WALL-E - Value In Responsibility (REWIND)
Thoughts On: WALL-E (2008)
The only working robot cleaner on an abandoned Earth follows a scout robot to one of the last remaining populations of people drifting through space in a star cruiser.
WALL-E is a film I struggle over just a little bit. For the opening, I want to say that this is a truly great movie. However, everything beyond the first 30-odd minutes, whilst it is far from terrible, doesn't capture the essence of what came before, which brings into question the 'greatness' of this movie. This is why I've always felt like WALL-E could be turned off and be done with after the first act. Again, this isn't to say that the majority of WALL-E is terrible - the second and third act are just not as good as the opening. In such, whilst there are a few nice characters and a handful of beautiful sequences (namely, the dance through space) found throughout the second and third act, the charm of pure cinematic storytelling, the magic of the dystopian aesthetics and the enchantment of being alone with our two protagonists is certainly lost. In fact, I wouldn't say that the beauty of the opening is lost, rather, it was sacrificed for the sake of some world building and the construction of a social commentary which unfortunately doesn't build to much. Before getting further into this, however, let's discuss exactly what WALL-E is about.
In short, WALL-E is about human waste and pollution. This commentary is generated by depicting both the consequences of neglect upon the Earth as well as the evolution of people who harbour that neglect at the core of their societal structure. And so it is the essence of neglect that the population on the Axiom represents:
The passengers aboard this ship have no true sense of the physical world, rather, the projected world of human materialism - they are consumed by an empty axiom, one could say; a statement for being that is meaningless. This is why they are all guided through life by automation. In fact, the world that these people live in seems to be an impossible one. Not only does no one work, instead, consume automated, advertised mush, but they all pump their waste into the ether...
What is especially funny about the manner in which this waste is expelled into space is the organised fashion in which it is done. If the waste system was at all efficient, it would not involve the giant WALL-As; all waste shoots would lead directly onto a conveyor belt that would lead into this vacuum chamber that would then blast the unorganised waste into space. After all, how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile? This is a useful, even complex, question that we will return to. However, in context of blasting waste out into space, there is no difference; people have designed a system that seems organised, but is rather a facade for everything poisonous about their society to comfortably hide behind. We see this also in all of the highly inefficient and impractical robot designs. A particularly funny moment that exemplifies human's mindless waste is the delivery of EVE to Earth.
To extract the scout from her capsule, the spaceship requires two huge arms - and one only enters a password. The amount of money and resources wasted on this would be astronomical. The space that the arm takes up on this ship and the weight it adds to the hull alone would inflate the cost of fuel consumption unjustifiably - but think also of all the time that went into designing and constructing this system, and all so it can type in a password.
There are many robots and elements of technology like this throughout the film. Considering them wholly, the sheer scope of certain operations has us ask who designed all of this excess. Did the robots themselves? Are they creating more jobs and refusing to streamline operations so that they have greater purpose and place? Whilst the human population dwindles, the robots population, it seems, is in surplus. And this again brings us back to the logistics of living aboard the axiom. We can return then to the passengers...
We have to ask how much longer will they last. They've been in space, throwing all of their waste behind them and consuming energy with no signs of recycling, for 700 years. How long until the stack of cups and stores of 'food' are done? It seems they should have ran dry hundreds of years ago as there is no implication of some kind of replenishment system (I'd hate to see where all the sewage goes - maybe into the food?), and such leaves this whole ship a paradox, a plot hole, of this narrative's design. However, beyond being paradoxical, what this detail seems to define is the endless consumption that this societal structure is based upon as they perpetually distract themselves from reality. If we do not see this as we watch, this likely says a lot about ourselves.
There isn't just critique in this narrative, however. If we return to the question, "how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile?", we are urged to return to the opening:
To build up to answering our question, we have to start with a realisation that this narrative lets time slip by as if it means very little. The evidence for this is certainly the work that WALL-E has done. Whilst we cannot know how long he alone has been building these structures, if he were to make even some of them, he would have to work for years, maybe decades, maybe centuries. And we know for a fact that the WALL-E robots were activated at least 700 years ago. But, to assume that WALL-E is a somewhat average robot without particularly unique programming, we are faced with an essential question with this image:
Why is WALL-E the only robot in his region - in the world maybe? If all the robots had something of a personality and some shade of artificial intelligence much like every other robot in this narrative does, why did every other WALL-E bot stop working? The fact seems to be...
