Not yet listed on the Amazon page, here are the goodies that will be in this 3-disc version:
Buy,Download, Or Stream Wall-E! Click Here
Standard bonus material:
director’s commentary,
deleted scenes,
Buy,Download, Or Stream Wall-E! Click Here
short film: Presto,
new short: BURN*E,
“Animation Sound Design”,
“WALL*E’s Tour of the Universe”;
Exclusive to the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD:
more deleted scenes,
making-of featurettes,
BnL shorts,
documentary film The Pixar Story,
“WALL*E’s Treasures and Trinkets”,
“Lots of Bots”
DisneyFile digital copy.
I am floored. I didn’t think it was possible for Pixar to surpass Toy Story, but it has. A sophisticated treat for adults and teens, a cuddly romance for the juice-box set, this comedic science fiction thriller romance (really!) takes the company to a new, more mature level. Filled with artistry, depth, meaning and a lot of humor, WALL-E is a masterpiece. Where Cars was a kid’s movie with added adult themes, this is an adult movie with added value for children.
DIALOGUE SCHMIALOGUE
Before I saw WALL-E I had read about the lack of dialogue, and how it might be a risky move for Pixar to make a film with characters that don’t talk in a traditional sense. Well, trash that. The most emotionally powerful scenes in this movie are those with the LEAST dialogue. Fully developed and indeed almost human, the two main characters are Wall-E himself (the letters stand for Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class; there’s also a WALL-A) and EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), two machines in love.
After about a half hour I was wondering if Pixar could continue to pull off this less-is-more concept for the rest of the film — then the two robots started playing Pong! Such imaginative screenplay carries the film to what should be a Best Picture nomination. Seriously.
A TOUCHING STORY
WALL-E is a lonely little robotic trash compactor who was left behind after Earth was abandoned some 700 years earlier. He has been methodically cleaning up the trash-ridden planet ever since, and harboring a tiny plant he has found among the garbage. Eve, meanwhile, lives on the immense spaceship Axiom, which is also home to the fat, blob-like remains of the human race. She is a probe robot that flies to Earth to determine if the planet is ready for habitation. WALL-E takes one look at the streamlined, angelic Eve and falls in love.
It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the little robot. As soon as he giggled (after his pet cockroach tickled him) I was hooked. This hardworking rusty guy with his small home full of collected treasures is so poignant. His lonely life is so human. Eve is just as likable, but much more sleek. Near the end comes a heartbreaking moment when a key character seems to lose all personality, all self. So well done, it made me think of how families must feel when a loved one disappears inside him- or herself with Alzheimer’s disease.
All ends well, of course. As the credits roll, the artwork illustrates how everyone and everything lives happily after ever.
AN ADULT MEANING
For adults, WALL-E is not so much about a cute little robot as it is about the future of man. What happens when humans become such creatures of the consumer culture, so fat they can’t even stand up without assistance, living literally on auto-pilot, that they do nothing but buy cheap merchandise, stuff their faces at the Regurgitated Food Buffet and lie around watching video screens? Can they ever get back to the land and set their souls free? Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young asked that question decades ago; Pixar asks it today.
There is even a sly political reference. Broadcasting a message to the passengers of the spaceship, the CEO of monster corporation Buy ‘n’ Large — played in live-action by the inimitable Fred Willard, and named Shelby Forthright — says they will be continuing on their never-ending, hopeless cruise to nowhere because they must “Stay the course!” Hmmm, haven’t I heard a president use that line?
EXTRA TOUCHES
WALL-E has so many wonderful touches! After the little robot is charged using his solar panels, he “turns on” with a sound any Macintosh owner will recognize. The robot’s collected objects, much like the thingamabobs of The Little Mermaid’s Ariel, are things that are uniquely human: bubble wrap, an iPod, a Rubics cube, a singing plastic trophy fish and — blink and you’ll miss it — a carrousel horse from Walt Disney World. Especially inspired are the two things on this future Earth that are totally indestructible: a cockroach and Twinkies.
Stay for the credits. Recalling cave drawings, hieroglyphics, Monet and Van Gogh paintings and early computer graphics, the progressive sequence of art within them sneaks in the history of dialogue-free storytelling.
ANIMATED? REALLY?
The look of the movie is hard to describe. In one scene, when WALL-E and EVE are investigating a piece of bubble wrap, you can’t tell it is an animated film. It actually appears to be live-action. Likewise, the outer space scenes have the same level of realism as any of the Star Wars movies. The trailing tower of squiggly smoke that’s left behind by a launching spacecraft re-creates the Florida sky of a Space Shuttle launch to a T. For the most part, it is only when humans are portrayed that you are consciously aware that what you’re watching was generated on circuit boards, not in cameras.
I’ve seen the movie three times, first in digital projection and then from a film projector. The digital showing was much sharper, which made all the realistic touches far easier to appreciate.
MOVIE REFERENCES
It’s obvious the Pixar folks are movie lovers; there are so many cinematic inspirations in WALL-E that I lost count. The “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” sequence from Hello, Dolly! shows up — literally — maybe half a dozen times. (Disney World fans may also remember the song as one of the background melodies along Main Street U.S.A.) The Axiom spaceship’s computer is clearly an homage to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey; that film’s signature overture “Also Sprach Zarathustra” plays at a key moment. WALL-E himself combines the purrs of E.T., the attitude of R2-D2 and the moves of Charlie Chaplin. There’s a brief reference to Titanic.
OPENING CARTOON
The movie is preceded by a Pixar short, “Presto,” that had the entire audience I was sitting with in stitches. Its plot: When a magician neglects to feed his bunny a carrot, an escalating disaster results. It’s so nice to start a feature with a cartoon. I wish other studios still did it. (Disney fans will note the magician’s hat is similar to the one used by Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.)
SOUVENIR TOY
Might as well budget it in: if you take your kids to see this you’re going to be buying a souvenir. Here’s the coolest one I’ve found on Amazon: U Command Wall-E.
Will it ever run out? This continuous font of imagination from Pixar? With WALL-E, it sure doesn’t look like it.
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