WALL-E
Encyclopedia
WALL-E, promoted with an interpunct
as WALL•E, is a 2008 American computer-animated
science fiction film
produced by Pixar Animation Studios
and directed by Andrew Stanton
. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste
-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her into outer space
on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of free will
and emotions
similar to humans, which develop further as the film progresses.
After directing Finding Nemo
, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead communicate with body language
and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt
, that resemble voices. In addition, it is the first animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures
released it in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed $23.2 million on its opening day, and $63.1 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking #1 at the box office. This ranks as the fifth highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto
, for its theatrical release.
WALL-E has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews among critics, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
. It grossed $521.3 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
, the 2009 Hugo Award
for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards
at the 81st Academy Awards
. WALL-E ranks first in TIME
's "Best Movies of the Decade".
facilitated by the megacorporation Buy-n-Large (BnL). Giving up on restoring the ecosystem, BnL evacuated Earth's population in fully automated star
liners
in 2105, leaving behind an army of trash compactor
robots called "WALL-E" (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class) to clean up for an intended five-year period. By 2110, however, the air on Earth became too toxic to sustain life, forcing humanity to remain in space. At the start of the film, one WALL-E unit has managed to remain active for six hundred years beyond its designed operational lifespan, by learning how to salvage and repair itself using parts from other WALL-E units that broke down. After seven hundred years of life-experience it has developed sentience
, displaying curiosity about the artifacts of human civilization by collecting various items salvaged from the trash in addition to his regular duties, and it has befriended a cockroach.
One day, WALL-E discovers a seedling
plant growing among the trash and brings it home to his storage truck. Later, a spaceship lands and deploys EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), an advanced robot sent from the BnL starliner, known as the Axiom, with the directive
to search for signs of vegetation
on Earth. WALL-E falls in love with the initially cold and hostile EVE, who gradually softens and befriends him. When WALL-E brings EVE to his truck to show her the plant, she automatically stores it, goes into standby mode and sends a retrieval signal for her ship, which returns to collect her while WALL-E clings to its hull as it returns to the Axiom.
On the Axiom, the ship's human passengers have suffered from severe bone loss
and become morbidly obese
after centuries of living in microgravity and relying on the ship's automated systems. The ship's captain does little, leaving control of the Axiom to its robotic autopilot
, Auto. WALL-E follows EVE to the bridge of the Axiom where the captain learns, by scanning EVE's plant sample with the ship's holo-detector, that Earth is possibly habitable again. Thus, the Axiom will make a hyperjump
back to Earth so its passengers can recolonize. However, Auto orders the captain's robotic assistant GO-4 to steal the plant as part of a secret directive to keep humanity away from Earth, as life was incorrectly deemed unsustainable.
With the plant now missing, EVE is considered defective
and taken to the repair ward along with WALL-E for cleanup. WALL-E mistakes EVE's inspection for torture and breaks free, and tries to save her. He accidentally releases a horde of malfunctioning robots, getting himself and EVE designated as rogue robots. Angry with WALL-E's disruptions, EVE brings him to the escape pod
bay to send him home. There they witness GO-4 place the missing plant inside a pod and setting the pod to self-destruct, in order to get rid of it. WALL-E enters the pod before it launches, retrieves the plant, and escapes unharmed before the pod explodes. He then reconciles with EVE, celebrating with a dance outside the Axiom.
The plant is brought to the captain, who surveys EVE's recordings of the damaged Earth and realizes that mankind must return to restore it. However, Auto reveals his no return
directive, stages a mutiny
, and tasers
WALL-E (who is attempting to protect the plant) causing him to short circuit
. EVE realizes the only parts for repairing WALL-E are in his truck on Earth, so she helps him get the plant to the holo-detector to activate the Axioms hyperjump. The captain opens the holo-detector while fighting with Auto, but Auto crushes WALL-E by closing the holo-detector on him. The Captain discovers Auto's shut down switch and presses it, disabling Auto and releasing control of the ship. EVE places the plant in the holo-detector, freeing WALL-E, though he is now severely damaged. The Axiom then returns to Earth.
EVE brings WALL-E's body back to his home where she successfully repairs and reactivates him. Unfortunately, WALL-E's memory is erased and he reverts to his original programming. Heartbroken, EVE gives WALL-E a farewell "kiss", causing an electric spark
that reboots WALL-E's memory and personality. WALL-E and EVE happily reunite as the humans and robots of the Axiom begin to restore Earth's environment. Drawings during the end credits show them doing just that, as more and more plants sprout up on earth, with more and more animals too, and the humans have become thinner and healthier from working physically.
, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft
in 1994. Toy Story
was nearing completion and the writers brainstormed ideas for their next projects – A Bug's Life
, Monsters, Inc.
, and Finding Nemo
– at this lunch. Stanton asked, "What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?" Having struggled for many years with making the characters in Toy Story appealing, Stanton found his simple Robinson Crusoe
-esque idea of a lonely robot on a deserted planet very strong. Stanton made WALL-E a waste collector
as the idea was instantly understandable, and because it was a low-status menial job that made him sympathetic. Stanton also liked the imagery of stacked cubes of garbage. He did not find the idea dark because having a planet covered in garbage was for him a childish imagining of disaster.
Stanton and Pete Docter developed the film under the title of Trash Planet for two months in 1995, but they did not know how to develop the story and Docter chose to direct Monsters, Inc. instead. Stanton came up with the idea of WALL-E finding a plant, because his life as the sole inhabitant on a deserted world reminded Stanton of a plant growing among pavements. Before they turned their attention to other projects, Stanton and Lasseter thought about having WALL-E fall in love, as it was the necessary progression away from loneliness. Stanton started writing WALL-E again in 2002 while completing Finding Nemo. Stanton formatted his script in a manner reminiscent of Dan O'Bannon
's Alien
. O'Bannon wrote his script in a manner Stanton found reminded him of haiku
, where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. Stanton wrote his robot dialogue conventionally, but placed them in brackets. In late 2003, Stanton and a few others created a story reel of the first twenty minutes of the film. Lasseter and Steve Jobs
were impressed and officially began development, though Jobs stated he did not like the title, originally spelled "W.A.L.-E."
While the first act of WALL-E "fell out of the sky" for Stanton, he had originally wanted aliens to plant EVE to explore Earth and the rest of the film was very different. When WALL-E comes to the Axiom, he incites a Spartacus-style rebellion by the robots against the remnants of the human race, which were cruel alien Gels (completely devolved, gelantinous, boneless, legless, see-through, green creatures that resemble Jell-O
). James Hicks, a physiologist, mentioned to Stanton the concept of atrophy
and the effects prolonged weightlessness
would have on humans living in space for an inordinately extended time period. Therefore, this was the inspiration of the humans degenerating into the alien Gels, and their ancestry would have been revealed in a Planet of the Apes
-style ending. The Gels also spoke a made-up gibberish language, but Stanton scrapped this idea because he thought it would be too complicated for the audience to understand and they could easily be driven off from the storyline. The Gels had a royal family, who host a dance in a castle on a lake in the back of the ship, and the Axiom curled up into a ball when returning to Earth in this incarnation of the story. Stanton decided this was too bizarre and unengaging, and conceived humanity as "big babies". Stanton developed the metaphorical theme of the humans learning to stand again and "grow[ing] up", wanting WALL-E and EVE's relationship to inspire humanity because he felt very few films explore how utopia
n societies come to exist. The process of depicting the descendants of humanity as the way they appear in the movie was very slow. Stanton first decided to put a nose and ears on the Gels so the audience could recognize them. Eventually, fingers, legs, clothes, and other characteristics were added until they arrived at the concept of being fetus-like to allow the audience to see themselves in the characters.
In a later version of the film, Auto comes to the docking bay to retrieve EVE's plant. The film would have its first cutaway to the captain, but Stanton moved that as he found it too early to begin moving away from WALL-E's point-of-view. As a homage to Get Smart
, Auto takes the plant and goes into the bowels of the ship into a room resembling a brain where he watches videos of Buy n Large's scheme to clean-up the Earth falling apart through the years. Stanton removed this to keep some mystery as to why the plant is taken from EVE. The captain appears to be unintelligent, but Stanton wanted him to just be unchallenged; otherwise he would have been unempathetic. One example of how unintelligent the captain was depicted initially is that he was seen to wear his hat upside-down, only to fix it before he challenges Auto. In the finished film, he merely wears it casually atop his head, tightening it when he assumes real command of the Axiom.
Originally, EVE would have been electrocuted by Auto, and then be quickly saved from ejection at the hands of the WALL-A robots by WALL-E. He would have then revived her by replacing her power unit with a cigarette lighter he brought from Earth. Stanton reversed this following a 2007 test screening, as he wanted to show EVE replacing her directive of bringing the plant to the captain with repairing WALL-E, and it made WALL-E even more heroic if he held the holo-detector open despite being badly hurt. Stanton also moved the moment where WALL-E reveals his plant (which he had snatched from the self-destructing escape pod) from producing it from a closet to immediately after his escape, as it made EVE happier and gave them stronger motivation to dance around the ship. Stanton felt half the audience at the screening believed the humans would be unable to cope with living on Earth and would have died out after the film's end. Jim Capobianco, director of the short film Your Friend the Rat
, created an end credits animation that continued the story – and stylized in different artistic movements throughout history – to clarify an optimistic tone.
s, WALL-E required 125,000. Production designer
Ralph Eggleston
wanted the lighting of the first act on Earth to be romantic, while the second act on the Axiom to be cold and sterile. During the third act, the romantic lighting is slowly introduced into the Axiom environment. Pixar studied Chernobyl
and the city of Sofia
to create the ruined world; art director Anthony Christov was from Bulgaria
and recalled Sofia used to have problems storing its garbage. Eggleston bleached out the whites on Earth to make WALL-E feel vulnerable. The overexposed light makes the location look more vast. Because of the haziness, the cubes making up the towers of garbage had to be very large, otherwise they would have lost shape (in turn, this helped save rendering time). The dull tans of Earth subtly become soft pinks and blues when EVE arrives. When WALL-E shows EVE all his collected items, all the lights he has collected light up to give an inviting atmosphere, like a Christmas tree
. Eggleston tried to avoid the colors yellow and green so WALL-E – who was made yellow to emulate a tractor – would not blend into the deserted Earth, and to make the plant more prominent.
Stanton also wanted the lighting to look realistic and evoke the science fiction films of his youth. He felt Pixar had captured the physics of being underwater with Finding Nemo
, so for WALL-E he wanted to push that for air. It was while rewatching some of his favorite science fiction films he realized Pixar's films lacked the look of 70 mm film
and its barrel distortion, lens flare
and racking focus
. Producer Jim Morris invited Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren to advise on lighting and atmosphere. Muren spent several months with Pixar, while Deakins hosted one talk and was requested to stay on for another two weeks. Stanton said Muren's experience came from integrating computer animation into live-action settings, while Deakins helped them understand not to overly complicate their camerawork and lighting. 1970s Panavision cameras
were used to help the animators understand and replicate handheld imperfections like unfocused backgrounds in digital environments. The first lighting test consisted of building a three-dimensional replica of WALL-E, filming it with a 70 mm camera, and then trying to replicate that in the computer. Stanton cited the shallow lens work of Gus Van Sant
's films as an influence, as it created intimacy in each close-up. Stanton chose angles for the virtual cameras that a live-action filmmaker would choose if filming on a set.