... they stopped re-charging themselves. And this is certainly where things start to get dark; every other WALL-E robot apart from our protagonist committed suicide. This is where we must confront our question: how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile? The hundreds of other WALL-E bots saw no difference, thus, they had no purpose, no reason to charge themselves every morning and go to work. After all, who programmed these robots to construct these structures?
It is possible that only WALL-E makes these as an expression of his personality and 'humanity' - a detail we will return to - but, the entire operation of using WALL-E bots is quite obviously a ruse. There is then a rather obvious conspiracy afoot that is confirmed later on by Auto's undermining of the human captain aboard the Axiom: Earth was abandoned, there were no plans to return, everyone was lied to. The WALL-E robots were then a false symbol of hope that nobody questioned. They were going to clean up Earth? How, by organising all of the mess into cubes? Let us then take a step back and think of the robots having to perform this intentionally redundant operation and the idea of them going to work...
It is at this point that the personification of WALL-E becomes something entirely transcendent of basic novelty. We all laugh at this scene where WALL-E wakes up tired because we all have felt groggy in the morning. But, we can imagine that this was life for every other robot that lived in the racks beside our WALL-E bot. They woke up every morning, groggy, just as we do, and, after 100s of years, they decided to, essentially, stop making breakfast and let their daily work routine kill them.
As a result, it is very clear that they stopped seeing the purpose in their work; they saw no need to turn piles of trash into neater cubes that form greater structures - a clear metaphoric parallel drawn to the menial jobs people do every day. This turn to nihilism and suicide applied to every other robot apart from our protagonist. This seems to be because WALL-E not only finds apparent purpose in his job, but manages to find value and preciousness in his responsibility:
It is because WALL-E sees beauty amongst literal trash that he becomes, in a certain sense, immortal. And this allows WALL-E to transcend into something much more profound than just a cute robot; he is the encapsulation of all that makes humanity great. Not only does WALL-E construct, not only is he a builder, but he is, if you choose to see him as such, an artist that gives meaning to all that he constructs. Furthermore, he is himself an inefficient, imperfect and simple machine that knows how to make the best out of himself and life through ingenuity and vision. This is the beauty of this little robot. He not only materialises into being much of humanity's greatest attributes, but he continues to do this whilst humanity has given up...
So, the immortality that the 700-year-old WALL-E represents is the perpetual spirit of human creation and ingenuity that the last remaining population of ourselves have separated themselves from. What our little robot further symbolises is then humanity giving itself up to our creations, allowing the commentary constructed through the first act of this narrative to be that people stop being humans when we separate ourselves from all that motivates WALL-E - which, in itself, is a pretty staggering assertion. But, a significant aspect of WALL-E's persona that we haven't yet touched on is love and companionship...
This is another essential aspect of his being; a sense of purpose rooted in other beings. So, in essence, through the second and third act of this narrative WALL-E develops as an individual by not just serving an abstract master, but going on a quest with someone who can return his self-sacrifice and devotion. Thi renders romance essential in this narrative and, in turn, see WALL-E teach humanity what was wired into himself by them and what it was that he has nurtured; he teaches us the purpose of organising trash and making something out of it as well as the value and meaning to be found in responsibility. However, having touched upon all of these details, we reach an impasse.
I think it was a mistake having EVE taken back up to the Axiom and WALL-E follow her. Whilst I can appreciate aspects of the world building and a few of the characters that we find there, there is very little added to the profundity of the first act by the rest of the narrative - all we get is a lot of flabby plot. What is more, there are many plot holes surrounding these sequences. So, not only does the whole functioning of the ship make little sense, but a question I'd like to know the answer to would certainly be, where is this:
As WALL-E travels with the EVE transporter, he passes the moon, the sun, Saturn and then leaves the solar system--possibly the galaxy...
... before arriving at what could be a dust cloud, but what may also be a nebula. As we said before, this narrative doesn't portray time as having much substance (which makes quite a bit of sense as WALL-E is essentially immortal). However, the nearest known nebula to Earth is thought to be the Orion Nebula, which is around 20 lightyears away. 20 light years means 20 years travelling at the speed of light - a speed which is thought to take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to and so is, in effect, impossible to reach. So, even if WALL-E was travelling at the speed of light here...
