WALL-E
 

Cutest...movie...evar! 'nuff said!

I want to go see this. Perhaps we'll take a break from moving and go see it tomorrow, as it's supposed to get into the upper 90s here and I wouldn't be surprised if it hit triple digits. I'm a sucker for these kinds of movies.

Yet another great movie and instant classic from Pixar.

Though I'm not sure right now if it ranks my all-time favorite from them, which is The Incredibles. I think I'm gonna have to re-watch it before trying to rank things in my head.

Also, I can't help think if people will think that it's overrated. Last I checked, it has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and while I think it's a great film, I'm just not sure if others would think that it deserves _that_ much praise.

Nevertheless, it's a very entertaining film and very cute. I'll totally buy a WALL-E right now to help take out my trash. :-)

The short film/cartoon at the beginning was also very well done.

It makes fun of corporatism, obesity, and lethargy. I might just see it.

I knew I wanted to see it when I saw the teaser trailer. I might see it this weekend.

It's getting rave reviews for sure. It's sitting at a 92% on Metacritc.

I can't wait.

Great movie, my new favorite one from Pixar.

We are taking the rugrat to see this either today or tomorrow. I always enjoy Pixar movies, so I'm betting I'll like this one too.

I went to the midnight show Thursday and I loved it! I giggled pretty much the whole time because I love Pixar and their ability to give so much expression to things that don't talk.
They had a sign for free Wall*E watches and I really wanted one, but you had to redeem a kids ticket, *le sigh*

The 3-year-old sitting next to me had a WALL-E action figure that he was holding onto during the movie. Instant envy. Definitely a keeper for my office.

I went to see it last night. I really enjoyed it, for me it was one of Pixar's best movies and thats saying alot.

We took my daughter and her friend to see it yesterday. And while I will say it got a little 'long' in the middle, we all enjoyed it very much.

Truthfully though, I could have watched two hours of Wall-E wandering around the earth collecting little treasures, making cubes and going back to his little hideout. The animation in these scenes was gorgeous. I didn't even need the rest of the story, lol. Granted though, the movie wasn't made for me. :)

Oh, and the sound effects through the whole movie are ingenious, subtle and very effective.

I am glad to hear that you all liked it so much. My kids are begging me to take them to see it. Now I can't wait to see it myself!

Me and the gf went to see it last night and I thought it was pretty good.

She enjoyed it as well.

Saw Wall-E last night with my fiancee.
I loved it.
As brilliant as every other Pixar film I've seen. I can't define favorites - each Pixar film does something different for me.

I'll have to see it again.

I guess I get to be the party pooper. I thought Wall*E was very imaginative, visually impressive and had a wonderful premise.

Unfortunately, it then turned into a preachy mess of a story with sub par animation compared to the ruined beauty of the first half hour. Two hours of watching him move around garbage, watching his movies and enjoying his knick-knacks would've been infinitely better in my opinion than all the crap that actually followed. The attention to detail was amazing. The scenery was amazing. I was getting Chaplain and Fallout and The Dark Tower in lovely doses all at the same time.

And then things started happening, and that was pretty much the end of anything interesting and the beginning of being smashed in the face repeatedly with logical inconsistencies and preaching. The second half of the movie was dripping with smug, pretentious drivel. It wasn't cute; it wasn't fun; it wasn't interesting. The movie theater I was in was full of restless kids asking their parents if they could go home yet.

Far be it for me to not appreciate the message and allusions to 2001, but the "people" of the future were hyperbolic to the point of insipid and engaged in pathetic attempts at emotion. The two "saved" people gasping over Wall*E while he's being crushed by the machine? I'm sorry, but no. Just no. Why would they care about a random robot they've seen once before? Why would the events make any sense to them? The freaking captain had NO idea what "earth" meant. Why would any of those other people? Am I really supposed to believe that no one in the entire ship ever did anything but sit in a chair chatting on videophone while being mass consumers?

I mean, yes, I apparently am supposed to believe all of those things, and they're supposed to tug at my little heartstrings and make me fall in love with a robot and want to change the world. Instead, it only made me wonder why such a beautiful picture had to be ruined.

As a final parting note, fuck your mac boot up noise and iPod, Steve Jobs. Keep it in your hipster commercials and keep it out of your company's movies.

