It’s Film Strip
Friday!
WALL-E
Release Date June 27th,
2008
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTovtzMPinsm_wyLr0wwE5KZebs5I0HqpvAbZ98JpNtTWlZcwrN__bLuzgr5rGVh6ZHau3825myHf-UyG8x3m20usD-YlsDRYlQXbeleFn8betoiNcIvjYc5YBOsWvJQLtDDES3avH3ImG/s280/Wall_E_by_MrCanavan.jpg)
SYNOPSIS:
After 700
years of doing what he was made for, a little robot named WALL-E discovers a
new purpose! Abandoned on Earth, WALL-E spends solitary days cleaning up while
collecting knick knacks along the way. Everything changes when sleek search
robot EVE arrives and steals WALL-E's heart. EVE realizes he's got the answer
to the planet's future and races back to headquarters to report her findings.
Not wanting to lose his love, WALL-E chases EVE across the galaxy, befriending
misfit bots along the way!
FUN FACTS:
WALL-E (stylized with an interpunct as WALL•E)
is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar
Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot
named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the
future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a
programmed task, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes
the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of
free will and emotions similar to humans, which develop further as the film
progresses.
After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt Pixar
had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to
direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual
human voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds,
designed by Ben Burtt, that resemble voices. In addition, it is the first
animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures released it in the United States and
Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed $23.2 million on its opening day, and
$63.1 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking number one
at the box office. This ranks as the fifth highest-grossing opening weekend for
a Pixar film. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short
film, Presto, for its theatrical release.
WALL-E has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews among
critics, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten
Tomatoes. It grossed $521.3 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award
for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic
Presentation, Long Form, the final Nebula Award for Best Script,[4], the Saturn
Award for Best Animated Film, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as
well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards at the 81st Academy
Awards. WALL-E ranks first in TIME's "Best Movies of the
Decade".
Plot
In 2805, Earth is covered in garbage due to decades of
mass consumerism facilitated by the megacorporation Buy 'N Large. BnL evacuated
Earth's population in fully automated starliners in 2105, leaving behind trash
compactor Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class “WALL-E” robots to clean
the planet, but they eventually stopped operating and Earth was left abandoned.
One WALL-E unit has managed to remain active by repairing itself using parts
from other broken units. It has also developed sentience, as with its regular
duties it inquisitively collects artifacts of human civilization back to its
storage truck home, has befriended a cockroach and enjoys listening to Hello,
Dolly!
One day, WALL-E discovers and collects a growing seedling
plant. A spaceship later lands and deploys Extraterrestrial Vegetation
Evaluator or “EVE”, an advanced robot sent from the BnL starliner Axiom
to search for vegetation on Earth. Inspired by Hello, Dolly!, WALL-E
falls in love with the initially cold and hostile EVE and wishes to join hands
with her, who gradually softens and befriends him. When WALL-E brings EVE to
his truck and showcases his collection, she finds the plant and automatically
stores it, going into standby mode for retrieval from her ship. WALL-E spends
time with EVE while she is on standby. He then clings to the hull of EVE's ship
as it collects and returns her to the Axiom.
On the Axiom, the ship's original human passengers
and their descendants have suffered from severe bone loss and become morbidly obese
after centuries of living in microgravity and relying on the ship's automated
systems for most tasks. Captain B. McCrea, in charge of the ship, mostly leaves
control to the robotic autopilot Auto. WALL-E follows EVE to the bridge of the Axiom,
where the Captain learns that by putting the plant in the spaceship
holo-detector and verifying Earth is habitable again, the Axiom will
make a hyperjump back to Earth so the passengers can recolonize. However, Auto
orders McCrea's robotic assistant GO-4 to steal the plant as part of its no
return directive, secretly issued to autopilots after BnL incorrectly concluded
in 2110 that the planet could not be saved and humanity should remain in space.
With the plant missing, EVE is considered defective and
taken to the repair ward along with WALL-E. WALL-E mistakes the process on EVE
for torture and tries to save her, accidentally releasing a horde of
malfunctioning robots, while the security systems then designate both WALL-E
and EVE as rogue. Angry with WALL-E's disruptions, EVE brings him to the escape
pod bay to send him home. There they witness GO-4 dispose of the missing plant
by placing it inside a pod set to self-destruct. WALL-E enters the pod, which
is then jettisoned into space, escaping with the plant before the pod explodes.
Reconciling with EVE, they celebrate with a dance in space outside the Axiom.
Meanwhile the Captain, learning from the ship's computer, becomes fascinated
about life on Earth before its pollution and abandonment.
The plant is brought to the captain, who surveys EVE's
recordings of Earth and concludes that mankind must return to restore their
home. However, Auto reveals his directive, staging a mutiny by tasering WALL-E,
incapacitating EVE and confining the captain to his quarters. EVE realizes the
only parts for repairing WALL-E are in his truck on Earth, so she helps him
bring the plant to the holo-detector to activate the Axiom's hyperjump.
