DVD: Wall-E

Pixar proves yet again that everyone else sucks.

Every time I hear the song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" (which is actually, not often, but bear with me), I will forever think of the opening scene of WALL-E where the cheery song plays as we descend through the sepia clouds into the sepia world of skyscrapers of trash. I could clearly remember for months the way the sound of wind slowly drowns out the Hello, Dolly! soundtrack as we are introduced to WALL-E.

The film contains no human dialogue for the first half of the film, but Pixar's beautiful animation along with powerhouse animation director Andrew Stanton (one of Pixar's master directors along with John Lasseter and Brad Bird, and to a lesser extent Pete Doctor), tells the story in a compelling way using only visuals and sound effects. WALL-E is not unlike a silent film actor, using only visual cues to convey his emotions. The silent film convention of exaggerated movement is even utilized with WALL-E's "eyes."

WALL-E's romance with EVE, the mysterious flying "girl" robot is actually one of the sweetest romances I've seen in years, and it is all conveyed with scarcely ten words between them.

WALL-E, which stands for "Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class" was among a fleet of trash-management robots left behind to clean up the planet after humans trashed it with litter and pollution to the point where it became uninhabitable. All the other identical robots have long since crapped out, and only our WALL-E is left to clean up the planet. After almost 700 years of solitude, a ship shows up carrying EVE, a mysterious and shiny white robot with whom WALL-E becomes infatuated. It turns out that EVE's mission was to search for a return of life on earth, and when she finds the plant that WALL-E has cultivated, she is whisked away back to her base, a massive cruise ship containing the entire human race, and WALL-E hitches along.

On this cruise ship, humans have regressed back to infantile form. They are chubby and can't even walk, and they ride around on hovering lounge chairs while robots do everything imaginable for them, from feeding to recreation (robots hit golf balls on a driving range while a man sits by watching TV and drinking his meal. This is all until WALL-E comes along and disrupts the status quo.

With this commentary on the human race's drive to use technology to simplify life to the point where life is experienced through technology, Stanton makes this a cautionary tale about the dangers of trading experience in for laziness. Also, the earth was trashed by humans as the behest of a giant retail conglomerate that actually encourages wasteful littering (see: Wal Mart). This makes the film a social satire as well, once again proving that animated films aren't just for childish amusement. Pixar has shown us time and again that so-called "kids'" movies can be a medium for powerful messages for kids and adults alike.

Now I know conservative talk-show and radio hosts were probably up in arms at the "liberal agenda" this films was "indoctrinating" kids with, but what's so horrible about making children aware of the dangers of excess, wastefulness, pollution and littering? I know fat people are probably insulted by the portrayal of the human race after 700 years of nothing but eating and watching television, but warning us to live our lives in earnest and experience the world isn't such a bad thing. And besides, fat people can lose weight if they're really so offended by such a portrayal. It's not like cancer where it just happens to you. I don't know many cancer patients who contracted cancer by eating a shitload of candy bars. Fat people can't claim themselves to be victims, ever.

I applaud Pixar again, not only for making yet another brilliant classic of animation as well as a stunningly beautiful film, but also for proving to us once again that film can be a medium used both to entertain and to inform, let alone a "kids'" medium. I believe Brad Bird puts it best when he says that "animation is not a genre," and this is a man who has made two films with Pixar. I can't imagine a better place for a man like that to work.

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Special Features:

• Commentary with director Andrew Stanton
• Deleted Scenes
• Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds from the Sound Up
• Sneak Peek: WALL-E’s Tour of the Universe
• Burn-E animated short
• The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks
• BnL Shorts
• Wall-E’s Treasures and Trinkets
• Lots of Bots storybook
• Additional “making of” featurettes
• Bot Files
• Digital copy of the film