Stanton wanted the Axioms interior to resemble Shanghai
and Dubai
. Eggleston studied 1960s NASA paintings and the original concept art for Tomorrowland
for the Axiom, to reflect that era's sense of optimism. Stanton remarked "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," and wanted a "jet pack
" feel. Pixar also studied the Disney Cruise Line
and visited Las Vegas
, which was helpful in understanding artificial lighting. Eggleston based his Axiom designs on the futuristic architecture of Santiago Calatrava
. Eggleston divided the inside of the ship into three sections; the rear's economy class has a basic gray concrete texture with graphics keeping to the red, blue and white of the BnL logo. The coach class with living/shopping spaces has 'S' shapes as people are always looking for "what's around the corner". Stanton intended to have many colorful signs, but he realized this would overwhelm the audience and went with Eggleston's original idea of a small number of larger signs. The premier class is a large Zen
-like spa with colors limited to turquoise, cream and tan, and leads on to the captain's warm carpeted and wooded quarters and the sleek dark bridge. In keeping with the artificial Axiom, camera movements were modeled after those of the steadicam
.
The use of live action was a stepping stone for Pixar, as Stanton was planning to make John Carter of Mars
his next project. Storyboarder Derek Thompson noted introducing live action meant they had to make the rest of the film look even more realistic. Eggleston added that if the historical humans had been animated and slightly caricaturized, then the audience would not have recognized how serious their devolution was. Stanton cast Fred Willard
as the historical Buy n Large CEO because "He's the most friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of." The CEO says "stay the course
," which Stanton used because he thought it was funny. Industrial Light & Magic did the visual effects for these shots.
or R2-D2
. Stanton explained there are two types of robots in cinema: "human[s] with metal skin", like the Tin Man
, or "machine[s] with function" like Luxo and R2. He found the latter idea "powerful" because it allowed the audience to project personalities onto the characters, as they do with babies and pets: "You're compelled ... you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'" He added, "We wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life." The animators visited recycling stations to study machinery, and also met robot designers, visited NASA
's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
to study robots, watched a recording of a Mars rover
, and borrowed a bomb detecting robot from the San Francisco Police Department
. Simplicity was preferred in their performances as giving them too many movements would make them feel human.
Stanton wanted WALL-E to be a box and EVE to be like an egg. WALL-E's eyes were inspired by a pair of binoculars
Stanton was given when watching the Oakland Athletics
play against the Boston Red Sox
. He "missed the entire inning" because he was distracted by them. The director was reminded of Buster Keaton
and decided the robot would not need a nose or mouth. Stanton added a zoom lens
to make WALL-E more sympathetic. Ralph Eggleston
noted this feature gave the animators more to work with and gave the robot a child-like quality. Pixar's studies of trash compactor
s during their visits to recycling stations inspired his body. His tank treads were inspired by a wheelchair someone had developed that used treads instead of wheels. The animators wanted him to have elbow
s, but realized this was unrealistic because he is only designed to pull garbage into his body. His arms also looked very flimsy when they did a test of him waving. Animation director Angus MacLane suggested they attach his arms to a track on the sides of his body to move them around, based on the inkjet printer
s his father designed. This arm design contributed to creating the character's posture, so if they wanted him to be nervous, they would lower them. Stanton was unaware of the similarities between WALL-E and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit
until others pointed it out to him.
Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology, and asked iPod
designer Jonathan Ive
to inspect her design. He was very impressed. Her eyes are modelled on Lite-Brite
toys, but Pixar chose not to make them overly expressive as it would be too easy to have her eyes turn into hearts to express love or something similar. Her limited design meant the animators had to treat her like a drawing, relying on posing her body to express emotion. They also found her similar to a manatee
or a narwhal
because her floating body resembled an underwater creature. Auto was a conscious homage to HAL 9000
from 2001: A Space Odyssey
, and the usage of Also sprach Zarathustra
for the showdown between the captain and Auto furthers that. The manner in which he hangs from a wall gives him a threatening feel, like a spider. Originally, Auto was designed entirely differently, resembling EVE, but masculine and authoritative; the Steward robots were also more aggressive Patrol-bots. The majority of the robot cast were formed with the Build-a-bot program, where different heads, arms and treads were combined together in over a hundred variations. The humans were modelled on sea lion
s due to their blubber
y bodies, as well as babies. The filmmakers noticed baby fat is a lot tighter than adult fat and copied that texture for the film's humans.
To animate their robots, Pixar watched a Keaton and a Chaplin
film every day for almost a year, and occasionally a Harold Lloyd
picture. Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently. Stanton cited Keaton's "great stone face" as giving them perseverance in animating a character with an unchanging expression. As he rewatched these, Stanton felt that filmmakers – since the advent of sound – relied on dialogue too much to convey exposition. The filmmakers dubbed the cockroach WALL-E keeps as a pet "Hal", in reference to silent film producer Hal Roach
(as well as being an additional reference to HAL 9000). They also watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Black Stallion
and Never Cry Wolf
, films that had sound but were not reliant on dialogue. Stanton acknowledged Silent Running
as an influence because its silent robots were a forerunner to the likes of R2-D2, and that the "hopeless romantic" Woody Allen
also inspired WALL-E.
er for WALL-E because Stanton kept using R2-D2
as the benchmark for the robots. Burtt had completed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
and told his wife he would no longer work on films with robots, but found WALL-E and its substitution of voices with sound "fresh and exciting". He recorded 2500 sounds for the film, which was twice the average number for a Star Wars
film, and a record in his career. Burtt began work in 2005, and experimented with filtering his voice for two years. Burtt described the robot voices as "like a toddler
[...] universal language
of intonation
. 'Oh', 'Hm?', 'Huh!', you know?"
During production Burtt had the opportunity to look at the items used by Jimmy MacDonald
, Disney's in-house sound designer for many of their classic films. Burtt used many of MacDonald's items on WALL-E. Because Burtt was not simply adding sound effects in post-production, the animators were always evaluating his new creations and ideas, which Burtt found an unusual experience. He worked in sync with the animators, returning their animation after adding the sounds to give them more ideas. Burtt would choose scientifically-accurate sounds for each character, but if he could not find one that worked, he would choose a dramatic if unrealistic noise. Burtt would find hundreds of sounds by looking at concept art of characters, before he and Stanton pared it down to a distinct few for each robot.
Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching Island in the Sky
, and bought an identical, unpacked device from 1950 on eBay
to use for WALL-E moving around. Burtt also used an automobile self starter
for when WALL-E goes fast, and the sound of cars being wrecked at a demolition derby
provided for WALL-E's compressing trash in his body. The Macintosh
computer chime was used to signify when WALL-E has fully recharged his battery. For EVE, Burtt wanted her humming to have a musical quality. Burtt was only able to provide neutral or masculine voices, so Pixar employee Elissa Knight was asked to provide her voice for Burtt to electronically modify. Stanton deemed the sound effect good enough to properly cast her in the role. Burtt recorded a flying 10 feet (3 m) radio-controlled jet plane for EVE's flying, and for her plasma cannon, Burtt hit a slinky
hung from a ladder with a timpani
stick. He described it as a "cousin" to the blaster
noise from Star Wars.
MacInTalk
was used because Stanton "wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless [and] Stephen Hawking
's kind of voice I thought was perfect." Additional sounds for the character were meant to give him a clockwork feel, to show he is always thinking and calculating.
Burtt had visited Niagara Falls
in 1987 and used his recordings from his trip for the sounds of wind. He ran around a hall with a canvas
bag up to record the sandstorm though. For the scene where WALL-E runs from falling shopping carts, Burtt and his daughter went to a supermarket and placed a recorder in their cart. They crashed it around the parking lot and then let it tumble down a hill. To create Hal (WALL-E's pet cockroach)'s skittering, he recorded the clicking caused by taking apart and reassembling handcuffs
.
recollaborated with Stanton on WALL-E since the two got along well on Nemo, which gave Newman the Annie Award for Best Music in an Animated Feature. He began writing the score in 2005, in the hope that starting this task early would make him more involved with the finished film. But, Newman remarked that animation is so dependent on scheduling he should have begun work earlier on when Stanton and Reardon were writing the script. EVE's theme was arranged for the first time in October 2007. Her theme when played as she first flies around Earth originally used more orchestral elements, and Newman was encouraged to make it sound more feminine. Newman said Stanton had thought up of many ideas for how he wanted the music to sound, and he generally followed them as he found scoring a partially silent film difficult. Stanton wanted the whole score to be orchestral, but Newman felt limited by this idea especially in scenes aboard the Axiom, and used electronics too.
Stanton originally wanted to juxtapose the opening shots of space with 1930s French swing music, but he saw The Triplets of Belleville (2003) and did not want to appear as if he were copying it. Stanton then thought about the song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly!, since he had portrayed the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a 1980 high school production. Stanton found that the song was about two naive young men looking for love, which was similar to WALL-E's own hope for companionship. Jim Reardon
suggested WALL-E find the film on video, and Stanton included "It Only Takes a Moment" and the clip of the actors holding hands, because he wanted a visual way to show how WALL-E understands love and conveys it to EVE. Hello Dolly! composer Jerry Herman
allowed the songs to be used without knowing what for; when he saw the film, he found its incorporation into the story "genius". Coincidentally, Newman's uncle Lionel
worked on Hello, Dolly!
Newman travelled to London
to compose the end credits song "Down to Earth
" with Peter Gabriel
, who was one of Stanton's favorite musicians. Afterwards, Newman rescored some of the film to include the song's composition, so it would not sound intrusive when played. Louis Armstrong
's rendition of "La Vie en rose
" was used for a montage where WALL-E does not get EVE's attention on Earth. The script also specified using Bing Crosby
's "Stardust
" for when the two robots dance around the Axiom, but Newman asked if he could score the scene himself. A similar switch occurred for the sequence in which WALL-E attempts to wake EVE up through various means; originally, the montage would play with the instrumental version of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
", but Newman wanted to challenge himself and scored an original piece for the sequence.
Stanton noted many commentators placed emphasis on the environmental aspect of humanity's complacency in the film, because "that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for humanity or the planet". Stanton said that by taking away effort to work, the robots also take away humanity's need to put effort into relationships. Christian journalist Rod Dreher
saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans' artificial lifestyle on the Axiom has separated them from nature, making them "slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher contrasted the hardworking, dirt covered WALL-E with the sleek clean robots on the ship. However, it is the humans and not the robots who make themselves redundant, and during the end credits humans and robots are shown working alongside each other to renew the Earth. "WALL-E is not a Luddite
film," he said. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature – that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along."
Stanton, who is Christian, named EVE after the Biblical character
because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam
, before God created his wife. Dreher noted EVE's biblical namesake and saw her directive as an inversion of that story; EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from the "false god" of BnL and the lazy lifestyle it offers. Dreher also noted this departure from classical Christian viewpoints, where Adam is cursed to labor, in that WALL-E argues hard work is what makes humans human. Dreher emphasized the false god parallels to BnL in a scene where a robot teaches infants "B is for Buy n Large, your very best friend", which he compared to modern corporations such as McDonald's
creating brand loyalty
in children. Megan Basham of World magazine felt the film criticizes the pursuit of leisure, whereas WALL-E in his stewardship
learns to truly appreciate God's creation.
