Wall-E & The Haters

I'm back in at the anvil of critical justice...and sparks will fly. I just saw Wall-E, the latest PIXAR creation last night and I'm overwhelmed with mixed feelings. For real, I'm going to do some serious spoilers. I can't imagine who would be worried about them, but I feel it my duty warn you gentle reader to the perils below. Let's start with the good and then go to the jagged pill.

Flat out, this is one of the best, if not the best PIXAR film to date. The animation was fluid, the colors were vivid, the audio was crisp and powerful and the soundtrack was moving. Wall-E is such an endearing character you can't help but love the guy. He is a hard worker, kind, thoughtful, curious and most of all a hopeless romantic. The opening 10-15 minutes of the movie is almost entirely free of dialogue as is much of the movie. I find it actually makes the story more emotional because it allows you to just see and feel what is going on instead of processing dialogue. The screenplay is excellent. Each scene is well crafted and draws out laughter, suspense or sometimes sadness. It reminds me of how hard I used to laugh watching Wile Coyote and the Road-runner. No dialogue, but tons of humor. I will even volunteer that I actually "welled up" at one point in the movie. The scene where Wall-e and Eve fly around the spaceship is so beautiful and carefree, I really did forget about all my troubles for a spell. Simply put, this is great film making.

The robots in the film are well crafted and inventive. The contrasts between Wall-e and Eve (the female gun-slinging protagonist) are interesting as well as a commentary on the differences between men and women. Wall-e is dirty, old, clumsy and deals in garbage all day but has a heart of gold. Most of all, he has proper respect and fear for his woman. Eve is a beautiful, smooth, sleek and hot tempered woman that can fly and will blow away (with extreme prejudice) anything that threatens her. I find these two emulate popular contemporary views of men and women nicely. It was funny and entertaing to watch, although I'm not entirely thrilled about the characterizations. But what the heck, it's just a cartoon right?

WRONG. All entertainment has a message whether we like it or not. Even Charles Barkley came around and admitted he was a role model whether he liked it or not. PIXAR is a Bay-Area company and let's face it, this was the equivalent of An Inconvenient Truth in animation for kids... and adults. This movie rails on corporations, consumerism and bad environmental practices. So effectively, this is a Socialistic critique of Capitalism carried to its extreme.

In this film, we see that if we allowed corporations the power to eliminate the government, they would pollute the earth to an uninhabitable degree, force robots into slavery to fix it and blast us into outer-space where we would turn into nothing but fat, bloated, idiotic, weak-boned, pleasure seeking hedonists that lay around on floating carts all day doing nothing but drinking liquid hamburgers and watching TV endlessly. Did I miss anything?

Perhaps I'm a bit defensive, but this is basically the contempt that socialist tree huggers have for America. The land of the obese, indolent, polluting capitalists that would sell their planet for a buck. On a whole, I could not escape the feeling this was an extra-sugar coated pill of hate for America (or the right half of it).

In a perfect world, we'd have the government run everything for us - because let's face it, no one does things more efficiently or fairly than bureaucrats. Big Brother would monitor our carbon footprint within an inch of our lives and make sure the earth never got trashed by the likes of Ken Lay and his buddies at Enron.

I'm sure if you asked the people who made this movie, they would say they have contempt for current environmental standards and if we don't act now this could be our future. They probably feel they are doing us a favor by opening our eyes and hearts to the cause of environmentalism, which in my opinion has become the new religion for Atheists and Agnostics. I bet there are a number of people that will show this movie to their kids in a pseudo Sunday school fashion. I'm well acquainted with people treating me with contempt for choosing to be different in my religious views. I follow my convictions because I believe I am making a difference in my life and those I love for the better by following the principles of my religion. The blessing in this life are great, but the payoff in the life to come is far beyond what I can comprehend.

Likewise, I've known people that do not follow religion or are just spiritual, but downright intense about their carbon foot print. They do "weird" or "unusual" things to make a difference. Is it all that different from religion? One chooses to put faith in God, others faith in Science... and Al Gore. Here is an interesting article from Time about indulgencies for modern followers of the Green Faith:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1599714,00.html

I try to recycle, use cleaners that don't violate the earth, avoid littering, shut off the water when I brush my teeth and live by sunlight as much as possible. But I'm no saint with my carbon footprint, just as I'm no perfect saint in my religion either. However, I will always put my religious convictions ahead of other considerations. Why? I've come to understand the big picture and realize that some things are not as important as others. Some truths are eternal and some ideas and so called "facts" are constantly changing.

OK. I got carried away. Let me just say this: I love my country. Despite its flaws, some of our history and current policies. It is a great place to live and has afforded many the protection and opportunity to enjoy life and the pursuit of happiness like never before in the history of the world. We are not all gun-toting, fat, intolerant morons that are out to destroy the earth for our own gratification. Corporations are not entirely evil. Competition is generally a good thing. We have brought some wonderful things to humanity and it makes me sick to see such consistent, subtle attacks on our way of life. Will I buy this movie? Yes. It is a fantastic film. Am I thrilled with some of the implied messages? Obviously not, but to be fair, protecitng the earth, staying fit and avoiding runaway corparate greed are good things. Maybe I'm just a Communications major that should be quiet, eat my popcorn and enjoy the movie.