WALL-E Is Summer's Most Anticipated Robot

By Katey Rich

So now that the Oscars are over, as I said on Friday, it's time to start thinking about the summer! The promotional machines for most big-ticket movies have yet to gear up in earnest, but every summer there's always one movie that doesn't have to put any effort into building a fan frenzy: the latest Pixar entry. Sneak peeks for WALL-E have been around for about a year, but as the June 27 release date grows nearer and we learn more about the story, the Pixar diehards of the world are just about tripping over themselves in excitement.

"I laughed, I cried (I'm serious), and I smiled, and by the end of the Disney panel, I was in love with WALL-E," writes Alex Billington at FirstShowing.net. At WonderCon in San Francisco, a comic book convention, WALL-E writer-director Andrew Stanton (he also did Finding Nemo) showed four clips from the movie and spoke a little about his inspiration in making it. While some of the clips were familiar from the trailers, Billington says that the combined effect of new scenes and Stanton's speech convinced him that "WALL-E is going to be the best movie of 2008." (emphasis his)

Pixar detractors-- can there really be Pixar detractors?-- may cry foul, but as someone who was rooting for Brad Bird to win for Ratatouille's screenplay on Sunday, I'm practically as giddy as Billington. He describes the four clips and gives a slightly better idea of the plot than has been explained thus far. WALL-E, as we know, is a garbage disposal robot left on Earth hundreds of years after humans have abandoned it. He occupies himself and talks to no one until a lady robot named Eve lands on Earth as part of an expedition. WALL-E, it turns out, is not just meant for garbage removal-- he's meant to love. Desperate not to lose the only friend he's ever had, he stows away on Eve's spaceship and sets off on an intergalactic journey.

Writes Billington about WALL-E's trip through space: "The score and music were an incredible addition that topped off one of the most emotional Pixar scenes I have ever watched." Whoah. Stanton, who gave fish feelings in Finding Nemo, explained that he designed WALL-E not to be an anthropomorphized idea of a robot, but an actual machine. "I wanted to believe that a robot is really there. I wanted to believe he is really a robot and not just a human in a robot shell." Hopefully C-3P0 won't be offended.

As Pixar's output grows vaster, the directors who work within the company are making their voices known: Brad Bird, the Rand-ian celebrator of the quest for perfection and the greatness within us all, makes us dream of being better versions of ourselves in Ratatouille and The Incredibles. Stanton, a heartstring tugger with Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life, focuses on human connections, even when those connections are between invertebrates or robots. WALL-E seems a lot more likely to make me cry and hug my parents, perhaps a better goal for a movie about the future, which could easily be more about machines and ideas than good old-fashioned emotion. Bird may want us to strive toward a brave new world, but Stanton will find the beating heart at its center.