DarkHandOfSigourneyWeaver and Pickles- See, the thing is, once the humans had started their supposed ‘five-year cruise’, they seemed to almost start devolving as opposed to evolving. There don’t seem to be any humans behind the scenes, only robots, so I can’t see the technology developing at all throughout the 700 years on the Axiom, and that goes with that illustration in the manual that you mentioned, Pickles. So I guess when the term ‘archaic’ was used, it wasn’t referring to whether or not the technology had continued to develop, but rather that WALL-E had become unnecessary. Sort of makes you wonder what would have happened if the humans had instead maintained or increased their intelligence throughout the cruise instead of becoming slobs; they might’ve even figured out another way of cleaning up the Earth.
EVEisawesome- I never noticed that logo before, but if it’s on that building at the beginning like you said, it seems pretty plausible that it’s the one from the BnL HQ. After all, BnL was an American company, right? And it looks like WALL-E lived in America (I guess, I’m not sure if this is proven), so it makes sense.
Mike Wazowski is in WALL-E? Darn, now the whole film has been spoiled for me!
EveIsAwesome. That building was pretty obvious, it was well done, an architectural delight. Glad to see it meant something and it’s something to look for now.
Actine. Yes, the eggbeater is in the cube in Wall-E’s truck. But it could have been repaired or could be another one, after all he did collect multiples of things.
lizardgirl. Good point. Although we still can’t say for sure since we only see routine maintenance and a slice of this huge ship. And then there are other ships. We don’t even know for sure whether robots were improving on themselves. I agree that EVE in the manual looks the same, but she does have very advanced technology. And it is indeed true that one of the major points of the movie was that mankind had lost the challenges of the earth and started devolving. We don’t know exactly when that moment came. It almost seems that ‘Operation Cleanup’ was just a political ploy, doomed to failure and they knew it. So perhaps that’s why the ‘archaic’ Wall-E’s were used: Follow the Money. They put their best bots on the ships.
Tippity Top Secret, pssst: [spoil] Of course, there are all sorts of bunkers around the nearly abandoned earth with malfunctioning and misfit bots built by quirky scientists, with bizarre and amusing situations abounding, but details are sketchy and Andrew Stanton has issued a ‘gag order’ , so details may never see the light of day… [/spoil]
Here’s a very profound one for me (which I only recently learned from the script):
[spoil]Near the ending, just before Eve delivers her final farewell kiss, she hums none other than “It Only Takes A Moment”.
The same song that accompanies Wall-E’s proposal, and the moment when she learns all about his love. And now that Wall-E is gone forever, she sings it back to his empty shell one last time.
I actually lost some sleep over this little discovery.[/spoil]
Edit: Darn, you guys already got it at page 11. Man you guys are fast.
[spoiler]When the ship carrying WALL-E and EVE slams through the cloud of orbiting satellites, several get “hung up” on WALL-E. The last one to break loose is the Russian Sputnik satellite launched during the heart of the Cold War. (first man-made object to ever orbit the Earth) On a humurous side note, the first satellite to break away from WALL-E is labeled “COM-A” which sounds an awful lot like “Commie”.
During WALL-E and EVE’s dancing scene, the Sputnik makes another appearance as a model sitting on the shelf near the space helmet in Capt. Mcrae’s quarters. It can also be seen when EVE returns to the Captian’s quarters with the plant [/spoiler]
During scenes when EVE’s view is being shown, you can see the EVE logo on the top right.
In addition to Mike from Monster’s Inc, you can also find Rex, Hamm, and Babyface from Toy Story sitting on shelves in WALL-E’s truck.
Speaking of Toy Story, you probably also noticed EVE slam the hood down on a Pizza Planet truck. Incedentally, the Pizza Planet truck has found it’s way into every Pixar film since Toy Story. It’s become a Pixar tradition.
Nice catch there, wayne! And thanks for providing those screenshots, red- I didn’t realise how many times that logo was shown throughout the movie. I think I need to watch WALL-E again, but this time more carefully.
