When
I think of post apocalyptic fiction there is usually one thing will always
continue to be attached to it. This idea is love. No matter what the story love
always plays a part in it. This love could of course be between many things.
This includes a man and a woman, a father and son, or in the case of Wall-E, between two robots. Wall-E is a film, which was released
June 27th, 2008. Wall-E was
distributed by The Walt Disney Company and Pixar Animation studios. It was
produced by Lindsey Collins, John Lasseter, Gilliam Libbert, Jim Morris, and
Thomas Porter. Andrew Stanton directed it based off of a story him and Pete
Doctor came up with, and Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon wrote the screenplay. ("Imdb," 2008)
This
film is hard to give a genre to because it takes from so many different types
of genre. The obvious is it being a family film, which we all expect when the
name Disney is attached. And like I said in an earlier post Disney has become
sort of its own genre. Wall-E is also
a post apocalyptic world, because it gives the viewer a vision of the future of
Earth after humans leave it. This movie is also a love story between two
robots. Finally, this film is also a film, which makes a social statement, and
I feel as if that is also a type of genre. This means Wall-E is a hybrid genre. I would give Wall-E the genre of post-apocalyptic social love story. This I
believe attaches all of the genres I listed above, except for the family
aspect, but I think as soon as you see the name Disney someone knows the film is
a family film.
This
media text obviously uses the film media, but more specifically it uses
animation. I believe this is a good choice for this media text because it
allows the statement being said to reach audiences of all ages. This gets
people you would think would not think about this type of social statement to
think about it. This would hopefully get the younger generation to think about
how they dispose of materials and how much they need exercise, and shouldn’t
let everything be handed and done for them. I believe that the producers picked
the perfect medium in order to tell this story. These are very good lessons and
hopefully anyone who has seen the film Wall-E
could be able to get these types of lessons from this story of a simple robot.
This
media text definitely uses a narrative. It has a series of elements put into
order, which creates this narrative. The storyline of Wall-E is quite simple. Wall-E is the only robot on Earth who is
lonely. He wants to find a friend and love, and he finally finds his love in
Eve. When Eve is taken away from him Wall-E chases after her and it takes him
to the place where humans are living now. He then gets Eve back while also
teaching the humans that they need to return to Earth.
The
plot of Wall-E is that Wall-E is a
lonely robot with his only friend being a cockroach. He does his job of
cleaning the trash on Earth in order to make it suitable for humans to return
again. That should be the only thought on his mind, but Wall-E is different.
Because of all the things he found in the trash and a Hello Dolly video he found he yearns for love. He thinks this comes
one day when a new robot comes to Earth. Wall-E is so excited to show her
around and he does. He shows her everything about his life. The other robot
tells him her name is Eve and she begins to like Wall-E. Wall-E shows Eve a
plant he found, which seems to be the last plant on Earth, and Eve takes it and
shuts down. Wall-E is confused why he lost his friend and tries an assortment
of things in order to get her back. Eventually a spaceship takes Eve away and
Wall-E jumps on the spaceship in order to not lose her. The spaceship takes
them to a bigger spaceship where Wall-E chases a number of vehicles, which move
Eve from place to place. On this bigger spaceship there are a number of humans.
These humans are obese and lazy and have had severe bone loss. They all have
chairs, which take them everywhere and do everything for them. Wall-E meets two
humans who he distracts enough from their chairs for them to realize they have
been sort of brainwashed. The other thing to keep in mind about this ship is
everything is supplied by Buy n Large. This is a company, which sent everyone
up and is taking control of everything. Throughout Wall-E’s time on the ship it
becomes apparent that Buy n Large does not want the humans to return to Earth.
The captain of the ship becomes infatuated with Earth, and realizes if he can
put Eve’s plant in the navigation system then the ship can return to Earth.
Unfortunately the auto pilot on the ship was told to stop this at all costs.
The auto pilot eventually shuts down Wall-E locks away the captain and hurts
Eve. Eve realizes that the parts to fix Wall-E are on the truck, and does what
ever she can to get the plant to the navigation system. Eventually they get the
plant there and the ship hyper jumps back to Earth. Eve quickly flies to get
the parts for Wall-E. This works and Wall-E comes back online, but his
personality is wiped and he returns to his default personality, and forgets
Eve. Eve extremely sad gives Wall-E a kiss and this jolts Wall-E back to his
old personality. They then return to the humans and begin to rebuild Earth,
which I seen throughout the credits. I do like the kiss at the end, because it
reminds me of the golden days of Disney animation.
The
main character is obviously Wall-E. Wall-E is a lovable robot, who just wants
to find love and will stop at nothing to be there for Eve and get her back. Eve
is different from the typical female lead because she is shown as being stronger
then most. She thinks Wall-E is a goof, but that’s why she likes him. John and
Mary are two humans who Wall-E meets on the ship and they begin to notice their
surroundings. They are oblivious otherwise and fun natured. And the captain
just wants to get back to earth he becomes infatuated with it, and will stop
and nothing to get there. The ratio from male to female is rather even
actually. It is 3/2 in male/female. I think this is because Disney wanted the
movie to appeal to anyone so they make the genders equal.
Wall-E
would fit the stereotype of the, “hopeless romantic.” He has grown to learn
about love through a film he watches, and he just wants that for himself. He
feels lonely and he is just waiting for that one perfect girl to just come and
walk in. When he gets there he will stop at nothing to keep her. There is also
the archetype of the big corporation. This corporation says they are doing
things for the small consumer, but in actuality they are making matters worse.
The
creators are making a strong statement against mass waste. During the movie the
Earth is a vast wasteland, and uninhabitable. The creators are saying that if
we continue going the way we are going, this could be our future. We could be
the obese who are willing to have everything handed to them.
The
point of view changes throughout the film. In the beginning the point of view
is Wall-E because he is our only character, but as the story goes on it
switches to the captain who is jus amazed at the beauty of Earth and wants to
go back. He is the only person in these scenes so we get that point of view. We
also get the point of view of Eve in some cases. I think this is interesting
because it’s not often the viewer is thrown into the point of view of something
which is not human. This movie however does this very successfully.
When
the Pixar executives first met they came up with ideas for a number of
projects. These eventually turned into Toy
Story, Monster’s Inc., and A Bug’s
Life. They talked about one other idea that day and this was Wall-E. This was an idea the entire
Pixar community was behind from the beginning and wanted to make it good. Pixar
is located in southern California and is distributed evenly male and female,
which can be seen in its films. Pixar also found Disney, which would help
finance, all Pixar projects. Disney has been very good to Pixar, and Pixar has
been good to Disney. Both studios wanted to make a good film everyone could
enjoy. The ultimate goal of this text is to entertain and it does a good job of
this. It being Disney this is also marketing products and toys, which can come
from this film.
This
being Disney it feels as if the audience it is geared towards is kids, but I
feel that this isn’t true. I’ve seen it throughout my family and friends anyone
of any age enjoys this film. There are elements of the story anyone can pick up
and enjoy. Wall-E is an all around
amazing movie anyone can enjoy.
I
love this film. I fell as if it has a very strong story, which anyone can
enjoy, and it gives many lessons, which anyone can learn from.
Imdb. (2008, October). Retrieved from
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/
Long, P., &
Wall, T. (2009). Media studies, texts, production and context. Essex,
England: Prentice Hall.
Stanton, A. (Director) (2008). Wall-e
[Web].
