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.