WALL-E

2008

Directed by Andrew Stanton

Quick synopsis… After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, the curious and lovable robot WALL-E discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek robot named EVE. Join them and a hilarious cast of characters on a journey across the universe.

• Did Pixar’s animator’s intentionally borrow heavily from the look of Number 5 from Short Circuit?
• Welcome to earth.
• It’s sometime in the 29th century and the planet is one big junk pile.
• There is literally trash everywhere and it seems to be WALL-E’s job to gather the trash and compact it all into cubes.
• I guess he’s the only one doing the job anymore after all these years.
• Because it’s just him (I assume this robot is male) and his pet cockroach.
• As WALL-E heads home at the end of his work day, he passes by some automatic advertisements that let the audience know what happened to humanity.
• Since the world had gotten so trashy, the Buy-N-Large corporation sent all the people into space on the Axiom.
• The idea was that, while all the people were on their temporary space cruise, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load-Lifter: Earth Class) and all the units like him would clean up the planet so it would be habitable again once humans returned.
• But, as mentioned above, WALL-E sure seems alone in his work.
• By the way, I’m not sure I buy all the smog that seems to encapsulate the globe at this point.
• Thanks to COVID-19 and our recent international lock down, we’ve seen that air pollution has significantly decreased after only a few weeks of people not driving around as much as normal.
• Unless all that information is fake… I’m sure they can fake satellite imagery and skyline pictures.
• But they sure look convincing if they’re not real.
• Anyway… if that is the case, I’m sure that, by the 29th century, earth’s air quality wouldn’t be nearly as bad as WALL-E has it depicted.
• WALL-E is a curious robot and, while going about his duties, tends to collect items he finds fascinating.
• He and the Little Mermaid would get along great.
• WALL-E comes across a tiny plant, which is unlike anything he’s ever seen before.
• Coincidentally, he then encounters a far more advanced robot that arrives from space: EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).
• For WALL-E, it’s love at first sight.
• EVE takes some convincing… she’s kind of a shoot first, ask questions later kind of robot.
• EVE is extremely powerful and seems pretty temperamental, but WALL-E slowly wins her over.
• He saves her by bringing her to his home during a severe dust storm, and then shows her all the curious things he’s collected over the years.
• When WALL-E shows her the tiny plant he’s found, she scans it and her directive takes over.
• She collects the plant and shuts down, waiting for her ride to come back and pick her up.
• When the ship that dropped EVE off finally returns, WALL-E hitches a ride.
• Arriving at the Axiom, EVE is identified as special, compared to the other EVE units, and is taken away.
• WALL-E tries to follow, but gets sidetracked when he discovers what’s become of humans.
• We’re all fat and lazy, floating around in hover chairs 24/7.
• WALL-E manages to follow EVE to the bridge where AUTO (the ship’s AI automatic pilot) scans her to find she’s returned with a positive scan.
• With this positive scan, the captain is shown a video explaining that it’s now time to go back home.
• Once EVE realizes that WALL-E is there, she kind of panics.
• And then when she’s opened up to reveal the plant isn’t in her storage anymore, she assumes WALL-E has done something with it.
• The captain assumes that EVE is defective, so has her sent for repairs.
• WALL-E interferes with this and it’s kind of disastrous for a minute, and EVE is kind of pissed.
• So she decides to stick him in a pod that will take him back to earth.
• But then they witness another robot placing the plant in a pod, ejecting it into space.
• WALL-E goes in to retrieve the plant for EVE, but then the pod takes off.
• EVE launches herself into space to follow, but WALL-E quickly discovers that the pod is set to self-destruct.
• But WALL-E saves the plant, so he and EVE kiss and make up.
• EVE returns the plant to the captain, who decides they have to go back to earth.
• Turns out, AUTO has his own secret directive that is meant to prevent humans from returning to earth.
• AUTO sends EVE and WALL-E to be trashed and ejected into space, but not before frying WALL-E’s circuits, seriously damaging him.
• EVE saves WALL-E and the captain is able to regain control from AUTO.
• When the Axiom finally returns to earth, EVE is able to repair WALL-E with the spare parts from his hideout.
• But he’s not the same…
• His personality is gone… just the robot with a directive to clean up the trash.
• It takes some work, but EVE is able to remind WALL-E who he is.
• It’s a nice moment and a happy ending.
• Oh, and humans manage to bring life back to the planet.

Thanks for stopping in while I participate in this year’s A to Z Challenge. We’re in the home stretch now, with only a few Disney movies to go. So you’re welcome to come back for more if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.

Tomorrow’s Disney movie begins with a X and is actually not a Disney movie. Because there are no Disney movies that begin with an X. My rule for this thing was that each of the movies I watched for this month’s challenge was that they would all be found on Disney+. Nothing available on that streaming service beginning with an X. At least, not any movies… However, I feel like I can safely fudge this one by watching something that was made by recent Disney acquisition, 20th Century Fox. Because I feel like I can safely predict that many of the movies from the franchise in question will eventually be made available on Disney+. Any guesses?