2008’s Wall-E may be superficially childish, but if you have steered clear of Disney-Pixar’s newest offering, you may want to think twice. This, the sixth highest grossing Pixar film, has won the most awards and was also the highest budgeted film the company has produced. With this in mind, Wall-E, in my opinion, may become a sort of magnum opus of the company and draws in overarching archetypes from many significant sci-fi films.
The film is set in the 22nd century, where Earth is a wasteland of decrepit buildings. On the planet’s surface, the only remaining thing is Wall-E, a robot devoted to the (failed) clean up program. The human race, marred on the flagship Axiom, is meanwhile seemingly at the beck and call of Captain B. McCrae. In terms of environmental awareness and retro futurism, the movie sends a big message. Obviously the human’s continued neglectfulness of the Earth’s ecosystem has caused this mess in the first place. But what else can we derive from Wall-E?
For starters, Wall-E gains a very human persona: making friends with a bug, collecting things, and even feeling compassion for another robot. We also see his “free will” which is being represented when they arrive on the Axiom as the cleaner robot “M-O” attempts to stick to a lighted path, despite his unnerving cleaning directorive. A la Blade Runner, these bots have become so advanced, that the human race relies on them for salvation. Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class is shortened to Wall-E and, his significant other, the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator to EVE, making them not only two easily-remembered protagonists, but also seemingly more “human”. Robert Duvall’s moniker THX-1138 was simply referred to as “Thex” as well as LUH-3417 being simply called “Lou.”
It is on the Axiom where we also see more of George Lucas’ first film: the humans seem to be entirely dependent on robots, which are not necessarily as physically horrifying or coldly calculating as the police in THX, but certainly seem to echo the same themes of control. Here also is one of the most blatant of references during the whole movie. A menacing HAL-9000 look alike is Capt. McCrae’s onboard computer, and the movie also uses several audio and visual references to Kubrick’s grand space adventure.
Apart from society’s dependence on robots, WALL-E perhaps hits closer to home to kids than films with a perhaps, more “mature”. The biggest is perhaps the play on social networking, illustrated by the endless luxuriousness the humans enjoy, seated infront of video phones attached to mechanical chairs. It is in these they neglect the pool and other things offered by the Axiom.
So there you have it, most sci-fi themes disguised in a loveable Pixar movie. And for all you Alien buffs: Sigourney Weaver did the voice for the Axiom’s on-board computer.
