Reaction Paper in Wall E
Now, the main thing that a lot of people are praising WALL-E for is the deeper message that it manages to get across. While I can appreciate a cautionary tale about the Earth getting overrun with garbage and pollution, and a believable sci-fi future where humans become overly reliant on machines, I don’t know that it’s really anything all that groundbreaking. Maybe this message seems a bit less inspired just because there have so many other movies with environmental undertones lately. I honestly thought there was going to be a little more to WALL-E than there really was. There is an interesting twist near the end of the movie (seemingly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey), but it turned out to be nothing more than a plot device. That’s when I realized that, in the end, the environmental stuff is all just a backdrop for a love story between two robots and a lot of zany chase scenes.
The visuals were impressive, as always. I can’t really say the entire look was photorealistic because the characters moved in very exaggerated, cartoony ways, but the environments were amazing, and some of the outer space scenery was gorgeous. Once again, fire always seems to be the measuring stick for the progress of computer animation, and in this movie there is an exquisitely rendered lighter flame that looks 100% real. So I give them full marks for that.
But it’s not really about that with Pixar movies anymore. They are trying to get the animated medium to be taken seriously, and it seems like it’s becoming a regular occurrence with each new Pixar release that people start saying it should be eligible to compete with live action films for Best Picture at the Oscars. In that regard, I don’t think WALL-E qualifies. If anything, Ratatouille was more deserving. But this movie is just not deep enough. It’s cute and entertaining, and tries some things that haven’t really been done before with a children’s animated movie, but let’s not kid ourselves here… a complex human drama, it ain’t.
The visuals were impressive, as always. I can’t really say the entire look was photorealistic because the characters moved in very exaggerated, cartoony ways, but the environments were amazing, and some of the outer space scenery was gorgeous. Once again, fire always seems to be the measuring stick for the progress of computer animation, and in this movie there is an exquisitely rendered lighter flame that looks 100% real. So I give them full marks for that.
But it’s not really about that with Pixar movies anymore. They are trying to get the animated medium to be taken seriously, and it seems like it’s becoming a regular occurrence with each new Pixar release that people start saying it should be eligible to compete with live action films for Best Picture at the Oscars. In that regard, I don’t think WALL-E qualifies. If anything, Ratatouille was more deserving. But this movie is just not deep enough. It’s cute and entertaining, and tries some things that haven’t really been done before with a children’s animated movie, but let’s not kid ourselves here… a complex human drama, it ain’t.