Yep, I thought that too. I think he was clicking his fingers to try to see if [spoil]she had a pulse[/spoil]… another option is that he was clicking his thumbs as a way of consoling himself, as humans do (putting your thumb inside your hand, rubbing your thumb against your hand to reassure yourself) Such great body language in this movie.
^Exactly, 
Another I just recently caught; I always thought [spoil]mo called for GO-4 and the steward bots to see what was going on with WALL-E, but I caught they came because all 5 EVE’s were placed in spot and ready to be checked. I probably was just slow on this, 
It was just an “Ohhhhh…” thing.[/spoil]
-EIA-
Also, after [spoil]GO-4 has found out about the plant coming aboard the Axiom, you can see him saluting Auto in the background, an early indication of where GO-4’s loyalty lies. But there’s also the argument that even if the Captain was in charge, Auto still would have been GO-4’s superior and still would have saluted him.[/spoil]
I always thought that [spoil]GO-4 came because MO had stepped out of his area.[/spoil]
[spoil]I have proof that GO-4 was meant to be in on the A113 plan, probably just as much as Auto was:
As you can see, after Auto found out that the plant was found again, when EVE brought it to the Captain for the first time, (the time before that doesn’t count because she didn’t actually bring it to the Captain because it was missing) So, he wasn’t just obeying Auto because Auto was GO-4’s superior, GO-4 was an important part of the A113 plan all along (from when the plan was created.) There’s a logo of GO-4 that comes up on Auto’s screen. Pretty neat little detail, there.[/spoil]
Also…
- With the last two captains. why do a couple of the dates say “2??4” and “2??5”?
There was something else I was going to say about what I noticed, but I always forget. Dang it.
Rachel- I think they say 2774 and 2775, up until now I thought they were question marks too.
Oh… Well, that’s a weird looking 7, then.
You can see this type of font here:
dafont.com/nisejsrf.font?text=2774
I think the scan lines are what makes it look like a question mark.
I was confused with the immediate appearance of GO-4 and the two steward bots, that maybe the red siren light on top of M-O (activated when he first saw Wall-E) has caused them to be summoned. But after a few viewings its clear that they were coming anyway, always do every year. Notice that M-O and his crew line up too immediately when they come, because they are ‘superior officers’ or such. They even override M-O’s directive to clean up 100% dirty Wall-E. Then the GO-4 party leave, with EVE, and then Wall-E, and the directive kicks in again.
Now what I wonder is, why does GO-4 raise his shoulders, as if saluting with each EVE? Is it some sort of AOK signal, with no one particularly watching, or is Auto being fed a transmission and GO-4 is just reacting to his superior’s AOK signal with his little salute?
DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver- I’m not sure, but I’d say that it’s quite likely that Auto might detect this salute or something. Auto seems to be like the all-knowing brain of the Axiom, but unlike a human brain, he can probably recieve lots of different signals and messages telling him what’s happening aboard the ship all at the same time.
Here’s something I’ve been wondering for a while- how are the Captains chosen? It’s obviously not a descent thing since all the previous Captains look different to each other, and are of different nationalities, so how is the next Captain chosen? I wonder if it’s random or something. There’s probably some sort of Captain Training programme, too, perhaps like the one that’s shown on the extras bit of the DVD?
lizardgirl. How Captains are chosen: well, you can tell that Captain O’Brien knows how to rearrange the wiring in his quarters. And he knows to push the green plant button when told that ‘Probe1 has returned positive’. He is startled by all this, meaning that he has only read some things, but probably not gone thru any real simulation. So he has gone thru substantial training, but is short on a complete knowledge of the Axiom: “We have a jogging track?”
Auto as all-knowing brain of the Axiom: Auto just doesn’t seem to be in complete control of the ship. The BnL president told him to “take control of everything”, but he can’t control the ship’s computer completely. He can bark out orders for the security bots, and turn the wheel and lock out the Captain. But he can’t stop the computer from verifying the ‘plant origin’ and taking over a return to earth. Auto needed to push the second button, which opens up the Holodetector and prepares for a return to earth, to override the Captain. Also, the ship’s computer seems to have figured out that a plant has been reported to have been brought on board. Auto may have reported it, oddly, or maybe GO-4 did. Probably when GO-4 scanned EVE the ship’s computer picked up the detection and caused all the green lighting and responses on the ship.
So Auto isn’t really in control of everything and he is short on knowledge too. It was the Captain who decided to tap the computer’s data banks about earth out of curiosity, not Auto. If Auto was all-knowing about the Axiom, he would have succeeded in destroying Wall-E and EVE, and foiled any attempts by the Captain to circumvent him. It appears early on that Auto is superior in knowledge to the Captain, but that’s because the Captain hasn’t used his brain. He does indeed catch up on things and make decisions and surpasses Auto. He becomes the real Axiom Supervisor.