Captain McCrea opens the holo-detector while fighting with Auto and causing
chaos on the ship, but Auto partially crushes WALL-E by closing the
holo-detector on him. After McCrea disables Auto and takes back control, EVE
places the plant in the holo-detector, freeing the severely damaged WALL-E and
setting the Axiom on the instant hyperjump to Earth. The human
population finally lands back on Earth after hundreds of years.
EVE brings WALL-E back to his home where she successfully
repairs and reactivates him, but he reverts to his original programming as an
unfeeling waste compactor. Heartbroken, EVE gives WALL-E a farewell kiss that
jolts back WALL-E's memory and personality. WALL-E and EVE happily reunite as
the humans and robots of the Axiom begin to restore Earth and its
environment, shown through a series of artworks at the end.
Cast and characters
- Ben Burtt
produced the voice of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load
Lifter – Earth Class), the title character. WALL-E, a robot
who has developed sentience, is the only robot of "his" kind
shown to be still functioning on Earth. He is a small mobile compactor box
with all-terrain treads, three-fingered shovel hands, binocular eyes, and
retractable solar cells for power. He collects spare parts for himself,
which becomes pivotal to the plot, and replaces broken and/or worn out
parts on-the-fly by cannibalizing "dead" WALL-Es. Although
working diligently to fulfill his directive to clean up the garbage (all
the while accompanied by his cockroach friend Hal and music playing from
his on-board recorder) he is distracted by his curiosity, collecting
trinkets of interest. He stores and displays these "treasures"
such as a birdcage full of rubber ducks, a Rubik's Cube, Zippo lighters,
disposable cups filled with plastic cutlery and a golden trophy at his
home where he examines and categorizes his finds while watching video
cassettes of musicals via an iPod viewed through a huge magnifier.
- Burtt is
also credited for the voice of M-O (Microbe Obliterator),
as well as most of the other robots. M-O is a tiny, obsessive compulsive maintenance
robot with rollers for hands who keeps Axiom clean. When M-O meets
WALL-E and sees how filthy he is, he deviates from his normal routine and
follows WALL-E, cleaning up behind him. When he follows WALL-E to the
garbage bay, he inadvertently but fortuitously saves WALL-E and EVE from
being blown into the vacuum of space. He then forms a close friendship
with Wall-E and aids the two in retrieving the plant, most notably
through using his contaminant detecting vision when Wall-E drops the
plant. back on Earth, he ushers the other robots into giving WALL•E and
EVE some privacy as they share a tender moment.
- Elissa
Knight as EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator),
a sleek robot probe whose directive is to locate vegetation on Earth and
verify habitability. She has a glossy white egg-shaped body and blue LED
eyes. She moves using antigravity technology and is equipped with scanners,
specimen storage and a plasma cannon in her arm, which she is quick to
use. When first deployed on Earth she appears devoid of feeling but as the
craft that delivered her blasts off and away she springs to life with
gleeful flight. Watching her, WALL-E accidentally draws her attention as
she sets about following her directive growing ever more impatient with
both her lack of success and with WALL-E's constant monitoring. This
shared strength of feeling soon connects the two characters.
- Jeff
Garlin as Captain B. McCrea, the commander, and apparently only,
officer on the Axiom. His duties as captain are boring daily
routines, with the ship's autopilot handling all true command functions.
Meeting WALL-E, however, sparks his interest in Earth and he becomes
engrossed in researching the home planet, paving the way for his retaking
control of the ship back from the Autopilot.
- Fred
Willard as Shelby Forthright, historical CEO of the Buy n Large
Corporation, shown only in videos recorded around the time of the Axiom's
initial launch. Constantly optimistic, Forthright proposed the evacuation
plans, then to clean up and recolonize the planet. However, the
corporation gave up after realizing how toxic Earth had become. Forthright
is the only live action character with a speaking role, the first in any
Pixar film.
- MacInTalk,
the text-to-speech program for the Apple Macintosh, was used for the voice
of Auto, the rogue autopilot artificial intelligence built into the
ship. Unlike other robots in the film, Auto is not influenced by WALL-E,
instead following directive A113, which is to prevent the Axiom and the
humans from returning to Earth because of the toxicity, and he will
prevent anyone from deviating from it. The robot's design is a homage to HAL
9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, featuring a HAL-style red "eye"
in the center of his body.
- John
Ratzenberger and Kathy Najimy as John and Mary,
respectively. John and Mary both live on the Axiom and are so
dependent on their personal video screens and automatic services that they
are oblivious to their surroundings, for instance not noticing that the
ship features a giant swimming pool. However, they are brought out of
their trances after separate encounters with WALL-E, eventually meeting
face-to-face for the first time.
- Sigourney
Weaver as the voice of the Axiom's computer. Stanton joked about
the role with Weaver, saying, "You realize you get to be 'Mother'
now?" referring to the name of the ship's computer in the film Alien,
which also starred Weaver.
Production
Writing
BACK ON M-O AND WALLY
M-O just finishes cleaning the floor.
Wally is fascinated.
Impishly makes another mark.
M-O compulsively cleans it. Can’t resist.
M-O (bleeps): [Look, it stays clean. You got that?]
Wally wipes the bottom of his tread on M-O’s face.
M-O loses it.
Scrubs his own face.
