Wall-E thoughts
Tonight, my family and I watched that little Pixar film called Wall-E. We don’t typically watch movies, but my mother has taken a proactive effort to family bonding through family movies. In other words, that means I get to catch up with films that have otherwise passed me by.
Thus bringing us to the title at hand.
I honestly came into this thinking I would love it (however hesitantly, as Pixar is owned by Disney). A tale of a lone robot discovering sentience without the aid of outside forces, why not? The penultimate posthumanist space opera! Robot existentialism is a favorite of mine (see: Ghost in the Shell), and coupled with a post-apocalyptic future, it makes for solid gold (see: Ergo Proxy). But then, Disney had to go and screw it all up, didn’t they?
First problem: The relationship between Eve and Wall-e. Girl meets boy. Wait, what? As far as I know, no robot, as advanced as they are, can discern gender. Gender is, for all means, a distinctively natural quality (though more human than anything, transgenderism comes to mind). What purpose does it serve to an AI, really? Tachikomas refer to each other as “that one” or “them”, opting for non-gender-specific pronouns, although not when speaking with normal humans, or androids with assigned genders.
Love, too, is distinctly human. So why include it? It’s very simple. Think about who bankrolled it, then about it’s target audience. Got that? Disney for kids. A science-fiction childrens’ movie? Say it ain’t so!
There were many, many points where I thought Pixar’s writers seriously flunked basic science class. Remember when Wall-e held onto Eve’s spacecraft as it left Earth? How is that at all possible? This would not fly in a clockwork universe, no pun intended.
Naturally, the animation was top notch, flawless in every aspect. It’s the only field where I have no complaints. Pixar truly has a reputation for gourgeous CG.
But I’m not here to talk about CG, am I.
It’s a shame that such a technically advanced studio has to be constrained by a company that has a vested interest in making things family-friendly in order to capitalize on as many fast-food tie-ins as possible. If they weren’t, don’t you think that they would finally make some real gems, instead of jam-packing Family Values™ into everything?
Family Values™ are not art. They are cognitive tools.
Is Wall-e a tool?