Thought-[spoil]There’s something I knew from my first viewing of the movie but wasn’t “hit” with the complete full weight of until my second viewing a few days ago. WALL-E had absolutely NO idea of the greater effects his actions had on people. He had NO idea of how he opened Mary’s eyes to the world, or John’s, or the Captain’s, or the reject-bots’, or what the plant truly meant for earth, or anything. No idea. I’m starting to wonder if he was even all that aware of the danger going on at the end, considering how badly his poor little bot-brains were damaged at that point.
There’s something so charming and oddly powerful about that. WALL-E saved the world just by following his heart and being himself.
And he didn’t even know it.[/spoil]
Anyway, does anyone who’s read the novelization have any thoughts on the earlier version of the script the novel was based on? What did you think of the (mostly tiny) differences? [spoil]I’m glad they had WALL-E actually introduce himself to everyone he meets in the final version of the movie. It really adds to the message about human connection. All the changes made for the final seemed overall for the better to me.[/spoil]
Busterella, I really love big spoilers [spoil]your theories on the ending and WALL-E’s incentives for helping out the humans. Despite WALL-E’s “death” at the end, it was easy to replace his mechanical parts, since WALL-E took usable parts from the broken WALL-E’s, but it was the love and holding EVE’s hand again that ‘sparked’ WALL-E to become his own self again.[/spoil]
Last questions:[spoil]there’s a lot of reviewers who say the film’s plot gets cliche. What else do you guys have to say about it? Busterella makes a good point in his post above about how the film ends, but what about other story aspects? Did the film focus too much on the humans in the second half of the film? How would the film had worked if the humans were not as big a part of the story? (I’ll post my thoughts later, but in short: I think some story aspects are necessary to get the message across.)
If anyone has time, check out this really good podcast discussion on WALL-E from /film. The WALL-E discussion doesn’t start until 1:12:26, so let the episode download and then fast forward to the discussion! There are a lot of spoilers and a lot of critiques of the film. Though the podcasters love the film, they also point out the parts that they think could have been changed. I believe they have really good points on the meaning of WALL-E’s impact on humanity, especially how the film concludes. I highly recommend it if you have 30 or 40 minutes.
[spoil] I don’t think I’d use the word “cliche” but I see what they may be talking about. I didn’t think it was necessarily a bad thing, since WALL-E wasn’t meant to be an unconventional story so much as a convetional story told in an unconventional (and in my opinion very effective) manner.
Just incase anyone got confused with my last thought: I don’t think WALL-E “didn’t care” about the humans so much as he was more-or-less oblivious to the fact that there was even a larger problem. XD He’s like a little kid, he doesn’t understand the big picture of whats going on.
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[spoiler]I don’t think Wall-e was completely oblivious. Definitely he was at first, but towards the end I think he realized just how important the plant was to the humans and because of his good nature was willing to do whatever it took to see that they got it back, even if he didn’t know it’s full importance. And he obviously knew something was going wrong and was trying to fix it (which is why he blocked the holo-detector from closing). However, I do think that Wall-e was oblivious to the effect that he was having on the individual humans. He was just being himself and trying desperately to find EVE, and the humans were being inspired by his persistence and optimism.
One question I have, however: did EVE know how important the plant was? At first I thought she must, but then I saw it again and realized that she didn’t seem to fully understand the implications of finding the plant herself. She just knew it was part of her “directive”. Particularly in the trash compactor scene, when Wall-e insists on following the directive, but EVE is only concerned with fixing Wall-e. Then Wall-e says “earth” and shows her the plant and then the cigarette lighter and she gets excited, screaming “EARTH” and flies Wall-e and M-O out. Was she simply realizing that she could fix Wall-E on earth? Or was she just now figuring out that the plant is what would take them there? Also, what was the significance of the cigarette lighter, anyway? I never did figure that out…[/spoiler]
[spoil]I agree WALL-E was probably aware on some level near the end that putting the plant where it belonged would stop all the bad stuff that was happening to everybody at that moment,he just didn’t get the bigger picture. (Though a part of me wonders if he might of been so damaged at that point he couldn’t really tell what was going on, and just remembered “EVE needs the plant to go here”) Personaly, I don’t think EVE knew the full signifigance of what the plant meant, either. She knew she had to find it, she knew the humans needed it, but I don’t think she was ever fully aware of why they needed it (beyond eventualy figuring out it will take the ship to earth) or what it meant for humanity.
For the lighter, do you mean the significance from the beginning or just that moment? I think showing her the lighter while he was damaged was kind of “remember when we were at my home? When I fixed myself?” and possibly a bit of “If I don’t make it, please remember the time we spent together.” At the beginning I think they both just thought it was beautiful (and WALL-E thought it was beautiful how it reflected off her) and it was just a really intimate moment that WALL-E wanted to remember and thus kept the lighter with him.[/spoil]
Just thought of something while disusing Wall-E on another forum
[spoil]What is it that made all the other Wall-E units fail and not our Wall-E?
Is it possible Wall-E is actually an insane robot-murdering machine who deactivated all of them so that he could have all the spare parts he would ever need I’m sure that’s not the case but it is something to think about.[/spoil]
Or why did the robots fail in the first place? All of these questions could have an explanation, but the movie just did not explain them. This is because the answers to the questions are not neccessary to the main story of the film.
[spoil]Wasn’t Andrew Stanton’s whole idea about this film the fact that “humanity has left but forgot to turn one robot off”? He mentions that in every interview. I thought that around the time the president made that video to the autopilot saying Earth was a lost cause, all the robots were turned off, but WALL-E was forgotten to be turned off.[/spoil]
I saw the movie again. This time, when it was first opening, I almost started crying… I’m not sure why… I really love this movie I guess.
By the way, just noticed on the second view; [spoil]When EVE “kisses” him for bringing back the plant, anybody else notice that his solar panel goes completely haywire? XD Dawwwww.[/spoil]
I went with PJ. I’ve learned a lot about writing from her, and she has studied film a lot and written some screenplays. I could tell from the laughter next to me she was, at the least enjoying it, but I wasn’t sure what she was gonna say.
She said it was the best film she’s seen since The Godfather. I almost had a heart attack.
She doesn’t NOT give compliments like that lightly. If she says something like that, it means something. She thinks that it should win best picture. You should have heard her rave about the plot elements on the way home. The stuff she said made me appreciate the film even more than I already did.
According to the BnL website, the early protoype of the WALL-E developed neural pathways that caused it to display curiosity and compassion, and the scientist in charge mentioned that, although fond of the robot, they may not include that feature in the final version. If you’ve played the game, you’ll see that “our” WALL-E was different from the rest from the beginning, 700 years ago.
My guess is that this prototype is the WALL-E we know, and the rest eventually stopped functioning because they lacked the curiosity and creativity (or will) to stay alive.
I’m sure that’s not the case but it is something to think about.[/spoil]
but B-on-T. xD