Wall-E’s inadequate conclusion

I really, really wanted to love this movie. I should have loved this movie: First of all, I’m crazy about two of Pixar’s recent films, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The former was a nearly perfect superhero movie as far as I’m concerned, with fantastic action sequences, creatively employed powers, a complex lead, an interesting villain, a decent message, and, perhaps most importantly, a hilarious sequence of scenes involving the team’s haute costumer (“…and guest”). Ideally, the climax of such a movie would deliver a moment where each member of the team realized his full potential as an individual, while also complementing the abilities of the others, in order to finally and barely overcome the nemesis. The movie did not quite accomplish this, but it tried, and I give it credit.

I mention this because I believe that you choose a genre for a reason. Bringing the superhero genre to a film about a family was brilliant because it gives the opportunity to show, spectacularly, a family finally coming to appreciate each other for their unique characteristics. Ratatoille, similarly, used the dynamic and intense field of French cuisine, with its high heat and bold flavors, and exploited the natural enmity between vermin and cook to tell a rich story about what it means to have a passion, what it feels like to be an outsider, and, finally, what it takes to balance a new life with an old one.

In short, Pixar does not mess around. So when they chose to do science fiction for their latest film, I was thrilled. I love science fiction. I’m not talking about space opera here, although that can be great as well. True science fiction comes down to thought experiment. What would happen if an advanced civilization was reduced to near extinction, being chased around the galaxy by ruthless enemies? While we’re at it, what if we couldn’t even tell whether these same enemies were human or not? Battlestar Galactica is currently the epitome of what science fiction can and should be, but there is a long tradition of great science fiction that works in this same vein: Ask an important question, think about your conclusion, and invent the technology you need to tell the story, skipping the messy, unimportant details.

Wall-E sets the stage well in this regard, in both the primary and background story lines. How does one express love, or even less fall in love, without words or facial expressions? What
will we become if we are forced to leave this planet? And, on the grandest level, what is the endgame for our society? This is the makings of good science fiction. Furthermore, Pixar presents magnificently, demonstrating creatively the language of the film through Wall-E’s entertaining interactions with his environment, and communicates the failures and ultimate fate of humanity quite effectively. Greed and ignorance have destroyed our planet and exiled us to the cold reaches of space. Remember: greed and ignorance.

The love story mostly succeeds, although I have a few issues here as well. From a feminist standpoint, Wall-E’s seduction is somewhat offensive. Girl arrives, demonstrates her superiority, tolerates boy, then passes out for reasons out her control. Boy then possesses, gropes (check out when he pries her arm out), and ties up girl, then stalks her when her parents come to pick her up. Sensationalized account notwithstanding, it is a very traditionalist and outmoded account of courtship. Without spoiling anything, I also found the climactic moment unsatisfying. Although it would have been devastating to the film’s audience, I feel that they missed an incredible opportunity for true tragedy. Kind of like tacking on a happy ending to a Hans Christian Andersen fable. Still, the ability of the Pixar animators to communicate a wide range of genuine feeling through their robot actors is impressive and worthy of accolade.

OK, with everything else out of the way I can finally get to my serious beef with the film. How does humanity deal with the awakening provided by Wall-E and the revelation of plant life on earth? Apparently, by acting like spoiled, petulant children. Humanity’s surrogate in the film is the captain, who takes on the mantle of Man of Action on behalf of the drooling, squealing, and, later, helplessly flailing masses. When the captain learns about earth, provided via the same idyllic scenes that in our own time lull us into fatal inaction, he is overcome with resolve to return to earth. Never mind that he has acquired no actual information about the current state of earth. Never mind that his apparently competent and well-informed autopilot seems to think that this is an extremely bad idea. Or, for that matter, that we have no reason to believe anyone but the autopilot can even fly the ship… No. I want to go to earth and I want it NOW.

So, here are the qualities of humanity’s savior: greed and ignorance. We spend the remainder of the movie watching idiots fight off their caretakers, put the lives of all humanity in danger, and beat a hasty path back to earth, which, by any reasonable standards, is in no way ready for a deposit of spoiled, needy, skill-less blobs. As a moral fable, Wall-E would like to be teaching us to consider how our current actions will affect future generations, and to occasionally forgo instant gratification with deference to planning and reflection. Lesson learned? Hardly.

Tags: animation, movie, pixar, review, sci-fi, science fiction, wall-e