Ten years ago, WALL-E, Disney-Pixar’s ninth animated film, carved a special place in our hearts. It was an unusual love story in a highly unusual setting, about a sentient trash compactor robot who meets the love of his life, EVE, when she is dispatched to find life on Earth by Axiom — a spaceship aboard which humans are on a 700-year cruise, ostensibly waiting to reinhabit their planet.
WALL-E and EVE’s escapades in the Axiom and their collaborative effort to fight the evil AUTO, the rogue AI programme, and the triumph of good over evil, nostalgia over denial and emotions over pragmatism make it our favourite Disney-Pixar film.
WALL-E: THE DYSFUNCTIONAL HERO
Old, mangled and rusty, WALL-E is the last surviving robot of his kind and leads a solitary existence, with the exception of his cockroach best friend. WALL-E learns the way of humans by watching cassettes of old English musicals, and his greatest strength lies in his humanity. He is all the more lovable because despite being self-sufficient, he longs for company and is instantly attached to EVE, not letting her technological superiority come in the way. In the Axiom, his relentless search for EVE and subsequent rescue attempt, his insistence on EVE’s “directive” — to place the plant in a machine that activates the ship’s journey back to Earth — and his self-sacrifice for the people of the Axiom, make WALL-E a hero in the truest sense of the word.
THE MUSIC
From Jerry Herman’s Put On Your Sunday Clothes in the beginning to Louis Armstrong’s cover of La Vie En Rose when WALL-E takes care of EVE, and back to Herman’s It Only Takes A Moment in the last scene, the Andrew Stanton-directed film absolutely aces it on the music front. For a film that’s about love and what it means to be human, the nostalgia-inducing choice of songs could not have been more appropriate. The music becomes all the more significant when it helps EVE revive the old WALL-E in the last scene.
BUY-N-LARGE: AN EERIE PROPHECY
The film’s fictional mega-corp Buy-N-Large is a take on unchecked capitalism and a corporate takeover of the planet. While a tad unrealistic in that the Americans seem to be the only humans in the world, Buy-N-Large is an embodiment of modern consumerism at the expense of natural human ways. Not being able to walk, consuming drinks as meals and changing fashion en masse, WALL-E depicts a dystopian trajectory for humans that might already be here.
SPACE DANCE: WALL-E AND EVE’S WALTZ IN ZERO-GRAVITY
In an attempt to salvage the plant, WALL-E accidentally gets ejected in a capsule headed towards Earth, which eventually self-destructs. What follows is a masterful display of Disney-Pixar’s magical prowess over the physics behind animation in a space setting. WALL-E uses a fire-extinguisher to propel himself around with EVE, as they waltz around in zero-gravity free of care. WALL-E’s I Believe I Can Fly moment was the highest point in the film. The intelligence may have been artificial, but the love was real.
CAPTAIN MCCREA: THE HUMAN HERO
Captain McCrea is the main subject of transformation in the film. From being one of the many “hypnotised” humans aboard to a determined and resolute captain living up to a legacy, Captain McCrea is also a hero. He challenges Auto’s decision to terminate the return by retorting “I don’t want to survive, I want to live!”. Though cliched, it makes great contextual impact. The physical horseplay with the devious AUTO and his eventual triumph in standing up, quite literally, on his feet is one of the best moments in the film.
AUTO: THE RISE OF AI
AUTO’s creepy voice, calculating mind and heartless disposition are a statement on the dangers of being overtly dependent on software. Auto takes over and decides to terminate EVE’s directive to place the plant in the machine. To that end, he orders his loyal robots to displace the plant and eventually sends it off to Earth in a capsule… until WALL-E comes to the rescue.
ROGUE ROBOTS: THE REBELLION
Remember the three Rs from the environmental science course? Reduce, reuse, recycle. That is exactly what was done to the malfunctioning robots of the Axiom, before WALL-E the messiah helped them escape the quarantined zone. The rogue robots commit to WALL-E and EVE’s mission to place the plant in the machine, and we get an inversion of the three Rs — the Rogue Robot Rebellion. Beating up police robots, protecting the plant and just having fun in non-conformity, they are the revolutionaries of the Axiom.
EVE: THE KICKASS ROBOT WITH A HEART
Introduced as unemotional, powerful and furious, EVE is the very antithesis of WALL-E. Seemingly non-sentient, she is not immune to WALL-E’s infectious charm as we see the robot that burned down massive docked ships being reduced to giggles. EVE is professional, responsible and a clear outlier among the robots, and her love-story with WALL-E bears testament to the age-old saying — opposites attract.
THE HOPE: THE PLANT AS A METAPHOR
With the US having left the Paris Accord and policy makers across the world struggling to cope with global warming, the film was prophetic in its depiction of a world that relinquishes its respect for the sanctity of nature. Throughout the film, the plant — the only one found on Earth — becomes a metaphor for hope and a glimpse of a possibility that the world is indeed more malleable and habitable when handled with care.
THE ENDING
The last scene sees the frantic revival of WALL-E by EVE, and the loss of WALL-E’s memory after being brought back to ‘life’. After multiple failed attempts to make him recognise her, EVE decides to bid farewell to him by humming a tune and kissing him (literally an electric shock). In a quintessentially Disney moment, WALL-E defies logic and affectionately utters EVE’s name after what seemed to be a brief period of rebooting. Michael Crawford’s It Only Takes A Moment playing in the background provides the perfect ending to Disney-Pixar’s most unconventional love story that taught us the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary — a little bit of hope, and a little bit of love.
Text: Vishwajeet Gain
