Advanced WALL-E 101

Pixar's Feature Films WALL•E
#1

Good morning class. Hope your summer was enjoyable, in spite of the popcorn.

Now who here has seen WALL-E just one time? You sir? Ok, plz pick up your notebook and exit thru that door. Yes, that means you sir, and NOW - thank you, our time is valuable here. Honestly, I just don’t understand why people want everything spoiled as soon as possible. Is that how they go thru life, jumping from spoiler to spoiler like that kid in Journey To The Center Of Earth leaping along those floating rocks? If you have seen this movie just a few times even and still want to discover new things by yourself, this isn’t the class for you! This will still be here after Nov. 18th. Plz return here after multiple viewings until you don’t see anything new.

So we are going to look not at the obvious things that everyone got, but at the commonly missed. Trivia and the ‘forest thru the trees’ are fair game here, as are animation techniques and the musical accompaniment. We have a lot to cover, so bear with me. So lets get started…

-The optical reflections in the first space scene during the opening moments of the film. This makes it look like the movie was filmed with a real camera, and the stars look very nearly real.

-Contrast between the happy music your parents loved and the dreary landscape of the big city arouses feelings of confusion and a mystery to be solved.

-Now I dug this up in a clipping from some interview. There were 700,000 Wall-e units and most failed within a few years. Just FYI.

-What are the contents of Wall-E’s truck? Knick-knacks and practical items. They say a lot about his budding personality, many items are juvenile, others colorful, and many are just amusing that he would even find any value in them. But these are all expected.

-You know, he doesn’t work at night and probably rests during protracted storms. That truck was a storage facility for many Wall-e’s, perhaps 50 or more. The fit of Wall-e into that space on the moving rack is just too good.

-Did Wall-e build all those skyscrapers of compacted trash himself? We saw him build about 40% of one foundation in a single workday, 4 cubes high. Each cube is about 1 cubic foot, or maybe 15 inches (roughly one-third of a meter). How far could he go in a year of doing that? And then in 700 years? Each pile seems at least 40 stories, 400 feet, high. Remember tho, he has to build ramps to keep climbing and getting each cube up there is very time consuming. How many piles are there? 40? 70? more?

-Toxic gases that caused the earth to become unlivable… did that come from incinerating all the Wall-E cubes?

-Camera blurring when Wall-e comes down the ramp to bang out any dust from his cooler. This optical effect is wedged in between two amazing scenes where Wall-e first discovers his new ‘directive’ is to join hands with another and the wanderlust at stars thru a parting of the clouds for only a fleeting moment, before the unthinkable is blown away by a violent sandstorm.

-Is that junk or autumn leaves on the ground when he pursues Eve to the Ultrastore? It’s junk of course, but Louis Armstrong implies otherwise.

-Are those other words from some sort of recognizable language when Eve probes Wall-e for his directive? Plz help me here class. Iemunga? :question:

-Eve corrects Wall-e as to his pronunciation of her name as Eva. But who cares. He once even calls her ‘Eba’, closer to childish gibberish. Edit: in the ‘Observations’ thread, someone claimed a distinction. Also the use of Eve here may be a biblical reference. Some claim the Axiom is an arc.

-The plant recognition screen shows a molecule of Chlorophyll and some sort of cross section of plant xylem and phloem. There is other stuff but I can’t freeze frame in a theater.

-Are those styrofoam chips that he uses to cover Eve with?

-Wall-e uses his treads to sound out the tune of ‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes’, just before the rainstorm. He is depressed. He continues to work, but moves slower and examines a fresh cube from his compactor. It’s more like self-examination. This was a brilliant scene and could have been expanded on.

-Note that his truck is located on a collapsed Interstate just before it goes over some sort of river/lake/estuary which is now a bleak canyon. It’s a major American city, perhaps Chicago.

-What is the roach’s name? :question:

-The rings of Saturn are supposed to be composed of bits of rock, aren’t they? But ice is nice. The pattern he makes with it matches the spiral galaxy they eventually approach. It seems as if they have left the Milky Way. The gas cloud is in a star formative region and perhaps there has already been a supernova there to make heavy elements. The cloud is used to mine resources and to dispose of junk where it will just become starstuff in the future. Thousands of stars will be formed here. Perhaps by the time the Axiom left earth, other ships used closer nebula in the Milky Way. :bulb: Edit: But a BnL ad in the dvd says it was in the Kuiper Belt in our solar system. Sure looked otherwise in the movie…

-The probe ship approaches to what appears to be a StarWars type enclosed landing platform, but instead goes into a slot along the side of the Axiom. Was this intentional to dock differently and momentarily trick us?