Not an observation as such, but I was talking to my English teacher today about a short story he’d read that’s got a similar-ish premise to WALL-E, in that humans have pretty much destroyed the Earth, but in this story they resort to living underground as a means of survival. My teacher brought up the interesting point that in this story, the humans no longer had teeth (as their food was all liquidized, just like in WALL-E) and no longer had hair, since they never experienced the cold. So in a way, that should’ve happened to the humans aboard the Axiom, as there’s no need for them to have teeth or hair. I guess the reason Pixar still included such features is that they wanted them to be still recognisable as ‘human’, just much larger and less mobile.
lizardgirl - I wonder why the humans in WALL•E even had teeth, as they obviously didn’t use them with the pureed food they ingested. What was the name of that short story, do you know? I’d love to track it down.
Rachel- I’ve just realised that probably one of the main reasons why they still have teeth is because they still talk to each other, and teeth are very important in creating certain sounds and that sort of thing. This probably stopped the humans losing their teeth altogether, and explains why in this short story, the humans did lose their teeth- every human has its own room underground, but they never communicate with each other or see other humans, unlike aboard the Axiom, where the humans still socialise.
As for the name of the short story, I can’t remember. But when I see my teacher again tomorrow, I’ll ask him.
I posted this over at the History of WALL•E thread but I think it fits here too so I’ll summarize it quickly.
Well, as we saw in the movie, the Captains seemed to lose power to AUTO more and more as the years passed. But the first Captain was probably much more involved than Cpt. B. McCrea was, so here’s my point:
Now I understand why they AUTO kept sending EVE’s even though Operation recolonize was cancelled. Well it makes sense, AUTO couldn’t tell the Captain about the secret directive, but cancelling EVE’s would arouse suspision, also this would make everything seem like the Axiom is “staying the course”.
I don’t know if people thought of this before, but I really wnated to share it to clear up anyone’s question if it was posed.
Here’s another observation: there are no child or teenage humans aboard the Axiom. Only babies and grown adults! I have no idea why… anyone want to guess?
Good point, Rachel. There also aren’t any older people on board the Axiom, and the lack of both older and younger people is intriguing, since they both appeared in that BnL Axiom advertising video.
I can’t think of a really good reason as to why this is. Part of me is thinking that perhaps it was easier just to have either adults or babies, as creating so many humans must’ve been difficult in the first place without having to change their base for each age bracket of human. But then again, Pixar doesn’t usually like to cut corners. Maybe the sheer numbers of the humans forced them to limit what they could feasibly do.
Yes, they both appear in the ad video that poor Wall-E had to see nearly half a million times. But no, there are a few old people on the Axiom. You can see one with a walker right at the front of the group exiting the Axiom with the Captain. There are others who appear to be elderly in the huge mass of people being slopped around on the Lido Deck by Auto’s antics.
Something funny that I’ve noticed is that they give EVE the “breathing effect” when she is standing (or rather, hovering) still. Perhaps it is only an effect of hovering in which you can’t be completely motionless, but especially in the truck scene (specifically, when she is gazing at the lighter) her chest seems to rise and fall rhythmically as though she were breathing.
Also, this is also clear the moment WALL-E’s pod explodes later in the film. Again, it could also be the effects of hovering, but her chest seems to heave as though she were breathing hard (as somebody would in that situation, both from the vigorous acitivity she took part in as well as the shock and disbelief she suffered from WALL-E’s potential death).
Sorry if this has already been answered, but [spoil]I saw it as a kind of shrug. He scans WALL-E and then jumps in surprise, then when he goes back and sees the empty spot he just says “ehh…” and goes on scanning the other EVEs.[/spoil]
Yeah I think that is more for expression than anything. Since Go-4 doesn’t have eyes, arms or a mouth, they use those “shoulder/hand” things to convey emotion.
, so details may never see the light of day… [/spoil] 
