We got to Tony!!!

I forget if I ever posted my thoughts.

I am one of the six people (to date) to give it a B (though it's more of a B+). The first half was brilliant -- awe-inspiring, emotional, unforgettable, etc. The second half (the segment set on the Axiom) was often disjointed and too busy. Still a VERY good film overall.

The 2nd half was not as good as the first.

I loved it. I did prefer Ratatouille. With Ratatouille I hadn't really read much about it or seen many clips. So the first time I saw Ratatouille I didn't have a clue what to expect and was blown away. With Wall-E I had seen lots of clips and read reviews so I think I had already an a degree of expectation. I think Wall-E had the perfect running time. Visually amazing . Wall-E and Eve were very cute. I didn't mind the 2nd half.

This movie will hit 80 A's before I grade it



I hate Disney and their international marketing. Had it been Fox / Sony / Dreamworks film, it would have certainly been released here weeks ago.

So I FINALLY saw the film, just now.

I give it an A-.


The initial section of the film is probably the strongest thing that Pixar has made thus far, but I would say that all the subsequent things pertaining to the humans is among Pixar's worst offering since at least Monsters, Inc.

The main problem is that Pixar is forcing what is essentially an adult film into a framework more traditionally associated with kids films.

Worse yet, the introduction of the humans into the story, and the whole plot involving them, blatantly explicates what in the first section of the film is so beautifully expressed in a subdued yet obvious manner.

The abandoned, garbage filled city in this film is one of the most impressive urban spaces I have ever seen in cinema; it is sublime and haunting, and is, in itself, a devastating indictment of humanity and its disregard for the planet. Everything in/on the spaceship merely reiterates, and thereby dilutes and weakens, an argument that the film makes very strongly merely with images and no words. When the captain talks, we find out why: it sounds pretty damn lame when you put into words everything that people have been saying for decades and which now sounds like a series of cliches.

Worst of all, though, is the fact that the film and the merchandise it has/will spawn places it in a situation of profound irony. Pixar is as implicated in creating the trash-filled, uninhabitable planet it warns us of as anyone else. In a consumer-driven, capitalist culture such as America's, and that of the world at large now, such hypocrisy is inevitable, even when the message is earnestly felt and expressed. But that doesn't keep me from wanting to tell Pixar to get over itself.


For me, overall, this film is a step down from The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo as well. The first section, as I said, is, however, Pixar's best work to date.

I still don't understand why people are looking at the human storyline and using that as the basis for the films storyline.

The film starts as a love story, continues as a love story, and ends as a love story.

Plain and simple.

Half of the film's narrative space is devoted to the human plotline, which for much of the film usurps the position the love story is meant to occupy. Had this film foregrounded the love relationship at all times, it would be a masterpiece. That's what makes the first section of the film so good. You know what the situation on Earth is like, so you don't need to worry about it, and can therefore concentrate on WALL-E and EVE's relationship. On the spaceship, there is a constant barrage of images, scenes, and speeches that emphasize, repeatedly, the plight of the humans. There were times where I almost completely forgot about WALL-E and EVE, only to be reminded of their existence when they pop up on the screen again.

The problem, essentially, is what I consider to be a mistaken narrative move on the filmmakers' part.

They were on screen 95% of the time.

That's not my point. Their love relationship becomes subsumed under the human plot; it's keeping guard of the plant and activating the ship's return mechanism which becomes the central focal point of their relationship. How much of the time that WALL-E and EVE spend on the spaceship is devoted to things involving the plant? WALL-E at one point actually gives EVE the plant and tells her not to worry about him, but to get hold of it and go and do whatever she needed to do to stop Auto. There was no such choice to bother with when they were on Earth; there, it was all about them, and not something external to their relationship.

The movie was about Wall-E and Eve.

And just like every movie, they needed a SIDE story to progress their relationship.

Without the human story, Eve never falls in love with Wall-E.

Partially, yes, but not exclusively, and for a large portion of the film, not mainly either.




The human story is not a side story. If anything, it's the main story, within which the love story operates. That's the problem.

No, no, no.

The movie starts with Wall-E. He's lonely, he needs a companion.

That's the story. His longing for a companion.

When Eve shows up, it's that lovey dovey stuff... but only for him.

You saw some humanity in her when she first gets to Earth and flies around. And you see more when Wall-E shows her around his "house".

But she was never going to be in love with him on Earth, they needed a story for her to fall in love with him, the human story gave them that

Yep. It felt far too short and not developed enough. Ratatouille was brilliant for the time it took to build its characters. Wall-E builds, but then it rushes everything. Still I have to disagree with on the Captain, I thought he was actually built up like he needed to be as he wasn't the focus of the story.

Em, from what I saw, what makes EVE fall for WALL-E is the videotape she sees when she's hooked to that thing in the spaceship, which makes her realize how WALL-E took care of her when she was shut off after coming into contact with the plant.

She saw the video because of the plant.

The plant we the "human" storyline.

It was a necessary evil.

I'm sad that I didn't love this film :-(

Well then you need to see it again.

And this time, focus on the story.

I still need to go see it a 2nd time but I don't think I liked it more than Ratatouille. I saw this on opening night and I'm gonna try and catch it a 2nd time before it leaves theaters. I liked it a lot. The work done by Ben Burtt is phenomenal and Pixar as usual do an excellent job with the animation. Some wonderful scenes and sequences and and overall amazing looking picture. I've been debating how the whole thing stacks up... It seems inevitable that I take a look at my Pixar rankings every year now that the company is releasing them on a yearly basis. And it's incredible to look at the amount of work, not to mention the quality of most of it, that these guys at Pixar have produced.

And along comes WALL-E and it's preposterous that it should work based on the way it's structured, but we're in for the journey with the cutest lil' robot to take us for a trip down memory lane. And it relfects on the now and story of the Earth going down is seemingly possible if you believe those who will tell you so. And then we're presented with what has become the human population and it's a bit of a shock. Or not a shock really but a bit unpleasant. Like the slap in the face Cary Grant gives Katharine Hepburn at the beginning of The Philadelphia Story.

And I don't know if I remember the last couple of minutes of the movie that well but it kind of became a paean for the Earth. Something that didn't fit sticks out in my memory. I wish I could put it into words but I really can't. Maybe once I've seen it again.

Upon further thought, I'm bumping my grade up to an A.

Now we can say we gave the film the same grade

It's just that the things it gets right, it gets right.

We need to hit 80 A's before TDK hits 70!!!

COME ON!!!