I don't disagree with this summation about the story. I was a little disappointed when they left earth, too. And the story was preachy and I didn't understand how the people became so attached to Wall-E especially since the events seemed to play out in real time...which would have been about 45 minutes or so, lol.

But the children in the theater where I was watching it were not bored.

And I liked all the little noises. Probably because I don't know what either an iPod or a Mac sound like.

Tip: check out "Idiocracy" - the Mike judge film. There's some borrowing going on in Wall-E - Judge deserves some concept credit.

WaLLLLEEEEEEEEE....


EVAAAAaa...


http://blog.ugo.com/images/uploads/W...ldingHands.jpg

I thought it was awesome. My only complaint is that it's not out on DVD yet. I want to watch it again.

I actually was lucky enough to get to see this at the Pixar location about a week before general release as I have a buddy who works there.

I liked it, but thought it seemed a little boring in the beginning/middle of it. I was pretty tired, so I am sure that doesn't help :)

btw, it is amazing how much goes into these movies. Pixar was full of all the concept art/scupltures/progressions of characters/storyboards/etc. Very impressive.

Overall, I enjoyed it, despite it seemingly slow for a while.

Walle was great and had lots of adult-ish bits in it like sputnik, but the rabbit-magician short at the beginning had me spitting out my drink. That was damn funny.

I liked the message. Sure, Wall-E just going about his routine was more entertaining, but I thought it was nice that they tried and in my opinion succeeded in creating a message. The people were unrealistic, but this is a cartoon, and I don't expect super-realism, but rather a simple attachment to realism from which it can move in whatever direction.

Besides, making fun of corporations is fun.

And I'll be sure to be reminded of the "corporatism/consumerism/commercialism is bad" message message every time I use my Wall-e lunchbox, sheet set, alarm clock, activity set, motorized interactive talking figurines, tshirt, hat, backpack, sunglasses, wristwatch and especially my wii/ps2/ps3/psp/xbox360/ds Wall-e videogame. And it's a good thing that Wall-e was released by a tiny indy company, otherwise the "message" might seem a tad bit hypocritically ironic.

Well, they're a company like any other, and therefore they have to make money to pay their employees, who earn that money from the sales. Even Indie companies want to make heaping loads of cash, because they want to live comfortably, but because they don't have the luck to do that doesn't mean they have any more right to make fun of consumerism than Pixar.

This film makes a point to target those who let consumerism lead their lives. There's nothing wrong with consumerism, just when it is played out in excess, as seen to the extreme in this film. I'm a capitalist by mindset, and I think that money is important in living a comfortable lifestyle, therefore I like to earn money. That doesn't make me a hypocrite when I react unfavorably to those who think their diamonds and 42" flat screens are everything. There's a huge difference between enjoying your money and letting it control you. The latter of the two is what this film focuses on.

Pixar makes money by creating very well-made films, and they earn every penny. The marketing department helps that by creating toys and games and T-shirts the fans will hopefully enjoy, in order to fund the lifestyles of Pixar's employees while also funding more highly enjoyable motion pictures. There's nothing wrong with that, because it's up to people to realize when their money is being controlled by them and not by others, or even having the tables turned and having the money control them.

I hope that makes sense, I'm kind of in a daze right now, 'cause I just saw Wanted and really want to punch a wall.... but I know that will hurt like a bitch.

I mean, I see your point that we live in a capitalist society and the point is to make money and artists should be able to criticize that, but it kind of tastes like ash coming from Disney. It's also about as subtle as a jackhammer, so it's got that going for it.

I really don't have any problems with the messages in the movie, hypocritical, completely reasonable, annoying or otherwise. I just have a problem with how insanely little they bothered to make the story compelling while smashing us in the face with the messages. The other Pixar movies are defined by what good stories they are and how tightly they work within that framework. They're about friendship, growing up, family, love and lots of other intimate and warm fuzzy feelings.

Wall-E shot high and shot way beyond that, but tried to frame it as a love story about two robots. And don't get me wrong, the love story between the robots, especially in the beginning, was just great. But the rest of the movie didn't hold up under the weights they placed on it.

I'll give you that one. The movie definitely could have done better in the subtlety department, and should have focused slightly more on the love story rather than the realization of the now disgusting human race (I imagined fat people sex once during the film, don't want to do it again). However, it still left me entertained, so whatev'.

