Wall-E

[Tals]

As a family we don't watch many 'cinema' films. But Wall-E was getting such rave reviews that I persuaded my wife that the children and I would be better entertained by Wall-E than Mama Mia.

What a bad call, have I missed something when watching this film. I'm usually pretty relaxed on watching films but this pushes boredom to a new level. The wife fell asleep and I struggled at times to remain awake. The story seemed incredibly simple.

What did I miss or have the critic expectations on what to expect from a film just gone through the floor.

Very disappointed

Tals

[Gratch]

We saw Wall-E again yesterday, and I can say with no reservations that it's my favorite movie since Return of the King.   

Different strokes I suppose, though I would say you're probably in the minority.  Every person I've talked to loved it, and I was thorougly entertained from start to finish.

[wonderpug]

I just got Hello Dolly! from Netflix a few days ago and I've been playing WALL-E's favorite song & dance routine almost non-stop all weekend.  I'm getting impatient for the video release of WALL-E and I'm starting to consider seeing it in the theater yet another time.  It's right up there with Back to the Future and Star Wars on my short list of movies I can just see over and over and not get tired of watching.

[SkyLander]

Wall-E is one of the best Pixar movies I've seen right along with The Incredibles in terms of how much I enjoyed the film.

[Ironrod]

We thought it was pretty good overall, not at all dumb despite being simplistic and moralistic, as one expects from a family movie. By chance we had watched Ratatouille the night before, so we inevitably compared those two. Ratatouille was better in many ways -- art, animation, sets, humor, characters, and even believability and story immersion. Being a sf fan and francophobe, I was surprised by reaching that conclusion, but there you go. My wife liked Wall-E better than Shrek, her previous gold standard in animated films. 

I wouldn't call Wall-E boring by any stretch...but then, I would never in a million years consider Mama Mia its competition, so we must have very different ideas of what's entertaining. 

[Tals]

We thought it was pretty good overall, not at all dumb despite being simplistic and moralistic, as one expects from a family movie. By chance we had watched Ratatouille the night before, so we inevitably compared those two. Ratatouille was better in many ways -- art, animation, sets, humor, characters, and even believability and story immersion. Being a sf fan and francophobe, I was surprised by reaching that conclusion, but there you go. My wife liked Wall-E better than Shrek, her previous gold standard in animated films. 

I wouldn't call Wall-E boring by any stretch...but then, I would never in a million years consider Mama Mia its competition, so we must have very different ideas of what's entertaining. 

Well as I ended up watching Wall-E instead of Mama Mia I can't comment yet on that.

I've seen Mama Mia in the theatre and as harmless entertainment it worked for me .

I did my original post as much because I believed there must be some hidden agreement between film houses and critics to give such rave reviews on what is an utterly average film. I found the humour and the storyline inane and the special effects which would usually pull be back from the brink pretty lacking. Ratatouille converselly was an excellent film in comparison, Shrek (the original) was also a better film for me

I'm pleased to see some people liked the film so it must be me and not some weird conspiracy behind the scenes

In our family the ratings would be

Daughter (12) 6/10
Wife              4/10
Me                5/10
Son ( 8 )          10/10

I think that sums up my views and it's target audience 

[CSL]

Son ( 8 )          10/10

I think that sums up my views and it's target audience 

That your son has the best taste among the family?

[SkyLander]

Still say Wall-E isn't a fucking kids film.

[Isgrimnur]

Still say Wall-E isn't a fucking kids film.

Courtesy of Aaron Williams (of Nodwick) and IESB.net



And my list of Pixar films in order of preference.

• Finding Nemo
• Monsters Inc.
• Toy Story
• WALL-E
• Cars
• The Incredibles
• Toy Story 2
• Ratatouille
• A Bug's Life

[warning]

Son ( 8 )          10/10

I think that sums up my views and it's target audience 

That your son has the best taste among the family?

That your son is the only one who is not dead a little inside?   

We just saw it tonight and I was giddy like a schoolgirl the whole time.  It was flat-out amazing.

And my three sons (ages 12, 11 & 9) also loved it.  And so did my wife.  And I turn 40 in less than 3 weeks.  Send your son to our house and we'll provide a safe refuge for him.

[Ironrod]

I did my original post as much because I believed there must be some hidden agreement between film houses and critics to give such rave reviews on what is an utterly average film. I found the humour and the storyline inane and the special effects which would usually pull be back from the brink pretty lacking. Ratatouille converselly was an excellent film in comparison, Shrek (the original) was also a better film for me

Wall-E gets a lot of love here. Most of these people took payola from Pixar. I'd give it 6 out of 8 tentacles myself -- I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm not in any hurry to see it again.

[Tals]

Son ( 8 )          10/10

I think that sums up my views and it's target audience 

That your son has the best taste among the family?

Films to him either get 0 or 10 

Still can't for the life of me see how the film gets so much love but kudos to those who spent money and got value out of that

Tals

[Asharak]

Still can't for the life of me see how the film gets so much love but kudos to those who spent money and got value out of that

I'm with you. I thought it was a decent enough kids movie but certainly nothing more or nothing special.

- Ash

[leo8877]

Watched the BluRay last night and both me and the lady really enjoyed it.  It was very well done.  I also loved the BURN*E movie on the disc.

[Scuzz]

As a family we don't watch many 'cinema' films. But Wall-E was getting such rave reviews that I persuaded my wife that the children and I would be better entertained by Wall-E than Mama Mia.