M-O just finishes cleaning the floor.
Wally is fascinated.
Impishly makes another mark.
M-O compulsively cleans it. Can’t resist.
M-O (bleeps): [Look, it stays clean. You got that?]
Wally wipes the bottom of his tread on M-O’s face.
M-O loses it.
Scrubs his own face.
Stanton
wrote the screenplay to focus on the visuals
and as a guide to what the sound effects needed to convey
and as a guide to what the sound effects needed to convey
Andrew Stanton conceived WALL-E during a lunch
with fellow writers John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft in 1994. Toy
Story was nearing completion and the writers brainstormed ideas for their
next projects – A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo
– at this lunch. Stanton asked, "What if mankind had to leave Earth and
somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?" Having struggled for many
years with making the characters in Toy Story appealing, Stanton found
his simple Robinson Crusoe-esque idea of a lonely robot on a deserted
planet very strong. Stanton made WALL-E a waste collector as the idea was
instantly understandable, and because it was a low-status menial job that made
him sympathetic. Stanton also liked the imagery of stacked cubes of garbage. He
did not find the idea dark because having a planet covered in garbage was for
him a childish imagining of disaster.
Stanton and Pete Docter developed the film under the
title of Trash Planet for two months in 1995, but they did not know how
to develop the story and Docter chose to direct Monsters, Inc. instead.
Stanton came up with the idea of WALL-E finding a plant, because his life as
the sole inhabitant on a deserted world reminded Stanton of a plant growing
among pavements. Before they turned their attention to other projects, Stanton
and Lasseter thought about having WALL-E fall in love, as it was the necessary
progression away from loneliness. Stanton started writing WALL-E again
in 2002 while completing Finding Nemo. Stanton formatted his script in a
manner reminiscent of Dan O'Bannon's Alien. O'Bannon wrote his script in
a manner Stanton found reminded him of haiku, where visual descriptions
were done in continuous lines of a few words. Stanton wrote his robot dialogue
conventionally, but placed them in brackets. In late 2003, Stanton and a few others created
a story reel of the first twenty minutes of the film. Lasseter and Steve Jobs
were impressed and officially began development, though Jobs stated he did not
like the title, originally spelled "W.A.L.-E."
While the first act of WALL-E "fell out of
the sky" for Stanton, he had originally wanted aliens to plant EVE to
explore Earth and the rest of the film was very different. When WALL-E comes to
the Axiom, he incites a Spartacus-style rebellion by the robots
against the remnants of the human race, which were cruel alien Gels (completely
devolved, gelantinous, boneless, legless, see-through, green creatures that
resemble Jell-O). James Hicks, a physiologist, mentioned to Stanton the concept
of atrophy and the effects prolonged weightlessness would have on humans living
in space for an inordinately extended time period. Therefore, this was the
inspiration of the humans degenerating into the alien Gels, and their ancestry
would have been revealed in a Planet of the Apes-style ending. The Gels
also spoke a made-up gibberish language, but Stanton scrapped this idea because
he thought it would be too complicated for the audience to understand and they
could easily be driven off from the storyline. The Gels had a royal family, who
host a dance in a castle on a lake in the back of the ship, and the Axiom
curled up into a ball when returning to Earth in this incarnation of the story.
Stanton decided this was too bizarre and unengaging, and conceived humanity as
"big babies". Stanton developed the metaphorical theme of the humans
learning to stand again and "grow[ing] up",wanting WALL-E and EVE's
relationship to inspire humanity because he felt very few films explore how utopian
societies come to exist. The process of depicting the descendants of humanity
as the way they appear in the movie was very slow. Stanton first decided to put
a nose and ears on the Gels so the audience could recognize them. Eventually,
fingers, legs, clothes, and other characteristics were added until they arrived
at the concept of being fetus-like to allow the audience to see themselves in
the characters.
In a later version of the film, Auto comes to the docking
bay to retrieve EVE's plant. The film would have its first cutaway to the
captain, but Stanton moved that as he found it too early to begin moving away
from WALL-E's point-of-view. As a homage to Get Smart, Auto takes the
plant and goes into the bowels of the ship into a room resembling a brain where
he watches videos of Buy n Large's scheme to clean-up the Earth falling apart through
the years. Stanton removed this to keep some mystery as to why the plant is
taken from EVE. The captain appears to be unintelligent, but Stanton wanted him
to just be unchallenged; otherwise he would have been unempathetic. One example
of how unintelligent the captain was depicted initially is that he was seen to
wear his hat upside-down, only to fix it before he challenges Auto. In the
finished film, he merely wears it casually atop his head, tightening it when he
assumes real command of the Axiom.
Originally, EVE would have been electrocuted by Auto, and
then be quickly saved from ejection at the hands of the WALL-A robots by
WALL-E. He would have then revived her by replacing her power unit with a
cigarette lighter he brought from Earth. Stanton reversed this following a 2007
test screening, as he wanted to show EVE replacing her directive of bringing
the plant to the captain with repairing WALL-E, and it made WALL-E even more
heroic if he held the holo-detector open despite being badly hurt. Stanton also
moved the moment where WALL-E reveals his plant (which he had snatched from the
self-destructing escape pod) from producing it from a closet to immediately
after his escape, as it made EVE happier and gave them stronger motivation to
dance around the ship. Stanton felt half the audience at the screening believed
the humans would be unable to cope with living on Earth and would have died out
after the film's end. Jim Capobianco, director of the short film Your Friend
the Rat, created an end credits animation that continued the story – and
stylized in different artistic movements throughout history – to clarify an
optimistic tone.
