Wall-E: A Reality or Just an Exaggeration?
Wall-E & the flower
For my research paper I am examining the Disney/Pixar film Wall-E in light of its emphasis on pollution and waste. For those of you who are not die-hard fans of the movie, the title is very important. Wall-E stands for W-waste A-allocation L-load L-lifter E-earth class. Wall-E's job is simple, clean up all of the trash that the humans left behind. I want to look at certain scenes of the film and interpret if they are reality or an exaggeration.
I believe that Wall-E is a reality and should not be just be over looked because of the crazy exaggerations throughout the film.
My two secondary sources also agree with my stance that Wall-E could become a reality and is not solely for entertainment purposes. The article "Distinctive Consumption And Popular Anti-Consumerism:The Case Of Wall-E" by Hugh McNaughtan focuses on the film as being Anti-Consumerism and he argues that pollution has become such a norm in the American society today. The other article I am using is by Christopher Todd Anderson. He focuses on waste as a wide spread epidemic that has the possibility to be detrimental to earth. Anderson's hypothesis is exactly what happened in the film. The waste buildup was too much for the humans to handle, and the left Wall-EF to clean up their mess.
I first looked at the opening scene in which the audience is taken from space into New York City. From a distance the buildings all look the same, but once you are up close and personal, you then realize that those same skyscrapers are now built from trash which represents the focus of waste and consumerism. At first I saw this as an over exaggeration, buildings made from trash is not real life, but think I got to thinking of all of the possible results of pollution and why it should matter to us. Admit it, we have all at one point in our lives, improperly disposed of our trash, aka helped pollute our planet. But this opening scene of large amounts of trash build ups is pretty scary if this were to really happen to us in current day society. If this cycle of pollution continues even on a small scale, the waste will eventually continue to build up and Wall-E will not longer just be a DVD on our movie stand, but a scary reality that none of us will want to be responsible for.
The second scene was when the Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) probe is sent to earth for the regular scanning for the existance of life. On this particular trip to earth, Eve not only meets Wall-E, but also has a small love encounter with him, she finds the living flower that Wall-E has collected and protected, then she is shut down and shipped back off into space where the plant is then evaluated by the captain. The finding of the flower is a key component of the film because it essentially represents life. Even with enough garbage to rebuild an entire city, there is still the beauty of life on earth. So what? Well, if Wall-E does become a sad reality that we are faced with and the humans are shipped off to live in space because of the tremendous amounts of waste and garbage, we will be able to fix our mistakes and make things right again, just like in the movie when the humans return.
I believe that Wall-E is a reality and should not be just be over looked because of the crazy exaggerations throughout the film.
My two secondary sources also agree with my stance that Wall-E could become a reality and is not solely for entertainment purposes. The article "Distinctive Consumption And Popular Anti-Consumerism:The Case Of Wall-E" by Hugh McNaughtan focuses on the film as being Anti-Consumerism and he argues that pollution has become such a norm in the American society today. The other article I am using is by Christopher Todd Anderson. He focuses on waste as a wide spread epidemic that has the possibility to be detrimental to earth. Anderson's hypothesis is exactly what happened in the film. The waste buildup was too much for the humans to handle, and the left Wall-EF to clean up their mess.
I first looked at the opening scene in which the audience is taken from space into New York City. From a distance the buildings all look the same, but once you are up close and personal, you then realize that those same skyscrapers are now built from trash which represents the focus of waste and consumerism. At first I saw this as an over exaggeration, buildings made from trash is not real life, but think I got to thinking of all of the possible results of pollution and why it should matter to us. Admit it, we have all at one point in our lives, improperly disposed of our trash, aka helped pollute our planet. But this opening scene of large amounts of trash build ups is pretty scary if this were to really happen to us in current day society. If this cycle of pollution continues even on a small scale, the waste will eventually continue to build up and Wall-E will not longer just be a DVD on our movie stand, but a scary reality that none of us will want to be responsible for.
The second scene was when the Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) probe is sent to earth for the regular scanning for the existance of life. On this particular trip to earth, Eve not only meets Wall-E, but also has a small love encounter with him, she finds the living flower that Wall-E has collected and protected, then she is shut down and shipped back off into space where the plant is then evaluated by the captain. The finding of the flower is a key component of the film because it essentially represents life. Even with enough garbage to rebuild an entire city, there is still the beauty of life on earth. So what? Well, if Wall-E does become a sad reality that we are faced with and the humans are shipped off to live in space because of the tremendous amounts of waste and garbage, we will be able to fix our mistakes and make things right again, just like in the movie when the humans return.