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Complaining about the physics in this movie is like complaining that people can’t really be controlled, marionette-style, by pulling on their hair; or that there’s no way toys could talk or move around because they don’t have nervous systems; or that really, a male clownfish left alone with offspring would’ve turned into a female clownfish.
It’s a fantasy. Physics bows down before storytelling, as it should in this context.
Well said, but one question. Is the part I bolded true?
Honestly, I don’t disagree with you - accuracy should not be viewed as being more important than the flow of the story.
What bothered me was not that things were inaccurate or impossible in the story - but that the people behind the film chose to do things that were contradictions of physics without any story-based reason for it!
[spoiler]Let’s consider the orbital trash scene - Wall E ends up being covered in three or four old satellites, and the last one he manages to shake off is Sputnik. This scene is completely unrealistic for any number of reasons - the most important being that Sputnik has long since burned up in re-entry. But that doesn’t matter, because for the sake of the joke I could ignore the reality. It was fun, it was clever, and it didn’t interrupt the story for me.
The constant thrust=constant speed however was completely unnecessary, and served no purpose (With the exception of the bit during the ‘dance’ when Wall E and EVE are avoiding the large jets on the Axiom.) within either the framework of the story, nor to provide any kind of joke, or even feel. IMNSHO using pulsed thrusts (a few second burn, pause, and another half second burn) to match velocity would have been almost as easy, and would have made more of the change in atmosphere from what Wall E had known and the Axiom. It would have done more to emphasize for most viewers that Wall E has come to a new, strange world, than what they did show.
Finally, the dance would still have been possible without having Wall E’s trajectory change before the thrust could have accumulated to achieve that, but it would have meant moving the nozzle from the extinguisher more.
FTM, please note, I never complained about the sound in space - because I do think that some sort of audio was necessary for that part of the film. It’s because the other physics impossibilities were unnecessary that I’m complaining.
And, I’ll admit it’s an anal complaint. And that I’m probably being a little silly. It’s a dirty job, but it’s mine.[/spoiler]
Complaining about inaccurate physics is another way of enjoying life. I’m sorry that you will never understand it, but the rest of us will try not to let you spoil the fun for us.
One of the things I like about Pixar movies is how they can make me care so very, very much about (arguably) non-sentient things. Toward the end of the movie, when
EVE “reboots” WallE and he no longer recognizes herI wept like I haven’t in a long time.
But, here’s the thing. It’s perfectly logical and, indeed, as it should be. But I didn’t want it to be.
I’ll reserve more superlatives for rewatches, but I loved this movie.
To comment on whether or not Wall-E was a rip-off of another robot, I have a funny anecdote to share. I bought a set of Wall-E tattoos for my almost-3 year old, and she has one proudly displayed on her shoulder. At the car shop yesterday, one of the workers said “Hey, who’s that on your tattoo? Is that E.T.?” Then as he got closer, he said “Oh, not E.T., it’s the Short Circuit robot!” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The other worker guy and my daughter told him it was Wall-E. Very funny I thought.
I’v seen it the second time, now. It was when Auto’s minion pitched the boot down the trash chute. The exclamation was only one syllable, and if it wasn’t “crap” I dunno what else it have been.
Also, I noticed this time, when EVE was cradling Wall-E on the trash deck after failing to repair him, it bore a striking resemblance to The Pietà but reversed, left to right. How subtle is that?
Am I the only person who hated it? Apart from the dark mood at the beginning, I found it all special effects, blatant references, schmaltzy, unsubtle, manipulative, totally predictable Hollywood fare. Cutesy robots in love. Yuck.
I regret wasting the money to see it in the theatre, I don’t even think it’s worth a rental. It sucked.
How do you define a special effect in an animated movie?
If we were talking about traditional cel animation - I’d talk about effects animation that’s usually added to the print after the more traditional animation has been shot. The example that comes to my mind, now, is the bubble effects in the underwater shots from The Little Mermaid, as something that you may have noticed, and that I am pretty sure was added after the original cels were used to create the scene. (ISTR hearing Mencken on the DVD commentary talking about the company they’d outsourced that animation to having been very, very close to deadline before they got everything back to them.)