During writing, a Pixar employee noted to Jim Reardon
that EVE was reminiscent of the dove
with the olive branch
from the story of Noah's Ark, and the story was reworked with EVE finding a plant to return humanity from its voyage. WALL-E himself has been compared to Prometheus
, Sisyphus
, and Butades
: in an essay discussing WALL-E as representative of the artistic strive of Pixar itself, Hrag Vartanian
compared WALL-E to Butades in a scene where the robot expresses his love for EVE by making a sculpture of her from spare parts. "The Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover’s shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of relationships."
for its theatrical release, Presto
. The film was dedicated to Justin Wright
(1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on Ratatouille
and died of a heart attack before WALL-Es release.
Walt Disney Imagineering
(WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es to promote the picture, which made appearances at Disneyland Resort
; the Franklin Institute
; the Miami Science Museum
; the Seattle Center
; and the Tokyo International Film Festival
. Due to safety concerns, the 318kg robots were always strictly controlled and WDI always needed to know exactly what they were required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to have their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod on a child's foot. Those who wanted to take a photograph with the character had to make do with a cardboard cutout.
Very small quantities of merchandise were sold for WALL-E, as Cars
items were still popular, and many manufacturers were more interested in Speed Racer
, which was a successful line despite the film's failure at the box office. Thinkway, which created the WALL-E toys, had previously made Toy Story
dolls when other toy producers had not shown an interest. Among Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote control toy of him and EVE that had motion sensors that allowed them to interact with players. There were even soft toys. The "Ultimate WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the film's home release in November 2008, at a retail price of almost $200, leading The Patriot-News to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and collectors only".
and The Lion King
, Disney and Pixar
announced that WALL-E will have a 3D re-release in 2014.
The film premiered at the Greek Theatre
in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008.
In the USA and Canada
, it opened in 3,992 theaters on June 27, 2008. During its opening weekend, it topped the box office with $63,087,526 which is currently the fifth-best opening weekend for a Pixar film and the fourth-best opening among films released in June. The movie earned $94.7 million in its first week and crossed the $200 million mark during its sixth weekend.
Countries where it grossed over $10 million are the following: Japan
($44,005,222), UK, Ireland
and Malta
($41,215,600), France
and the Maghreb
region ($27,984,103), Germany
($24,130,400), Mexico
($17,679,805), Spain
($14,973,097), Australia
($14,165,390), Italy
($12,210,993) and Russia
and the CIS
($11,694,482).
and Blu-ray Disc
on November 18, 2008. The various editions included Presto, a new short film BURN-E
, the Leslie Iwerks
documentary film The Pixar Story
, shorts about the history of Buy n Large, the behind-the-scenes special features and a Digital Copy
of the film that can be played through iTunes
or Windows Media
and compatible devices. It sold 9,042,054 DVD units ($142,633,974) in total becoming the second best-selling animated DVD among those released in 2008 in terms of units sold (behind Kung Fu Panda
), the best-selling animated feature in terms of sales revenue and the 3rd best-selling among all 2008 DVDs.
reported that 96% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 200 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
score of 94, based on 39 reviews. indieWire
named WALL-E the 3rd best film of the year, based on their annual survey of 100 film critics, while Movie City News shows that WALL-E appeared in 162 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the most mentions on a top ten list of any film released in 2008.
Richard Corliss
of Time
named WALL-E as his favorite film of 2008 (and later of the decade), noting the film succeeded in "connect[ing] with a huge audience" despite the main characters' lack of speech and "emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders [and] elbows". It "evoke[d] the splendor of the movie past" and he also compared WALL-E and EVE's relationship to the chemistry of Spencer Tracy
and Katharine Hepburn
. Other critics who named WALL-E as their favorite film of 2008 included Tom Charity of CNN
, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune
, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
, Christopher Orr of The New Republic
, Ty Burr
and Wesley Morris
of The Boston Globe
, Joe Morgenstern
of The Wall Street Journal
, and Anthony Lane
of The New Yorker
.
Todd McCarthy of Variety
called the film "Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder", saying it was imaginative yet straightforward. He said it pushed the boundaries of animation by balancing esoteric ideas with more immediately accessible ones, and that the main difference between the film and other science fiction projects rooted in an apocalypse
was its optimism. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter
declared that WALL-E surpassed the achievements of Pixar's previous eight features and probably their most original film to date. He said it had the "heart, soul, spirit and romance" of the best silent film
s. Honeycutt said the film's definitive stroke of brilliance was in using a mix of archive film footage and computer graphics to trigger WALL-E's romantic leanings. He praised Burtt's sound design, saying "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."
Roger Ebert
writing in the Chicago Sun-Times
found WALL-E "an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment, and a decent science-fiction story". Ebert said the scarcity of dialogue would allow it to "cross language barriers" in a manner appropriate to the global theme, and noted it would appeal to adults and children. He praised the animation, saying the color palette was "bright and cheerful [...] and a little bit realistic", and that Pixar managed to generate a "curious" regard for the WALL-E, comparing his "rusty and hard-working and plucky" design favorably to more obvious attempts at creating "lovable" lead characters. He said WALL-E was concerned with ideas rather than spectacle, saying it would trigger stimulating "little thoughts for the younger viewers." He named it as one of his twenty favorite films of 2008 and argued it was "the best science-fiction movie in years".
The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically
-minded agenda, though McCarthy said it did so with a lightness of touch that granted the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message. Kyle Smith
of the New York Post
, wrote that by depicting future humans as "a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk", WALL-E was darker and more cynical than any major Disney feature film he could recall. He compared the humans to the patrons of Disney's Parks and Resorts
, adding, "I'm also not sure I've ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers." Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report
questioned whether this depiction of "frighteningly obese humans" would resonate with children and make them prefer to "play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate". The interpretation led to criticism of the film by conservative commentators such as Fox News' Glenn Beck
, and contributors to National Review Online
including Shannen W. Coffin
and Jonah Goldberg
(although he admitted it was a "fascinating" and occasionally "brilliant" production).
A few notable critics have argued that the film is vastly overrated, claiming it failed to "live up to such blinding, high-wattage enthusiasm", and that there were "chasms of boredom watching it", in particular "the second and third acts spiraled into the expected". Other labels include "unimaginative", "surprisingly trite", "preachy" and "too long".
Child reviews sent into CBBC
were mixed, some citing boredom and an inadequate storyline.
Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative
said WALL-Es conservative critics missed lessons in the film that he felt appealed to traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism
in the film was not shown to be a product of big business
, but of too close a tie between big business and big government
: "The government unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall." Responding to Coffin's claim that the film points out the "evils of mankind", Ford argued the only evils depicted were those that resulted from "losing touch with our own humanity" and that fundamental conservative representations such as the farm, the family unit, and "wholesome" entertainment were in the end held aloft by the human characters. He concluded, "By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice."
Director Terry Gilliam
praised the film as "'A stunning bit of work. The scenes on what was left of planet Earth are just so beautiful: one of the great silent movies. And the most stunning artwork! It says more about ecology and society than any live action film – all the people on their loungers floating around, brilliant stuff. Their social comment was so smart and right on the button."
and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score
, Best Original Song
, Sound Editing
, and Sound Mixing at the 81st Academy Awards
, which it lost to Slumdog Millionaire
, The Dark Knight
and Milk
, respectively. Walt Disney Pictures also pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture
nomination, but it was not nominated, provoking controversy as to whether the Academy deliberately restricted WALL-E to the Best Animated Feature category, Peter Travers
commented that "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E." Only three animated films, 1991's Beauty and the Beast
and Pixar's next two films, 2009's Up
and 2010's Toy Story 3
, have ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A reflective Stanton stated he was not disappointed the film was restricted to the Best Animated Film nomination because he was overwhelmed by the film's positive reception, and eventually "The line [between live-action and animation] is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie."
WALL-E made a healthy appearance at the various 2008 end-of-the-year awards circles, particularly in the Best Picture category, where animated films are often overlooked. It has won the award, or the equivalent of it, from the Boston Society of Film Critics
(tied with Slumdog Millionaire
), the Chicago Film Critics Association
, the Central Ohio Film Critics awards, the Online Film Critics Society
, and most notably the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, where it became the first animated feature to win the prestigious award. It was named as one of 2008's ten best films by the American Film Institute
and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
.
It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards
, 81st Academy Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2008
. It was nominated for several awards at the 2009 Annie Award
s, including Best Feature Film, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Direction, Production design, Storyboarding and Voice acting (for Ben Burtt); but was beaten out by Kung Fu Panda
in every category. It won Best Animated Feature at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards
, and was also nominated there for Best Music and Sound. Thomas Newman
and Peter Gabriel
won two Grammy Award
s for "Down to Earth
" and "Define Dancing". It won all three awards it was nominated for by the Visual Effects Society
: Best Animation, Best Character Animation (for WALL-E and EVE in the truck) and Best Effects in the Animated Motion Picture categories. It became the first animated film to win Best Editing for a Comedy or Musical from the American Cinema Editors
. In 2009, Stanton, Reardon and Docter won Nebula Award
, beating The Dark Knight
and the Stargate Atlantis
episode "The Shrine
". It won Best Animated Film and was nominated for Best Director at the Saturn Award
s.
At the British National Movie Awards
, which is voted for by the public, it won Best Family Film. It was also voted Best Feature Film at the British Academy Children's Awards
. WALL-E was listed at #63 on Empires online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters, conducted in 2008. In early 2010, TIME
ranks WALL-E #1 in "Best Movies of the Decade".
Interpunct
An interpunct —also called an interpoint—is a small dot used for interword separation in ancient Latin script, which also appears in some modern languages as a stand-alone sign inside a word. It is present in Unicode as code point ....
as WALL•E, is a 2008 American computer-animated
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
produced by Pixar Animation Studios
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
and directed by Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton
Andrew Stanton is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional voice actor based at Pixar Animation Studios. His film work includes writing and directing Finding Nemo and WALL-E; both films earned him the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.-Life and career:Stanton was...
. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste
Waste
Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her into outer space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. Both robots exhibit an appearance of free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
and emotions
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
similar to humans, which develop further as the film progresses.
After directing Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead communicate with body language
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....
and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt
Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer who has worked on various films including: the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and WALL-E...
, that resemble voices. In addition, it is the first animated feature by Pixar to have segments featuring live-action characters.
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
released it in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed $23.2 million on its opening day, and $63.1 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking #1 at the box office. This ranks as the fifth highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto
Presto (film)
Presto is a 2008 American Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before their feature length film WALL-E. The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes...
, for its theatrical release.
WALL-E has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews among critics, scoring an approval rating of 96% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. It grossed $521.3 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for animated films since its establishment. The nominations are announced in January and...
, the 2009 Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual awards given by the Los Angeles-based professional organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
at the 81st Academy Awards
81st Academy Awards
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
. WALL-E ranks first in TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
's "Best Movies of the Decade".
Plot
The film is set in 2805, with Earth an abandoned planet covered in trash, the result of decades of mass consumerismConsumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
facilitated by the megacorporation Buy-n-Large (BnL). Giving up on restoring the ecosystem, BnL evacuated Earth's population in fully automated star
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
liners
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
in 2105, leaving behind an army of trash compactor
Compactor
A compactor is a machine or mechanism used to reduce the size of waste material or soil through compaction. A trash compactor is often used by homes and businesses to reduce the volume of trash....
robots called "WALL-E" (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class) to clean up for an intended five-year period. By 2110, however, the air on Earth became too toxic to sustain life, forcing humanity to remain in space. At the start of the film, one WALL-E unit has managed to remain active for six hundred years beyond its designed operational lifespan, by learning how to salvage and repair itself using parts from other WALL-E units that broke down. After seven hundred years of life-experience it has developed sentience
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
, displaying curiosity about the artifacts of human civilization by collecting various items salvaged from the trash in addition to his regular duties, and it has befriended a cockroach.