-There are 5 EVE probes and Wall-e takes the place of the 3rd one to get down off the ramp.

-“Wa-wa-wa” is baby talk for water. Andrew Stanton had to endure this, but came up with an idea for all his trouble. Wall-e’s dirty tracks cause a conflict with M-O: to stay on the white line or deviate and chase the ‘Foreign Contaminant’. Many of the robots on this ship have become sentient, conscious of their surroundings, over the years. It seems to be part of their programming to respond to a changing environment, remember things and thus become smarter.

-Does Wall-e put John’s used cup in his garbage compactor? This is a question for the Ages. :unamused:

-There are holographic palm trees on the Lido Deck. Ok Class. 10 min break.

#2

-Wall-e as an Anarchist! The scene with the robot who controls access in the lobby of BnL headquarters. The music contains a two tone whistling that some high school kids use nowadays to show their clanship and often annoy adults.

-Eve as a flying Penguin! Well, she looks more like one than an Apple computer. Penguins are everywhere in the movies. Am I the only one who thinks this? Edit: Eve as an egg shape, rounded like a female. The sushi art I found and linked in the ‘Possible Awards’ thread clearly show Eve can be an egg too.

-Auto delayed the Captain’s waking by at least 30 min to hatch his evil plot.

-I know there is a Reactor Core Temperature and Regenerative Food Buffet, but Jacuzzi pH Balance?

-How does Wall-e actually escape the Self-Destruct sequence? Laser beam? Door gave away? Btw, this scene in the movie was undoubtedly influenced by the dark hand of Sigourney Weaver herself!

-How does sound travel in outer space such as Wall-e’s talking to Eve? Well, they are next to a gas cloud, so some atmosphere is possible. Besides, it’s a movie that was already short on dialogue.

-Notice the viewing deck telescopes where Mary is stargazing.

-“We’ve got to go back…” The Captain looks at himself in the window’s reflection and owns up to his responsibility. He looks at the globe on the floor. (earlier, this globe had green continents, but now they are glowing brown). The globe is on its side, representing a fallen earth. This is one of the peak moments! Eve also watches what a jerk she was earlier on earth, as hostile as the landscape and finally sees Wall-e as her redemption.

-Wall-e practices his proposal to Eve. Yep, that’s what he was doing. The music during this was perfect, it’s the love theme . I won’t demean this scene by asking you how many towels he had stacked on top of his head , but the significance of the towels escapes me, except to make him look more lovestruck, like a Poet.

-Time. The year 2105 was the first year of the Axiom’s cruise. The Operation Cleanup failure msg was in the year 2110. People live longer than 130 years.

-Eve is rebooted by an inquisitive computer mouse. :laughing: Unless you watch carefully you may not notice the role the Wall-A’s play here. They provide lighting in this dark place while attempts are made to help Wall-e; they also wave goodbye to the trio. Boy, weren’t they glad to finally have some visitors!

-Eve proposes to Wall-e. She has tried to fulfill her directive and it failed or was aborted. She tells Wall-e that she has a new directive. Wall-e rejects her hand and insists she fulfill her original task and rescue him by returning to earth for a repair job. Wall-e uses mostly pantomime and the words '“this” and “earth” to describe how to do this, and even uses the BnL lighter. He implies that some sort of reboot will get him going again. The music here is sad and quiet, a xylophone keyboard tune and transits into a bombastic theme we have heard before. It seems to be the peak of the entire movie! Both major themes, the plant and the return to earth and the love story are now fully intertwined. And Thomas Newman did a great job here.

-What is exactly damaged in Wall-e? This seems to be a controller card and he may be low on energy too. He hasn’t lost any memory, yet. Later, the Holodetector retraction damages one of the gears to a track, an arm, an eye, and squashes his compactor. But we don’t know of any permanent damage to his memory. The rebooting sequence caused by Eve’s ‘kiss’ was indeed indicated by him while in the garbage scowl.

