Wall-E - New from Pixar

[Made of Ghosts]

She found it too cutesy and too depressing. So I guess the problem was with it being too effective.

[Nick R]

I remember reading an Empire report when they went on a tour of Pixar soon after Toy Story I think. They said the visitors passes had the little alien on them and said "A stranger, from outside. Oooooooh" I thought that was ace.

There's a picture in this /Film interview with Andrew Stanton:

[Capwn]

I love the first half hour, then as soon as the humans come in it just falls apart. I think if they just stuck with walle and eve as the only characters and really explored that and had a tragic depressing but warm end it could of been the greatest CG movie yet.

Kids would of hated it though, sod em though I say...

[Mr Do 71]

Went to see it this afternoon, and it's just wonderful

[Corleth the Fey]

I love the first half hour, then as soon as the humans come in it just falls apart. I think if they just stuck with walle and eve as the only characters and really explored that and had a tragic depressing but warm end it could of been the greatest CG movie yet.

Kids would of hated it though, sod em though I say...

No it doesn't. /slap

The only thing wrong with them is until they appear - it's not CGI - it's real. They just reminded me that it was CGI that's all.

The Captain has some good bits, that were about equal to what the robots were up to -

Watering the plant and then saying 'you just need someone to look after you - and then realizing they have to go back to Earth. And then him standing up to the tune of Also sprach Zarathustra (from 2001) and going after Auto - great stuff.

[lordcookie]

What a beautiful film. I was surprised, and disappointed, how short the opening Earth section was but when Wall-E and Eve were on screen without the humans it was absolute magic. I agree that the humans do spoil it. Not only because they aren't really needed but the animation is so breathtaking that when they appear the spell of believability is broken somewhat.

The subtlety and beauty in the animation was stunning at times.

the way Wall-E had dead eyes at the end even though there was very little difference in his eyes to normal was really well done.

I did think the 2001 reference was a bit too in your face considering Pixar normally steer clear of over emphasising movie references. The Titanic reference was far better in this regard.

There were 4 other animated feature trailers before the film and they really highlighted how far ahead Pixar are in comparison to every other Western animation studio.

I loved Presto too. It was like Portal crossed with a Looney Tunes cartoon.

[Gorf King]

the way Wall-E had dead eyes at the end even though there was very little difference in his eyes to normal was really well done.

That was the most impressive technical feat to me, too. They really surpassed anything they've done before with that use of the visual representation of what's basically a pair of binoculars to suggest real loss. You can see how the idea isn't so far fetched, but the execution was subtle and brilliant. That really marked them out from any CGI stuff I've ever seen (which, although good, often lacks visual depth of emotion), and put them up with the best animators. I bet they sweated buckets on that scene to get everything just right.

There were 4 other animated feature trailers before the film and they really highlighted how far ahead Pixar are in comparison to every other Western animation studio.

I though that too - especially the monkey one, which seemed so poor in comparison. They looked woeful beforehand, but even moreso in retrospect after the feature had ended. It really did highlight a lack of artistry and imagination on the part of the other studios (or an excess of it in Pixar's case).

I loved Presto too. It was like Portal crossed with a Looney Tunes cartoon.

$1.99 on the US iTunes store. Bargain.

[lordcookie]

That really marked them out from any CGI stuff I've ever seen (which, although good, often lacks visual depth of emotion), and put them up with the best animators. I bet they sweated buckets on that scene to get everything just right.

You got glimpses of what the studio were capable of in previous films from the moment when Sully is reunited with Boo at the end of Monsters Inc to the panic of Elastigirl realising her children are in danger when flying to the island in The Incredibles. But with this film they continually nailed this throughout from the

video playback of Wall-E looking after Eve during her hibernation to him swinging his wheels whilst sitting in the escape pod and waiting for Eve to sit beside him

. It is full of so many little moments that other studios seem to entirely ignore.

I was really impressed with Eve too. The trailers focus so much on Wall-E (for obvious reasons) that I wasn't expecting Eve to be such a brilliantly realised character too.