One day, WALL-E discovers a seedling
Seedling
thumb|Monocot and dicot seedlingsA seedling is a young plant sporophyte developing out of a plant embryo from a seed. Seedling development starts with germination of the seed. A typical young seedling consists of three main parts: the radicle , the hypocotyl , and the cotyledons...
plant growing among the trash and brings it home to his storage truck. Later, a spaceship lands and deploys EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), an advanced robot sent from the BnL starliner, known as the Axiom, with the directive
Directive (programming)
In computer programming, the term directive is applied in a variety of ways that are similar to the term command. It is also used to describe some programming language constructs ....
to search for signs of vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
on Earth. WALL-E falls in love with the initially cold and hostile EVE, who gradually softens and befriends him. When WALL-E brings EVE to his truck to show her the plant, she automatically stores it, goes into standby mode and sends a retrieval signal for her ship, which returns to collect her while WALL-E clings to its hull as it returns to the Axiom.
On the Axiom, the ship's human passengers have suffered from severe bone loss
Spaceflight osteopenia
Spaceflight osteopenia refers to the characteristic bone loss that occurs during spaceflight. Astronauts lose an average of more than 1% bone mass per month spent in space...
and become morbidly obese
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
after centuries of living in microgravity and relying on the ship's automated systems. The ship's captain does little, leaving control of the Axiom to its robotic autopilot
Autopilot
An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles...
, Auto. WALL-E follows EVE to the bridge of the Axiom where the captain learns, by scanning EVE's plant sample with the ship's holo-detector, that Earth is possibly habitable again. Thus, the Axiom will make a hyperjump
Jump drive
A jump drive is one of the speculative inventions in science fiction, a method of traveling faster than light .Related concepts are hyperdrive, warp drive and interstellar teleporter. The key characteristic of a jump drive is that it allows a starship to be instantaneously teleported between two...
back to Earth so its passengers can recolonize. However, Auto orders the captain's robotic assistant GO-4 to steal the plant as part of a secret directive to keep humanity away from Earth, as life was incorrectly deemed unsustainable.
With the plant now missing, EVE is considered defective
Fault (technology)
In document ISO/CD 10303-226, a fault is defined as an abnormal condition or defect at the component, equipment, or sub-system level which may lead to a failure....
and taken to the repair ward along with WALL-E for cleanup. WALL-E mistakes EVE's inspection for torture and breaks free, and tries to save her. He accidentally releases a horde of malfunctioning robots, getting himself and EVE designated as rogue robots. Angry with WALL-E's disruptions, EVE brings him to the escape pod
Escape pod
An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
bay to send him home. There they witness GO-4 place the missing plant inside a pod and setting the pod to self-destruct, in order to get rid of it. WALL-E enters the pod before it launches, retrieves the plant, and escapes unharmed before the pod explodes. He then reconciles with EVE, celebrating with a dance outside the Axiom.
The plant is brought to the captain, who surveys EVE's recordings of the damaged Earth and realizes that mankind must return to restore it. However, Auto reveals his no return
Point of no return
The point of no return is the point beyond which one must continue on his or her current course of action because turning back is physically impossible, prohibitively expensive or dangerous. It is also used when the distance or effort required to get back would be greater than the remainder of the...
directive, stages a mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
, and tasers
Taser
A Taser is an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles. Its manufacturer, Taser International, calls the effects "neuromuscular incapacitation" and the devices' mechanism "Electro-Muscular Disruption technology"...
WALL-E (who is attempting to protect the plant) causing him to short circuit
Short circuit
A short circuit in an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path, often where essentially no electrical impedance is encountered....
. EVE realizes the only parts for repairing WALL-E are in his truck on Earth, so she helps him get the plant to the holo-detector to activate the Axioms hyperjump. The captain opens the holo-detector while fighting with Auto, but Auto crushes WALL-E by closing the holo-detector on him. The Captain discovers Auto's shut down switch and presses it, disabling Auto and releasing control of the ship. EVE places the plant in the holo-detector, freeing WALL-E, though he is now severely damaged. The Axiom then returns to Earth.
EVE brings WALL-E's body back to his home where she successfully repairs and reactivates him. Unfortunately, WALL-E's memory is erased and he reverts to his original programming. Heartbroken, EVE gives WALL-E a farewell "kiss", causing an electric spark
Electric spark
An electric spark is a type of electrostatic discharge that occurs when an electric field creates an ionized electrically conductive channel in air producing a brief emission of light and sound. A spark is formed when the electric field strength exceeds the dielectric field strength of air...
that reboots WALL-E's memory and personality. WALL-E and EVE happily reunite as the humans and robots of the Axiom begin to restore Earth's environment. Drawings during the end credits show them doing just that, as more and more plants sprout up on earth, with more and more animals too, and the humans have become thinner and healthier from working physically.
Cast and characters
- Ben BurttBen BurttBenjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer who has worked on various films including: the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and WALL-E...
produced the voice of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class), the title character. WALL-E, a robot who has developed sentience, is the only robot of "his" kind shown to be still functioning on Earth. "He" is a small mobile compactor box with all-terrain treads, three-fingered shovel hands, binocular eyes, and retractable solar cells for power. He collects spare parts for himself (This becomes pivotal) and replaces broken and/or worn out parts on-the-fly by cannibalizingCannibalization of machine partsCannibalization of machine parts, in maintenance of mechanical or electronic systems with interchangeable parts, refers to the practice of removing parts or subsystems necessary for repair from another similar device, rather than from inventory, usually when resources become limited...
dead WALL-Es. Although working diligently to fulfil his directive to clean up the garbage (all the while accompanied by his cockroach friend Hal and music playing from his on-board recorder) he is distracted by his curiosity, collecting trinkets of interest. He stores and displays these treasures such as a cage full of rubber duckRubber duckA rubber duck is a toy shaped like a stylised Yellow-billed Duck , and is generally yellow with a flat base. It may be made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic...
s, a Rubik's CubeRubik's CubeRubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that...
, disposable cups filled with plastic cutlery and a golden trophyTrophyA trophy is a reward for a specific achievement, and serves as recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are most often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics...
at his home where he examines and categorizes his finds while watching video cassettes of musicals via an iPodIPodiPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
viewed through a huge magnifier.- Burtt is also credited for the voice of M-O (Microbe Obliterator), as well as most of the other robots. M-O is a tiny, obsessive compulsiveObsessive-compulsive disorderObsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
maintenance robot who keeps Axiom clean. When M-O meets WALL-E and sees how filthy he is, "he" deviates from his normal routine and follows WALL-E, cleaning up behind him. When he follows WALL-E to the garbage bay, he inadvertently but fortuitously saves WALL-E and EVE from being sucked into the vacuum of space.
- Burtt is also credited for the voice of M-O (Microbe Obliterator), as well as most of the other robots. M-O is a tiny, obsessive compulsive
- Elissa KnightElissa KnightElissa Knight is an American employee at Pixar Animation Studios and voice actress. As a voice actress, her first major role was in the 2008 film WALL-E as a robot named EVE.-Biography:...
as EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek robot probe whose directive is to locate vegetation on Earth and verify habitability. "She" has a glossy white egg-shaped body and blue LEDLEdLEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
eyes. She moves using antigravity technology and is equipped with scanners, specimen storage and a plasma cannon in her arm (which she is quick to use). When first deployed on Earth she appears devoid of feeling but as the craft that delivered her blasts off and away she springs to life with gleeful flight. After WALL-E (while watching her) accidentally draws her attention she sets about following her directive growing ever more impatient with both her lack of success and with WALL-E's constant monitoring. This shared strength of feeling soon connects the two characters. - Jeff GarlinJeff GarlinJeffrey "Jeff" Garlin is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, voice artist, director, writer and author, best known for his role as Jeff Greene on the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm...
as Captain B. McCrea, the commander and lone officer on the Axiom. His duties as captain are boring daily routines, with the ship's autopilot handling all true command functions. Meeting WALL-E, however, sparks his interest in Earth and he becomes engrossed in researching his home planet, paving the way for his retaking control of the ship back from the Autopilot. - Fred WillardFred WillardFred Willard is an American actor, comedian, and voice over actor, best known for his improvisational comedy skills. He is known for his roles in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration as well as...
as Shelby Forthright, historical CEO of the Buy-n-Large Corporation, shown only in videos recorded around the time of the Axioms initial launch. Constantly optimistic, Forthright proposed the evacuation plans, then to clean up and recolonize the planet. However, the corporation gave up after realizing how toxic Earth had become. Forthright is the only live action character with a speaking role, the first in any Pixar film. - MacInTalkPlainTalkPlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc.In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many respected researchers in the field. The result was "PlainTalk", released with the...
, the text-to-speech program for the Apple MacintoshMacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, was used for the voice of Auto, the autopilotAutopilotAn autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles...
artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
built into the ship. Unlike other robots in the film, Auto is not influenced by WALL-E, instead following directive A113 to the letter, preventing anyone from deviating from it. The robot's design is a homage to HAL 9000HAL 9000HAL 9000 is the antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction Space Odyssey saga. HAL is an artificial intelligence that interacts with the astronaut crew of the Discovery One spacecraft, usually represented as a red television-camera eye found throughout the ship...
from 2001: A Space Odyssey, featuring a HAL-style red "eye" in the center of his body. - John RatzenbergerJohn RatzenbergerJohn Deszo Ratzenberger is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in Cheers.-Early life:...
and Kathy NajimyKathy NajimyKathy Ann Najimy is an American actress, most notable as Olive Massery on the television series Veronica's Closet, Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series King of the Hill. Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows...
as John and Mary, respectively. John and Mary both live on the Axiom and are so dependent on their personal video screens and automatic services that they are oblivious to their surroundings, for instance not noticing that the ship features a giant swimming pool. However, they are brought out of their trances after separate encounters with WALL-E, eventually meeting face-to-face for the first time. - Sigourney WeaverSigourney WeaverSigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
as the voice of the Axioms computer. Stanton joked about the role with Weaver, saying, "You realize you get to be "Mother" now?" referring to the name of the ship's computer in the film AlienAlien (film)Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
, which also starred Weaver.
Writing
Andrew Stanton conceived WALL-E during a lunch with fellow writers John LasseterJohn Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft
Joe Ranft
Joseph Henry "Joe" Ranft was an American screenwriter, animator, storyboard artist and voice actor who worked for Pixar and Disney. His brother, Jerome Ranft, is a sculptor who also worked on several Pixar movies....
in 1994. Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
was nearing completion and the writers brainstormed ideas for their next projects – A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
, Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc.
Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated film and the fourth feature-length film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and written by Jill Culton, Peter Docter, Ralph Eggleston, Dan Gerson, Jeff Pidgeon, Rhett...
, and Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
– at this lunch. Stanton asked, "What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?" Having struggled for many years with making the characters in Toy Story appealing, Stanton found his simple Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
-esque idea of a lonely robot on a deserted planet very strong. Stanton made WALL-E a waste collector
Waste collector
A waste collector is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and remove refuse and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal...
as the idea was instantly understandable, and because it was a low-status menial job that made him sympathetic. Stanton also liked the imagery of stacked cubes of garbage. He did not find the idea dark because having a planet covered in garbage was for him a childish imagining of disaster.