-The music after Eve fixes him is composed of only 6 notes, an amazing economy, with 2 sets of notes each with a rising scale, conveying ideas of normalcy and hopefulness, followed by a few seconds of silence. Then as Wall-e turns around to do his compacting, the music returns to the theme heard earlier in the garbage scowl. I would love for someone proficient to discuss how Newman does his craft.

-Credits. A BnL lighter is used to illuminate the cave wall painting. There is much other opportunity for symbolism here, including Minoan/Byzantine tiling and Northern Renaissance etching (even looks like DaVinci’s notebook at one point) and Vincent Van Gogh style paintings. Also this is followed by a pong-style recapping of the movie aboard the Axiom along the margins of the credits. It’s all very nicely done and shows why this movie cost $180M. Edit: in the dvd, Stanton claims this was an Art History way to explain that people were able to survive and remake the world, to cement a happy ending.

-Variety of plants after the return to earth could come from either old roots still alive, or stored DNA samples. Same for the Blue Jay bird, perhaps DNA from old bones. Maybe a ship dedicated as an arboretum or zoo came back later.

-Robots are intrinsically evil :imp: or wrong for mankind to have and should be abolished as soon as possible, why repeat history? Not according to the credits, bots help rebuild, and restored humanity in the first place.

-Why did the garbage pile up in the first place? Is that our fate when we run out of landfill space? It won’t happen quite that way, but may very well happen some other way to cause the same result. Me? I’ll go underground, and wait for the day some Wall-e taps on the bunker door. And I’m certainly willing to share any remaining VHS collection. :wink:

#3

Very interesting thread. The film definitely contained many subtle things I did not notice on my first watch. Thought I can add my own observations:

[spoiler]- The full term ‘Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class’ can be seen on the side of WALL-E’s truck when he approaches it for the first time in the film. It is the only way to know what ‘WALL-E’ stands for without looking at information outside of the film itself.

  • One of the objects WALL-E collected and stores in his truck is a fire hydrant. Really. It can be seen to the right of the screen when he invites EVE into his home for the first time, after he turns on the lights and before the cockroach goes to greet his Twinkie.

  • The dent made in the ceiling of WALL-E’s truck after EVE accidentally knocks him into it is not visible when the truck is next shown from the outside, when WALL-E brings an inactive EVE to the vehicle’s roof. Presumably he hammered the dent back into shape before the sun came up.

  • The first two humans WALL-E meets on the Axiom are chatting via their holoscreens even though they are sitting right next to each other.

  • While the Captain is making his morning announcement and saying “I’m sure our forefathers would be proud to know we’d been doing what they’ve been doing…”, the shot shows people playing tennis and virtual golf using proxy robots which they control by merely moving their index finger a few millimeters. This is of course done for ironic effect.

  • The malfunctioning robots are already ‘singing’ Put Out Your Sunday Clothes using mechanical whirring sounds right after they first leave the repair ward, before the escape pod scene.

  • At the end of the movie when WALL-E and EVE happily hug each other, as the shot fades out to the Captain you can see WALL-E closing his eyes. For some reason this made the scene even more touching to me as it seemed to give WALL-E that ‘my dream has really come true’ look.

  • During a moment in the credits the typing robot is shown making holes in the soil with its fingers while humans plant seeds in them. Made me smile.[/spoiler]

I realized that too, and come to think of it, doesn’t make sense as it implies all WALL-E robots in their original programming rest at night and don’t work, even though it’s more logical that they’d work 24/7.

That’s what I was thinking when I first saw the vehicle too.

Now that’s an excellent observation.

Really? It sounded quite random to me.

The official website gives its name as Hal. Yes, it alludes to HAL 9000.

Actually the rings are indeed mostly made out of water and ice, with a bit of rock and dust particles.

I’m not sure why EVE put the towels on WALL-E’s head either. Perhaps it was a feeble attempt to disguise and hide him from the steward bots?

Overall, what all this shows is that Pixar cares for details.

#4

You guys really have good eyes, and some great points! Those are some really interesting tidbits, for sure.

