CP themes in Wall-E

RoBo · Last edited by RoBo on Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:06 am; edited 1 time in total

I just attended the World Premiere of Disney/Pixar's Wall*E animated feature. I've never written a movie review before, and I would like to contribute something to the blog. I'm not certain it needs to be a review, and I'm trying to spoil as little as I can. If this is taboo for the CPR site or the Forums, just let me know. It's not like I bootlegged the movie on my cellphone and uploaded it, but still, I'm new here, so any lessons in protocol are also appreciated and will be well taken.

I have compiled a not-yet-edited list of Wall*E's Cyberpunk themes, settings, technologies, human and computer interactions and interfaces. It doens't spoil much about the characters, backstory, or plot.

What do you think would be a good format for this? If the list form is good enough, with the potential for writing a complete review later, I'll edit this list for the blog.

Meanwhile, the movie doesn't come out for about another week, and I didn't sign or see any kind of NDA, and as I've said, doesn't reveal much about the story. So here it is:

-Earth is so heavily polluted, it is one giant landfill. Great mashup of old/new technologies that viewers would recognize. Interestingly, it is diegetically devoid of most anthropological contexts.
-mashup between a CEO and sort of world President
-one corporation has a monopoly on information and consumer products
-No humans left on Earth; instead a colony travels in a corporate-owned and governed spaceship
-robots do everything and info is so controller to the point where all people know how to do is consume food shakes, buy crap, and watch TV- and all adults are too fat to walk!
-people fly around the ship on hovering lazyboy chairs, with personal holographic HUDs. These displays have multiple windows that act as video chats (there is NO actual face-to-face or otherwise physical human interaction anymore), and corporate-controlled media. Also, "news" and alerts can override every HUD and other garagnutan Blade-Runner-esque holographic billboards. Everyone has the same jumpsuit, and trends, like the new "in" color of jumpsuit is simultaneously broadcast to everyone, who can just jump on the bandwagon with a single button press. It's not really like these billboards even seem to matter, since people only see their personal HUD. As far as the new trends are concerned, their adherence is generated by each chair, and another person would see no more than another's collar as talking heads fill their video chat windows anyway.
-robotic daycare centers seem to practically eliminate parenting
-this mono-corporate colony/spaceship, called Axiom, is advertised as a sort of Fifth Element/Total-Recal-esque off-world colony vacation cruise
-plants are unheard of, as is Earth, farming, dancing, etc.
-sentient robots, and some can develop emotions and friendships
-most robots are controlled by a central computer, which
-occasional alerts, broadcast to all HUDs and billboards, include things like surveillance imagery of "Rogue Robots"
-people don't even know what's the ship's interior looks like, due to their HUDs, and the entire colony can be locked down by the central computer. People traffic flows are automated, and curfews are enforced this way, since noone can walk anyway.
-the captain of the ship is basically a figurehead. He typically never makes any decisions, doesn't steer the auto-piloted ship, and is given directions by recordings from his corporate superiors and his talking autopilot, Otto. The captain reads morning announcements that he doesn't even write from a teleprompter. One such announcement contains exposition that the Axiom has been off Earth for 700 years, and suggests that corporate efforts to cleanup Earth have not only been unsuccessful, but perhaps not even attempted.
-Otto's central feature is basically a Hal-9000 red eye, and he basically freaks out the same way. He can take control of any ship's system.
-Things are extremely automated and can be once initiated, can be very hard to manually override, to sometimes comic effect. This may sound kinda dull, but imagine this in a ubiquitous computer setting with extremely good speech recognition but no idea that some things you may say are actually voice commands and what they might trigger.
-Books? What? Are those the things you put stuff in?
_________________
"Clearly, a lot of the response against drugs is very similar to the technophobic response that is often made to new technologies." -Sadie Plant
http://www.t0.or.at/sadie/drugs.htm

Burnt_Lombard · Lost in Cyberspace Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 504

Sounds cyberpunk to me.

Bax

meh, doesn't sound cyberpunk to me from the previews I've watched. I mean, the only cp thing about it is the wide spread pollution on earth, but that's just a backdrop that quickly disappears once the story goes into space and becomes a space opera.

When I first saw the previews I thought disney was trying to reboot the Johnny 5 franchise, however I don't think they are related except for the similar looking robot. But hell, Johnny 5's story line was more cp with the militarism angle part of the story.

Wall-E is more in line of the feel good cartoony robot movies like *batteries not included, which is a movie I love even though it's not very cp either. Classifying Wall-E as being even remotely cp is a stretch.

Burnt_Lombard · Lost in Cyberspace Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 504

Well don't let marketing fool you. Perhaps this is why the ads have been so cryptic, they don't know how to sell a flick like this.

Any time a film's a satire or commentary on our culture it's a hard sell. Take a look at Fight Club or Idiocracy, those films were practically killed by their marketing.

Disney's advertising department isn't going to sell the flick by saying Hey middle america you're fat, lazy and too reliant on technology and we're on a path to self destruction. Theyre gonna sell tickets with the cute scenes.

Robo has seen the film, and these themes sound very CP:

one corporation has a monopoly on information and consumer products
-No humans left on Earth; instead a colony travels in a corporate-owned and governed spaceship
-robots do everything and info is so controller to the point where all people know how to do is consume food shakes, buy crap, and watch TV- and all adults are too fat to walk!

Or at least a little more CP than batteries not included.

RoBo · Last edited by RoBo on Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:00 am; edited 1 time in total

Perhaps I've said so much about the movie, my main points have been lost. This unorganized list does not do them justice.