... which he clearly isn't - not nearly - it would take him 20 years to reach the Axiom. However, even if we ignore the implication that WALL-E left the galaxy (which is 100,000 lightyears wide), even if it took him 100s of years to reach the star cruiser, or even the Axiom was only on the edge of the solar system (and so only a few years of travel away), it is somewhat plausible that he'd survive the journey. We can question how he'd be able to continuously recharge, but let's ignore that. Having given this movie all of those passes, it still makes no sense that they'd send probes like EVE back and fourth looking for life. Moreover, leaving the probes to search Earth for a only few days or weeks is pretty absurd. How many are sent? How much land are they supposed to search? What about other countries? We know the humans are particularly wasteful and hiding the fact that they have given up on life, but are the humans that dumb?
These are all pretty pressing questions that could have been solved by the EVE probes being situated on Earth, streaming information to the Axiom. The Axiom would be decades behind the EVE probes as the signals would be delayed because of the distance, but that doesn't matter too much. If there were EVE robots scouring Earth perpetually, instead of being sent back and fourth across space, one would eventually run into WALL-E. This should have been the first major beat of this narrative and would have been the set-up for a story that stayed on Earth - which is, considering the opening, what we want.
If the majority of this narrative stayed on Earth, all of WALL-E's positive attributes could have been tested and developed with a romance flourishing between himself and EVE - all whilst they waited for a signal to be sent to the Axiom after EVE is shown the plant. Furthermore, conflict could have been introduced on the Axiom when the information (years later) reached the ship. Much like we see by the third act, there could have been a fight between the automation that the humans allowed to consume their lives and their will to do what is difficult, but, optimistically, worthwhile and a greater good. But, before I start re-writing the entire script, all I'll say is that there are many more opportunities that could have resulted in WALL-E being a masterpiece if it stayed on Earth for the majority of its narrative. However, all we can do is watch the opening sequences and dream of what they could be.
With that said, WALL-E isn't so much a disappointment, just a film with so much potential. I like it despite many missed opportunities and downfalls and it does do incredibly well in constructing a palatable commentary on pollution and the environment (which is seemingly difficult to do). Because of the brilliant characters of WALL-E and the tremendous world building I would then give in and say that this is a great movie. But, those are just my thoughts. What do you think of WALL-E and all we've covered today?
WALL-E is a film I struggle over just a little bit. For the opening, I want to say that this is a truly great movie. However, everything beyond the first 30-odd minutes, whilst it is far from terrible, doesn't capture the essence of what came before, which brings into question the 'greatness' of this movie. This is why I've always felt like WALL-E could be turned off and be done with after the first act. Again, this isn't to say that the majority of WALL-E is terrible - the second and third act are just not as good as the opening. In such, whilst there are a few nice characters and a handful of beautiful sequences (namely, the dance through space) found throughout the second and third act, the charm of pure cinematic storytelling, the magic of the dystopian aesthetics and the enchantment of being alone with our two protagonists is certainly lost. In fact, I wouldn't say that the beauty of the opening is lost, rather, it was sacrificed for the sake of some world building and the construction of a social commentary which unfortunately doesn't build to much. Before getting further into this, however, let's discuss exactly what WALL-E is about.
In short, WALL-E is about human waste and pollution. This commentary is generated by depicting both the consequences of neglect upon the Earth as well as the evolution of people who harbour that neglect at the core of their societal structure. And so it is the essence of neglect that the population on the Axiom represents:
The passengers aboard this ship have no true sense of the physical world, rather, the projected world of human materialism - they are consumed by an empty axiom, one could say; a statement for being that is meaningless. This is why they are all guided through life by automation. In fact, the world that these people live in seems to be an impossible one. Not only does no one work, instead, consume automated, advertised mush, but they all pump their waste into the ether...
What is especially funny about the manner in which this waste is expelled into space is the organised fashion in which it is done. If the waste system was at all efficient, it would not involve the giant WALL-As; all waste shoots would lead directly onto a conveyor belt that would lead into this vacuum chamber that would then blast the unorganised waste into space. After all, how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile? This is a useful, even complex, question that we will return to. However, in context of blasting waste out into space, there is no difference; people have designed a system that seems organised, but is rather a facade for everything poisonous about their society to comfortably hide behind. We see this also in all of the highly inefficient and impractical robot designs. A particularly funny moment that exemplifies human's mindless waste is the delivery of EVE to Earth.