Oh, and I always thought that the [spoil]towel thing was just to hide WALL-E away, though obviously it didn’t work particularly well.[/spoil] :laughing:

#5

Professor, you sound a lot like Professor Barnaby. You don’t work with him, do you?

#6

Wow, this is a really great collection of observations for WALL-E, we should try this for every Pixar film… :smiley:

#7

I had a thought. We should have a scene by scene discussion of WALL-E as well as all the other Pixar films, where we just pick out all the most important scenes, make a topic for each one, and everyone can just contribute their thoughts and observations.

#8

Actually, the city WALL-E lives in is not Chicago. When the movie begins and ends, it zooms into an area probably North Carolina or southern Virginia. I think it might be Raleigh or Richmond.

Also, it was a bit odd to see trucks parked the wrong way on a divided highway.

#9

I agree. But I think it’s in Yonkers, NY. It just makes sense to have the story take place there with the opening song…

#10

Nice topic :slight_smile:. I would say when I viewed Wall-E for the first time, I noticed nearly half of those which you have listed. But the main thing I was focusing on, was the use of In-jokes in the film by Pixar. I will list those in-jokes when the DVD is out.

#11

No, I think BnL just turned them all off after the first 5 years. Only some of them got damaged. And our WALL-E, of course, is the one BnL forgot to turn off.

That was a very nice scene. He even swinged the shelf as a lullaby. He didn’t need that, but I guess it symbolizes how filled with personality he was.

Good question. I assume WALL-E has built several of them. But he didn’t make them all by himself. During the 5 years the other WALL-E units worked, several towers were built.

Yeah, I thought that was strange. She knows her own name. And we know the initial of her name’s last word. :wink:

Hal.

LOL When I first saw her, she looked like a robotic ghost. But now that you mention it, she does look like a penguin. An astronaut penguin.

This is probably not so easy to explain. But IMO, he could open the door, and bursted the extinguisher out of there. If the door couldn’t just be opened, he maybe used his laser. He was pulling the door to open because he was panicking. I assume he calmed down, and thought of using the laser. Or he was indeed able to open the door by pulling. It’s more climatic.

It’s a movie. Andrew Stanton may have ignored the vacuum factor.

Yeah, I noticed. :wink: It was very cool seeing him doing that.

What do you mean by that? People lived at the Axiom, died at the Axiom, new people were born, and so on.
I’m surprised how they still had human personality. In real-life, Mary and John would probably die of boredom after being unplugged from their machines. But I don’t care. It’s a possibility, not a fact. The humans in this movie are cool, we can relate to them, and Captain had more initiative than I could have expected.

I noticed the WALL-As, oh right. But to me, they were just giant monstrous versions of WALL-E. I didn’t notice them having personality. Maybe they went through the same process WALL-E went.

Here I have more questions for you. :wink:

-Why did BnL create small robots to clean the Earth, and big ones to clean the Axiom? Ironically, Earth needed those the most, since it’s bigger.

-If the rocket that sent EVE to Earth had more like her inside, why only one was activated? Possible answer: Auto, by wanting to follow his directive, he, being the responsible, activated only one EVE to lower the odds of a plant to be found.

-What exactly defines a robot’s gender? Whatever it is, it’s pretty cool.
WALL-E’s name sounds like a boy’s name. EVE’s name sounds like a girl’s name. BnL probably wasn’t thinking about WALL-E’s gender or name when they made him. Now for EVE, she does have a feminine look. And of course, Andrew Stanton made it on purpose. It’s a story. There’s a boy robot and a girl robot. BnL is not fully responsible for that.

Cool topic. BTW, I only watched this movie once. :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

I don’t remember where, but I’m certain I saw some concept art or something where the other bots were flashing red. my guess is that they WERE activated, but on other continents/parts of the planet. WALL-E just happened to run into the awesome one. XD

#13

Thanks for all the interest. Too bad this thread couldn’t have been done on June 27th so more people would have seen it, but that would have been impossible, it takes quite a few viewings to come up with all these observations. Maybe after Nov. 18th and Academy Awards time we will have more guests.

Exploder: Thanks for the last two of your spoiler points! I will check the movie towards the end to see the last frames of Wall-e and the Typing (Red Eye) Lobby bot. Also, I think that if the Wall-e’s had worked at night, they wouldn’t have been able to recharge. And night+sandstorm would be even riskier.