The irony of Disney distributing a major motion picture whose secondary plotline involves massive unilateral corporate control, propaganda, and monoploized consumerism is too juicy to ignore! The Corporation's name, BNL, stands for Buy N' Large, and the consumers buy and get large.

The main plotline of Wall*E is an animated romantic comedy between robots, who have the ability to learn and have emotions. Some may call them AI, machine sentience, etc., but whether you choose to give it a label or not, robots' ability to learn and develop emotions is central to the main plotline.

If a human element is a Cyberpunk prerequisite, Wall*E's secondary plotline is a humanity that receives all their news from the same corporation that literally provides their life support systems and educates their youth. Their only semblance of face-to-face communication is screen-based like a two-person holographic video chat. This mediated communication is used even by physically adjacent people. They don't touch or see beyond their screens. Also, their only physical movements involve consumption- drinking meal shakes or buying the latest trends, which are broadcast from a central computer. Everyone is overweight. The Earth's surface is deemed unihabitable, and humanity lives in a spaceship-bound floating colony.

The computer intervenes in the physical world through robots, and once triggered, secret automation routines are very difficult to override- even by the figurehead human leader, who is a corporate puppet. He broadcasts his daily reports to the people using words provided by the computer via teleprompter. Like the talking heads of the video chats, these broadcasts are Orwellian in their framing and ubiquity. He is also controlled by information provided by a combination of a computer, recordings from a mashup of a Coprorate CEO/US President, and a HAL-9000-esque computer, right down to the red, glowing cyclops. This cyclops is the ship's autopilot, provides spaceship status reports, and acts as First Mate. It mutinies against its human captain similar to HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey and VIKI in i-Robot.

Society living on a spaceship because Earth is too polluted becomes a mere cleansing mint to the Cyberpunk meat and potatoes served up in Wall-E (apparently I've been "spelling" it wrong).
_________________
"Clearly, a lot of the response against drugs is very similar to the technophobic response that is often made to new technologies." -Sadie Plant
http://www.t0.or.at/sadie/drugs.htm

RoBo

I was composing my above reply when Burnt_Lomabard posted some other really great points! So, I'm sorry if it seems I restated myself after Burnt_Lombard already restated me.

If not for Pixar's reputation, the movie would probably not make as much as I think it will. Frankly, that's probably the main reason a Magacorporation like Disney would even distribute a film like this. Anyway, the liscensing deals alone will make them beaucoup bucks as they force cute robot imagery on everyone. Just like the film's marketing, they will conveniently skip the the whole evil corporation part of the film that that they will charge money to see. If people hear it's an anti-corporate movie, then pay to see it to learn more, Disney still makes money. To me, it's irony cubed, but to them , it's just the cost of doing business.
_________________
"Clearly, a lot of the response against drugs is very similar to the technophobic response that is often made to new technologies." -Sadie Plant
http://www.t0.or.at/sadie/drugs.htm

Burnt_Lombard · Lost in Cyberspace Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 504

Yeah that's the double edged sword of films like this. There's always some irony when a movie pokes fun at capitalism or corporations, yet has big studio backing. Robocop had a lot to say about the greed of the 80s, yet it became a franchise that spawned toys, videogames, a cartoon series, and comic books. It's best to just try and enjoy a movie on it's own and forget the corporate strings attached to it.

It's a case of "The Medium is the message" film being the easiest way to reach the widest audience.

RoBo

I didn't know how to submit a review, but wanted to publish it before the theatrical release, so I posted it on my blog at http://igargoyle.com/.
_________________
"Clearly, a lot of the response against drugs is very similar to the technophobic response that is often made to new technologies." -Sadie Plant
http://www.t0.or.at/sadie/drugs.htm

Mr. Roboto

I can see why everyone is seeing some cyberpunk elements in Wall*E. Wired did a writeup titled Retro Futurism of Wall-E Recalls 2001, Blade Runner.

Burnt_Lombard · Lost in Cyberspace Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 504

I just got back from the film and thought it was excellent. The human characters were underdevoloped, but the film's lead is a sentient robot. The story is definately CP.

While it shares visual similarities with movies like tron and 2001 (well one character is clearly an update on Hal) Thematically it's a lot closer to the film THX-1138, especially the mall culture on the Axiom space cruiser.

Don't let the Disney tag push you away. This is an excellent Science Fiction film that isn't all about flash and zero substance.

RoBo

Bax

I certainly liked the movie, especially it's pro-environmentalist message and non-human lead, all the while not being too accusatory towards the human race and trying to be deep while appealing to all audiences. Plus it it seemed like a really meaningful movie for Pixer because it was returning to their roots in their original lamp animation, with no dialogue and a lot of mechanical movement animations.

However I don't see how it's anymore cp than Silent Running or Short Circuit, two movies I think it compares better to than Blade Runner, Alien, or Tron.

Twitchy

I saw it last week, and loved it (EVE is now my favorite Disney princess Laughing

). Great message, great animation. Although calling it cyberpunk is a bit of a stretch, I think that some of the themes and atmosphere are definitely there ( and considering that it's technically a kid's movie made by Disney, any remote cyberpunkness is something). I'm so glad someone pointed it out.
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Burnt_Lombard · Lost in Cyberspace Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 504

I think the Disney name is what's pushing people away from calling this CP. Disney's the big corporate conglomerate. Yet everyone is creaming in their pants over Blade Runner and the Matrix both made by Warner Brothers. A division of AOL TIME WARNER CORP.

If this film were made in japan on a smaller scale with some added violence no one would doubt that it actually evokes cyberpunk themes, not just visuals.

Bax