To extract the scout from her capsule, the spaceship requires two huge arms - and one only enters a password. The amount of money and resources wasted on this would be astronomical. The space that the arm takes up on this ship and the weight it adds to the hull alone would inflate the cost of fuel consumption unjustifiably - but think also of all the time that went into designing and constructing this system, and all so it can type in a password.
There are many robots and elements of technology like this throughout the film. Considering them wholly, the sheer scope of certain operations has us ask who designed all of this excess. Did the robots themselves? Are they creating more jobs and refusing to streamline operations so that they have greater purpose and place? Whilst the human population dwindles, the robots population, it seems, is in surplus. And this again brings us back to the logistics of living aboard the axiom. We can return then to the passengers...
We have to ask how much longer will they last. They've been in space, throwing all of their waste behind them and consuming energy with no signs of recycling, for 700 years. How long until the stack of cups and stores of 'food' are done? It seems they should have ran dry hundreds of years ago as there is no implication of some kind of replenishment system (I'd hate to see where all the sewage goes - maybe into the food?), and such leaves this whole ship a paradox, a plot hole, of this narrative's design. However, beyond being paradoxical, what this detail seems to define is the endless consumption that this societal structure is based upon as they perpetually distract themselves from reality. If we do not see this as we watch, this likely says a lot about ourselves.
There isn't just critique in this narrative, however. If we return to the question, "how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile?", we are urged to return to the opening:
To build up to answering our question, we have to start with a realisation that this narrative lets time slip by as if it means very little. The evidence for this is certainly the work that WALL-E has done. Whilst we cannot know how long he alone has been building these structures, if he were to make even some of them, he would have to work for years, maybe decades, maybe centuries. And we know for a fact that the WALL-E robots were activated at least 700 years ago. But, to assume that WALL-E is a somewhat average robot without particularly unique programming, we are faced with an essential question with this image:
Why is WALL-E the only robot in his region - in the world maybe? If all the robots had something of a personality and some shade of artificial intelligence much like every other robot in this narrative does, why did every other WALL-E bot stop working? The fact seems to be...
... they stopped re-charging themselves. And this is certainly where things start to get dark; every other WALL-E robot apart from our protagonist committed suicide. This is where we must confront our question: how much of a difference is there between waste squashed into cubes and waste in a pile? The hundreds of other WALL-E bots saw no difference, thus, they had no purpose, no reason to charge themselves every morning and go to work. After all, who programmed these robots to construct these structures?
It is possible that only WALL-E makes these as an expression of his personality and 'humanity' - a detail we will return to - but, the entire operation of using WALL-E bots is quite obviously a ruse. There is then a rather obvious conspiracy afoot that is confirmed later on by Auto's undermining of the human captain aboard the Axiom: Earth was abandoned, there were no plans to return, everyone was lied to. The WALL-E robots were then a false symbol of hope that nobody questioned. They were going to clean up Earth? How, by organising all of the mess into cubes? Let us then take a step back and think of the robots having to perform this intentionally redundant operation and the idea of them going to work...
It is at this point that the personification of WALL-E becomes something entirely transcendent of basic novelty. We all laugh at this scene where WALL-E wakes up tired because we all have felt groggy in the morning. But, we can imagine that this was life for every other robot that lived in the racks beside our WALL-E bot. They woke up every morning, groggy, just as we do, and, after 100s of years, they decided to, essentially, stop making breakfast and let their daily work routine kill them.
As a result, it is very clear that they stopped seeing the purpose in their work; they saw no need to turn piles of trash into neater cubes that form greater structures - a clear metaphoric parallel drawn to the menial jobs people do every day. This turn to nihilism and suicide applied to every other robot apart from our protagonist. This seems to be because WALL-E not only finds apparent purpose in his job, but manages to find value and preciousness in his responsibility:
It is because WALL-E sees beauty amongst literal trash that he becomes, in a certain sense, immortal. And this allows WALL-E to transcend into something much more profound than just a cute robot; he is the encapsulation of all that makes humanity great. Not only does WALL-E construct, not only is he a builder, but he is, if you choose to see him as such, an artist that gives meaning to all that he constructs. Furthermore, he is himself an inefficient, imperfect and simple machine that knows how to make the best out of himself and life through ingenuity and vision. This is the beauty of this little robot. He not only materialises into being much of humanity's greatest attributes, but he continues to do this whilst humanity has given up...