I don’t know how or whether effects animation is being done in a similar manner with PIXAR films. Do they have one team building the main images, and then another adding the “flash” or “oomph” for some scenes? Certainly that would be one way they could be doing it.
But this is precisely what was advertised. What did you think you were in for? It’s like you took your vacation in Germany and came back complaining that it was so teutonic. Here’s a money-saving tip: if you suspect a movie may in fact be about cutesy robots in love, you don’t have to go see it to find out for sure. That information is available on the internet.
The important thing here is that neither Elton John, Phil Colins or Sting got their hands on the soundtrack.
Nooo, but Peter Gabriel did. 
This is what I LOVE about Pixar…a throwaway KILLER website they expect you to find virally.
Which is awesome.
You’re not alone.
This had the cuteness level turned up so high that it made the Care Bears Movie look gritty and realistic. The poet Keats spoke of works which have a ‘palpable design’ upon us. This was such a work and it hammered us over the head with its simplistic and juvenile message from the commencement to the very end of the film.
I thought Cars was great. This one, fittingly, is junk and I believe it will be recognized as such by future critics.
There’s no movie so beautiful or so well made that someone doesn’t hate it, and is proud of themselves for hating it.
Anyway, I saw this last night with my fiancée and we both liked it a lot. Aside from the incredibly gorgeous animation, it’s simply really great story telling, with an incredibly charismatic machine protagonist.
The remarkable human capacity to care about the lives and feelings of things that aren’t human is at the center of meaning in the story. One bit of subtlety is how the humans who bump into Wall-E end up remembering and liking him, and are even influenced by him (in that they suddenly have their eyes opened to the pointlessness of the status quo, something Wall-E clearly rejected long ago). He inadvertently becomes a catalyst for change in what’s left of human society, just because of who he is, and the way he values remnants of civilization, thus becoming unique. He changes everyone and everything (almost) he bumps into. Consider the robot sentry guarding the ship’s bridge: Wall-E waves to it, it waves back (and surprises itself by doing so), and suddenly is startled into behavior that it never considered. I love that.
I just saw the movie yesterday, and this was the part of the movie that just SOLD it for me. At that point, there must have been a freak sandstorm at the theater because my eyes were REALLY watery during that scene, and then again at the very end of the film too…
Crazy Freak Movie Theater Sandstorms.
Crazy how they happen at such vital points in the film 
.
I can’t overstate how much I loved this movie. But I also can’t stop being a cynical bastard. With that in mind, during the scene where Wall-E and Eve are together, but before she gets taken back to the Axiom, I couldn’t help thinking, “So, Wall-E meets this girl who’s got a psycho temper, and really likes fire. Then she goes into a coma, so he carries her body around and pretends like she’s his girlfriend. Since when has John Waters been working for Pixar?”
I <ahem> aquired it from <ahem> a questionable internet resource (rhymes with TitBorrent) and watched it again. I figure I’ll be buying the movie (The download video quality sucked…WallE might be the reason I get a bluray player), and the toys, and the kids will be WallE for halloween, so it’s all good.
[spoiler]
It stands up to repeated showings with some interesting stuff. What if WallE is predisposed to being different from the start? It means that he’s smart enough to find shelter in the sandstorms, leaving the other WallE’s to sandblast into oblivion. Maybe he saw something he liked and wanted to keep it…making a place to keep nice things safe…giving him shelter.
I like that the worst bad-guy in the movie (Otto) aside from electrocuting Wall*E, wasn’t that bad a guy, he was just following orders and when pushed, still obeyed them…mostly.
I, personally, didn’t see a single fat joke. I saw crass consumerism jokes, I saw physical comedy, but nothing that said ‘hey, look at the tub o lard and laugh!’[/spoiler]