At its core, it is a love story - between robots. Except, it is expressed more clearly than many science fiction writers have ever managed in their entire working life. This has been a common theme in many movies/stories - Asimov's Bi-centennial Man is a quick example - where robots finally get to the AI stage - where they become self aware, and usually one of the attributes given to self aware machines, is the capability to love.
But Wall-E is more than just a love story - it is also a story about pollution. Wall-E is a robot that is cleaning up the mess that earth has become. It is a story, ironically given the Disney backing, about commercialism - where humans are consumed totally by consumerism and not caring about their surroundings. It is about laziness - robots do almost everything, to the extent that humans have all become obese slobs.
Wall-E works as a movie, because it is primarily a great story. It also works because it is not a typical cartoon where all the inanimate objects talk - but the story is told, almost in mime. It is a throwback to the silent era where the acting was key. And it works beautifully.
1 comment:
Yeah, I watched it eventually with my friend's daughter - it's a very interesting idea. I thought the question of the development of sentient beings was treated so well - instead of doom and gloom, sentient machines spell seemingly eternal laziness for human beings.
But the other important point was why the ship resisted allowing the humans to return to earth. It just goes to show, irrationality wins hands down. Entropy: we are thermodynamics bitch.
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