Stanton and Pete Docter developed the film under the title of Trash Planet for two months in 1995, but they did not know how to develop the story and Docter chose to direct Monsters, Inc. instead. Stanton came up with the idea of WALL-E finding a plant, because his life as the sole inhabitant on a deserted world reminded Stanton of a plant growing among pavements. Before they turned their attention to other projects, Stanton and Lasseter thought about having WALL-E fall in love, as it was the necessary progression away from loneliness. Stanton started writing WALL-E again in 2002 while completing Finding Nemo. Stanton formatted his script in a manner reminiscent of Dan O'Bannon
Dan O'Bannon
Daniel Thomas "Dan" O'Bannon was an American motion picture screenwriter, director and occasional actor, usually in the science fiction and horror genres.-Early life and career:...
's Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
. O'Bannon wrote his script in a manner Stanton found reminded him of haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
, where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. Stanton wrote his robot dialogue conventionally, but placed them in brackets. In late 2003, Stanton and a few others created a story reel of the first twenty minutes of the film. Lasseter and Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
were impressed and officially began development, though Jobs stated he did not like the title, originally spelled "W.A.L.-E."
While the first act of WALL-E "fell out of the sky" for Stanton, he had originally wanted aliens to plant EVE to explore Earth and the rest of the film was very different. When WALL-E comes to the Axiom, he incites a Spartacus-style rebellion by the robots against the remnants of the human race, which were cruel alien Gels (completely devolved, gelantinous, boneless, legless, see-through, green creatures that resemble Jell-O
Jell-O
Jell-O is a brand name belonging to U.S.-based Kraft Foods for a number of gelatin desserts, including fruit gels, puddings and no-bake cream pies. The brand's popularity has led to it being used as a generic term for gelatin dessert across the U.S. and Canada....
). James Hicks, a physiologist, mentioned to Stanton the concept of atrophy
Atrophy
Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations , poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply to the target organ, disuse or lack of exercise or disease intrinsic to the tissue itself...
and the effects prolonged weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
would have on humans living in space for an inordinately extended time period. Therefore, this was the inspiration of the humans degenerating into the alien Gels, and their ancestry would have been revealed in a Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes (1968 film)
Planet of the Apes is a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison...
-style ending. The Gels also spoke a made-up gibberish language, but Stanton scrapped this idea because he thought it would be too complicated for the audience to understand and they could easily be driven off from the storyline. The Gels had a royal family, who host a dance in a castle on a lake in the back of the ship, and the Axiom curled up into a ball when returning to Earth in this incarnation of the story. Stanton decided this was too bizarre and unengaging, and conceived humanity as "big babies". Stanton developed the metaphorical theme of the humans learning to stand again and "grow[ing] up", wanting WALL-E and EVE's relationship to inspire humanity because he felt very few films explore how utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n societies come to exist. The process of depicting the descendants of humanity as the way they appear in the movie was very slow. Stanton first decided to put a nose and ears on the Gels so the audience could recognize them. Eventually, fingers, legs, clothes, and other characteristics were added until they arrived at the concept of being fetus-like to allow the audience to see themselves in the characters.
In a later version of the film, Auto comes to the docking bay to retrieve EVE's plant. The film would have its first cutaway to the captain, but Stanton moved that as he found it too early to begin moving away from WALL-E's point-of-view. As a homage to Get Smart
Get Smart
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams , Barbara Feldon , and Edward Platt...
, Auto takes the plant and goes into the bowels of the ship into a room resembling a brain where he watches videos of Buy n Large's scheme to clean-up the Earth falling apart through the years. Stanton removed this to keep some mystery as to why the plant is taken from EVE. The captain appears to be unintelligent, but Stanton wanted him to just be unchallenged; otherwise he would have been unempathetic. One example of how unintelligent the captain was depicted initially is that he was seen to wear his hat upside-down, only to fix it before he challenges Auto. In the finished film, he merely wears it casually atop his head, tightening it when he assumes real command of the Axiom.
Originally, EVE would have been electrocuted by Auto, and then be quickly saved from ejection at the hands of the WALL-A robots by WALL-E. He would have then revived her by replacing her power unit with a cigarette lighter he brought from Earth. Stanton reversed this following a 2007 test screening, as he wanted to show EVE replacing her directive of bringing the plant to the captain with repairing WALL-E, and it made WALL-E even more heroic if he held the holo-detector open despite being badly hurt. Stanton also moved the moment where WALL-E reveals his plant (which he had snatched from the self-destructing escape pod) from producing it from a closet to immediately after his escape, as it made EVE happier and gave them stronger motivation to dance around the ship. Stanton felt half the audience at the screening believed the humans would be unable to cope with living on Earth and would have died out after the film's end. Jim Capobianco, director of the short film Your Friend the Rat
Your Friend the Rat
Your Friend the Rat is Pixar's first short film to feature traditional animation. At 11 minutes, it is also the longest Pixar short to date. Along with 2D animation, the short also includes stop-motion animation, computer generated imagery and live action, much like the children's television...
, created an end credits animation that continued the story – and stylized in different artistic movements throughout history – to clarify an optimistic tone.
Design
WALL-E was the most complex Pixar production since Monsters, Inc. because of the world and the history that had to be conveyed. Whereas most Pixar films have up to 75,000 storyboardStoryboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s, WALL-E required 125,000. Production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Ralph Eggleston
Ralph Eggleston
Ralph Eggleston is an American animator, art director, storyboard artist and production designer at Pixar Animation Studios....
wanted the lighting of the first act on Earth to be romantic, while the second act on the Axiom to be cold and sterile. During the third act, the romantic lighting is slowly introduced into the Axiom environment. Pixar studied Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
and the city of Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
to create the ruined world; art director Anthony Christov was from Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and recalled Sofia used to have problems storing its garbage. Eggleston bleached out the whites on Earth to make WALL-E feel vulnerable. The overexposed light makes the location look more vast. Because of the haziness, the cubes making up the towers of garbage had to be very large, otherwise they would have lost shape (in turn, this helped save rendering time). The dull tans of Earth subtly become soft pinks and blues when EVE arrives. When WALL-E shows EVE all his collected items, all the lights he has collected light up to give an inviting atmosphere, like a Christmas tree
Christmas tree
The Christmas tree is a decorated evergreen coniferous tree, real or artificial, and a tradition associated with the celebration of Christmas. The tradition of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas started in Livonia and Germany in the 16th century...
. Eggleston tried to avoid the colors yellow and green so WALL-E – who was made yellow to emulate a tractor – would not blend into the deserted Earth, and to make the plant more prominent.
Stanton also wanted the lighting to look realistic and evoke the science fiction films of his youth. He felt Pixar had captured the physics of being underwater with Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
, so for WALL-E he wanted to push that for air. It was while rewatching some of his favorite science fiction films he realized Pixar's films lacked the look of 70 mm film
70 mm film
70mm film is a wide high-resolution film gauge, with higher resolution than standard 35mm motion picture film format. As used in camera, the film is wide. For projection, the original 65mm film is printed on film. The additional 5mm are for magnetic strips holding four of the six tracks of sound...
and its barrel distortion, lens flare
Lens flare
Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image...
and racking focus
Racking focus
Racking focus in filmmaking and television production is the practice of shifting the attention of a audience of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa...
. Producer Jim Morris invited Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren to advise on lighting and atmosphere. Muren spent several months with Pixar, while Deakins hosted one talk and was requested to stay on for another two weeks. Stanton said Muren's experience came from integrating computer animation into live-action settings, while Deakins helped them understand not to overly complicate their camerawork and lighting. 1970s Panavision cameras
Panavision cameras
The following is a list of Panavision's various cameras and camera systems.-Panaflex and Panaflex Gold:Panaflex :Panaflex-X :Panaflex Lightweight : The Panaflex Lightweight is a sync-sound 35 mm motion picture camera, stripped of all components not essential for work with 'floating camera'...
were used to help the animators understand and replicate handheld imperfections like unfocused backgrounds in digital environments. The first lighting test consisted of building a three-dimensional replica of WALL-E, filming it with a 70 mm camera, and then trying to replicate that in the computer. Stanton cited the shallow lens work of Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
's films as an influence, as it created intimacy in each close-up. Stanton chose angles for the virtual cameras that a live-action filmmaker would choose if filming on a set.
Stanton wanted the Axioms interior to resemble Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
. Eggleston studied 1960s NASA paintings and the original concept art for Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland
- Tomorrowland 1955–1967 :The first Tomorrowland opened at Disneyland on July 18, 1955, with only several of its planned attractions open, due to budget cuts. The construction of the park was rushed, so Tomorrowland was the last land to be finished. It became something of a corporate showcase,...
for the Axiom, to reflect that era's sense of optimism. Stanton remarked "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," and wanted a "jet pack
Jet pack
Jet pack, rocket belt, rocket pack, and similar names are various types of devices, usually worn on the back, that are propelled by jets of escaping gases so as to allow a single user to fly....
" feel. Pixar also studied the Disney Cruise Line
Disney Cruise Line
Disney Cruise Line is an American cruise line company owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Company and is headquartered in Celebration, Florida. The business is run by President Karl Holz. Disney Cruise Line operates the Disney Cruise Line Terminal,...
and visited Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, which was helpful in understanding artificial lighting. Eggleston based his Axiom designs on the futuristic architecture of Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava Valls is a Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer whose principal office is in Zürich, Switzerland. Classed now among the elite designers of the world, he has offices in Zürich, Paris, Valencia, and New York City....
. Eggleston divided the inside of the ship into three sections; the rear's economy class has a basic gray concrete texture with graphics keeping to the red, blue and white of the BnL logo. The coach class with living/shopping spaces has 'S' shapes as people are always looking for "what's around the corner". Stanton intended to have many colorful signs, but he realized this would overwhelm the audience and went with Eggleston's original idea of a small number of larger signs. The premier class is a large Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
-like spa with colors limited to turquoise, cream and tan, and leads on to the captain's warm carpeted and wooded quarters and the sleek dark bridge. In keeping with the artificial Axiom, camera movements were modeled after those of the steadicam
Steadicam
A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement, allowing a smooth shot even when moving quickly over an uneven surface...
.
The use of live action was a stepping stone for Pixar, as Stanton was planning to make John Carter of Mars
John Carter of Mars (film)
John Carter is a 2012 American epic science fiction film featuring John Carter, the heroic protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 11-volume Barsoom series. In the film, former Confederate captain John Carter is transported to Mars...
his next project. Storyboarder Derek Thompson noted introducing live action meant they had to make the rest of the film look even more realistic. Eggleston added that if the historical humans had been animated and slightly caricaturized, then the audience would not have recognized how serious their devolution was. Stanton cast Fred Willard
Fred Willard
Fred Willard is an American actor, comedian, and voice over actor, best known for his improvisational comedy skills. He is known for his roles in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration as well as...
as the historical Buy n Large CEO because "He's the most friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of." The CEO says "stay the course
Stay the course
"Stay the course" is a phrase used in the context of a war or battle meaning to pursue a goal regardless of any obstacles or criticism. The modern usage of this term was popularized by United States presidents George W. Bush, George H. W...
," which Stanton used because he thought it was funny. Industrial Light & Magic did the visual effects for these shots.
Animation
WALL-E went undeveloped during the 1990s partly because Stanton and Pixar were not confident enough yet to have a feature length film with a main character that behaved like Luxo Jr.Luxo Jr.