Forgive me if somebody has mentioned this already, but I noticed an observation on WALL-E’s mispronunciation of EVE’s name (he pronounced it as “Eva” rather than “Eve”) very early in the thread. While I believe that for the character’s in the movie it was a simple case of WALL-E’s literacy incompetence in comparison to EVE’s at that time, I think it was also a creative allusion on Pixar’s part. I proceeded to look up definitions on both names and came up with this amusing note:
EVE: Life.
EVA: Giver of life.
And in a way, EVE was indeed the person who gave WALL-E life. With her came someone WALL-E could love, care for and protect; a new directive, a new lease on life. I find that very interesting. 
Well done for finding that out, Pickles! So it wasn’t only a cute mispronounciation, but there’s an actual meaning behind it! Trust Pixar to sneak a little detail like that in. 
Speaking of which, I realized that EVE’s name could be EVE-A with a little bending.
Extraterrestrial
Vegetation
Evaluator
Axiom-class.
Here’s something I just realized: Throughout the movie, EVE seemed to have represented a machine that was newer, sleeker, more graceful, more literate, and overall better than WALL-E (functionally, anyway). However, we know that the EVE probes were designed and used back when the original captain was alive and in charge of “Operation Re-colonize” … the same time when the WALL-E models were assembled.
While the EVE we know might not have been assembled at that time, we know her sister bots were carbon copies, as seen the EVE illustration in the Re-colonize Manuel.
I thought that was funny, because WALL-E seemed to be portrayed as this out-of-date machine that clanked around the high-class robots of the Axiom (I’m sure his 700-year nearly unkept appearance didn’t help his case, but even so). I wonder why the humans didn’t make the WALL-E bots equally as functional as those found on the Axiom, made at the same time?
That is a really neat bit of info there, Pickles. She sure was the giver of life by the end of the movie, even after almost killing Hal and WALL•E at the beginning, heheh. Now if only we can find out the meaning of “E-aaahh” as WALL•E first says her name.
That’s a really good question. It could be that the WALL•Es were made up of recycled scrap materials and because they were staying on Earth, and weren’t going to be seen by the BnL customers, they felt they didn’t need to waste new, expensive technology on something that would take a battering from the weather, time, and the WALL•Es’ directive anyway.
One theory is that BnL never planned to even return to Earth, even before they had left, their plan was to keep people in space indefinitely, so they didn’t see any reason to make robots using new technology. I haven’t looked into that theory too much though, but that’s something to think about. Otherwise, I don’t really have a good answer for you.
Sure you don’t mean Captain McCrea…? 
How do we know that there wasn’t any more progress among the human race in those ships? Could they have improved upon their bots? I saw somewhere, maybe in the BnL shorts on the dvd, that Wall-E was considered an archaic type of robot. The word archaic doesn’t exactly sound ‘contemporary’ to me…
O’Brian vs McCrea, same difference, hee hee.
Thank you for your input, Rachel. While I don’t think the captain had original plans to leave earth forever (of course, we know he did at a later time), your “no need for vanity” theory is quite possible. That, and perhaps that boxing solution was the best they could come up with at that time? It’s not as though we’ve come across a bot that has taken WALL-E’s place functionally, anyway.
Oh, and I think the “E-aaahh” was poor ole’ WALL-E only.
DarkHand: You’re right; archaic does refer to something that is rather old and not necessarily in use anymore – a pretty good description of WALL-E’s current state. However, that is what we noticed: the EVE bots were developed for the sole purpose of returning to earth and search for vegetation whilst the WALL-E bots were cleaning up the trash. Based off of the glimpse of an illustration we could see in the Manuel, the EVE probes at that time are identical to the probes that work 700 years later.
Okay, so I watched WALL-E on my big 52" screen last night (yay for no 1.5 inch iPod screen, haha). And I noticed soooo much. Just one cool thing is this:
You may recognize that logo form the second half of the logo, because it’s all over the Lido deck, it’s on the captains carpet (but with little wings) and the door, and on some of the Service Bots. Well, you may not know that it is indeed in the first half. There’s a massive building, perhaps the tallest, shaped exactly like that logo. Perhaps this is the BnL HQ? Also, i found Mike, uh, Mckowski? The little green guy. I’ll get the minute and second tonight.
One more note, when the Axiom computer points with the red dot to where they will be landing on Earth it is pointing right to my town! Haha… Sadly, the area doesn’t really look like it though as far as a big lake, huge buildings. Hm…
-EIA-
Has anyone noticed that when after Wall-e is repaired, he folds the cube, and in that cube there is an eggbeater - the one Eve had wasted while playing with it