Common Themes In Disney Pixar's WALL-E

Many people are familiar with Disney Pixar’s WALL-E to be known as a children’s movie. The film is mainly known for the romantic relationship between two robots, EVE and WALL-E. Even though the targeted audience was children, the film became a favorite to people of all ages. The director, Andrew Stanton’s main theme for the film was showing a robot being the most human thing in the universe. Nevertheless, the audience found other themes shown throughout the film. The three main common themes were protecting the environment, caring for human health, and realizing our dependence on technology.
The film, WALL-E, follows the last robot on Earth, WALL-E, that is programmed to clean up the planet so humans could one day return to Earth. WALL-E spends his days tidying up the planet and

collecting human objects like a Rubik’s Cube and a VHS copy of the musical “Hello, Dolly!”. Over the period of time he is on Earth, he continues to obey his program, but becomes curious and develops a personality and feelings.

One day after he finishes his work, he finds a mysterious red dot that he chases and tries to catch, without knowing that there are several more behind it. Once the dot stops, a ship lands in its place and drops off a robot, EVE, that is programmed to search all over Earth to evaluate the soil to see if Earth can sustain life again. WALL-E is fascinated with EVE and falls in love with her. When WALL-E is showing her his collection, he shows her a shoe that has a plant growing in it. EVE immediately collects and stores the plant in her compartment and shuts down to ‘stand by’ mode. WALL-E panics and tries to “wake” her back up. Then the space ship comes back to pick up EVE. While WALL-E is trying to get EVE back, he is taken into space where he gets on the giant space ship with all of the humans on it. As WALL-E continues his journey to find EVE, he runs into different humans and changes their look at life. All of the humans are obese and spend all day in their hover chairs with little human interaction. They are always looking at a screen video chatting with others that can

