A Tangential String to an interesting Wall•E
January 6th 2011 12:59
Long time no blog!
I have a 3 year old son. (Part of the reason it's been 2 years between posts) He has "no hope", as my wife puts it, in terms of the fact that he's going to have to love Doctor Who, and I hope, some other cult aspects of this thing called life.
Whilst Jim isn't quite up to A Quiet Earth, or Damnation Alley, we both recently discovered a modern gem from the Pixar stable - Wall•E. Already familiar with various other Pixar titles such as Monsters and Toy Story, I figured it would be a safe bet to entertain us both, so made the purchase of the 2 disc cardboard flap out box set when I saw it on special a few months ago.
I'll have to admit that the trailers had captured my attention when the movie was first released, however it's been quite some time since I ventured to a movie theatre, let alone with a child that still mostly struggles to sit through more than 25 minutes of b&w classic Doctor Who.
What we discovered with Wall•E however was breathtakingly beautiful, and something that immediately caught my eye in terms of this blog. A story of the lastman robot on Earth, almost mindlessly toiling to prepare the world for a humanity that ultimately would never return, were it not for his involvement. And somehow it even manages to weave in a romance and buddy-flick, not to mention a million and one references to a wide variety of modern pop culture.
(There are inside jokes pointing to other Pixar movies, multiple references to movies such as 2001 A Space Odyssey, not to mention multiple references to Apple, with Eve designed by Apple's design guru, Jon Ives, as well as Auto being "voiced" by Apple's MacTalker software.)
Listening to the audio featurette, I was indeed reminded of Quiet Earth, as I recall that film replaced the audio from some scenes with entirely studio/foley based sound to create a world devoid of all life - the same problem faced by the producers of Wall•E when creating the environs that Wall•E inhabited at the start of the film. QE had empty cans rolling across the street, whereas Wall•E had Wall•E trundling across the wastelands of humanity. It was also noted that there is no dialogue in Wall•E for the first 20 or so minutes. QE also lacks much dialogue until a good stretch into the film.
Whilst Wall•E provides both perhaps the least depressing of possible futures - one in which we have simply destroyed the planet through our disregard for nature, as opposed to greed or war-mongering, it is nonetheless a chilling consideration given how little we recycle as a world, and the fact that we are already over-running the planet with population and barely degradable waste products. Wall•E's attempts at rebuilding skyscrapers using compressed garbage somehow reminded me of the Red Dwarf novels, in which the Earth has been turned into a massive garbage dump, and one over zealous trashman spends his life spelling his name in giant letters made out of used diapers.
As often happens with these stories, the addition of new characters feels very intrusive. Indeed, Eve cannot be more intrusive and destructive! Watching Wall•E care for Eve raises laughter from my 3yo, and a wistful tear from myself. But it is the turn around towards the end of the film that really breaks the heart, first as Wall•E struggles to ensure Eve carries out her mission, and then Eve's frantic mission to save Wall•E.
Whilst you may not quite find Wall•E as a suitable pairing for I am Legend or Night of the Comet, whether you have a young child to watch the film with or not, I highly recommend this story.
I have a 3 year old son. (Part of the reason it's been 2 years between posts) He has "no hope", as my wife puts it, in terms of the fact that he's going to have to love Doctor Who, and I hope, some other cult aspects of this thing called life.
Whilst Jim isn't quite up to A Quiet Earth, or Damnation Alley, we both recently discovered a modern gem from the Pixar stable - Wall•E. Already familiar with various other Pixar titles such as Monsters and Toy Story, I figured it would be a safe bet to entertain us both, so made the purchase of the 2 disc cardboard flap out box set when I saw it on special a few months ago.
I'll have to admit that the trailers had captured my attention when the movie was first released, however it's been quite some time since I ventured to a movie theatre, let alone with a child that still mostly struggles to sit through more than 25 minutes of b&w classic Doctor Who.
What we discovered with Wall•E however was breathtakingly beautiful, and something that immediately caught my eye in terms of this blog. A story of the last
(There are inside jokes pointing to other Pixar movies, multiple references to movies such as 2001 A Space Odyssey, not to mention multiple references to Apple, with Eve designed by Apple's design guru, Jon Ives, as well as Auto being "voiced" by Apple's MacTalker software.)
Listening to the audio featurette, I was indeed reminded of Quiet Earth, as I recall that film replaced the audio from some scenes with entirely studio/foley based sound to create a world devoid of all life - the same problem faced by the producers of Wall•E when creating the environs that Wall•E inhabited at the start of the film. QE had empty cans rolling across the street, whereas Wall•E had Wall•E trundling across the wastelands of humanity. It was also noted that there is no dialogue in Wall•E for the first 20 or so minutes. QE also lacks much dialogue until a good stretch into the film.
Whilst Wall•E provides both perhaps the least depressing of possible futures - one in which we have simply destroyed the planet through our disregard for nature, as opposed to greed or war-mongering, it is nonetheless a chilling consideration given how little we recycle as a world, and the fact that we are already over-running the planet with population and barely degradable waste products. Wall•E's attempts at rebuilding skyscrapers using compressed garbage somehow reminded me of the Red Dwarf novels, in which the Earth has been turned into a massive garbage dump, and one over zealous trashman spends his life spelling his name in giant letters made out of used diapers.
As often happens with these stories, the addition of new characters feels very intrusive. Indeed, Eve cannot be more intrusive and destructive! Watching Wall•E care for Eve raises laughter from my 3yo, and a wistful tear from myself. But it is the turn around towards the end of the film that really breaks the heart, first as Wall•E struggles to ensure Eve carries out her mission, and then Eve's frantic mission to save Wall•E.
Whilst you may not quite find Wall•E as a suitable pairing for I am Legend or Night of the Comet, whether you have a young child to watch the film with or not, I highly recommend this story.
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