SPOILER ALERT!!!

I might as well play it safe and let you know ahead of time that there may be some unintentional spoilers in this post. So if you haven’t seen the movie yet and you’re concerned about not getting the full emotional impact of the film, read this later.

With that out of the way, here we go.

I told my dad yesterday that he had to go see Wall-E. “But is it for children or for adults?” he asked me. I told him it’s for both. Honestly, it’s for inhabitants of the planet earth, both old and young. There are some references that I think would go over the head of a ten-year-old, but I agree with Frank Rich’s view (in the article that Ethan posted yesterday) that in many ways it’s a more effective method of storytelling than the daily news programs (yes, sigh, even better than Keith Olbermann). It’s wonderful that Disney/Pixar created an environmentally conscious film that would draw in an audience of all ages – it’s a very, very smart way to reach children and help them learn about being “green,” because the film was entertaining, touching, and definitely not a stuffy lecture on the benefits recycling.

First of all, the film had an extremely strong opening. I was absolutely tickled during the opening credits when I was greeted not only with breathtaking depictions of celestial bodies but with the song “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” from the musical Hello, Dolly!:

Out there, there’s a world outside of Yonkers,

Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby, there’s a slick town, Barnaby.

Out there, full of shine and full of sparkle,

Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby. Listen, Barnaby!

It draws us in to the grandeur of the open sky, and as the jaunty music continues to play, we zoom in past an atmosphere cluttered with satellites and down to what remains of the earth: total wreckage, a few damaged buildings, and a hazy sky. At first we wonder if a nuclear war brought us to this devastation, but as the film progresses and we notice the landscape littered with gas stations and convenience stores, all of which are owned by a super-power corporation called “Buy N Large,” which made me laugh nervously. We see newspaper headlines declaring “Too Much Trash,” and the horrible realization dawns on us that we, the good guys, did this to ourselves. The eager voices in the opening song, juxtaposed with the virtual wasteland we’ve created, reminds us just how much we’ve lost (and how much we have to lose).

Hello, Dolly! is a cheesy, sappy fluff of a romantic musical comedy from the 1960s. There’s no need to give a full synopsis. Suffice it to say that Hello, Dolly! is the sort of old fashioned song and dance romance that rekindles a kind of sentimental longing for the unmatchable exhilaration of love at first sight. I think the significance of the multiple references to Hello, Dolly! in the film have to do with the fundamental need for humans (and apparently robots) to have love and connection in their lives. The place that the earth turned into in the world of Wall-E was a world driven by convenience and service, rather than by love. This kind of life continues on the spaceship that humans have been relocated to – I was especially horrified/amused by the idea of two people sitting on mobile lounge chairs next to each other, talking to each other through the basically permanent computer screens in front of their faces. (Do you ever talk to your roommate on AIM? Or call someone on the phone who lives two floors below you? Well…stop doing that).

The Hello, Dolly! scenes are in such opposition to the human world that has become devoid of basic person-to-person interaction. Somehow, Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class), a robot that has been placed on earth by the now far away humans to compact all the garbage we left behind, has developed the emotions that the humans in the film have forgotten. In many ways he is the anti-robot, and the humans have assumed the traditional roles of robots, mindlessly living their lives. Wall-E experiences loneliness, has preferences for special objects that he finds, is curious about how things work, and cares about the well-being of his sidekick cockroach (a funny take on the usual Disney animal-friend gimmick) and Eve, another robot who is sent to earth later in the film. We’re not sure what her purpose is at the beginning, but when Wall-E gives her a gift – a tiny green sprout that he found growing in an old boot – her sleek white body propels forward, grabs the plant and stores it inside her (Motherhood? Childbirth? Am I reading too much into this?) it becomes clear that her mission is to find any trace of plant life on earth. Are the humans going to start their own new colony on another planet? Are they going to come back to earth to repair the damage? Can they? These are underlying questions that are alluded to, beautifully and subtly, throughout the film.

By rocking the boat (ie, knocking people out of their chairs, causing hovercraft traffic jams, freeing defective robots from a virtual sanatorium), Wall-E and Eve are able to disturb the status quo that has been established on the space station; humans have become unhealthy, lazy, uneducated, and unaware of the world around them. “I didn’t know we had a pool!” one of them exclaims. Others realize for the first time where they are, and stare in awe at the magnificence of the universe before them.

Wall-E is now one of my favorite animated heroes. He is clumsy, filthy, and a supreme force of good. The ending scenes reminded me of Voltaire’s novel Candide which was also turned into an operetta by Leonard Bernstein. The final song in the musical version is called “Make Our Garden Grow”:

“And let us try before we die

To make some sense of life.

We’re neither pure nor wise nor good;

We’ll do the best we know.

We’ll build our house and chop our wood

And make our garden grow.”

Yes. I did just compare Wall-E to Voltaire. You got a problem with that?

One of the most touching aspects of the movie for me was the way that Wall-E cared for Eve. We find ourselves wishing that the humans in the film could take care of the planet and each other with even half as much attention and love as Wall-E gives to Eve. The message of the movie to me was that we ought to treat the planet the way we treat our loved ones, because otherwise, they may disappear.

Oh, and if you didn’t tear up even a little bit at the end, you have no soul. I don’t care if they were robots. It was beautiful, I tell you! Beautiful!