be sitting right next to them. There is also a large sum of robots that are programmed to do everyday tasks for the humans. For example, PR-T is a robot that will do your make-up and hair, THIRST-E is a drink-dispenser robot, and SAUT-A is a chef robot. Towards the end, the audience discovers that AUTO, a robot designed to be the autopilot for the ship, is the antagonist. AUTO wants to destroy the plant, so that he can continue to run the ship, but the Captain and later the other humans decide that they want to go back to Earth because they want to live and not just survive (WALL-E & Telotte).
The targeted audience for this film was children. Just like any other Disney film, the intended audience is for kids of young ages. However, Disney films attract a wide range of audiences’ members from different ages. The film was named one of the best films of 2008 by the American Film Institute and Rotten Tomatoes film review website gave it a 96% positive critic’s rating (Rotten Tomatoes & AFI). Many film critics have claimed that WALL-E was their favorite film of 2008. One critic was Richard Corliss from Time Magazine. He said that film succeeded at connecting with the audience despite the main character’s lack of speech (Corliss). Another film critic, Todd McCarthy who worked for Variety, called WALL-E, “Pixar’s ninth consecutive wonder of the animated world [that] is simple yet deeply imagined piece of speculative fiction” (McCarthy). McCarthy continues to explain how WALL-E pushes the boundaries of animation and how the one distinct difference between this film and other sci-fi films is that their story is based on an apocalypse is optimism (McCarthy).
The director’s, Andrew Stanton, main vision for the film was to reflect the biblical story of Adam and Eve. He wanted to show that the most human thing in the universe was a piece of machinery that had interest of finding out what the point of living was compared to the humans. He said, “The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority” (Basham). So, he came up with a story that showed irrational love defeating the world’s program. Andrew Stanton named EVE after the biblical figure Eve because WALL-E’s loneliness reminded him of the biblical figure Adam. The main theme Stanton was going for was the first male, first female (Basham). There was also a little bit of the biblical story Noah’s Ark represented in the film by showing how the humans were waiting on the space station, waiting to go back to Earth but they had to wait until EVE came back with the plant to show that life was sustainable on Earth again as the dove did in the story of Noah’s Ark. There have been other themes represented in the film even if Andrew Stanton did not intend them to be (Moring).
Pixar’s WALL-E was released in 2008. During 2007-2008, around the time of the release, “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that scientists were more confident than ever that humans were changing the climate,” even though at the time the scientists had small predictions of what events could happen and events that were already happening. They knew that if people were not aware of the discharge of gas, radiation, and other harmful factors, the Earth’s average temperature was going to rise between 2.5 and 11°F (Weart).
In WALL-E’s opening scene, we see Earth is abandoned and the normal blue skies, green grass, and blue water is now made of different shades of brown. The air is no longer clear because of the smog and sand storms. The planet is also covered in garbage that we see WALL-E cleaning up by crushing the garbage into squares that he stacks up that can make sky scrapers. Towards the end of the film, the Captain gets excited on what Earth is and starts to research. When EVE and WALL-E give him the plant, he gets even more excited to know that he and the other humans can go back to Earth, but the captain’s mood changes once he plugs EVE’s memory into the computer to see the actual condition Earth is in. His first reaction to the videos is, “It looks like Earth. But where’s the blue sky? Where’s the grass?” The captain then argues with AUTO, the auto pilot, that they have to go back because the Earth needs them and that is their real home. WALL-E gives insight that if we as humans continue to create so much waste and pollution, we will soon kill the planet and not be able to live on it (Whitley).
Also during this time, the rates of obesity were increasing compared to the years before. Nationally, 33.7% of American adults aged 20 and over were obese and 16.8% of American youth aged 2-19 years were obese in 2007-2008. In the years 2005-2006, the American adult percent was 34.3% and the youth was 15.4%. The years after, the American youth had a constant percentage that barely increased, but the American adults increased a significant amount. By the year, 2013-2014 the youth obese percentage was 17.2%, while the American adults was 37.7% (The State of Obesity).
The director, Andrew Stanton, created the humans as overweight because he thought of humanity having everything they need to survive was at their fingertips and they did not need to grow up anymore. Many individuals that have seen the film make connections between the humans in WALL-E ¬and American society today. “With the increasing levels of consumerism, rising obesity levels, and the utter disregard for proper waste management, these factors suggest that America is turning into Wall-E” (McDonald). An example of this are chain restaurants. Americans are always looking for cheap and convenient ways for meals using fast food restaurants. In WALL-E, all of the humans are obese due to the convenience of fast food on the space station and the lack of physical activity (McDonald).
Another major theme in the film is how dependent the humans are on technology. In the world of technology, the year 2007 was a big year for inventions. One invention was the Kindle, where Amazon users can use this portable reader that downloads books, blogs, magazines and newspapers. Another invention was the iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaning Robot, the first product to be designed to clean gutters themselves by a wireless remote. One of the most significant inventions was the release of the first iPhone (Entrepreneur).
Throughout the entire film, there are robots left and right. The humans have robots that perform every task that is needed. There are robots that perform simple everyday tasks like brushing your teeth and hair. They are so dependent on the robots to live that the humans cannot even get up or lean forward in their chairs. The film shows how technology has separated the humans from nature and have lost what has made them human. At the end of film, it shows both the humans and the robots working to together to clean up Earth and make it habitable again.
Since the release of the film, the concern for all three of films themes has increased. There have been many organizations and events that have been created to help save the environment from the different pollutants around the world. There has been an increased awareness for obesity by creating products that promote weight loss and getting active (Tranter). One example is Disney’s Healthy Living program, where they encourage kids to try new healthy food dishes and show kids different ways they can become active. First Lady Michelle Obama joined the Walt Disney Company to help promote the campaign (“First Lady”). Also, technology has gotten more advanced since the release of the film. Cell phones have gone from having keyboard and buttons to having just a touch screen. Many devices have gone to “Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology”, SMART technology such as cell phones, televisions, watches, and even cars. Over the years, humans have decreased the number of interactions with other humans. This can be seen with the number of people who shop online for clothes, technology, making medical appointments, and even groceries.
Even though the director, Andrew Stanton, meant for WALL-E to be a film on a love story between two robots that are more “human-like” than the humans in the film, there are many themes shown throughout the film that lead to suggest that WALL-E is an “environmental” film. One theme is showing concern to human’s health. Over the years America’s rate of obesity in both adults and youth have increased. Another theme is protecting the environment because the film shows their audience an apocalyptic world where humans destroyed Earth with all their garbage (Anderson). The last theme is showing how much humans are dependent on technology by showing how the humans on the space station could not perform everyday tasks without the help of the robots. As the years pass, it looks like the world is still on the path of turning into the world that WALL-E depicts.