I’ve been meaning to write about WALL*E for about two months… here it finally is.
I have written before about my love for animation. I love the Disney classics, and while I enjoy most of their recent work, many of them “future classics”, it hasn’t blown me away. I wasn’t crazy about all of the Pixar movies. I’ve seen all of them and usually catch them in the theater - although I waited for Cars and Ratatouille to come out on DVD. I thought the second Toy Story was near-brilliant and Finding Nemo was terrific, and while most of the others were good, I didn’t fawn over them like so many other cinemaniacs do. In particular, I don’t see what all the hoot ‘n hollar was about The Incredibles. It was decent but it’s among my least-favorite Disney Pixar movies.
I don’t know when I first heard about WALL*E, the next Disney Pixar film, but it was probably a few years ago when they put out some designs for theater exhibitors. I figured that it would be a cutesy robot movie, though I did like the 70s/80s robot style they used, which is what Short Circuit’s Johnny 5 was also inspired by. Then when previews started appearing late last year, I was not impressed. More of the same Pixar, that’s what I thought. Then there was a Super Bowl spot that didn’t do much for me either. The 2008 film that I was anticipating most was Indiana Jones IV.
Well, that changed when I got to see a bit more of WALL*E at New York Comic Con in April. Disney had a 1-hour panel in which they had the a producer from WALL*E talk about that film, and then had the director and some cast members of Prince Caspian do a Q&A in the second half hour. I wasn’t particularly interested in either film, but I wanted to get a good seat in the theater for a Lucasfilm panel that was going to happen later.
Disney screened approximately 15 to 20 minutes of WALL*E. I cannot tell you how much I was blown away by it. What I saw was brilliant. It was old-fashioned science fiction with some of the most beautiful computer animation I have ever seen. The story takes place on planet earth hundreds of years in the future. The human race has abandoned the planet, but before they left, they put some robots to work to clean up and compact trash - including WALL*E. He keeps working and working. By 2700, there’s nobody else, except for a roach named Hal (get it?) who is WALL*E’s only friend. During those hundreds of years, WALL*E begins to develop character and some human traits, and he collects some of the more interesting earth relics from our generation - the most important of which is a small TV screen with a Beta player and a copy of Hello Dolly. There is no dialogue, aside from beeps and other sound effects provided by Ben Burtt of the Star Wars films. Later on, WALL*E does leave earth and there is dialogue there, but I find it fascinating that (from what I have read) as much as 45 minutes of the film does not have dialogue.
In any case, after I saw the WALL*E footage, Indiana Jones IV was no longer my most-anticipated film. I’m incredibly excited. There has been a preview screening and people are raving - including Harry Knowles at aint-it-cool-news.com, even though he’s under embargo and can’t officially talk about it yet.
WALL*E comes out on June 27.