So, the immortality that the 700-year-old WALL-E represents is the perpetual spirit of human creation and ingenuity that the last remaining population of ourselves have separated themselves from. What our little robot further symbolises is then humanity giving itself up to our creations, allowing the commentary constructed through the first act of this narrative to be that people stop being humans when we separate ourselves from all that motivates WALL-E - which, in itself, is a pretty staggering assertion. But, a significant aspect of WALL-E's persona that we haven't yet touched on is love and companionship...
This is another essential aspect of his being; a sense of purpose rooted in other beings. So, in essence, through the second and third act of this narrative WALL-E develops as an individual by not just serving an abstract master, but going on a quest with someone who can return his self-sacrifice and devotion. Thi renders romance essential in this narrative and, in turn, see WALL-E teach humanity what was wired into himself by them and what it was that he has nurtured; he teaches us the purpose of organising trash and making something out of it as well as the value and meaning to be found in responsibility. However, having touched upon all of these details, we reach an impasse.
I think it was a mistake having EVE taken back up to the Axiom and WALL-E follow her. Whilst I can appreciate aspects of the world building and a few of the characters that we find there, there is very little added to the profundity of the first act by the rest of the narrative - all we get is a lot of flabby plot. What is more, there are many plot holes surrounding these sequences. So, not only does the whole functioning of the ship make little sense, but a question I'd like to know the answer to would certainly be, where is this:
As WALL-E travels with the EVE transporter, he passes the moon, the sun, Saturn and then leaves the solar system--possibly the galaxy...
... before arriving at what could be a dust cloud, but what may also be a nebula. As we said before, this narrative doesn't portray time as having much substance (which makes quite a bit of sense as WALL-E is essentially immortal). However, the nearest known nebula to Earth is thought to be the Orion Nebula, which is around 20 lightyears away. 20 light years means 20 years travelling at the speed of light - a speed which is thought to take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to and so is, in effect, impossible to reach. So, even if WALL-E was travelling at the speed of light here...
... which he clearly isn't - not nearly - it would take him 20 years to reach the Axiom. However, even if we ignore the implication that WALL-E left the galaxy (which is 100,000 lightyears wide), even if it took him 100s of years to reach the star cruiser, or even the Axiom was only on the edge of the solar system (and so only a few years of travel away), it is somewhat plausible that he'd survive the journey. We can question how he'd be able to continuously recharge, but let's ignore that. Having given this movie all of those passes, it still makes no sense that they'd send probes like EVE back and fourth looking for life. Moreover, leaving the probes to search Earth for a only few days or weeks is pretty absurd. How many are sent? How much land are they supposed to search? What about other countries? We know the humans are particularly wasteful and hiding the fact that they have given up on life, but are the humans that dumb?
These are all pretty pressing questions that could have been solved by the EVE probes being situated on Earth, streaming information to the Axiom. The Axiom would be decades behind the EVE probes as the signals would be delayed because of the distance, but that doesn't matter too much. If there were EVE robots scouring Earth perpetually, instead of being sent back and fourth across space, one would eventually run into WALL-E. This should have been the first major beat of this narrative and would have been the set-up for a story that stayed on Earth - which is, considering the opening, what we want.
If the majority of this narrative stayed on Earth, all of WALL-E's positive attributes could have been tested and developed with a romance flourishing between himself and EVE - all whilst they waited for a signal to be sent to the Axiom after EVE is shown the plant. Furthermore, conflict could have been introduced on the Axiom when the information (years later) reached the ship. Much like we see by the third act, there could have been a fight between the automation that the humans allowed to consume their lives and their will to do what is difficult, but, optimistically, worthwhile and a greater good. But, before I start re-writing the entire script, all I'll say is that there are many more opportunities that could have resulted in WALL-E being a masterpiece if it stayed on Earth for the majority of its narrative. However, all we can do is watch the opening sequences and dream of what they could be.
With that said, WALL-E isn't so much a disappointment, just a film with so much potential. I like it despite many missed opportunities and downfalls and it does do incredibly well in constructing a palatable commentary on pollution and the environment (which is seemingly difficult to do). Because of the brilliant characters of WALL-E and the tremendous world building I would then give in and say that this is a great movie. But, those are just my thoughts. What do you think of WALL-E and all we've covered today?
