Wall-E (2008)

I'm not sure when i lost interest in Pixar movies but i know why...

I know that I still hold the ones I've seen in high regard. Pixar movies, in our crazy mixed-up pound-shop world come with a great run of quality. Even if there's one you didn't like, (Cars.) one outta ten isn't bad. Pixar (kinda running with what daddy Disney had started in '89 with The Little Mermaid) was responsible for not only legitimising animated movies in terms of quality and spectacle but legitimising animated movies not only for kids but for adults too.

I thought i'd stopped watching them ages ago after Ratatouille but in reality, i've only missed out 2, Wall-E and Up. I didn't stop watching Pixar after Cars because it was crap though it was, but i could see the Pixar storytelling system. You'd a have a fun 80mins, really beautiful and really funny but then all of a sudden they would drag you thru the most heart-wrenching turn before the happy ending; i'm thinking of- Sully trying to save Boo in Monsters Inc. or Jessie's backstory in Toy Story 2 to the incinerator bit in Toy Story 3. They all have them and they just wreck me emotionally. I guess I'm too sensitive but they don't just upset me for 2mins, they're all i can think about afterwards. So i'll watch Wall-E but i think i'll need a hug afterwards...

And i do. I thinks 'do a kids movie- something different' i thinks. As i mentioned above, the thing i least like about Pixar's output is they tend to get really fraught at the end. I feel like i jinxed myself by saying that. Cos for me, and yeah-fine-i'm weird, Wall-E is pretty fraught with loss and desperation through-out.

I think there's a Star Trek film or episode of Next Generation, where Data (the robot/android/cyborg/whatever) has the opportunity to get a 'chip' where he'll be able to develop emotions and they say to him, 'y'know it not all love and happiness Data, there's likely to be moments of sadness and despair as well' to which he probably paraphrased 'it's better to have loved and lost then to have not loved at all' to which Picard gave him the 'chip' AND a tampon cos Picard was a bit dick to make up for his latent homosexuality. This may have happened, it may have been a dream- a bit from column A, a bit from column B probably. My point is i'm very wary about robots having a 'Consciousness'- not for the Terminator 'the machines will kill us all' reason but that, I struggle with my own 'Consciousness', giving a poor robot 'Consciousness' seems like growing an ear on the back of that poor mouse- I'm not impressed in the slightest and it just seems cruel. 

Like I'm not an animal lover. You'll never see me at the zoo or watching David Attenborough- i sound  terribly boorish but i can't even pretend to like that stuff but that's not to say i wish the animals any ill. I hate to think of anyone or anything in pain. Which is why Wall-E was such a chore for me to watch. Poor Wall-E is alone on Earth, save for a bug friend, watching videos and building massive trash skyscrapers, just waiting for something to happen.

Which it does with the arrival of a spiffy other robot called EVE. Wall-E is instantly attracted to EVE but in my cynicism, I'd imagine he'd been attracted to a new insect friend given the chance. EVE's looking for something and destroys anything that gets in her way (i'd start talking about the role of sexes in these robots but it's quite the philosophical minefield. Let's just say i'm gonna identify Wall-E as male and EVA as female but i can't explain why or why it's necessary for me to do it, anyway...). There's a moment when she has to decide whether to destroy Wall-E or not and she decides against it because he poses literally no threat. (I know the feeling, Wall-E.) We realise that she's looking for signs of life, when she finds plant-growth and she puts it inside her robot body and then sorta goes into standby-mode - not dead, just off.

Then comes probably the most distressing part of Wall-E, the montage where Wall-E pushes EVA's rigid body around pretending she's alive. Now i know,i'm probably 100% overthinking Wall-E but what the fuck is that about!? I know he's a robot and doesn't know better but really it's a CG animated film- it probably takes 100's of people to make a 2 minutes a week- Why would you choose to make/show that?!

I watched all the film but i'm too sad to talk about the rest of it. It's not a bad film- It's not you, it's me. I'm not who this film is aimed at. People seem to like it. It's in the top 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is, undoubtedly, an earnest (though far from simplistic) ecological parable, but it is also a disarmingly sweet and simple love story, Chaplinesque in its emotional purity.

A.O. Scott from The New York Times said that and he don't like shit. I just wish i felt the same...

I watched Wall-E on the UK's wonderful BBC I-Player.

My 2011 in Movies with return with Norbit (2007).