Luxo Jr. is the first film produced in 1986 by Pixar Animation Studios, following its establishment as an independent film studio. It is a computer-animated short film , demonstrating the kind of things the newly-established company was capable of producing...
or R2-D2
R2-D2
R2-D2 , is a character in the Star Wars universe. An astromech droid, R2-D2 is a major character throughout all six Star Wars films. Along with his droid companion C-3PO, he joins or supports Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in various points in the saga...
. Stanton explained there are two types of robots in cinema: "human[s] with metal skin", like the Tin Man
Tin Woodman
The Tin Woodman, sometimes referred to as the Tin Man or the Tin Woodsman , is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum...
, or "machine[s] with function" like Luxo and R2. He found the latter idea "powerful" because it allowed the audience to project personalities onto the characters, as they do with babies and pets: "You're compelled ... you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'" He added, "We wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life." The animators visited recycling stations to study machinery, and also met robot designers, visited NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
to study robots, watched a recording of a Mars rover
Mars Rover
A Mars rover is an automated motor vehicle which propels itself across the surface of the planet Mars after landing.Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to...
, and borrowed a bomb detecting robot from the San Francisco Police Department
San Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
. Simplicity was preferred in their performances as giving them too many movements would make them feel human.
Stanton wanted WALL-E to be a box and EVE to be like an egg. WALL-E's eyes were inspired by a pair of binoculars
Binoculars
Binoculars, field glasses or binocular telescopes are a pair of identical or mirror-symmetrical telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point accurately in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects...
Stanton was given when watching the Oakland Athletics
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....
play against the Boston Red Sox
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
. He "missed the entire inning" because he was distracted by them. The director was reminded of Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
and decided the robot would not need a nose or mouth. Stanton added a zoom lens
Zoom lens
A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length can be varied, as opposed to a fixed focal length lens...
to make WALL-E more sympathetic. Ralph Eggleston
Ralph Eggleston
Ralph Eggleston is an American animator, art director, storyboard artist and production designer at Pixar Animation Studios....
noted this feature gave the animators more to work with and gave the robot a child-like quality. Pixar's studies of trash compactor
Compactor
A compactor is a machine or mechanism used to reduce the size of waste material or soil through compaction. A trash compactor is often used by homes and businesses to reduce the volume of trash....
s during their visits to recycling stations inspired his body. His tank treads were inspired by a wheelchair someone had developed that used treads instead of wheels. The animators wanted him to have elbow
Elbow
The human elbow is the region surrounding the elbow-joint—the ginglymus or hinge joint in the middle of the arm. Three bones form the elbow joint: the humerus of the upper arm, and the paired radius and ulna of the forearm....
s, but realized this was unrealistic because he is only designed to pull garbage into his body. His arms also looked very flimsy when they did a test of him waving. Animation director Angus MacLane suggested they attach his arms to a track on the sides of his body to move them around, based on the inkjet printer
Inkjet printer
An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...
s his father designed. This arm design contributed to creating the character's posture, so if they wanted him to be nervous, they would lower them. Stanton was unaware of the similarities between WALL-E and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit
Short Circuit
Short Circuit is a 1986 comedy science fiction film starring Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg and directed by John Badham. Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W...
until others pointed it out to him.
Stanton wanted EVE to be at the higher end of technology, and asked iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
designer Jonathan Ive
Jonathan Ive
Jonathan "Jony" Ive, CBE is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc. He is the leading designer and conceptual mind behind the iMac, titanium and aluminum PowerBook G4, G4 Cube, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.- Early...
to inspect her design. He was very impressed. Her eyes are modelled on Lite-Brite
Lite-Brite
Lite-Brite is a toy, created by Hasbro in 1967, which allows the user to create glowing designs. It is a light box with small colored plastic pegs that fit into a matrix of holes and illuminate to create a lit piece of art. Using the colored pegs the user can create designs from imagination or by...
toys, but Pixar chose not to make them overly expressive as it would be too easy to have her eyes turn into hearts to express love or something similar. Her limited design meant the animators had to treat her like a drawing, relying on posing her body to express emotion. They also found her similar to a manatee
Manatee
Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows...
or a narwhal
Narwhal
The narwhal, Monodon monoceros, is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic. One of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale, the narwhal males are distinguished by a characteristic long, straight, helical tusk extending from their...
because her floating body resembled an underwater creature. Auto was a conscious homage to HAL 9000
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is the antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction Space Odyssey saga. HAL is an artificial intelligence that interacts with the astronaut crew of the Discovery One spacecraft, usually represented as a red television-camera eye found throughout the ship...
from 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, and the usage of Also sprach Zarathustra
Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical treatise of the same name. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt...
for the showdown between the captain and Auto furthers that. The manner in which he hangs from a wall gives him a threatening feel, like a spider. Originally, Auto was designed entirely differently, resembling EVE, but masculine and authoritative; the Steward robots were also more aggressive Patrol-bots. The majority of the robot cast were formed with the Build-a-bot program, where different heads, arms and treads were combined together in over a hundred variations. The humans were modelled on sea lion
Sea Lion
Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear-flaps, long fore-flippers, the ability to walk on all fours, and short thick hair. Together with the fur seal, they comprise the family Otariidae, or eared seals. There are six extant and one extinct species in five genera...
s due to their blubber
Blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue found under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians.-Description:Lipid-rich, collagen fiber–laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages, strongly attached to the musculature...
y bodies, as well as babies. The filmmakers noticed baby fat is a lot tighter than adult fat and copied that texture for the film's humans.
To animate their robots, Pixar watched a Keaton and a Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
film every day for almost a year, and occasionally a Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
picture. Afterwards, the filmmakers knew all emotions could be conveyed silently. Stanton cited Keaton's "great stone face" as giving them perseverance in animating a character with an unchanging expression. As he rewatched these, Stanton felt that filmmakers – since the advent of sound – relied on dialogue too much to convey exposition. The filmmakers dubbed the cockroach WALL-E keeps as a pet "Hal", in reference to silent film producer Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
(as well as being an additional reference to HAL 9000). They also watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Black Stallion
The Black Stallion (film)
The Black Stallion is a 1979 American film based on the 1941 classic children's novel The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. It tells the story of Alec Ramsey, who is shipwrecked on a desert island, together with a wild Arabian stallion whom he befriends...
and Never Cry Wolf
Never Cry Wolf (film)
Never Cry Wolf is a 1983 American drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is an adaption of Farley Mowat's 1963 autobiography of the same name and stars Charles Martin Smith as a government biologist sent into the wilderness to study the caribou population, whose decline is believed to be...
, films that had sound but were not reliant on dialogue. Stanton acknowledged Silent Running
Silent Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.-Plot summary:Silent Running depicts a...
as an influence because its silent robots were a forerunner to the likes of R2-D2, and that the "hopeless romantic" Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
also inspired WALL-E.
Sound
Producer Jim Morris recommended Ben Burtt as sound designSound design
Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...
er for WALL-E because Stanton kept using R2-D2
R2-D2
R2-D2 , is a character in the Star Wars universe. An astromech droid, R2-D2 is a major character throughout all six Star Wars films. Along with his droid companion C-3PO, he joins or supports Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in various points in the saga...
as the benchmark for the robots. Burtt had completed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....
and told his wife he would no longer work on films with robots, but found WALL-E and its substitution of voices with sound "fresh and exciting". He recorded 2500 sounds for the film, which was twice the average number for a Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
film, and a record in his career. Burtt began work in 2005, and experimented with filtering his voice for two years. Burtt described the robot voices as "like a toddler
Toddler
A toddler is a young child, usually defined as being between the ages of one and three. Registered nurse, midwife and author, Robin Barker, states 'Any time from eight months onwards your baby will begin to realise he is a separate person from you...
[...] universal language
Universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's population. In some circles, it is a language said to be understood by all living things, beings, and objects alike. It may be the ideal of an international auxiliary language...
of intonation
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
. 'Oh', 'Hm?', 'Huh!', you know?"
During production Burtt had the opportunity to look at the items used by Jimmy MacDonald
Jimmy MacDonald (sound effects artist)
John James "Jimmy" MacDonald was a Scottish voice actor and the original head of the Disney sound effects department, and the voice of Mickey Mouse from 1946 to 1977.-Career and sound effects:...
, Disney's in-house sound designer for many of their classic films. Burtt used many of MacDonald's items on WALL-E. Because Burtt was not simply adding sound effects in post-production, the animators were always evaluating his new creations and ideas, which Burtt found an unusual experience. He worked in sync with the animators, returning their animation after adding the sounds to give them more ideas. Burtt would choose scientifically-accurate sounds for each character, but if he could not find one that worked, he would choose a dramatic if unrealistic noise. Burtt would find hundreds of sounds by looking at concept art of characters, before he and Stanton pared it down to a distinct few for each robot.
Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching Island in the Sky
Island in the Sky (1953 film)
Island in The Sky is a 1953 American aviation adventure/drama film written by Ernest K. Gann based on his 1944 novel of the same name, directed by William A. Wellman, and starring and co-produced by John Wayne. It was released by Warner Bros...
, and bought an identical, unpacked device from 1950 on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
to use for WALL-E moving around. Burtt also used an automobile self starter
Automobile self starter
A starter motor is an electric motor for rotating an internal-combustion engine so as to initiate the engine's operation under its own power.- History :...
for when WALL-E goes fast, and the sound of cars being wrecked at a demolition derby
Demolition derby
Demolition derby is a motorsport usually presented at county fairs and festivals. While rules vary from event to event, the typical demolition derby event consists of five or more drivers competing by deliberately ramming their vehicles into one another...
provided for WALL-E's compressing trash in his body. The Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
computer chime was used to signify when WALL-E has fully recharged his battery. For EVE, Burtt wanted her humming to have a musical quality. Burtt was only able to provide neutral or masculine voices, so Pixar employee Elissa Knight was asked to provide her voice for Burtt to electronically modify. Stanton deemed the sound effect good enough to properly cast her in the role. Burtt recorded a flying 10 feet (3 m) radio-controlled jet plane for EVE's flying, and for her plasma cannon, Burtt hit a slinky
Slinky
Slinky or "Lazy Spring" is a toy consisting of a helical spring that stretches and can bounce up and down. It can perform a number of tricks, including traveling down a flight of steps end-over-end as it stretches and re-forms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum.-History:The toy was...
hung from a ladder with a timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
stick. He described it as a "cousin" to the blaster
Blaster (Star Wars)
Blasters are ranged weapons in the Star Wars fictional universe. This category of plasma bolt-firing rayguns includes various pistols, rifles, and other powerful weapons.-Production:...
noise from Star Wars.
MacInTalk
PlainTalk
PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc.In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many respected researchers in the field. The result was "PlainTalk", released with the...
was used because Stanton "wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless [and] Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
's kind of voice I thought was perfect." Additional sounds for the character were meant to give him a clockwork feel, to show he is always thinking and calculating.
Burtt had visited Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
in 1987 and used his recordings from his trip for the sounds of wind. He ran around a hall with a canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
bag up to record the sandstorm though. For the scene where WALL-E runs from falling shopping carts, Burtt and his daughter went to a supermarket and placed a recorder in their cart. They crashed it around the parking lot and then let it tumble down a hill. To create Hal (WALL-E's pet cockroach)'s skittering, he recorded the clicking caused by taking apart and reassembling handcuffs
Handcuffs
Handcuffs are restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists close together. They comprise two parts, linked together by a chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each half has a rotating arm which engages with a ratchet that prevents it from being opened once closed around a person's wrist...
.
