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WALL-E
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WALL-E (styled as WALL•E) is a 2008 American prophetic post-apocalyptic animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring a tiny free-willed Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class[note 1] tasked with cleaning an Earth ravaged by pollution, he falls in love with another robot and travels into space to ensure her survival. The movie was near-universally acclaimed,[1] with the anthropomorphic romance compared to the silent films of yesteryear, and won everything including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[2]
There were a handful of critics, however.
The wingnut reaction[edit]
Never ones to miss an opportunity to look like laughingstocks, American conservatives immediately went on a witchhunt over WALL-E's "political" message.[note 2]
Angered by the portrayal of a consumer society gone wrong, sites from the National Review to RedState, to such luminaries as Glenn Beck and Jonah Goldberg, decried the film as having a "Marxist, Eco-Theological world view," "fascistic elements," "Bush Derangement Syndrome," "Malthusian fear-mongering," "leftist propaganda" and that "Goebbels [has] reached all the way to California."[3] Boycotts were called.
Noticing the potential Streisand effect developing, other right-leaning commentators declared their support for WALL-E and its commitment to family values.[4] Prepare your irony meters: one look at the Wikipedia pages of the production staff imply devout Christianity (at least one actor was a Republican supporter), and traces of Biblical influence are rampant.[5] There was a reason his love interest was named EVE, for God's sake.
It is also worth noting that the conspiracy crowd went full-metal apeshit on theories over "the technocracy", humans are being dumbed down by machines, and similar fear mongering stories conspiracies. [What's the Difference?]
Scientific reaction[edit]
Scientific criticism was particularly focused on physics issues (sci-fi movie, duh),[6] but identified examples where WALL-E's dystopia is already more reality than the fringe want it to be.[7][8]
External links[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ It's supposed to sound like "Wally", Geddit? Geddit?
- ↑ Learning to throw the trash in the right place, not get morbidly obese from McDonald's and addicted to the Internet is too much, apparently.
References[edit]
- ↑ Rotten Tomatoes
- ↑ All those awards...
- ↑ Conservative critics blast Wall•E, Christian Science Monitor
- ↑ Another Brick in the ‘WALL-E’, The New York Times in bad pun mode
- ↑ WALL-E Themes
- ↑ "Classic blunders"
- ↑ Approaching “Wall-E” with Honda’s Uni-Cub personal mobility device, Scientific American
- ↑ WALL-E at Discover Magazine