[Gorf King]

You got glimpses of what the studio were capable of in previous films from the moment when Sully is reunited with Boo at the end of Monsters Inc to the panic of Elastigirl realising her children are in danger when flying to the island in The Incredibles. But with this film they continually nailed this throughout from the

video playback of Wall-E looking after Eve during her hibernation to him swinging his wheels whilst sitting in the escape pod and waiting for Eve to sit beside him

. It is full of so many little moments that other studios seem to entirely ignore.

I was really impressed with Eve too. The trailers focus so much on Wall-E (for obvious reasons) that I wasn't expecting Eve to be such a brilliantly realised character too.

I agree. I've often responded to visual cues in animations, but realised (or felt) instinctively that the dilating of a pupil or raising of an eyebrow was exactly what it was supposed to be: an obvious cue for an obvious emotion in the viewer.

In the scene we just discussed, I didn't feel that. I felt I was watching an actor. (Obviously, I know I wasn't watching a real person; but I didn't feel that I was watching a simulation of a human being either. I felt I was just being shown an emotion.)

I think a big part of this film's success is that it didn't have (except in the less successful bits) human CGI characters to carry that emotion (or dolls of humans, much the same thing - as are anthropomorphised fishes, monsters, etc - they're still organic, and have discernibly human features, after all.). Since Eve and Wall-E were an abstraction and freed by this, perhaps the crew had more scope to explore what they could do to represent emotions through more abstract representations. Both the non-English sounds and the non-human images of the robots (and the cockroach) were able to carry a lot more than you might expect from CGI. I think the relatively unsuccessful human characters just serve to emphasise that.

[lordcookie]

Since Eve and Wall-E were an abstraction and freed by this, perhaps the crew had more scope to explore what they could do to represent emotions through more abstract representations.

Definitely. In many ways this harks back to the thing that made Pixar famous in the first place: the Luxo lamp.

[Blobcat]

Also the way Gill reacts when Nemo is saved after nearly being killed in the filter in Finding Nemo.

[Spudulis]

him swinging his wheels whilst sitting in the escape pod and waiting for Eve to sit beside him

My favourite bit of the film I think. He was just so unbearably adorable there.

Some interesting discussion about the emotion portrayed in this film. I really want to watch again and focus on just how they did it. Everything for both Wall-E and Eve was done through the eyes. I did notice quite a lot of subtle movement of the lenses in Wall-E's eyes to convey emotion. I guess to do the dead eyes they made the lenses static. That would be one way to kill of the emotion. As I said I'd need to see it again. In many ways Eve was more impressive as her eyes were just a dot matrix basically.

All in all it is just an astounding piece of animation.

[K]

I thought Wall-E was awesome, with two caveats (apologies if these have already been mentioned). One is that I thought the mixture of live-action humans and CGI humans was really jarring, and took me out of the film; I could have lived with it if the live-action people were at one end of the film and the CG people were at the other, but they mixed it up at the end, and that annoyed me a bit.

The other thing is that I'd have loved for there to have been no humans at all; when Wall-E and Eve got to the Axiom, I was hoping it would be completely deserted except for the robots, and that the film would be about the gradual discovery of what happened to the human race. That's not really a criticism, it's more how I would have liked the film to have developed, as I loved the exploration of the dead Earth. I love JG Ballard and other end-of-the-world stories, and the idea of a dialogue-free film about the world left behind by humans frankly gives me an erection.

I'm also a space pedant, and there were a few things that annoyed me, like the fact that the stars twinkled in space, and the bit where Wall-E runs his hands through Saturn's rings was all wrong as well, the rings were far too dense and defined. You could hear sound in space as well, which always annoys me a little bit. It's still a brilliant film though, and it's nice to see Frank Spencer getting a bit of screen time.

[Eighthours]

I thought Wall-E was awesome, with two caveats (apologies if these have already been mentioned). One is that I thought the mixture of live-action humans and CGI humans was really jarring, and took me out of the film; I could have lived with it if the live-action people were at one end of the film and the CG people were at the other, but they mixed it up at the end, and that annoyed me a bit.