Music
Thomas NewmanThomas Newman
Thomas Montgomery Newman is an American composer and conductor, best known for his many film scores. He is one of the more respected and recognized composers for modern film and has scored over fifty feature films in a career which spans nearly three decades.Newman has received a total of ten...
recollaborated with Stanton on WALL-E since the two got along well on Nemo, which gave Newman the Annie Award for Best Music in an Animated Feature. He began writing the score in 2005, in the hope that starting this task early would make him more involved with the finished film. But, Newman remarked that animation is so dependent on scheduling he should have begun work earlier on when Stanton and Reardon were writing the script. EVE's theme was arranged for the first time in October 2007. Her theme when played as she first flies around Earth originally used more orchestral elements, and Newman was encouraged to make it sound more feminine. Newman said Stanton had thought up of many ideas for how he wanted the music to sound, and he generally followed them as he found scoring a partially silent film difficult. Stanton wanted the whole score to be orchestral, but Newman felt limited by this idea especially in scenes aboard the Axiom, and used electronics too.
Stanton originally wanted to juxtapose the opening shots of space with 1930s French swing music, but he saw The Triplets of Belleville (2003) and did not want to appear as if he were copying it. Stanton then thought about the song "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly!, since he had portrayed the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a 1980 high school production. Stanton found that the song was about two naive young men looking for love, which was similar to WALL-E's own hope for companionship. Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
suggested WALL-E find the film on video, and Stanton included "It Only Takes a Moment" and the clip of the actors holding hands, because he wanted a visual way to show how WALL-E understands love and conveys it to EVE. Hello Dolly! composer Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage...
allowed the songs to be used without knowing what for; when he saw the film, he found its incorporation into the story "genius". Coincidentally, Newman's uncle Lionel
Lionel Newman
Lionel Newman was an American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer. He was the brother of Alfred Newman and Emil Newman, uncle of Randy Newman, David Newman and Thomas Newman, and grandfather of Joey Newman....
worked on Hello, Dolly!
Newman travelled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to compose the end credits song "Down to Earth
Down to Earth (Peter Gabriel song)
"Down to Earth" is a song, sung and produced by Peter Gabriel featuring the Soweto Gospel Choir. The lyrics were written by Peter Gabriel. The music was composed by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman...
" with Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
, who was one of Stanton's favorite musicians. Afterwards, Newman rescored some of the film to include the song's composition, so it would not sound intrusive when played. Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
's rendition of "La Vie en rose
La vie en rose
"La Vie en Rose" was the signature song of French singer Édith Piaf.-Signature song of Édith Piaf:Édith Piaf first popularized La Vie en Rose in 1946. The lyrics were written by Piaf and the melody of the song by "Louiguy" . Initially, Piaf's peers and her songwriting team did not think the song...
" was used for a montage where WALL-E does not get EVE's attention on Earth. The script also specified using Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
's "Stardust
Stardust (song)
"Stardust" is an American popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics added in 1929 by Mitchell Parish. Originally titled "Star Dust", Carmichael first recorded the song at the Gennett Records studio in Richmond, Indiana...
" for when the two robots dance around the Axiom, but Newman asked if he could score the scene himself. A similar switch occurred for the sequence in which WALL-E attempts to wake EVE up through various means; originally, the montage would play with the instrumental version of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is B. J. Thomas's #1 song, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. David and Bacharach also won Best Original Score. It was recorded in seven takes, after...
", but Newman wanted to challenge himself and scored an original piece for the sequence.
Themes
Stanton describes the theme of the film as "irrational love defeats life's programming":I realized the point I was trying to push with these two programmed robots was the desire for them to try and figure out what the point of living was...It took these really irrational acts of love to sort of discover them against how they were built...I realized that that's a perfect metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another. I thought, 'That's a perfect amplification of the whole point of the movie.' I wanted to run with science in a way that would sort of logically project that.
Stanton noted many commentators placed emphasis on the environmental aspect of humanity's complacency in the film, because "that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for humanity or the planet". Stanton said that by taking away effort to work, the robots also take away humanity's need to put effort into relationships. Christian journalist Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher
Rod Dreher is an American writer and editor. He was a conservative editorial writer and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but departed that newspaper in late 2009 to affiliate with the John Templeton Foundation. He has also contributed in the past to The American Conservative and National...
saw technology as the complicated villain of the film. The humans' artificial lifestyle on the Axiom has separated them from nature, making them "slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher contrasted the hardworking, dirt covered WALL-E with the sleek clean robots on the ship. However, it is the humans and not the robots who make themselves redundant, and during the end credits humans and robots are shown working alongside each other to renew the Earth. "WALL-E is not a Luddite
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
film," he said. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature – that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along."
Stanton, who is Christian, named EVE after the Biblical character
Eve
Eve is the first woman created by God in the Book of Genesis.Eve may also refer to:-People:*Eve , a common given name and surname*Eve , American recording artist and actress-Places:...
because WALL-E's loneliness reminded him of Adam
Adam
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...
, before God created his wife. Dreher noted EVE's biblical namesake and saw her directive as an inversion of that story; EVE uses the plant to tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from the "false god" of BnL and the lazy lifestyle it offers. Dreher also noted this departure from classical Christian viewpoints, where Adam is cursed to labor, in that WALL-E argues hard work is what makes humans human. Dreher emphasized the false god parallels to BnL in a scene where a robot teaches infants "B is for Buy n Large, your very best friend", which he compared to modern corporations such as McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
creating brand loyalty
Brand loyalty
The American Marketing Association defines brand loyalty as:# The situation in which a consumer generally buys the same manufacturer-originated product or service repeatedly over time rather than buying from multiple suppliers within the category .# The degree to which a consumer consistently...
in children. Megan Basham of World magazine felt the film criticizes the pursuit of leisure, whereas WALL-E in his stewardship
Stewardship
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources. The concept of stewardship has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to environment, economics, health, property, information, and religion, and is linked to the concept of sustainability...
learns to truly appreciate God's creation.
During writing, a Pixar employee noted to Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon
Jim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
that EVE was reminiscent of the dove
Dove
Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. In general terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...
with the olive branch
Olive branch
The olive branch in Western culture, derived from the customs of Ancient Greece, symbolizes peace or victory and was worn by brides.-Ancient Greece and Rome:...
from the story of Noah's Ark, and the story was reworked with EVE finding a plant to return humanity from its voyage. WALL-E himself has been compared to Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
, Sisyphus
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
, and Butades
Butades
Butades of Sicyon, sometimes mistakenly called Dibutades, was the first ancient Greek modeller in clay. The period at which he flourished is unknown, but has been put at about 600 BC...
: in an essay discussing WALL-E as representative of the artistic strive of Pixar itself, Hrag Vartanian
Hrag Vartanian
Hrag Vartanian was born in Aleppo, Syria, raised in Toronto, Canada, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is a writer, critic and curator who regularly contributes to AGBU News Magazine, Ararat Magazine, and other publications...
compared WALL-E to Butades in a scene where the robot expresses his love for EVE by making a sculpture of her from spare parts. "The Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover’s shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of relationships."
Release
Continuing a Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short filmShort subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
for its theatrical release, Presto
Presto (film)
Presto is a 2008 American Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before their feature length film WALL-E. The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes...
. The film was dedicated to Justin Wright
Justin Wright
Justin Charles Wright was an American animator and storyboard artist who worked at Pixar Animation Studios for slightly over a year until his death....
(1981–2008), a Pixar animator who had worked on Ratatouille
Ratatouille (film)
Ratatouille is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the eighth film produced by Pixar, and was directed by Brad Bird, who took over from Jan Pinkava in 2005...
and died of a heart attack before WALL-Es release.
Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering is the design and development arm of the Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation and construction of Disney theme parks worldwide...
(WDI) built animatronic WALL-Es to promote the picture, which made appearances at Disneyland Resort
Disneyland Resort
The Disneyland Resort is a recreational resort in Anaheim, California. The resort is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks and Resorts division and is home to two theme parks, three hotels and a shopping, dining, and entertainment area known as Downtown Disney.The area now...
; the Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
; the Miami Science Museum
Miami Science Museum
The Miami Science Museum is an attraction located in the city of Miami, Florida USA. The museum itself also contains the Space-Transit Planetarium, Weintraub Observatory and a wildlife center. The museum is currently working to transplant the museum from its current location to Park West at...
; the Seattle Center
Seattle Center
Seattle Center is a park and arts and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington. The campus is the site used in 1962 by the Century 21 Exposition. It is located just north of Belltown in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood.-Attractions:...
; and the Tokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
. Due to safety concerns, the 318kg robots were always strictly controlled and WDI always needed to know exactly what they were required to interact with. For this reason, they generally refused to have their puppets meet and greet children at the theme parks in case a WALL-E trod on a child's foot. Those who wanted to take a photograph with the character had to make do with a cardboard cutout.
Very small quantities of merchandise were sold for WALL-E, as Cars
Cars (film)
Cars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...
items were still popular, and many manufacturers were more interested in Speed Racer
Speed Racer (film)
Speed Racer is a 2008 American live action film adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida's 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name, produced by Tatsunoko Productions. The film is written and directed by the Wachowskis...
, which was a successful line despite the film's failure at the box office. Thinkway, which created the WALL-E toys, had previously made Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
dolls when other toy producers had not shown an interest. Among Thinkway's items were a WALL-E that danced when connected to a music player, a toy that could be taken apart and reassembled, and a groundbreaking remote control toy of him and EVE that had motion sensors that allowed them to interact with players. There were even soft toys. The "Ultimate WALL-E" figures were not in stores until the film's home release in November 2008, at a retail price of almost $200, leading The Patriot-News to deem it an item for "hard-core fans and collectors only".
3D re-release
After the success of the 3D re-releases of Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast (1991 film)
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third film of the Disney Renaissance period...
and The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
, Disney and Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
announced that WALL-E will have a 3D re-release in 2014.
Box-office performance
WALL-E grossed $223,808,164 in the USA and Canada and $297,503,696 overseas for a worldwide total of $521,311,860, marking it the ninth highest grossing film of 2008.The film premiered at the Greek Theatre
Greek Theatre (Los Angeles)
The Greek Theatre is a 5,700-seat amphitheater, located at Griffith Park, in Los Angeles, California. It was built in 1929, opening on September 29 of that year...
in Los Angeles on June 23, 2008.
In the USA and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, it opened in 3,992 theaters on June 27, 2008. During its opening weekend, it topped the box office with $63,087,526 which is currently the fifth-best opening weekend for a Pixar film and the fourth-best opening among films released in June. The movie earned $94.7 million in its first week and crossed the $200 million mark during its sixth weekend.
Countries where it grossed over $10 million are the following: Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
($44,005,222), UK, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
($41,215,600), France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
region ($27,984,103), Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
($24,130,400), Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
($17,679,805), Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
($14,973,097), Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
($14,165,390), Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
($12,210,993) and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and the CIS
Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
($11,694,482).
Home media
The film was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on November 18, 2008. The various editions included Presto, a new short film BURN-E
BURN-E
BURN-E is a short film by Pixar Animation Studios. It is a parallel spin-off from the feature-length movie WALL-E. Its protagonist, a repair robot named BURN-E, is a minor character from the first movie, and the film is intercut with scenes from WALL-E, which takes place concurrently.BURN-E was...