 [b]The Towels.[/b]  Yeah sure the towels were used for 'hiding' Wall-e.  It was as funny as the rock he used earlier to hide while boxed.  Hmm, in a way, the towels give Wall-e a hat, like the one from his favorite video.  They also make him look a bit silly during his lovestruck proposal practicing.  It's really an ingenious device -- too bad he threw the ring away :sunglasses:

There is a thread about this and no definitive word. It was certainly Andrew Stanton’s starting idea. We can assume that the reason so many failed wasn’t because of poor craftsmanship or design but the harsh environmental conditions. We never see any other Wall-e’s in the movie, except at the avalanche site along the elevated rail, where there are several dozen units, one holding a cube. It looks like they were in the middle of working.

Well, we just don’t know some things. Maybe if the units were actually turned off, it was to avoid them getting carried away and building really high skyscrapers abutting other buildings. Some people think that Wall’e’s worked on the avalanche and the piles near the conveyor cranes. But it’s entirely possible that Wall-e himself figured out how to do a giant pile with built-in ramps, without needing a conveyor crane to lift cubes to the top. He sure did have a mind of his own.

We don’t know much about them. They might have been around a long time. What if one of them broke down? Did the other one just shove him out the door into outer space? The movie unfailingly makes the point that everything Wall-e interacts with is touched by his Heart of Gold. Instead of the Midas touch, it’s the Wall-e wave.

Big ones didn’t clean the Axiom alone, they were at the very end of the process. We see bots and dipsy dumpsters at work too. Small robots are cuter than big ones and that makes for big bucks. As for why there weren’t bigger units on Earth, there might have been around the conveyors. Maybe the conveyors were part of giant robots.

I think we can assume that all 5 were activated at different sites. GO-4 (Gopher) checked 4 of them + Wall-e with his scanner. M-O wasn’t seen cleaning any of the others.

It’s called market forces. Quiz on Monday.

#14

Quiz o_0

#15

Where were you guys for Monday’s Pop Quiz? Oh well, here are some more ‘not-too-obvious’ observations that I was inspired to remember from the ‘Wall-E Observations’ thread, which is similar to this one:

Wall-E’s Cooler. When he sets out one morning you can see a WD-40 spray can and a crescent wrench inside, and another unidentifiable object. I presume he uses these for self repair, rather than disassembly since he’s got that laser. No one on this website has mentioned this yet.

Wall-E banging his cooler caused the big sandstorm Well, isn’t that how the Indians caused it to rain, beat on drums? Also, Eve got pissed off and foolishly caused all those 5 rusting hulks to topple over with her plasma cannon, and the last one had several explosions. So that caused another big sandstorm. I rest my case.

Wall-E is finicky, M-O obsessive People have talked about M-O being so obsessive, but Wall-e is finicky too. He keeps his cooler clean and he takes his treads off when he goes inside, like the Japanese remove their shoes. This makes him a sort of amusing fussbutt. The designers not only did a fabulous job on how he looked, but how he behaved.

Last few frames of Wall-E Yes, thanks to Exploder, I checked this out. Seems that the malfunctioning bots and M-O shooing them away steals the scene, until you notice Wall-E closing his eyelids just before the cutaway to the Captain and the planting. This was extraordinarily beautiful.

Bots making a reappearance in the credits Yes, the Typing bot is helping plant seeds for grain and grapevines. Also, I think the Beauty bot is helping to hoist bricks. The Welding bot, the one trapped outside the Axiom, is helping to weld the roof of a domed building. Think the Tennis bot is in the group at the planting and in the credits, can’t remember. Not sure if the Massage(boxing) bot or the Vacuum or Painting ones are in the credits, will watch next time.

#16

i think i made a 78% on this test…that on a curve.

#17

So if Wall-E was so lonely, why didn’t he just repair one of the other Wall-E’s scattered around the doomscape and have a friend? Do you think he tried this and was dissatisfied with the sterile results?

He seemed to be able to replace anything, had his own crescent wrench and WD-40 in his BnL Igloo and even had at least one motherboard (controller card?). He knew how to reboot at least certain parts of himself. Eve needed a mouse in the garbage scowl to reboot her, and Wall-E may have needed her to reboot him. What do you think?