Design
WALL-E was the most complex Pixar production since Monsters,
Inc. because of the world and the history that had to be conveyed. Whereas most Pixar films have up to 75,000 storyboards,
WALL-E required 125,000. Production designer Ralph Eggleston wanted the
lighting of the first act on Earth to be romantic, while the second act on the Axiom
to be cold and sterile. During the third act, the romantic lighting is slowly
introduced into the Axiom environment. Pixar studied Chernobyl and the
city of Sofia to create the ruined world; art director Anthony Christov was
from Bulgaria and recalled Sofia used to have problems storing its garbage.
Eggleston bleached out the whites on Earth to make WALL-E feel vulnerable. The
overexposed light makes the location look more vast. Because of the haziness,
the cubes making up the towers of garbage had to be very large, otherwise they
would have lost shape (in turn, this helped save rendering time). The dull tans
of Earth subtly become soft pinks and blues when EVE arrives. When WALL-E shows
EVE all his collected items, all the lights he has collected light up to give
an inviting atmosphere, like a Christmas tree. Eggleston tried to avoid the
colors yellow and green so WALL-E – who was made yellow to emulate a tractor –
would not blend into the deserted Earth, and to make the plant more prominent.
Stanton also wanted the lighting to look realistic and
evoke the science fiction films of his youth. He felt Pixar had captured the
physics of being underwater with Finding Nemo, so for WALL-E he
wanted to push that for air. It was while rewatching some of his favorite
science fiction films he realized Pixar's films lacked the look of 70 mm film
and its barrel distortion, lens flare and racking focus. Producer Jim Morris
invited Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren to advise on lighting and atmosphere.
Muren spent several months with Pixar, while Deakins hosted one talk and was
requested to stay on for another two weeks. Stanton said Muren's experience
came from integrating computer animation into live-action settings, while
Deakins helped them understand not to overly complicate their camerawork and
lighting. 1970s Panavision cameras were used to help the animators understand
and replicate handheld imperfections like unfocused backgrounds in digital
environments. The first lighting test consisted of building a three-dimensional
replica of WALL-E, filming it with a 70 mm camera, and then trying to replicate
that in the computer.[33] Stanton cited
the shallow lens work of Gus Van Sant's films as an influence, as it created
intimacy in each close-up. Stanton chose angles for the virtual cameras that a
live-action filmmaker would choose if filming on a set.
Stanton wanted the Axiom's interior to resemble Shanghai
and Dubai. Eggleston studied 1960s NASA paintings and the original concept art
for Tomorrowland for the Axiom, to reflect that era's sense of optimism.
Stanton remarked "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here
[at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the
heyday of Disneyland," and wanted a "jet pack" feel. Pixar also
studied the Disney Cruise Line and visited Las Vegas, which was helpful in
understanding artificial lighting. Eggleston based his Axiom designs on
the futuristic architecture of Santiago Calatrava. Eggleston divided the inside
of the ship into three sections; the rear's economy class has a basic gray
concrete texture with graphics keeping to the red, blue and white of the BnL
logo. The coach class with living/shopping spaces has 'S' shapes as people are
always looking for "what's around the corner". Stanton intended to
have many colorful signs, but he realized this would overwhelm the audience and
went with Eggleston's original idea of a small number of larger signs. The
premier class is a large Zen-like spa with colors limited to turquoise, cream
and tan, and leads on to the captain's warm carpeted and wooded quarters and
the sleek dark bridge. In keeping with the artificial Axiom, camera
movements were modeled after those of the steadicam.
The use of live action was a stepping stone for Pixar, as
Stanton was planning to make John Carter of Mars his next project.
Storyboarder Derek Thompson noted introducing live action meant they had to
make the rest of the film look even more realistic. Eggleston added that if the
historical humans had been animated and slightly caricaturized, then the
audience would not have recognized how serious their devolution was. Stanton
cast Fred Willard as the historical Buy n Large CEO because "He's the most
friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of." The CEO says "stay
the course," which Stanton used because he thought it was funny. Industrial
Light & Magic did the visual effects for these shots.
Animation
WALL-E went undeveloped during the 1990s partly because Stanton
and Pixar were not confident enough yet to have a feature length film with a
main character that behaved like Luxo Jr. or R2-D2. Stanton explained there are
two types of robots in cinema: "human[s] with metal skin", like the Tin
Man, or "machine[s] with function" like Luxo and R2. He found the
latter idea "powerful" because it allowed the audience to project
personalities onto the characters, as they do with babies and pets:
"You're compelled ... you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the
sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go
for a walk!'" He added, "We wanted the audience to believe they were
witnessing a machine that has come to life." The animators visited
recycling stations to study machinery, and also met robot designers, visited NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study robots, watched a recording of a Mars rover,
and borrowed a bomb detecting robot from the San Francisco Police Department.
