Pixar has a gift for giving life to lifeless objects as demonstrated by their early award winning short Luxo Jr. That same spirit of animating the inanimate reaches new heights in the cast of unique and lively robots featured in their newest film WALL-E. These robots have a sophisticated humanity that far exceeds their simplistic forms.
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The movie opens with swooping shots of an incredible landscape; an Earth devoid of human life but teaming with human debris. The only signs of activity come from a solitary droid moving steadily along the surface of this uncomfortably familiar world. The droid and titular character is a miniature mobile trash compactor and unquestionably the hero of the grand adventure to come. We see him in his daily work gathering trash from the huge piles that dominate the area then depositing the compacted cubes in formations. We soon come to realize that many of the large structures we saw in the opening shots are not the skyscrapers we had taken them for but instead are titanic stacks of compacted trash.
Wall-E has more than his work to keep him occupied. He had also become a collector of interesting oddities. Later that evening we see his extensive collection of gadgets and gizmos in the storage container where he makes his home.
There we learn that he has the big dream of making a connection with someone. This dream is fueled by the images and music from a VHS copy of the musical Hello Dolly played on a hand-held video device. A small sound clip from that movie serves as his calling card throughout his adventure. The ultimate expression of his dream is found in the hope of one day holding hands with another person.
He chances of achieving that dream seem rather slim as his only companion in the whole world is a cockroach. That is that case until a short time later when out of the blue a new visitor appears in his wasteland. She’s a droid from the stars, with a powerful lighter than air flight system and a sleek modern design very reminiscent some recent technology of our own. Soon after she appears Wall-E attempts to establish contact with her. He finds that despite her beauty and grace she is a tough customer, with massively destructive firepower. She is on a mission, desperately hunting for something in the debris. He stumbles along after her, obviously fascinated. Yet despite his best efforts he is unable to bridge the gap between them.
Her search continues fruitlessly until eventually in a fit of pique she demolishes a derelict oil tanker and exhausted, she finally settles down to make nice with the native. She introduces herself as Eve and he introduces himself as Wall-E. This decision to make a formal contact with him proves decisive in her search because Wall-e has already collected the object of her search. He takes her back to his home and shows off his various treasures. She has mixed reactions to many of them. At long last he shows her his newest find, a baby seedling. Instantly her system reacts by taking it and then she immediately falls into a deep slumber with a symbol of a leaf glowing upon her display.
Wall-e attempts to revive her to no effect so he continues in his modest way to show her the wonders of his world. He carries her unresponsive but floating form to all the places of interest. And even tries to hold her hand while watching a sunset. After some time her ride from space returns to whisk her sleeping form back into space. Wall-e boldly rushes to her ship and takes hold of it as it returns to space. Eve continues to slumber as her ship makes it back to the mother ship, the Axiom.
This is a land of laws and lotus eaters. This is the last refuge of humanity. A world where Wall-e does not belong but also a world that desperately needs him. There is no creativity left there. The human lives lives more automated than the machines that surround them. Wall-e’s simple acts of ordinary humanity inspires just about everyone he meets to start acting and thinking in new ways.
This is a movie filled with missions. Each robot has a directive and they each seek it out. Wall-E alone has grown far beyond his directive. His bold yet simple spirit allows him to change the world.
WALL-E is ultimately about hope; both the danger of losing it and the tremendous power of having it. It also reminds us that fantasy is one of the things that helps makes us human.