, the Leslie Iwerks
Leslie Iwerks
Leslie Iwerks is an American director, producer, and writer. She is also daughter to Disney Legend Don Iwerks and granddaughter to the animator and designer of Mickey Mouse, Ub Iwerks.-Biography:...
documentary film The Pixar Story
The Pixar Story
The Pixar Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks, is a documentary of the history of Pixar Animation Studios. An early version of the film premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival in 2007, and it had a limited theatrical run later that year before it was picked up by the Starz cable network in the US.The...
, shorts about the history of Buy n Large, the behind-the-scenes special features and a Digital Copy
Digital copy
Digital Copy provides consumers who purchase a film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD.-Features:...
of the film that can be played through iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
or Windows Media
Windows Media
Windows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK...
and compatible devices. It sold 9,042,054 DVD units ($142,633,974) in total becoming the second best-selling animated DVD among those released in 2008 in terms of units sold (behind Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American computer-animated action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
), the best-selling animated feature in terms of sales revenue and the 3rd best-selling among all 2008 DVDs.
Reviews
WALL-E was met with near universal acclaim. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 96% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 200 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 94, based on 39 reviews. indieWire
IndieWire
indieWIRE is a daily news site for the independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews and movie reviews...
named WALL-E the 3rd best film of the year, based on their annual survey of 100 film critics, while Movie City News shows that WALL-E appeared in 162 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the most mentions on a top ten list of any film released in 2008.
Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
named WALL-E as his favorite film of 2008 (and later of the decade), noting the film succeeded in "connect[ing] with a huge audience" despite the main characters' lack of speech and "emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders [and] elbows". It "evoke[d] the splendor of the movie past" and he also compared WALL-E and EVE's relationship to the chemistry of Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
and Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
. Other critics who named WALL-E as their favorite film of 2008 included Tom Charity of CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Christopher Orr of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr has been a film critic for the Boston Globe since 2002 where he reviews films alongside Wesley Morris.Born in 1957, he studied film at Dartmouth College and New York University and has written three books: The Hundred Greatest Movies of All Time, The Hundred Greatest Stars of All Time and...
and Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris is a film critic at The Boston Globe where he reviews films alongside Ty Burr. Morris and Burr also make regular appearances on NECN to discuss the latest films and do the weekly Take Two film review video series on Boston.com...
of The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern is a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for The Wall Street Journal.-Career:Morgenstern graduated from Lehigh University in 1953. His first journalism experience was as news clerk at the New York Times...
of The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, and Anthony Lane
Anthony Lane
Anthony Lane is a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Personal life:Lane lives in Cambridge with Allison Pearson, a British writer and former Daily Mail columnist...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
.
Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the film "Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder", saying it was imaginative yet straightforward. He said it pushed the boundaries of animation by balancing esoteric ideas with more immediately accessible ones, and that the main difference between the film and other science fiction projects rooted in an apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
was its optimism. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
declared that WALL-E surpassed the achievements of Pixar's previous eight features and probably their most original film to date. He said it had the "heart, soul, spirit and romance" of the best silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s. Honeycutt said the film's definitive stroke of brilliance was in using a mix of archive film footage and computer graphics to trigger WALL-E's romantic leanings. He praised Burtt's sound design, saying "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
writing in the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
found WALL-E "an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment, and a decent science-fiction story". Ebert said the scarcity of dialogue would allow it to "cross language barriers" in a manner appropriate to the global theme, and noted it would appeal to adults and children. He praised the animation, saying the color palette was "bright and cheerful [...] and a little bit realistic", and that Pixar managed to generate a "curious" regard for the WALL-E, comparing his "rusty and hard-working and plucky" design favorably to more obvious attempts at creating "lovable" lead characters. He said WALL-E was concerned with ideas rather than spectacle, saying it would trigger stimulating "little thoughts for the younger viewers." He named it as one of his twenty favorite films of 2008 and argued it was "the best science-fiction movie in years".
The film was interpreted as tackling a topical, ecologically
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
-minded agenda, though McCarthy said it did so with a lightness of touch that granted the viewer the ability to accept or ignore the message. Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, wrote that by depicting future humans as "a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk", WALL-E was darker and more cynical than any major Disney feature film he could recall. He compared the humans to the patrons of Disney's Parks and Resorts
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the segment of The Walt Disney Company that conceives, builds, and manages the company's theme parks and holiday resorts, as well as a variety of additional family-oriented leisure enterprises...
, adding, "I'm also not sure I've ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers." Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
questioned whether this depiction of "frighteningly obese humans" would resonate with children and make them prefer to "play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate". The interpretation led to criticism of the film by conservative commentators such as Fox News' Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck
Glenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
, and contributors to National Review Online
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
including Shannen W. Coffin
Shannen W. Coffin
Shannen W. Coffin is an attorney for the Washington, D.C. law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP who until early November 2007 served as general counsel to American Vice President Dick Cheney. Coffin was previously at the Department of Justice, where he served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the...
and Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to , of which he is editor-at-large...
(although he admitted it was a "fascinating" and occasionally "brilliant" production).
A few notable critics have argued that the film is vastly overrated, claiming it failed to "live up to such blinding, high-wattage enthusiasm", and that there were "chasms of boredom watching it", in particular "the second and third acts spiraled into the expected". Other labels include "unimaginative", "surprisingly trite", "preachy" and "too long".
Child reviews sent into CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
were mixed, some citing boredom and an inadequate storyline.
Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
said WALL-Es conservative critics missed lessons in the film that he felt appealed to traditional conservatism. He argued that the mass consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
in the film was not shown to be a product of big business
Big Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...
, but of too close a tie between big business and big government
Big government
Big government is a term generally used by political conservatives, laissez-faire advocates, or libertarians to describe a government or public sector which they consider to be excessively large, corrupt and inefficient, or inappropriately involved in certain areas of public policy or the private...
: "The government unilaterally provided its citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall." Responding to Coffin's claim that the film points out the "evils of mankind", Ford argued the only evils depicted were those that resulted from "losing touch with our own humanity" and that fundamental conservative representations such as the farm, the family unit, and "wholesome" entertainment were in the end held aloft by the human characters. He concluded, "By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice."
Director Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
praised the film as "'A stunning bit of work. The scenes on what was left of planet Earth are just so beautiful: one of the great silent movies. And the most stunning artwork! It says more about ecology and society than any live action film – all the people on their loungers floating around, brilliant stuff. Their social comment was so smart and right on the button."
Accolades
WALL-E won the Academy Award for Best Animated FeatureAcademy Award for Best Animated Feature
The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual awards given by the Los Angeles-based professional organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
, Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
, Sound Editing
Academy Award for Sound Editing
The Academy Award of Merit for Best Sound Editing is an Academy Award granted yearly to a film exhibiting the finest or most aesthetic sound editing or sound design...
, and Sound Mixing at the 81st Academy Awards
81st Academy Awards
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
, which it lost to Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...
, The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
and Milk
Milk (film)
Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
, respectively. Walt Disney Pictures also pushed for an Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
nomination, but it was not nominated, provoking controversy as to whether the Academy deliberately restricted WALL-E to the Best Animated Feature category, Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
commented that "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E." Only three animated films, 1991's Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third film of the Disney Renaissance period...
and Pixar's next two films, 2009's Up
Up (2009 film)
Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film...
and 2010's Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...
, have ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A reflective Stanton stated he was not disappointed the film was restricted to the Best Animated Film nomination because he was overwhelmed by the film's positive reception, and eventually "The line [between live-action and animation] is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie."
WALL-E made a healthy appearance at the various 2008 end-of-the-year awards circles, particularly in the Best Picture category, where animated films are often overlooked. It has won the award, or the equivalent of it, from the Boston Society of Film Critics
Boston Society of Film Critics
The Boston Society of Film Critics is an organization of film reviewers from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, based publications.The BSFC was formed in 1981 to make "Boston's unique critical perspective heard on a national and international level by awarding commendations to the best of the...
(tied with Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...
), the Chicago Film Critics Association
Chicago Film Critics Association
The Chicago Film Critics Association is an American film critic association.-Members:Current members include:*Sarah Knight Adamson*Zbigniew Banas*Shelley Cameron*Dave Canfield*Vittorio Carli*Erik Childress*Camerin Courtney*Bonnie DeShong...
, the Central Ohio Film Critics awards, the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
, and most notably the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, where it became the first animated feature to win the prestigious award. It was named as one of 2008's ten best films by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures was founded in 1909 in New York City, just 13 years after the birth of cinema, to protest New York City Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr.'s revocation of moving-picture exhibition licenses on Christmas Eve 1908. The mayor believed that the new medium...
.
It won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards
66th Golden Globe Awards
The 66th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was broadcast on January 11, 2009, from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, United States on the NBC TV network...
, 81st Academy Awards and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2008
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2008
The 14th Critics' Choice Awards were presented on Thursday, January 8, 2009 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium to honor the finest achievements in 2008 filmmaking.Nominees were announced on December 9, 2008.-Best Film:Slumdog Millionaire...
. It was nominated for several awards at the 2009 Annie Award
Annie Award
The Annie Awards have been presented by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972...
s, including Best Feature Film, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Direction, Production design, Storyboarding and Voice acting (for Ben Burtt); but was beaten out by Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American computer-animated action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
in every category. It won Best Animated Feature at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards
62nd British Academy Film Awards
The 62nd British Academy Film Awards, hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, took place on 8 February 2009, and honoured the best films of 2008.-Best Actor:Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler*Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon...
, and was also nominated there for Best Music and Sound. Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman
Thomas Montgomery Newman is an American composer and conductor, best known for his many film scores. He is one of the more respected and recognized composers for modern film and has scored over fifty feature films in a career which spans nearly three decades.Newman has received a total of ten...
and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
won two Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s for "Down to Earth
Down to Earth (Peter Gabriel song)
"Down to Earth" is a song, sung and produced by Peter Gabriel featuring the Soweto Gospel Choir. The lyrics were written by Peter Gabriel. The music was composed by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman...
" and "Define Dancing". It won all three awards it was nominated for by the Visual Effects Society
Visual Effects Society
The Visual Effects Society is the entertainment industry's only organization representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artists, animators, technologists, model makers, educators, studio leaders, supervisors, PR/marketing specialists and producers in all areas of...
: Best Animation, Best Character Animation (for WALL-E and EVE in the truck) and Best Effects in the Animated Motion Picture categories. It became the first animated film to win Best Editing for a Comedy or Musical from the American Cinema Editors
American Cinema Editors
Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing itself. The society is not to be confused with an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E...
. In 2009, Stanton, Reardon and Docter won Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
, beating The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
and the Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of MGM's Stargate franchise. The show was created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper as a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1, which was created by Wright and Jonathan Glassner and was itself...
episode "The Shrine
The Shrine
"The Shrine" is the 86th of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis and is the sixth episode in its fifth season. The episode is also the 300th produced episode in the overall Stargate franchise. The episode first aired on August 22 2008 on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States,...
". It won Best Animated Film and was nominated for Best Director at the Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s.
At the British National Movie Awards
National Movie Awards
The National Movie Awards is a British movie awards ceremony broadcast by ITV in which the winners of the awards are chosen via popular vote. The awards were initiated in 2007 following the success of the National Television Awards, the highest-rating awards ceremony for television...
, which is voted for by the public, it won Best Family Film. It was also voted Best Feature Film at the British Academy Children's Awards
British Academy Children's Awards
The British Academy Children's Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1969.-Video Game :*2011: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean-Writer :...
. WALL-E was listed at #63 on Empires online poll of the 100 greatest movie characters, conducted in 2008. In early 2010, TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
ranks WALL-E #1 in "Best Movies of the Decade".