[ Post a Response | EVEN DeepER Blurting! ]
Posted by DexterBG on 6/26/2008, 5:26 am
WALL-E may really stand for "Will Automatons make us into Lazy Lumps? - Eeeak!
I love to watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, most nights. Even when it's a repeat, I sometimes watch it, because I may have missed that one (rarely). At least I stay for the monologue. However, I've noted that ABC has taken to using JKL to promote new movies, that almost invariably are going to turn out to be awful. Leno and Letterman probably do this too, but I expect more from JKL. It shouldn't be just another entertainment industry shill. And it seems that JKL's average on promoting bad movies, is the worst of the bunch. It's like JKL will take their actors as promoters, when others might not. Or, they appear on JKL right after "Ebert and Roeper" (Phillips and Roeper) says 'Skip It'. Just to offset the bad review, for those who probably missed E&R over the weekend.
Well... the remotely controlled little robot WALL-E showed up breifly on JKL. And I breifly thought that perhaps this might have been the exception to the apparent rule, that it would be a bad movie. But after hearing a vague description of the movie on Ebert and Roeper, I have a bad feeling that it's business as usual. Pixar knows it's a lemon, and desperate enough (this time) to promote on late night Tv. There are also several promos via YouTube, that their publicist no doubt placed there. If it's soooo good, what's Pixar got to worry about?
Word has it, the first 30 to 40 minutes of this 103 minute cinema treat is more like the robotic version of "I Am Legend" or "The Last Man on Earth". The main CGI character, WALL-E, rumbles around the ruins of earth's cities, collecting and compressing trash into cube form. And comically discovering the forgotten function of 700 year old items (Note: car key remote batteries can't possibly last that long. So how could WALL-E hear the "churp" from a 2008 auto, buried at the dump site?). And I'll just bet that none of them are from the next century, and therefore futuristic junk. It's as if 20 years from now, our entire material culture ends up on the scrap heap, and nothing else follows. Thus we get a subtle hint that something went horribly wrong with earth, and nobody has been around for a long time to make it right.
Since there are no "talking rings" in this movie, as in the 60s classic "The Time Machine", WALL-E probably stumbles upon or uncovers various clues about just what's been happening and for how long. But is this really a movie meant for kids, if they're going to see nothing but a small robot in a trash dump for almost 40 minutes? At least until this subtle environmental message plays itself out. Though I do believe I saw some seagalls in the distances, the only lifeform we see with WALL-E is his pet cockroach. Which is part of that subtle message too. The one about how cockroaches would likely survive a nuclear war or whatever. It's highly doubtful the average teen or pre-teen will know this. So it's no doubt a reference meant for the adults. After we work out that nobody lives on earth anymore, and hasn't for 700 years, WALL-E gets a visitor. From above.
A very oddly shaped spaceship lands and its robotic scout checks out the earth as if it's an alien world. So I suppose the viewer is left wondering, for a while, if indeed this is an alien race visiting earth. WALL-E becomes love sick for the sleek new robot, EVE. Follows EVE back to the ship, and stows aboard as it takes off again. It's then that we see more of what has become of the earth, from space. The upper atmosphere is also a huge dump site for millions of old communication satellites. They're smothering the earth now, and the spaceship has to punch thru a layer of them to escape. WALL-E is evetually discovered by EVE or other robots. And there seems to be some confusion as to whether WALL-E is welcome or not. He manages to survive being shot out in an escape pod that self-destructs. And EVE seems determined to save him.
It don't know what happens for the other half of the movie. But at some point we are shown that mankind has survived. Only to become overweight lumps, floating around in hover chairs, while tons of little robots do all the work for them. It's as if they're living on a bunch of cruiseships, drifting around in space, waiting for the earth to get healthy again. While mankind is clearly not, by relying on robots. I don't know how all this ends, whether WALL-E saves the day, or if the human blobs return to earth. I sort of doubt that they could resolve things so quickly in one movie. And why do that, if the filmmaker wishes to shame us into taking better care of earth? So I'm betting that WALL-E and EVE are sent back to earth, to help revive it so humans can live there again in another couple 100 years or so.
What annoys me about this movie, is the anti-robotic message. Once again, the movie industry takes the position that any form of useful robotic device is going to be bad for our health in some way. If not taking over ruling the planet, then by turning us into 400 pound couch potatoes. As if we'd just totally give up on our appearance, and succumb to weight gain from zero effort at daily living. A pretty unrealistic premise, in order to sell their point about robots.
Apparently (to me), Pixar was commissioned to make this movie, by the aerospace conglomerates. Who are the main ones worried that robots might someday replace human pilots and astronauts. Thus their very expensive manned fighter jets and space capsules might be reduced to cheaper non-human controlled drones and satellites. Not what they want to happen, because wars and the space exploration game is an ongoing cash cow to them, as long as human beings are the heroic pilots at risk. It's very difficult to play up robots or computers as heroes, enough for Congress to write blank checks for more such planes and satellites. Though it makes logical sense not to risk human life any more than absolutely necessary. It's the human risk element that's often used as propaganda, to keep selling the most expensive of defense and space projects.
Robots could easily pilot planes and space probes, without the needs of the human bodies limiting their missions. But no parades are going to be thrown for the returning robot from the Moon landing. And a robot won't be getting that long distance call from the president of the USA. So if the politicians can't make book on what some machines do better than us humans can. Then robots aren't good enough to do the job, no matter what their skills. It's the last racial prejudice. Robots being the lowest of the low, if we ever get around to making them capable enough to replace our current lower class workers.
Now there's talk about going back to the Moon. But even though our technology has vastly improved since the 1960s. It's as if it's been completely forgotten that we've been successfully exploring the surface of Mars with remotely controlled robotic devices. So there's no talk of sending any of those to the Moon, instead of humans. Like, if humans aren't actually present, we'll lose our Moon lease or something. Sort of the same logic for keeping people stationed at the Antarctic. Most of the super-powers seem to feel the need to occupy it, just so they won't lose their foothold there, or miss out if something strategic event there they want to take advantage of. Now it's the Moon's turn to be fought over, by the paranoid governments. So a multi-national group of Luna occupiers will no doubt be sent to twiddle their thumbs in one sixth gravity. And pretending that they're doing something that no robotic machines could be doing, without them. Well, I don't buy it. But we'll all be forced to pay for it, regardless. Because the defense departments of these super-powers call the shots, and are intimately connected to the defence contractors who stand to benefit the most from a manned mission to the Moon. Just as with the Space Station, humans on the Moon will make excellent hostages for more tax money to keep them alive.
But, if you believe the story of "WALL-E", humans will have no trouble at all living in space, as long as robots aren't around to make them weak and shiftless. Oh Pixar, how low you've sunk to kissing up.
-Dex-
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
Watch out for snakes.