I saw it that the population had become accustomed to a very consumerism-oriented society, with little regards to the surroundings. Since it was polluting the planet and causing it to be uninhabitable, the corporation that created, supported, and perpetuated the consumerist lifestyle saw it easier to send people away to space while they cleaned up again things on Earth. Axiom was not intended to be permanent.
I saw it the other night and loved it. I liked the contrast between the out-of-date Wall-E and the iShiny robots on the Axiom, and I thought it was funny how they showed each successive captain of the ship being fatter and fatter than the previous ones. I had the exact same thought as Miller, but any little nitpicky things about the movie didn’t detract from the overall experience for me. Can’t wait to own it!
You know what nitpicky little thing bugged me about it? The people on the Axiom were too uniformly obese. Even if you showed them all as being obese, some would naturally be bigger than others.
And you know a movie has to be pretty great if this is the worst thing I can say about it!
Which one? Maybe some folks didn’t recognize the current version.
[SPOILER]
I don’t think they made her trigger-happy. Eve’s got just as much personality as Wall-E–she’s impatient and fussy, and just a little fed-up with her ‘Directive’, and hey, it’s a big planet and she’s a small robot. It makes sense that she’d be jumpy at first.
As for Axiom, it means ‘proverb’ or ‘words of wisdom’. My guess is that it just sounded cool.[/SPOILER]
The parts with the humans were a little anvilicious, but I loved Wall-E and Eve getting to know each other. It was sweet and touching, and I think it deserved all four stars it got from the Globe and Mail.
Just came back from a second showing. Just as good the second time. Also, I was going nuts trying to place the actor’s voice that played Otto/Autopilot… At first I thought he sounded like the Cylon’s from the original Battlestar Galactica, but not quite. The first time i watched it the actor’s name didn’t register during the credit roll, so this time I decided to pay closer attention - Otto was played by Macintalk. Has a computer program ever gotten an ACTING credit before?
Just saw Wall*E tonight, loved it. [spoiler]Captain Macready was my favorite character, very smart despite being ignorant of the world. From the very start they showed that he cared about his job, even if he had to admit he didn’t have to do anything while doing it. When he realized something wasn’t right, he investigated, and acted when Auto turned on him. I love the bit when he realizes that every Captain’s portrait shows Auto looking over his shoulder.
Have to admit I was a little wigged out by the idea of WallE cannibalizing parts from failed WallE units, especially with the assumption that many, if not all, of the robots develop some kind of personality over time, and then the revelation that the shelves in his mobile home weren’t designed for storing random things, but rather were intended for storing Wall*E units, emphasized how alone he was.
And of course, the movie shows the key to solving the Rubik’s Cube: Have a smart girlfriend do it for you. I loved how he handed her the cube, camera follows him across the room, and when he comes back, she’s solved it. :D[/spoiler]
They used the current one, which I think was the one played with the iMac, so it’s been used for a while. Most people are not using computers that old. However, you’re right–if you are my age and the last time you used a Mac was back in school, you would not recognize the sound.
No, they used #2 in that video, as confirmed by this extremely geeky video. It was used in the Mac Classic (and I want to say my old IIsi as well, but I’m not sure).
A week, now and counting. Hello Dolly is one of DesertRoomie’s favorite musicals and I’d read in a review that the movie opens with that song. So I was watching her when the movie started rolling to see how long it would take her to recognize the song. It was about two milliseconds.
We just saw it, and we rank it in the middle of the Pixar pack, around Cars.
My question After 700 years in space, why would the humans want to return to Earth? They’ve become accustomed to the Axiom, they are sedentary enough to need hover chairs to get around, their whole life is programmed for them…when to eat breakfast, etc. I would think Earth would be a very daunting prospect to them. After all…no electricity, no hover chairs!
That said, I loved the interaction between Wall-E and Eve. And I kept waiting for Auto to say, I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.
I did laugh during the 2001: A Space Odyssey as the captain rises from his chair and begins to walk.
