Friday, July 04, 2008

WALL*E

WE went and saw WALL*E last week and really enjoyed it. I went expecting it to be like Happy Feet in that it would pummel me with the 'people are bad and destroying the planet' message. It had some of that...but it was not nearly the propaganda piece I thought it might be.

I think it's important to in movies that have messages that I don't like, to see what the filmmakers were intending it to say (the biggest reason I never saw V for Vendetta by the way).

Here's snips from an interview with Andrew Stanton-
The Meaning behind WALL*E

I haven't read the whole article yet, but once again, I find myself cheering the folks at Pixar!

(Oh, and yes, I DO believe that Puff the Magic Dragon was written as a children's song, not as a drug one too...) ;)




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3 Comments:

At July 06, 2008 12:25 PM, Blogger Alicia said...

You put this clearly and well (you're definitely better than I at saying things with less words!) and something clicked regarding all our discussions about different kinds of movies/shows/stories/etc.

>I think it's important to in movies that have messages that I don't like, to see what the filmmakers were intending it to say

*nods* I've never been too big on authorial intention, because that always seems to take me outside of a story. And yet authorial messages are there. It's particularly, um, subtle probably, in science fiction. In a true to life story, the story itself counters the untrue messages. You can look and see "this character did that and got X reward" and realize that if "that" is contrary to Christian morality, the story probably doesn't ring true. It wouldn't have happened. I saw the same kind of thing in "Golden Compass" and "V For Vendetta" both, actually. "Golden Compass" tried to set up this external authority that bossed people around for its own sake as the villain. It didn't ring true, because it was a hokey villain--in real life, that's not why authority exists, and so it didn't work in the story. I never managed more than the first hour of "V For Vendetta"...guess the violence was too much for me after all, and I couldn't make out what was going on in the story.

I read the whole article on the message of "Wall-E." I really liked the "connection" theme. Maybe...well, explain something for me? I don't understand why human beings have to be told that if we lose our capacity for connection, we lose our humanity. There's a force inside us that drives us to love and be loved, and I understand the power of that force; I've felt it on so many occasions, and it probably still motivates most of the things I do. Is it possible for us to numb ourselves to that force?

 
At July 06, 2008 2:44 PM, Blogger Kyrie Drake said...


I read the whole article on the message of "Wall-E." I really liked the "connection" theme. Maybe...well, explain something for me? I don't understand why human beings have to be told that if we lose our capacity for connection, we lose our humanity. There's a force inside us that drives us to love and be loved, and I understand the power of that force; I've felt it on so many occasions, and it probably still motivates most of the things I do. Is it possible for us to numb ourselves to that force?


Absolutely. I understand that it is a bit of a foreign concept to WANT to numb those connections, but people do it every day. Sometimes it's because of past hurts (being numb means not feeling the pain), some people are just raised that way (distant, unable to relate to others), and I'm sure there are many more reasons.

Most people go through periods of their lives like that at some point. Hence the reminder in the movie to not STAY there.

Dose that make sense?

 
At July 06, 2008 4:08 PM, Blogger Alicia said...

Oh, yeah, very much; I love the way you put that.

 

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