That was a bit curious. I'm wondering myself why they didn't make the humans human. Surely they could have come up with some prosthetic fatsuit tech. The disparity was a bit off-putting, considering the more "real" nature (in terms of design) of everything else in the film. Still a stunning piece of work, though.

[K]

I think it might have worked better if the humans at the start were CGI as well. I suppose the reason they did that was to contrast with the humans who'd been in microgravity for generations, but I still found it a bit jarring. Maybe they should have used Ratatouille/Incredibles-style people at the start.

[lordcookie]

The mix of live action and CGI humans was a bit jarring. As an idea it was pretty good but I think the gap between the two was too great.

One thing that does disappoint me about CGI films (and that includes Pixar ones) is that whilst some films stylise the characters the environments they live and interact with are always striving for realism. There was 23 years between Gertie the Dinosaur and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and only a few more years after that when Disney would try out new and interesting art styles in films such as Fantasia. We are now currently in a similar gap: The Adventures of André and Wally B came out 24 years ago so why isn't the medium being pushed more rather than just aiming for realism. Where are the films to rival the art direction of Sleeping Beauty?

[Gorf King]

Couldn't agree more with that. I was actually going to start a thread about some of the animated shorts nominated for Oscars this year (they're all available for keeps at $1.99 a pop on the US iTunes store): some of those are great.

Two in particular: Peter and the Wolf (yeah, the old story), and My Love (a beautifully painted Russian story of adolescent love and delusion). Peter and the Wolf got the Oscar, though I preferred My Love; both are excellent though, and Madam Tutlie-Pulti was pretty good too (great technically, but a bit empty I thought).

Of course, they're not features, but the first two are over a half hour long, so they're not *that* short. I guess they're just not commercial enough for today's market. They're lovely pieces of animation though, so at least there's still some of this stuff going on that's not in the plastic realism mold.

(None of them are CGI however, so you might say I've kind of missed the point.)

[roskelld]

Just got back from watching it.

Good film, certainly felt like a two parter glued together though. Like what people have already said, I'd have preferred them to have explored the story from earth, and not had to involve humans at all. There's plenty to show for humanity, we really don't actually have to see the humans to show what type of people they are.

Maybe it would have been nice to have them arrive at the end some how, and kept the perspective of the story just to the robots dealing with humanities faults.

I was a little confused at the end, I'm presuming they're saying that Wall-e developed a soul, one that didn't require chips, circuit boards and the like. But if that's the case, why did he revert back to his factory settings at all.

Slighty odd and rushed conclusion.

Apart from that, a wonderful piece of animation, cinematography and sound design. I want to see the film frame-by-frame, sound-by-sound, to soak it all in.

[Gorf King]

I was a little confused at the end, I'm presuming they're saying that Wall-e developed a soul, one that didn't require chips, circuit boards and the like. But if that's the case, why did he revert back to his factory settings at all.

I agree with all you've written, but especially this. I thought that replacing parts of Wall-E was fine, but when his motherboard (or whatever it was) died, that was fatal, because in using a new mobo/cpu/whatever (erm, I guess that would include memory) Eve had effectively replaced his personality with a blank slate. For a while, I thought that he was just going to stay in that factory-fresh state and it would be the saddest ending to an animated feature ever (outside Grave of the Fireflies, of course).

After a tiny shudder of disappointment (and a little frisson of embryonic geek outrage) when the old Wall-E emerged, though, I was too soft-hearted to begrudge the little bugger his happy ending.

[lordcookie]

it would be the saddest ending to an animated feature ever (outside Grave of the Fireflies, of course).

And When the Wind Blows. And Plague Dogs. And Allegro Non Troppo - Valse Triste etc.

The swapping of the motherboards didn't even register with me. I just assumed it was a piece of equipment that had no bearing on his memories.

My Love is a great short by the way. It is also available on Youtube for the cheap bastards.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

Just got back from watching it.

Good film, certainly felt like a two parter glued together though. Like what people have already said, I'd have preferred them to have explored the story from earth, and not had to involve humans at all. There's plenty to show for humanity, we really don't actually have to see the humans to show what type of people they are.

Maybe it would have been nice to have them arrive at the end some how, and kept the perspective of the story just to the robots dealing with humanities faults.

