University of Western Ontario The Humanity of Machines: How WALL-E’s Combined Styles Offer a Complex Look at the ​ ​ Future Jenny Yang 250984834 Film 3357F Dr. Tobias Nagl 30 November 2018 Yang 2 The Humanity of Machines: How WALL-E’s Combined Styles Offer a Complex Look at the ​ ​ Future Pixar blends both science fiction and animation in Andrew Stanton’s WALL-E (2008), a ​ ​ film now famed for its unique storytelling style, a well-liked message, and strong visuals. One of the most interesting aspects of the film’s presentation is that it begins with very little dialogue, and the character the audience first identifies with is a small, beat-up robot. The film’s core themes involve environmentalism and anti-capitalism, but its themes are complicated by its own presentation. Pixar’s innovations in animation and storytelling lead to a deeply complex film that in some ways contradicts the G-rating it has been assigned. This demonstrates one of WALL-E’s ​ ​ strongest features: in looking at the future with a critical lens and exploring the future and the way humans come to rely on technology, it ends up looking at the past with fondness and developing robots who come off as even more human than the people themselves. Even as animation and science fiction are commonly associated with childishness, WALL-E uses both ​ ​ styles to tell a thought-provoking story that pays homage to the past and considers the future, with an unexpected maturity that defies certain expectations and offers a reading of a future that is at once optimistic, pessimistic, and nostalgic. WALL-E subverts ideas of juvenile entertainment from the beginning by imitating ​ live-action cinema in both animation style and storytelling. Humans have left the planet after they have drained it dry, a point the film makes visually by showcasing a brown, desolate Earth. This is further conveyed by the stacks of trash that at first appear to be skyscrapers in the fog, and the eventual activation of holographic screens encouraging humans to board the ship the Axiom while robots like WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class) clean the area. ​ Yang 3 Such realistic imagery pulls the audience into an immersive experience that mirrors live-action cinema, “link[ing] Pixar with ‘sophisticated’ cinema, making it a part of a cinematic canon in ways that marginalized animation has rarely been” (Scott 153). WALL-E even uses a song from ​ ​ the 1968 romantic musical Hello, Dolly! as foreshadowing for WALL-E’s journey into a clean ​ ​ and futuristic space, where the lyrics sing, “There’s a slick town, Barnaby/Out there/Full of shine and full of sparkle.” This is enhanced by the fact that it is “set in a stylized 1890…[and] depicts the draw of modernization and urbanization, but an additional correlative emerges through the context of [when it was] released: namely, the space race” (Herhuth 54). The song fades out with another sign of foreshadowing to WALL-E’s romantic journey: “And we won’t come home until we’ve kissed a girl!” By using a more obscure song, Andrew Stanton captures the general optimism of musicals, which are also commonly associated with cartoons, with its excitement for the outside world and nostalgia adding to the science fiction feel. The only character the audience can connect to as humanoid and humane is the lonesome robot that is also the titular main character. He is small against a brown background of garbage and Buy and Large (BnL) advertisements, all of which subtly give exposition of the story’s background. The title card plays ominous music, with the film even morbidly showing WALL-E stealing treads from a decommissioned WALL-E robot on the side of the road. While his function is to compact trash, he has a pet cockroach, finds enjoyment in collecting trinkets, and loves Hello, Dolly! He is a nostalgic character in general, modeled after silent film comedy stars ​ ​ like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton (Murray and Heumann 2). He even appears to long for love, as he fiddles with his metal hands when he witnesses the actors on-screen hold hands. WALL-E is not capable of real speech, but the audience is immediately made aware that he is an antiquated robot who loves things from the past via other forms of expression: sound, reaction, Yang 4 and facial expressions. His appearance will later contrast the sleek, Apple MacBook-inspired design of EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), WALL-E’s eventual love interest. The extended focus on the advanced technology of EVE’s ship is in the form of a spectacle, which is a common trait to science fiction as a display of futuristic, almost alien technology, but also in animation, showcasing Pixar’s advanced CGI. EVE takes little interest in WALL-E personally, although he is