up on your Pixar minutia and picayune intelligence. It’s how I would impress my co-workers if they would ever talk to me.
A Special “Where’s WALL-E” Edition of Why For? >Catena Ex Situ
Tags:picayune intelligence, eponymous
Posted in Ratatouille, WALL-E, ex situ | 2 Comments »
August 10, 2008
Over at CHUD.com, lovable grouch Devin Faraci has written another editorial about WALL•E. The premise of this editorial is that WALL•E’s less-than-really-expected box office is partly due to “The central love story doesn’t really work.” He then proceeds to make an extended analysis of WALL•E and EVE’s relationship:
But of course this is a story told from the point of view of the social retard, so this creepy behavior is rewarded. This is the wish fulfillment aspect, and it’s here that the relationship story goes off the rails for me. In the movie EVE wakes up essentially in love with Wall*E; having him need to win her at this point would have been more interesting and realistic. Wall*E as a character undergoes almost no change in the movie, which again is that social misfit POV - it’s everybody else who needs to change, not the guy who can’t make eye contact with the check out girl at the supermarket.
I don’t buy the hypothesis of this being the reason for WALL•E’s relatively lackluster B.O. (Like Ratatouille, it’s a hard movie to sell properly.) Nor do I completely buy his analysis of the romance, but I have to admit that Mr. Faraci makes several excellent, thought-provoking, and essentially accurate points. It’s a valid critique, just one I don’t agree with. I think that the movie works best as a sort of nonliteral robot fairy tale (c.f. A.I.), though that probably is a critical cop-out.
NOTE FOR SENSITIVE READERS: Mr. Faraci refers to Doing It, using the euphemism “Doing It.”
The Devin’s Advocate: WALL•E’s Unlikely Love Story
>Catena Ex Situ
Tags:A.I.
Posted in Ratatouille, WALL-E, ex situ | 2 Comments »
July 10, 2008
Well, here we were, all planning to write up an article tonight linking to and discussing the assorted controversies surrounding the release of Pixar’s newest precious stone, WALL•E, only to find out that The Onion’s excellent The A.V. Club has beaten us to the proverbial punch. Such is the cutthroat cosm of over-analyzationing. The A.V. Club categorizes the controversies into four groups:
- It promotes liberal fascism!
- It’s prejudiced against fat people!
- It’s hypocritical!
- It’s too popular!
The staff here was quite fond of WALL•E, and did not find it to be too preachy or damning about anything. We thought it was a charming satirical fantasy encouraging responsible awareness and making connections with others, wrapped around a chewy nougat of sweet romance and amazing character animation. Also, we are so not tired of posting articles about it.
Your Guide to the WALL•E Controversy >Catena Ex Situ
Tags:fascism, liberal, onion
Posted in WALL-E, ex situ, politics, stereotypes | 1 Comment »
July 8, 2008
- Anyone else read WALL•E as a sort of white flag between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? How, in the future, all that’s left is a tough, very primitive PC is all that’s left in the vast wasteland of Earth and here comes this sleek and sexy Mac that is better in every way, and yet at the very end, the two have to band together for the future of mankind? The one damning thing is that WALL•E sounds like a Mac when he boots up. Hmm…
-Contributed by Doc Happenin
- After reading the post about WALL•E I just wanted to throw something out there that I’ve been thinking about. I was compelled to contribute to your finely crafted blog when I followed the link and saw him on a pile of trash and in the heap was a discarded doll of Sully. [Ex Situ: Is WALL-E Environmental or Hypocritical?]
Pixar is very pro-environmental and for this to be stated - “I don’t have a political bent, I don’t have an ecological message to push” - is a slap in the face. If we use Monsters, Inc. as a case study we can prove that they do, in fact, have a political and environmental slant.
The main premise of Monsters, Inc. is to uproot the current system of energy consumption and production and to find alternative means for generating energy. Fear wasn’t a viable energy source anymore because it was fading fast while, obviously, by the end of the film they made laughter seem to be endless and more efficient. It reeks (no pun) of the fight between fossil fuels and alternative energy - be it wind, solar or whatever. aside from this, the rest of the movie is wrought with big business maneuvers, corporate scandals and cover-ups and a communist finale - Sully, a worker, takes control of the company.
I think they do push their agendas and do it in a way that most people never fully catch on. It’s propaganda with crayons and celebrity voices and they send it home with your kids happy meals.
-Contributed by Raymond K.
- Seven Samurai → The Magnificent Seven → ¡Three Amigos! → A Bug’s Life
-Contributed by The Editor
Tags:Three Amigos
Posted in A Bug's Life, Mini-Analyzations, Monsters Inc., WALL-E, knock-offery | 1 Comment »
July 6, 2008
Nota bene: We wish to apologize for the lack of updates in the last few days. Our red-headed Editor has been busy with a curious new part-time job on Fleet Street which keeps him occupied from ten to two each day.
One thing Pixar films are not is shallow. Their enduring appeal partly rests on the myriad themes and intelligent designs which wimple softly in the flow like brook trout in the streams in the mountains. This is also quite true of their latest delightfully delightful film, WALL•E. For those of you who have not seen this amazing film as of yet, please do so immediately, and we shall wait for your return to continue our article.
The percolatory Cartoon Brew has brought to our attention an interview in Christianity Today with WALL•E director Andrew Stanton. In this interview, Mr. Stanton explicitly discusses some of the biblical themes and influences in the film. What follows is a sample:
I wasn’t using the Noah’s Ark story as a guide, but through circumstances, I loved the parallels of EVE almost being like this dove, of going down for proof that it’s time to come back. It just worked in that allegory, so I ran with it.
A lot of the discussion is the same stories about WALL•E and Pixar that have been reiterated in every recent interview, but what’s left makes for an interesting read.
The Little Robot That Could >Catena Ex Situ
Tags:Bible, Eve, Noah's Ark
Posted in WALL-E, ex situ | 1 Comment »
June 23, 2008
Devin Faraci from CHUD.COM, who despite being a bit of a grumpster really is one of the best movie journalist/reviewers on the internet, has seen WALL•E before you and me. Lucky guy. However, he took issue with the movie’s strong pro-environmental themes apparently contradicting the fleet of merchandising tie-ins surrounding the movie.
Here’s a piece of the piece to whet your controversial whistle:
When I got to the Four Seasons hotel the next day, the site of the junket for the film, and saw an entire room dedicated to showing off the marketing tie-ins, I lost the sense of irony and began to think what I was seeing was flat out hypocrisy. I wondered if maybe Stanton’s denials about the messages weren’t coming from a marketing point of view but from simple shame.
A minor warning that if you’re trying to stay completely data-free before you see the movie, you might want to wait until after. If you’ve been reading anything else about the movie, there’s probably nothing in there that you don’t already know.
Is WALL•E Environmental or Hypocritical? >Catena Ex Situ
Tags:CHUD, junket
Posted in WALL-E, ex situ | 3 Comments »