#18

That’s a good question, DarkHandOfSignourneyWeaver. If we go down the route saying that WALL-E repaired another WALL-E but still didn’t really enjoy their company, it does make sense, but then our WALL-E would have to have killed the other one all over again (as we don’t see another active WALL-E in the movie). Plus, the spare parts needed to fix another WALL-E might be too essential for our WALL-E to waste fixing a different one. Or perhaps the other WALL-Es had been left for so long that, by the time our WALL-E had developed a personality and was feeling lonely, they were completely beyond repair.

#19

I think the reason why EVE was able to repair WALL•E was because he wasn’t permanently shut-down, like the signal told the other WALL•Es’ systems to do. Even if he could rebuild them, or had the physical means and materials to do so, I don’t think he would have been as smart as EVE to carry out that task. I love the little guy, but his strong point seems to be understanding people’s emotions, rather than having intelligence. But he was able to understand that he can take parts from them and either store them away in his house in case of a future breakdown, or just because/as well as he likes collecting things. Plus, he wouldn’t have been able to reverse the actions that signal told the other WALL•Es shut down. Only Auto could have reversed it, if at all.

He must have known they were like him, because he could substitute their new parts for his old parts… I don’t think he wanted a friend, though. He wanted someone he could hold hands with. Someone to fall in love with. I don’t think he was attracted to same-gender robots, if you ask me. lol

I wonder what they would have done on New Earth with all the old, broken down WALL•Es. Recycled them into something new? I suppose their new motto would be to recycle, rather than throw away. It would be a shame for them to be thrown away. They should be put in a museum or be given a proper burial.

EDIT: And the reason that EVE could start WALL•E up again was because she was electric or something and had “kissed” him, transferring his memory to hers and holding it there, then giving it back at the end of the movie when he lost it. WALL•E wouldn’t have been able to do that with the other WALL•Es. She may have replaced the other parts of the other WALL•Es and also transferred the one and only WALL•E’s memory to a generic WALL•E, than maybe you would have ended up with multiple WALL•Es with the same personality as WALL•E himself. A bit confusing, I know. But that may not work because the personality information may not have matched the unique code of every WALL•E, but you never know.

#20

Good. You guys bring up a lot of strong points. This question has bugged me since the first time seeing the movie. It just seemed an obvious thing to wonder about, like earlier in this thread when I asked if you thought Wall-E had built all those quirky skyscrapers of cubes (not the ones in a row being processed with loaders).

lizardgirl. Yeah. Some of their parts were beyond repair, they had been exposed to the elements for so long. They hadn’t even turtled themselves. As for what you say about Wall-E “having the other Wall-E killed all over again”, you’re just pulling my leg there since you were the one who laughed about that idea very early in the ‘How did the other Wall-E’s die’ thread. I always thought that was the funniest/craziest idea anyone ever came up with here.

RachelCakes. We still don’t know for sure whether there was a shut down signal. It was planned in the storyboard phase, but may have evolved into the robots just breaking down over time. Sure, EVE is smarter, more advanced, than our favorite yellow friend, but Wall-E is as doggedly persistent as his cube building. Notice all the ways he tried to ‘jump start’ EVE. And also note his behavior in the garbage scowl deleted scene with the BnL lighter (which if you look closely in the dvd was personalized with “Rachel Cakes”, Pixar seems to have relented) And also, Wall-E knew how to get himself going again, I submit, in the final garbage scowl scene where he pulled out the lighter (the spark of love), and showed himself being rebooted. Eve failed! to remember this after she got Wall-E going again. Well, her spark, didn’t we talk about this way earlier in the ‘Observations’ thread, might have been a reboot or a passage of information, never was firmly decided on I thought.

Poor Wall-E was just craving for companionship, and was absolutely terrified that Hal might die. Sure he would want another Wall-E around, but it’s just possible he wasn’t smart enough to figure out that they once were doing what he does, but were stupid. He may have never remembered them in action since he slowly learned things. “Parts is parts…”

Notice Wall-E’s great affection for the singing fish, another bot in his mind.

My thesis is there just had to be something in the other Wall-E’s that could be replaced containing any shut down signal. Then they could be rebooted. That’s assuming there was a shut down signal in the first place.