[spoiler]That’s just it, they’ve spent 700 years on the Axiom. The Captain sounds particularly jaded about their situation, doing the same thing for 700 years straight. Earth is a whole NEW thing for them to do, with new things and such. Also, we’re given the impression that they have been under the understanding that the whole reason they were in space was to wait for Earth to be habitable again, kinda some big quasi-religious thing to look forward to.
Hm, that could be a fun angle for a story to take.[/spoiler]
Just watched this today. I personally didn’t find the live action segments to be jarring at all; in fact I didn’t even think on it until I read the thread. I was too busy being entertained to pay attention, I guess.
Also I’ve never cried so much at a movie, but then I’m terribly sentimental.
My husband nudged me a bit when
President/CEO tells the Autopilots to “stay the course”. I’m not sure if that was intended the way we took it, but it was hard to ignore.
Easily one of Pixar’s best offerings to date. For me it’s Top 3 along with Toy Story and The Incredibles, but it is awful hard to rank any of them among themselves.
I loved this movie. The first earthbound portion was amazing. The outer-space sequences seemed conventional by comparison, but still top-rank film-making.
On the use of live-action video, it didn’t bother me in the least when I saw it. It was the sight of the CGI people later in the movie that was jarring. Upon reflection, I think it was a price worth paying for two reasons:
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The contrast between the happy shiny world depicted in the ancient promotional videos with the desolate wasteland of future earth was made more poignant by the inclusion of actual human beings.
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The “Hello Dolly” clip was such an important part of Wally’s world, and “Hello Dolly” featured real live humans. I suppose it would have been possible to use a clip from an animated musical, but I think it would have lost a lot of that “artifact from a lost world” effect.
I know there are some problems of logic and physics, but by the standards of a cartoon about a lovable robot that goes into space and saves mankind, it’s close enough to watertight.
Some cars are lemons, some cars can be nursed along longer than others with tender loving care, and some cars inexplicably keep on running forever. There’s no reason to assume all Wall-E’s are created equal, even if they came off the same assembly line.
The Wall-E has the ability to learn, so besides its initial mechanical superiority, the survivor presumably has accumulated more knowledge than those that expired earlier. Since Wall-E can communicate with other robots, it’s also possible that he learned from mistakes his colleagues made in trying to preserve themselves.
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
[spoiler]Why make Eve so trigger-happy on her mission? Didn’t seem to fit with trying to find plant life; letting local critters live might lead her to plants, after all.
Why name the starship Axiom?[/spoiler]Isuzu once had an SUV by that name. Maybe just a coincidence, but maybe it struck somebody as a cool and/or silly name for an oversize vehicle.
A great movie. So many things to comment on, where to begin:
Another vote for Wall-E’s expressiveness. I loved it when after he accidently fired EVE’s gun and blew out a wall, he somehow managed an “Ooooooh Shit!” look on his “face”.
Junkyard Earth looked awesome. I wonder if they had green glass on the west coast, brown glass on the east coast, and clear in the middle? 
Relative to the background he came from, the Captain was one of the bravest heroes we’ve ever seen. In fact the humans on the Axiom come across rather well once they were woken up from their torpor.
The end scene where they show over generations the humans (with help from the robots) rebuild civilzation and heal the Earth. Notice their descendents slim down again over the generations?
And finally, the genuine love between Wall-E and EVE made me misty-eyed.
In math an axiom is a proof that is never changing and unquestionable. That’s why the Axiom ship was named as such.
Just got back from seeing it. loved it loved it loved it.
I don’t understand the hate for Cars, being a car guy, but since I was luke-warm for Ratatouille, I can see how folks like some movies better than others.
But goddamn, Pixar, on a scale from 1 to 10, hasn’t made a movie under 8.9, IMHO. That still stands.
Enjoyed it. One question:
how the heck did the plant grow in the ancient refrigerator??
The light stays on when the door is closed.