Don't get me wrong, I was entertained.

However, I think Disney would be more than happy to be as "successful" as Buy-N-Large. In fact there were some eerie similarities between the scenes on the Axiom, and Disney World and its resorts.

That seat in Emeryville was wasted on you! That shoulda been my seat!

Yes, the film is part propaganda, but people are by now used to entertainment seasoned with lefty assumptions. It's no big deal.
Here's the website for "Buy~N~Large," the corporation featured in Wall-E.
Pay close attention to the Privacy Policy at the bottom of the page:
http://www.buynlarge.com/

From BuynLarge:
Hmmm... by transportation, they mean the make and model of your car, right?

:lol:

Wall-e was Cut-e. The message Pixar was shoveling at me was Lam-e but the movie was quite Enjoyabl-e.

You know it was almost like a recreation of Johnny Five...anyone remember that movie? It looks cute!

Yes he does. As described to me: Wall-e is like Short Circuit crossed with ET, and that is really true.

Propaganda = lefty assumptions?

How about Triumph of the Will? Olympiad? Dirty Fucking Harry? Rambo? Death Wish? Red Dawn? Birth of a Nation? The Green Berets?

The politics behind the Incredibles was very right-wing (the collective opresses down-trodden race of Übermenschen). Hated that film, so of course my son loved it.

A guy I graduated high school with (and did some theatre with at the time) has been a Pixar animator since the beginning, and he just got his big "break" by writing and directing "Presto", the short film before Wall-E.

Well get that guy in charge of making the actual movies, because "Presto" was about a bazillion times better than "Wall-E." It was probably better than quite a few of their other feature length films, too, now that I think about it.

I don't know about my son, who is into robots, but was too tired to comment about the film. My daughter was definitely bored.

I was too. I started thinking "this movie is long" about 20-30 minutes into it. The problem is that it's basically a silent movie with un-interesting visuals. Wall-E seemed modeled after Chaplin's tramp character. I'm not a big Chaplin fan, but that does give you something to work with. I don't know why they didn't make more of it. There all sorts of possibilities with the garbage. The robot love story doesn't pack enough oomph to get past the visual tedium.

The whole spaceship bit should have been cut right out.

An ipod sounds like whatever you put in it. On a crowded commuter train, it sounds like a fly buzzing. Wall-E's reboot sound was the Macintosh boot bong.

The film was PERFECT. The characters were hilarious, adorable, and well done. I loved all the references to various films - Titanic, 2001 Space Odyssey, etc. The message was a little in your face for me, but for children, I thought it was just subtle enough. The song at the end was absolutely amazing - I hope it wins the Oscar.

Wall-E looks an awful lot like Johnny 5, haven't seen the movie yet, did rewatch Short Circuit, and yep they copied Johnny 5.

I loved the animation done over the beginning of the ending credits. (I loved the rest of the movie as well, but the credits were outstanding.)

We took our daughter to see it over the weekend. My favorite part was (and is) all the "grown-ups" in the theater talking about the heavy-handedness of the message. Well, here's a newsflash: the message (nor the movie itself) was not intended for our jaded asses.

My daughter (6-years-old) loved the movie and she didn't seem to have a problem with the "heavy-handedness" of the message. Since the movie is actually intended for an audience of pre-teens and earlier they have to be pretty overt with any message they are trying to convey.

I really disagree with this. The standard formula for stuff like this is to play to the kids while throwing their parents and/or grandparents enough bones to make sure they will take the kiddies. Adults are always part the equation in kids movies. The message is what got us to the theatre in the first place. Grandma read several overly-generous reviews touting it's anti-consumerist message, and she proposed the night at the theatre.

I didn't care about the heavy-handedness. The message to consume is itself pretty heavy-handed. It's just so pervasive that we bracket it mentally. I think Wall-E should be judged by other criteria, and that's where it flops.

I can tell when my kids really like something and when they are happy just to be out at night in a theatre with popcorn. They really liked the short, but Wall-E itself didn't impress them. They didn't talk about it much the next day. My daughter told me it was too long.