Simplicity was preferred in their performances as giving them too many
movements would make them feel human.
Stanton wanted WALL-E to be a box and EVE to be like an
egg. WALL-E's eyes were inspired by a pair of binoculars Stanton was given when
watching the Oakland Athletics play against the Boston Red Sox. He "missed
the entire inning" because he was distracted by them. The director was
reminded of Buster Keaton and decided the robot would not need a nose or mouth.
Stanton added a zoom lens to make WALL-E more sympathetic. Ralph Eggleston
noted this feature gave the animators more to work with and gave the robot a
child-like quality. Pixar's studies of trash compactors during their visits to
recycling stations inspired his body. His tank treads were inspired by a
wheelchair someone had developed that used treads instead of wheels. The
animators wanted him to have elbows, but realized this was unrealistic because
he is only designed to pull garbage into his body. His arms also looked very
flimsy when they did a test of him waving. Animation director Angus MacLane
suggested they attach his arms to a track on the sides of his body to move them
around, based on the inkjet printers his father designed. This arm design
contributed to creating the character's posture, so if they wanted him to be
nervous, they would lower them. Stanton was unaware of the similarities between
WALL-E and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit until others pointed it out to
him.
Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology,
and asked iPod designer Jonathan Ive to inspect her design. He was very
impressed. Her eyes are modelled on Lite-Brite
toys, but Pixar chose not to make them overly expressive as it would be too
easy to have her eyes turn into hearts to express love or something similar.
Her limited design meant the animators had to treat her like a drawing, relying
on posing her body to express emotion. They also found her similar to a manatee
or a narwhal because her floating body resembled an underwater creature. Auto
was a conscious homage to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the
usage of Also sprach Zarathustra for the showdown between the captain
and Auto furthers that. The manner in which he hangs from a wall gives him a
threatening feel, like a spider. Originally, Auto was designed entirely
differently, resembling EVE, but masculine and authoritative; the Steward
robots were also more aggressive Patrol-bots. The majority of the robot cast
were formed with the Build-a-bot program, where different heads, arms and
treads were combined together in over a hundred variations. The humans were
modelled on sea lions due to their blubbery bodies, as well as babies. The
filmmakers noticed baby fat is a lot tighter than adult fat and copied that
texture for the film's humans.
To animate their robots, Pixar watched a Keaton and a Chaplin
film every day for almost a year, and occasionally a Harold Lloyd picture.
Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently.
Stanton cited Keaton's "great stone face" as giving them perseverance
in animating a character with an unchanging expression. As he rewatched these,
Stanton felt that filmmakers – since the advent of sound – relied on dialogue
too much to convey exposition. The filmmakers dubbed the cockroach WALL-E keeps
as a pet "Hal", in reference to silent film producer Hal Roach (as
well as being an additional reference to HAL 9000). They also watched 2001:
A Space Odyssey, The Black Stallion and Never Cry Wolf, films
that had sound but were not reliant on dialogue. Stanton acknowledged Silent
Running as an influence because its silent robots were a forerunner to the
likes of R2-D2, and that the "hopeless romantic" Woody Allen also
inspired WALL-E.
Sound
Producer Jim Morris recommended Ben Burtt as sound
designer for WALL-E because Stanton kept using R2-D2 as the benchmark
for the robots. Burtt had completed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the
Sith and told his wife he would no longer work on films with robots, but
found WALL-E and its substitution of voices with sound "fresh and
exciting". He recorded 2500 sounds for the film, which was twice the
average number for a Star Wars film, and a record in his career. Burtt
began work in 2005, and experimented with filtering his voice for two years.
Burtt described the robot voices as "like a toddler [...] universal
language of intonation. 'Oh', 'Hm?', 'Huh!', you know?"
During production Burtt had the opportunity to look at
the items used by Jimmy MacDonald, Disney's in-house sound designer for many of
their classic films. Burtt used many of MacDonald's items on WALL-E.
Because Burtt was not simply adding sound effects in post-production, the
animators were always evaluating his new creations and ideas, which Burtt found
an unusual experience. He worked in sync with the animators, returning their
animation after adding the sounds to give them more ideas. Burtt would choose
scientifically-accurate sounds for each character, but if he could not find one
that worked, he would choose a dramatic if unrealistic noise. Burtt would find
hundreds of sounds by looking at concept art of characters, before he and
Stanton pared it down to a distinct few for each robot.
Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while
watching Island in the Sky, and bought an identical, unpacked device
from 1950 on eBay to use for WALL-E moving around. Burtt also used an automobile
self starter for when WALL-E goes fast, and the sound of cars being wrecked at
a demolition derby provided for WALL-E's compressing trash in his body. The Macintosh
computer chime was used to signify when WALL-E has fully recharged his battery.
