It looks real because it is real
It is no mistake that, in WALL·E, trash looks real. The city-cum-junkyard in which WALL·E is marooned is full of texture, dust, and detail. The wasted city’s realness is meaningful1: it is a vision of the future of the world outside of the movie, the real world.
Pixar’s realism is not used only to echo a timely, real-world fear, but also to argue that humans are responsible. The humans in old recordings of Earth are not computer-generated, but flesh-and-bone actors. Earth is ruined, and real humans ruined it.
Further, the damage is the result of familiar, even friendly forces. The mountains of garbage were not caused by some large, international conflict (Planet of the Apes), deadly virus (I Am Legend), or alien invasion (Independence Day), but by consumerism and apathy. There are no flashbacks to secret labs or mushroom clouds, but instead chirpy billboard advertisements; no glowing craters, but bras, tires, and other recognizable bits of trash.
In these ways, WALL·E uses realism and familiarity to tie its tale to the world outside the theatre. The unreal slickness of the Axiom and the goofy look of its inhabitants sets them apart from our experience. It is much more difficult to separate ourselves from the mountain of discarded boots and refrigerators, or the call to “abandon the planet” from a tired, wrinkled authority behind a White-House–like podium.2
From mothership to stewardship
As strong as its position on the dangers of pollution is, WALL·E fumbles its argument in the end. Though the realism of the first half says the danger is real and heedless consumerism a poison, the second half claims the solution is eagerness and care.
The film’s position seems to be what Rosemary Ruether calls the Protestant stewardship approach: “Nature must be regarded as an object, not as a subject. It is our possession, but we must possess it in a thrifty rather than a profligate way.” With care and hard work, the Earth can be saved. Nature and health are grand projects of conservation.
Hopeful though it is, this position often does not consider the historical and economic context in which damage and restoration occur. As Annalee Newitz notes, “everybody on Earth is dead except for those who could afford to take what is billed as ‘an executive class cruise’ on the BnL ship.”
This makes the film’s end seem not just naïve, but macabre. If unprepared humans (dreaming of “pizza plants”), galaxies and generations away from those familiar with Earth and the causes of its destruction, can repair the damage through good will and elbow grease, why did they not do so earlier?
Ultimately, as damning as WALL·E‘s opening setting may be, its philosophy is toothless. It reduces the environmental problem to one between Nature and Man (the only things mentioned in “Down to Earth”, the song that plays over the credits), discarding the economic dimension. Having shown the audience its own dire situation and condemned its destructive habits, the film tells it that everything can be okay, that we can have buildings and high technology and a green world so long as we plant enough seeds.
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As is the verisimilitude of Washington in Fallout 3.↩
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If this is true, the filmmakers’ other conspicuous use of real-world humans is also meaningful: the clips of “It Only Takes a Moment” from Hello, Dolly! which WALL·E cherishes. Love is real too, even between two robots.
The love between the two ‘bots is better realized and more convincing than that between the two humans on the Axiom. As in Blade Runner, it is the robots that are the most human. Unlike BR, the humanity of the robots is obvious, so much so that the movie doesn’t bother asking whether or not they can love. We know that EVE and WALL·E will be together, because “It Only Takes a Moment” has told us so.↩
Tags: environmentalism, film, pixar, wall-e
Using actual footage from Hello, Dolly for “It Only Takes a Moment” was a stroke of genius and a great way to separate it from the typical romanticism of children’s film. Once that clip started playing, I realized that that could very well be the future of this planet.
I had a different reaction to the last act, though. I thought the main theme was more about the breakdown of communications and relationships, and how such a disconnect could snowball into terrible things. I don’t think the fate of the planet mattered too much in the conclusion, as the story seemed more focused on how the relationship between WALL-E and EVE rippled throughout their surroundings. The planet could remain dead; the triumph was that humanity had rekindled that bond.
It would be interesting to look at the film for the “breakdown of communications and relationships, and how such a disconnect could snowball into terrible things” (which, to me, also sounds like a high-level synopsis of an episode of Home Improvement). There’s much to that, WALL·E’s inability to communicate his love for EVE and her her “directive” to him.
I believe the fate of the planet was more important than the relationship between the two robots. It certainly seems to be the focus of the film’s finale. The movie closes on the image of the humans planting the last surviving plant (though, as the camera pulls out there appear to be a bunch more just on the other side of a hill—their good will already has had a magical effect!). The credits sequence too is about humanity rebuilding, replanting.
The Statements in the film max out one question:
How will a degenerated, naive and shorthanded mankind repair, what billions of fresh, strong and used to hard work mankind 700 years ago was unable to perform? With the help of the bots? I don´t think so, or they would have been successful all the way back in time,
They had their Army of cleaning bots… and all that was to it, was piles of junk skyhigh stapled…
You have inspired me to try one thing, i will go and try to compare the WALL-E reality to the Battlestar Galactica reality. For the finales are similar and both turn away from technology for a cleansweep fresh and green start….
All this has happened before, and will happen again… again… again…