WALL-E: Futuristic Warnings

I first saw a preview for WALL-E and fell in love with his need for love and the adorable way he said "Eeeevah!" I simply thought here is Disney/Pixar doing it again. I assumed that not only would the movie have the adorableness that is common in all kids movies, but I guessed that there would be strategically placed jokes that only the adults would understand. I thought back to Shrek (although that was DreamWorks) and the jokes about the size of Farquad's you-know-what that never registered in my mind as a child.

WALL-E was left behind on Earth by humans to clean up the mess they had made. The movie opens with a pan across a city filled with skyscrapers surrounded by skyscraper-shaped towers of cubes of trash. WALL-E searches through the trash with curiosity, making sure he doesn't crush anything "valuable" into the cube-o-trash. One day, WALL-E finds a little seedling and scoops it up to bring home for safekeeping.

Things get interesting when EVE shows up. As soon as WALL-E sees her (after nearly being blown up) he falls in love. They have a jolly good time, WALL-E shows EVE his favorite movie and shows her that he wants love. To impress her, he shows her the seedling he found; this causes EVE to put the plant inside of her and freeze up until her ship returns to take her back.

EVE's mission was to find life on Earth to prove that it is again safe for humans to inhabit. The movie carries strong messages against pollution and show a (dramatized?) version of how the world would turn out if we weren't more careful.

In addition to the messages against pollution, humans on the spaceship have grown obese and no longer communicate or interact with each other in any manner other than through the video screen attached to their hover chairs. Again, the movie is urging us to be careful with our health as well as the environment.

I was surprised by the warnings, I wasn't expecting the movie to be so blunt about what could happen with our lives, or more likely the lives of our great-grandchildren. There weren't as many hidden jokes, it was simply a caveat; a strong warning for everyone to watch themselves, to watch the world, and to not let them go to hell.