For EVE, Burtt wanted her humming to have a musical quality. Burtt was only able to provide neutral or
masculine voices, so Pixar employee Elissa Knight was asked to provide her
voice for Burtt to electronically modify. Stanton deemed the sound effect good
enough to properly cast her in the role. Burtt recorded a flying 10-foot-long
(3.0 m) radio-controlled jet plane for EVE's flying, and for her plasma cannon,
Burtt hit a slinky hung from a ladder with a timpani stick. He described it as
a "cousin" to the blaster noise from Star Wars. MacInTalk was
used because Stanton "wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold,
zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless [and] Stephen Hawking's kind of
voice I thought was perfect." Additional sounds for the character were meant
to give him a clockwork feel, to show he is always thinking and calculating.
Burtt had visited Niagara Falls in 1987 and used his
recordings from his trip for the sounds of wind. He ran around a hall with a canvas
bag up to record the sandstorm though. For the scene where WALL-E runs from
falling shopping carts, Burtt and his daughter went to a supermarket and placed
a recorder in their cart. They crashed it around the parking lot and then let
it tumble down a hill. To create Hal (WALL-E's pet cockroach)'s skittering, he
recorded the clicking caused by taking apart and reassembling handcuffs.
Music
Thomas Newman recollaborated with Stanton on WALL-E
since the two got along well on Nemo, which gave Newman the Annie Award
for Best Music in an Animated Feature. He began writing the score in 2005, in
the hope that starting this task early would make him more involved with the
finished film. But, Newman remarked that animation is so dependent on
scheduling he should have begun work earlier on when Stanton and Reardon were
writing the script. EVE's theme was arranged for the first time in October
2007. Her theme when played as she first flies around Earth originally used
more orchestral elements, and Newman was encouraged to make it sound more
feminine. Newman said Stanton had thought up of many ideas for how he wanted
the music to sound, and he generally followed them as he found scoring a
partially silent film difficult. Stanton wanted the whole score to be
orchestral, but Newman felt limited by this idea especially in scenes aboard
the Axiom, and used electronics too.
Stanton originally wanted to juxtapose the opening shots
of space with 1930s French swing music, but he saw The Triplets of
Belleville (2003) and did not want to appear as if he were copying it.
Stanton then thought about the song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from
Hello, Dolly!, since he had portrayed the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a
1980 high school production. Stanton found that the song was about two naive
young men looking for love, which was similar to WALL-E's own hope for
companionship. Jim Reardon suggested WALL-E find the film on video, and Stanton
included "It Only Takes a Moment" and the clip of the actors holding
hands, because he wanted a visual way to show how WALL-E understands love and
conveys it to EVE. Hello Dolly! composer Jerry Herman allowed the songs
to be used without knowing what for; when he saw the film, he found its
incorporation into the story "genius". Coincidentally, Newman's uncle
Lionel worked on Hello, Dolly!
Newman travelled to London
to compose the end credits song "Down to Earth" with Peter Gabriel,
who was one of Stanton's favorite musicians. Afterwards, Newman rescored some
of the film to include the song's composition, so it would not sound intrusive
when played. Louis Armstrong's rendition of "La Vie en rose" was used
for a montage where WALL-E does not get EVE's attention on Earth. The script
also specified using Bing Crosby's "Stardust" for when the two robots
dance around the Axiom, but Newman asked if he could score the scene
himself. A similar switch occurred for the sequence in which WALL-E attempts to
wake EVE up through various means; originally, the montage would play with the
instrumental version of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", but
Newman wanted to challenge himself and scored an original piece for the
sequence.
Themes
Stanton describes the theme of the film as
"irrational love defeats life's programming":
I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots
was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was ...
It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against
how they were built ... I realized that that's a perfect metaphor for real
life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or
unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid
having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us.
That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one
another. I thought, 'That's a perfect amplification of the whole point of the
movie.' I wanted to run with science in a way that would sort of logically
project that.
Stanton noted many commentators placed emphasis on the
environmental aspect of humanity's complacency in the film, because "that
disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in
life that's bad for humanity or the planet". Stanton said that by taking
away effort to work, the robots also take away humanity's need to put effort
into relationships. Christian journalist
Rod Dreher saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans'
artificial lifestyle on the Axiom has separated them from nature, making
them "slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have
lost what makes them human". Dreher contrasted the hardworking, dirt
covered WALL-E with the sleek clean robots on the ship. However, it is the
humans and not the robots who make themselves redundant, and during the end
credits humans and robots are shown working alongside each other to renew the
Earth. "WALL-E is not a Luddite film," he said. "It
doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to
help humans cultivate their true nature – that it must be subordinate to human
flourishing, and help move that along."
Stanton, who is Christian, named EVE after the Biblical
character because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam, before God created
his wife. Dreher noted EVE's biblical namesake and saw her directive as an
inversion of that story; EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth
and move away from the "false god" of BnL and the lazy lifestyle it
offers. Dreher also noted this departure from classical Christian viewpoints,
where Adam is cursed to labor, in that WALL-E argues hard work is
what makes humans human. Dreher emphasized the false god parallels to BnL in a
scene where a robot teaches infants "B is for Buy n Large, your very best
friend", which he compared to modern corporations such as McDonald's
creating brand loyalty in children. Megan Basham of World magazine felt
the film criticizes the pursuit of leisure, whereas WALL-E in his stewardship
learns to truly appreciate God's creation.
