So I know WALL-E came out way the hell back in 2008, but a quick stroll through the DadCentric archives of posts marked with the tag of “Film” or "Movies" (which differ from one another in that movies aspire to mere entertainment, whereas films actually seek to make aaaaart and actually fail in this mission if they provide any significant entertainment beyond leaving the viewer depressed, confused, pained, bored, or angry that they’ll never get those 90 - 212 minutes back) shows me that there exist no posts on this particular dadblog related to WALL-E.
WALL-E currently stands as my eldest son’s favorite movie. I don’t know if WALL-E knows yet that it will eventually be replaced as my son’s favorite movie many times over, or if that is a heartbreak yet to come. I would think WALL-E, even as young as it is, would have already experienced this betrayal from any number of young people, and would know that it’s only in store for more of it, that it is destined to be a temporary favorite. Perhaps it is satisfied merely being loved, even if its status as a child’s favorite is so fleeting.
I’m not going to bother with much in the way of synopsis because if you’re reading this, you’re likely a parent, and if your kids are young enough, you’ve already seen it. Perhaps more than once! And a lengthy synopsis at this juncture would only serve to further thin the shoestring hold I currently have on your attention span. Suffice it to say that it’s a film about a future where the Earth is fucked, and humans did the fucking. It’s a film about a humanity that has long since abandoned the Earth for greener galaxies because it’s unfit to support any life other than roaches and robots. There are robots of every kind, be they cute, scary, OCD, purpose-driven, all designed and manufactured to take care of our every human whim. It’s a nightmare scenario of corporate power gone all wrong. It’s a film about people at their worst and their best, about snapping out of complacence and doing something.
And yes, it’s a kid’s film, and one that adults can dig on, whether they act their age or not.
The first time we watched WALL-E, I loved it. This was in spite of the fact that there are any number of issues with it that, if present in more “grown-up sci-fi”, would have every dungeon master, ComiCon attendee, Klingon speaker, lightsaber craftsman, fan fiction author, and Summer Glau drooler-over racing to their keyboard to register their DISGUST with the filmmakers’ ineptitude. This stuff occurred to me at the time, but it didn’t bother me in the least. It’s a kid’s movie, and a great one at that. It tells a fantastic story, it looks great, has a wonderful message, and manages to do a hell of a lot with minimal dialogue, a true achievement considering that most kid’s movies seem to follow the throw-enough-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to dialogue. Not to mention the fact that it’s a nice introduction to science fiction for the wee’uns. I figured I didn’t need to go getting my boxers all in a wad over a few relatively unimportant details, especially if they’re the boxers with the little tigers all over them because it’d be a shame to mess those up.
The thing is, I’ve seen the movie a few more times since that initial viewing. And some of these details are, well, they’re starting to get to me. I’ve tried to fight it, to ignore it, to pretend they don’t bug me, but they’re still out there, throwing pebbles at the window of my brain and urging my inner asshole to come out and play. So if you don’t mind me getting all ComicBook Guy on WALL-E’s ass, I present to you my list of Stuff Wrong With WALL-E I Should Get Over, or SWWWISGO for short.
- Stuff all works way too well, and presumably has been for some 700 years, and all without much in the way of human intervention. Sorry, but I’m pretty sure that ship would be a floating graveyard waiting for a pack of Reavers to come along and salvage it.
- Fuel - what’s that ship running on? In fact, what is any of it running on? Where does the food come from? If we humans had to leave Earth because we trashed the place, then it stands to reason that we weren’t so great at reducing, reusing, or recycling. I find it hard to believe that we’d figure all this stuff out in space fast enough to keep the race alive.
- WALL-E takes a ride in space on the outside of the space ship. He’d have frozen up solid.
- Shouldn’t there be some human remains here and there on the planet? No way did they get everybody on that one space ship. They left some people behind, presumably those who couldn’t pay the fare for a multi-generational pass.
- Robots, most of them anyway, already have human emotional functions at the beginning of the film. They love, they worry, they get angry, they get uptight, they connive. We’re supposed to just take this as a given with no explanation for how they got that way.
- Where are those kids coming from? Given that the humans here can’t even stand up on their own, I doubt they’re getting made in the conventional way. I can only assume that there are other robots on that ship that never make an appearance onscreen.
Man, it feels good to get that off my chest, even if it does mean I have to reveal my inner asshole to you all. Maybe next week I’ll post about drinking the last beer in your fridge or taking the last cup of coffee without making more.
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