I don't think there's so much difference between adults and kids. My son loves "Man with a movie camera." It's what you'd call hi-brow, intello, adult stuff these days, but it's incredibly rich in good images which is why people like it. R's 6 year old daughter loves old musicals, and again, those are very rich visually.

Wall-E sucked visually. Just think of a Technicolor musical and compare that to the use of colour in Wall-E. No wonder we thought it was boring! Instead of showing something interesting -- and they could have done absolutely anything -- they show you a Rubik's cube. We adults are supposed to feel nostalgic or clever because we get the reference, but on its own, as image, it's really kind of boring. We only got to see hints of the storms, which could have made for some dramatic visuals. Instead, they are merely cues for Wall-E to hole up in its private space and peruse its collection of commodities. Many of Wall-E's visuals were borrowed from other films. I suppose this supposed to give adults frissons of recognition, but it's also rather unimaginative. Compare this to say, Tonari no Totoro. The cat bus blows away anything in Wall-E.

Not only that, but the environmentalism of Totoro was presented in such a way that kids can feel the loss. No woods, no more enchantment. Wall-E was very abstract, and the love story/adventure negates the message; the same things happen, despite extreme environmental degradation. Where's the loss?

That's true ... but not with regard to the heavy-handedness of the message.

If you (as an adult) already subscribe to the train of thought that was "the message" in the movie then there is no need for you to see it. You might take your KIDS to see it, but then the message was intended for THEM.

If you (as an adult) DO NOT subscribe to the train of thought that was "the message" in the movie then you won't be swayed by it at all because of the way it was presented. You will probably still take your kids to see it, and again perhaps the message will reach them in some small way.

Modern animated films sometimes do throw in things for adults (especially Pixar), but it's usually in the form of some kind of covert innuendo, inside joke, or reference to our youth. It's rarely "the message" itself.

And that's where I think the Shrek movies, especially the sequels, fail: the references became the only jokes, not the asides.

Would love to see it. Has not been released here by us yet

I don't feel the commitment needed to dissect this film so precisely. I liked the look of it. I liked the early scenes. I didn't need the message or the love story at all. I don't care what it was derivative of or where the sounds came from. I didn't think it was spectacular, nor did I think it was horrible. Meh. I'm just glad I didn't have to sit through something totally moronic like Shark Boy and Lava Girl.

And personally, I don't think Pixar has ever topped Toy Story with the exception of Monsters, Inc.

Just saw it. Awesome awesome movie!! I loved it!! Fantastic animation as usual. There's even talk about a Best Picture (not Animation) nomination. Go see this film. It has a lot of heart.

Finally, a great little film with good ol' fashioned conservative values.

LOVED "Presto". LOVED.

He was playing Portal when he wrote it, wasn't he?

I had the same initial thought, but wouldn't they have had to start developing Presto long before Portal was known?

Presto seemed more like an homage to bugs bunny cartoons than anything

I liked "Presto," but nothing about it seemed terribly original. Definitely the ol' Warner Brothers' material, spiffed up with CG. Doesn't mean I appreciate it any less.

Loved WALL-E. Basically for the same reasons that MM gave. It took long enough to get to Iceland, and then we had to dig to find a place showing it in English (though if I had known that the first half of the film had no dialogue, I wouldn't have cared if the rest was dubbed in Icelandic.)

And I thought it was fantastic that the first half of the movie had no dialogue, that the story proceeded with visuals alone. I personally really enjoyed the visuals and the sounds... and I liked the message, even though the hypocrisy/irony of it was certainly not lost on me. I don't think it hurts to hit people on the head with that, because obviously people still don't get it (sitting behind our computers getting fat, conducting all of our social engagement via a screen). Go figure, it gets a thumbs up from me.

That was my first thought the moment I saw the first commercial... then it made ponder if those 'Short Circuit' films had anything to do with Disney in the first place. This was the only reason I haven't watched the film Wall-E as of yet, since I thought it was such an obvious copy of Number 5, yet nobody else mentioned it. :oogle:

Stop overthinking it and just go see it. Good grief!

Seriously.

I liked it, but good God, it was depressing. But I still think everyone--and I mean everyone--should see it.

i wasn't as in to it. maybe it was just the mood I was in when I saw it but I thought it was too long. And the whole plot so simple and predictable that I found it boring. It could have been a 15 minute short film...