During writing, a Pixar employee noted to Jim Reardon
that EVE was reminiscent of the dove with the olive branch from the story of
Noah's Ark, and the story was reworked with EVE finding a plant to return
humanity from its voyage. WALL-E himself has been compared to Prometheus, Sisyphus,
and Butades: in an essay discussing WALL-E as representative of the artistic
strive of Pixar itself, Hrag Vartanian compared WALL-E to Butades in a scene
where the robot expresses his love for EVE by making a sculpture of her from
spare parts. "The Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with
a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover’s shadow traces it on the
wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of
longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way
Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their
love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of
relationships."
Reception
Release
Continuing a Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired
with a short film for its theatrical release, Presto. The film was
dedicated to Justin Wright (1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on Ratatouille
and died of a heart attack before WALL-E's release.
Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es
to promote the picture, which made appearances at Disneyland Resort; the Franklin
Institute; the Miami Science Museum; the Seattle Center; and the Tokyo
International Film Festival. Due to safety concerns, the 318 kg robots were
always strictly controlled and WDI always needed to know exactly what they were
required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to have
their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod
on a child's foot. Those who wanted to take a photograph with the character had
to make do with a cardboard cutout.
Very small quantities of merchandise were sold for WALL-E,
as Cars items were still popular, and many manufacturers were more
interested in Speed Racer, which was a successful line despite the
film's failure at the box office. Thinkway, which created the WALL-E
toys, had previously made Toy Story dolls when other toy producers had
not shown an interest. Among
Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a
toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote
control toy of him and EVE that had motion sensors that allowed them to
interact with players. There were even
plushies. The "Ultimate WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the
film's home release in November 2008, at a retail price of almost $200, leading
The Patriot-News to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and
collectors only".
Box-office performance
WALL-E grossed $223,808,164 in the USA and Canada and
$297,503,696 overseas for a worldwide total of $521,311,860, marking it the
ninth highest grossing film of 2008.
The film premiered at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on
June 23, 2008.
In the USA and Canada, it opened in 3,992 theaters on
June 27, 2008. During its opening weekend, it topped the box office with
$63,087,526 which is currently the fifth-best opening weekend for a Pixar film
and the fourth-best opening among films released in June. The movie earned
$94.7 million in its first week and crossed the $200 million mark during its
sixth weekend.
Countries where it grossed over $10 million are the
following: Japan ($44,005,222), UK, Ireland and Malta ($41,215,600), France and
the Maghreb region ($27,984,103), Germany ($24,130,400), Mexico ($17,679,805), Spain
($14,973,097), Australia ($14,165,390), Italy ($12,210,993) and Russia and the CIS
($11,694,482).
Home media
The film was released by Walt Disney Studios Home
Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 18, 2008. The various
editions included Presto, a new short film BURN-E, the Leslie
Iwerks documentary film The Pixar Story, shorts about the history of Buy
n Large, the behind-the-scenes special features and a Digital Copy of the film
that can be played through iTunes or Windows Media and compatible devices. It
sold 9,042,054 DVD units ($142,633,974) in total becoming the second
best-selling animated DVD among those released in 2008 in terms of units sold
(behind Kung Fu Panda), the best-selling animated feature in terms of
sales revenue and the 3rd best-selling among all 2008 DVDs.
Reviews
WALL-E was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews from
critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 96% of critics gave the film
positive reviews, based upon a sample of 233 reviews, with an average rating of
8.5/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to
reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 94,
based on 39 reviews, which represents "universal acclaim". IndieWire
named WALL-E the third best film of the year, based on their annual
survey of 100 film critics, while Movie City News shows that WALL-E
appeared in 162 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists
surveyed, the most mentions on a top ten list of any film released in 2008.
Richard Corliss of Time named WALL-E as his
favorite film of 2008 (and later of the decade), noting the film succeeded in
"connect[ing] with a huge audience" despite the main characters' lack
of speech and "emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders
[and] elbows". It "evoke[d] the splendor of the movie past" and
he also compared WALL-E and EVE's relationship to the chemistry of Spencer
Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Other
critics who named WALL-E as their favorite film of 2008 included Tom
Charity of CNN, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa
Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, A. O. Scott of The New York
Times, Christopher Orr of The New Republic, Ty Burr and Wesley
Morris of The Boston Globe, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street
Journal, and Anthony Lane of The New Yorker.
Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film
"Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder", saying it was imaginative yet
straightforward. He said it pushed the boundaries of animation by balancing
esoteric ideas with more immediately accessible ones, and that the main difference
between the film and other science fiction projects rooted in an apocalypse was
its optimism. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter declared that WALL-E
surpassed the achievements of Pixar's previous eight features and probably
their most original film to date. He said it had the "heart, soul, spirit
and romance" of the best silent films. Honeycutt said the film's
definitive stroke of brilliance was in using a mix of archive film footage and
computer graphics to trigger WALL-E's romantic leanings. He praised Burtt's
sound design, saying "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of
hand, this is it."