I was a little confused at the end, I'm presuming they're saying that Wall-e developed a soul, one that didn't require chips, circuit boards and the like. But if that's the case, why did he revert back to his factory settings at all.

Slighty odd and rushed conclusion.

Apart from that, a wonderful piece of animation, cinematography and sound design. I want to see the film frame-by-frame, sound-by-sound, to soak it all in.

I thought the humans were essential to the story, has it demonstrated that we aren't malicious, just stupid.

Agreed about Wall-E at the end. I thought the film would be smart enough to do something different. I get the feeling that some writers wanted to kill him off, as it would have been rather poetic in that he'd have swapped his own life for the potential teeming life on earth.

[Gorf King]

And When the Wind Blows. And Plague Dogs etc.

Aye, you're right enough. These wouldn't have left an audience of quite so many 5-12 year olds drowning in a sea of bitter tears, though. (Mind you, neither would have Grave of the Fireflies, so that was a bit of a pointless comparison on my part.)

The demographic's probably, and understandably, what caused them to have to have some sort of more obviously happy ending. I think the film would have been better if Wall-E had really made that sacrifice, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have gone down so well. I'd like to think it would, but I can understand why they'd take the option they did.

(I would also have liked to see no humans in the film either and a lot less (or no) dialogue, but again I guess lots of the second half were more aimed at the general audience. Which again might have been a lack of courage to make something really different. But then, it might have ended up a little too close to Silent Running for comfort.)

[lordcookie]

At least Silent Running showed that you could be more emotionally invested in robots than humans. The second half of Wall-E really did feel like they had been guided too much by test audience responses.

[Gorf King]

Oh, I agree that test screenings and focus groups are hateful, and that Silent Running was a far, far better film in many ways. But that's the 70s for you.

/misses the 70s (some of the films, anyway)

[roskelld]

I forgot to mention Silent Running in my post. The name just kept ringing through my head the whole way through the movie.

I thought the humans were essential to the story, has it demonstrated that we aren't malicious, just stupid.

Hoop, I know what you mean there, showing the humans was a way of letting us see that they weren't a wreckless bunch that didn't care, they were just too stupid to go with their own feelings, trusting the corporation too much.

I just think they could have told that through Wall-e and Eve discovering more of the beauty of humanity as they moved around Earth. The musical was a good one, it was a way of showing our creativity, and love for doing something that's ultimately just for fun. Finding a child's drawing, pieces of great art, old architecture, basically evidence of the fact that we're creative and there's more than money and time saving inventions to our make up.

I think that could have been done without the need to bring in the humans, and it could have been done to please a wide audience. I think Wall-e worked best when he evoked human emotion, and there's so many ways that could have been done, and the movie didn't really need to have the age old chase sequences and oh so done moment of uprising.

It would have probably took the story to a more art house affair which isn't really Pixars game, but then they planted the seed of that idea here, so there's clearly some of that thought in them.

[Plissken]

Aye, you're right enough. These wouldn't have left an audience of quite so many 5-12 year olds drowning in a sea of bitter tears, though.

Anyone with a soul would have been in floods at tragic ending like that.

[Gorf King]

Yeah, but my parents wouldn't have been writing angry letters to Steve Jobs about my subsequent bed-wetting for a week, or advising all my friend's parents not to let their kids see it, or joining the Republican party in order to orchestrate boycotts of those hand-wringing pinkos at Pixar and their bare-faced Al Goresque lies about the fate of the planet and the death of all (cute, bipedal) life.

I'd have cried too, but I'd been fine with my tears as an adult. I'm not so sure I'd have taken so well to another bout of bed-wetting, though.

[roskelld]

Maybe WALL-E dying at the end would have been a little too much. But saying that I was 8 when When the Wind Blows came out, and it's always been one of my favourite cartoons. I suppose growing up listening to Bowie helped with that a bit too.

[elmo]

what a lovely film... enjoyed every minute

[roskelld]

Just thinking about how good Presto was, and Pixar's shorts in general.

I hope everyone has watched One Man Band, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4L0JheANGk

Probably my favourite one.