immediately attracted to her. Not only does WALL-E connect with the audience, he also eventually connects with EVE, despite her directive-driven programming, showing a traditionalism that can be read as problematic. By coding the originally genderless robot as male, “Pixar operates with a nostalgia that is both regressive (in its reliance on traditional notions of gender, class, and morality) and liberating (in its embrace of an ironic, detached view of the present)” (Scott 153). After he finally gets closer to her and invites her to his home, he shows her some of the trinkets he has stored and the audience witnesses EVE display fascination in a lighter and Rubik’s cube, even laughing at WALL-E’s clumsiness. EVE watches the Hello, Dolly! clip, where the actors hold hands and ​ ​ sing, “It only took a moment/To be loved a whole life long!” She records the scene and it returns in a later act, making her realize she is in love with WALL-E, another suggestion that something nostalgic can humanize even robots and save the day. The final thing that he shows her is something completely natural: the lonesome plant he discovered while working. Rather than further enhance EVE’s humanity, this triggers her to revert to her former directive-driven self, even causing her to drop the lighter she has been so interested in. As Ellen Scott points out, this heterosexually-coded romance is furthered by the fact that in courting her, WALL-E has literally implanted life (the plant) in EVE’s stomach, who loses her individuality because she becomes just another mindless drone of the EVE model, focused solely on the mission (154). This is Yang 5 shown in other ways as well: Andrew Stanton is religious, and this adds to the nostalgia because of EVE’s name. Even as an acronym, it also references the loneliness of WALL-E, who seems to be the equivalent of Adam. The Biblical spin is continued, as Herhuth writes, as “the spaceship that the humans live on, the Axiom, sends probes back to Earth to search for plant life (similar to ​ ​ the Genesis story of Noah and the ark)” (55). To “save” her from capture, WALL-E follows her ​ ​ onto the ship that also dropped her off, leading them on the second half of the film, where the beauty of space and the sleek design of the Axiom starcruiser contrast the bleakness of an ​ ​ abandoned Earth. The audience is at last introduced to the people of the film, all of whom have become morbidly obese, glued to their screens, and unable to walk due to their heavy reliance on machines. The humans shown are caricatures of humans from the past, and they appear to be more machine in personality than the machines themselves. This form of uncanniness and the audience’s continued identification with WALL-E, a robotic Other, reinforces that while these people should be familiar, their lifestyle and appearance are so far-removed from the reality of 2008 that they are no longer relatable. As Sobchack describes, “The fear in SF films springs from the future possibility that we may—in a sense—lose contact with our bodies” (39). Not only are the humans incapable of walking, their hover-chairs also follow a set of pathways on the ship that the robots must also adhere to. Howey writes that WALL-E “exemplifies a problem not ​ ​ uncommon to science fiction: attempting [sic] to imagine the future, it nevertheless defines ​ ​ ‘human’ nostalgically” (172). WALL-E thus inspires humanity in other robots besides EVE as well—he presents Earthen soil, a sign of the past, to M-O (Microbe-Obliterator), a small cleaning robot. M-O later steps off the paths on the Axiom to do what he wants (which is, ​ ​ admittedly, to follow his directive and clean foreign contaminants). This exploration of emotions Yang 6 in something that should be emotionless is also common in animation, especially in Pixar films. WALL-E even inspires two humans to see their world in a new perspective, whose names are Mary and John, both rather uncreative names, again suggesting stagnated creativity and individuality. He is also the only one on the Axiom capable of connecting with the ​ ​ malfunctioning robots, who have been deemed misfits because they have unique personalities. One thing that may undermine my suggestion that animation and science fiction are presented seriously is the usage of live-action in clips associated with the past while the animated, futuristic aspects are shown negatively. But such social commentary being presented within this animated science fiction film makes itself more mature, and it demonstrates a further subversion of expectations. As Gaffey writes, “WALL-E seems uniquely suited to fulfill this ​ ​ function of public pedagogy given its combination of audience appeal and social topicality by featuring [characters children will like who confront adult issues]” (44).