Roger Ebert writing in the Chicago Sun-Times found
WALL-E "an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment, and a
decent science-fiction story". Ebert said the scarcity of dialogue would
allow it to "cross language barriers" in a manner appropriate to the
global theme, and noted it would appeal to adults and children. He praised the
animation, saying the color palette was "bright and cheerful [...] and a
little bit realistic", and that Pixar managed to generate a
"curious" regard for the WALL-E, comparing his "rusty and
hard-working and plucky" design favorably to more obvious attempts at
creating "lovable" lead characters. He said WALL-E was concerned
with ideas rather than spectacle, saying it would trigger stimulating
"little thoughts for the younger viewers." He named it as one of his twenty favorite
films of 2008 and argued it was "the best science-fiction movie in
years".
The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically-minded
agenda, though McCarthy said it did so with a lightness of touch that granted
the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message. Kyle
Smith of the New York Post, wrote that by depicting future humans as
"a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to
walk", WALL-E was darker and more cynical than any major Disney
feature film he could recall. He compared the humans to the patrons of Disney's
Parks and Resorts, adding, "I'm also not sure I've ever seen a major
corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers."
Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report questioned whether this
depiction of "frighteningly obese humans" would resonate with
children and make them prefer to "play outside rather than in front of the
computer, to avoid a similar fate". The interpretation led to criticism of
the film by conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck, and contributors to National
Review Online including Shannen W. Coffin and Jonah Goldberg (although he
admitted it was a "fascinating" and occasionally
"brilliant" production).
A few notable critics have argued that the film is vastly
overrated, claiming it failed to "live up to such blinding, high-wattage
enthusiasm", and that there were "chasms of boredom watching
it", in particular "the second and third acts spiraled into the
expected". Other labels included "preachy" and "too
long".
Child reviews sent into CBBC were mixed, some
citing boredom and an inadequate storyline.
Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative said WALL-E's
conservative critics missed lessons in the film that he felt appealed to
traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism in the film was
not shown to be a product of big business, but of too close a tie between big
business and big government: "The government unilaterally provided its
citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's
downfall." Responding to Coffin's claim that the film points out the evils
of mankind, Ford argued the only evils depicted were those that resulted from
losing touch with our own humanity and that fundamental conservative
representations such as the farm, the family unit, and wholesome entertainment
were in the end held aloft by the human characters. He concluded, "By
steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are
doing their readers a great disservice."
Director
Terry Gilliam praised the film as "A stunning bit of work. The scenes on
what was left of planet Earth are just so beautiful: one of the great silent
movies. And the most stunning artwork! It says more about ecology and society
than any live action film – all the people on their loungers floating around,
brilliant stuff. Their social comment was so smart and right on the
button."
Accolades
WALL-E won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was
nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song,
Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing at the 81st Academy Awards, which it lost to Slumdog
Millionaire, The Dark Knight and Milk, respectively. Walt
Disney Pictures also pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination,
but it was not nominated, provoking controversy as to whether the Academy
deliberately restricted WALL-E to the Best Animated Feature category, Peter
Travers commented that "If there was ever a time where an animated feature
deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E." Only three
animated films, 1991's Beauty and the Beast and Pixar's next two films,
2009's Up and 2010's Toy Story 3, have ever been nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture. A reflective Stanton stated he was not
disappointed the film was restricted to the Best Animated Film nomination
because he was overwhelmed by the film's positive reception, and eventually
"The line [between live-action and animation] is just getting so blurry
that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to
say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie."
WALL-E made a healthy appearance at the various 2008
end-of-the-year awards circles, particularly in the Best Picture category,
where animated films are often overlooked. It has won the award, or the
equivalent of it, from the Boston Society of Film Critics (tied with Slumdog
Millionaire), the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Central Ohio Film
Critics awards, the Online Film Critics Society, and most notably the Los
Angeles Film Critics Association, where it became the first animated feature to
win the prestigious award. It was named as one of 2008's ten best films by the American
Film Institute and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden
Globe Awards, 81st Academy Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association
Awards 2008. It was nominated for several awards at the 2009 Annie Awards,
including Best Feature Film, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Direction,
Production design, Storyboarding and Voice acting (for Ben Burtt); but was
beaten out by Kung Fu Panda in every category. It won Best Animated
Feature at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards, and was also nominated there
for Best Music and Sound. Thomas Newman and Peter Gabriel won two Grammy Awards
for "Down to Earth" and "Define Dancing". It won all three
awards it was nominated for by the Visual Effects Society: Best Animation, Best
Character Animation (for WALL-E and EVE in the truck) and Best Effects in the
Animated Motion Picture categories. It became the first animated film to win
Best Editing for a Comedy or Musical from the American Cinema Editors. In 2009,
Stanton, Reardon and Docter won Nebula Award, beating The Dark Knight
and the Stargate Atlantis episode "The Shrine". It won Best
Animated Film and was nominated for Best Director at the Saturn Awards.
At the British National Movie Awards, which is voted for
by the public, it won Best Family Film. It was also voted Best Feature Film at
the British Academy Children's Awards. WALL-E was listed at #63 on Empire's
online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters, conducted in 2008. In early
2010, TIME ranked WALL-E #1 in "Best Movies of the Decade".
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