What a bad call, have I missed something when watching this film. I'm usually pretty relaxed on watching films but this pushes boredom to a new level. The wife fell asleep and I struggled at times to remain awake. The story seemed incredibly simple.

What did I miss or have the critic expectations on what to expect from a film just gone through the floor.

Very disappointed

Tals

It still has to be better than Mama Mia....................

[Blackadar]

Still can't for the life of me see how the film gets so much love but kudos to those who spent money and got value out of that

Tals

You're in the serious minority on this one, Tals.  I thought Wall-E was excellent - the first 30 minutes may be the best part of any film I've seen this year.  It got a whopping 96% at Rotten Tomatoes.   

[kratz]

I thought it was good.  Not as good as Ratatouille, Incredibles, Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, or Cars (JUST KIDDING!), but good. 

[Razgon]

Just watched it - really really liked it, despite the cheesy over-the-top morals of the movie.

Was I the only one who was reminded sooo much of Fallout3 in the earlier parts of the game?

[CeeKay]

I saw this recently too as part of my 'catch up on all the summer releases' project and would place it well above most of Pixar's movies but below the Toy Story movies and the Incredibles.

[msduncan]

Edited:  crap.... fooled by date of original post.    nothing to see here.

[morlac]

I saw it recently twice on flights cross country.  I put it in my wife's stocking and we watched it yesterday, most excellent.

[cheeba]

Yeah just saw it for the first time as we gave the DVD to my nephew for Christmas. Excellent movie. I didn't much like Cars and Ratatouille (not hate or anything, just not great), so I was happy to see Pixar return to greatness.

[The Grue]

We watched it on Blu-Ray the other night and thought it was really good.  I think the whole beginning was incredible because it conveyed a whole lot without any dialog whatsoever.  The message was good and the animation was great.

[Chaz]

Watch the geek trivia commentary track (assuming it's not a BR only feature).  It's four of the writers/producers, three of which are giant geeks, and one of whom isn't.  They spend the entire movie talking about various geeky subjects, references in the movie (did you know that during one explosion, there's a piece of flying metal that was copied from an explosion in Aliens?), and poking holes in their own continuity and science.  It's absolutely hilarious.

[kratz]

I got this from the wife as a christmas gift (ratatouille, too!), and we watched it with my folks after getting snowed in again.  3rd time for me, 1st for them... It's really good.  I still like Ratatouille better.

[Razgon]

and, of course, I meant if no-one but me was reminded of fallout 3 by the beginning of the MOVIE...sigh, I need a new grammar hat...

Anyways, was a rental for me, but am going to be buy it, will be my first Blue-ray cartoon movie..really looking forward to that, since so many say thats great to watch!

[CeeKay]

and, of course, I meant if no-one but me was reminded of fallout 3 by the beginning of the MOVIE...sigh, I need a new grammar hat...

it's OK, we've come to accept your strange foreign customs.

[Razgon]

and, of course, I meant if no-one but me was reminded of fallout 3 by the beginning of the MOVIE...sigh, I need a new grammar hat...

it's OK, we've come to accept your strange foreign customs.

*tips his trousers towards CK while eating a danish*

[Old Negus]

Actually, that was the first thing I said when I saw the movie for the first time a couple weeks ago... it totally reminded me of Fallout 3.

Loved the movie, don't know if The Incredibles or Wall-E is my favorite Pixar movie.

[Caine]

Actually, that was the first thing I said when I saw the movie for the first time a couple weeks ago... it totally reminded me of Fallout 3.

Loved the movie, don't know if The Incredibles or Wall-E is my favorite Pixar movie.

same here.  especially the scenes showing the elevated freeway section that had fallen. 

[Moliere]

Still can't for the life of me see how the film gets so much love but kudos to those who spent money and got value out of that

Tals

You're in the serious minority on this one, Tals.  I thought Wall-E was excellent - the first 30 minutes may be the best part of any film I've seen this year.  It got a whopping 96% at Rotten Tomatoes.   

Add me to this minority. I just finished watching those parts that I wasn't fast forwarding through. The movie was incredibly boring and insulting to mankind. Why is the future always portrayed in such a dystopian manner? We're supposed to believe that humans created the technology to build robots and space ships, but not figure out what to do with the garbage? Then we're supposed to believe that these fatties who haven't done anything their entire life and can barely even walk are going to go out and be farmers? More likely they're going to go back to the ship and hope the robots terraform the planet while they drink slurpies. The funniest part of the whole movie was the DVD short Presto when the rabbit kept pointing to his mouth waiting for the carrot.



OK, I will admit getting a chuckle

Spoiler for Hiden:

the first time Wall-E ran over the cockroach thinking it was dead only to have it bounce back up.

[The Grue]

Just like people who do manual labor all the time for a living might want to give sitting around a shot, those who only sit might actually be inspired to do some manual work, just for a change of pace.

We've already seen how technology makes us lazier and fatter.  Do you have to run out and hunt your food or grow it yourself?  Nope, but people used to have to do that and they were in much better shape than we are because of it.  So, how much of a stretch is it to think that if we used technology to basically take care of everything for us that we might grow to a state where we just do nothing but be entertained all day (heck, with TV, radio, movies,  and the Internet, we have actually become very entertainment-centric).

I'm not sure what you meant by the garbage comment.

[PeteRock]

I will say that "Presto" was one of the funniest shorts I've ever seen.  My wife and I found that to be the highlight of the DVD and we laughed hysterically.  But we also enjoyed Wall-E, just not on the same level as we enjoyed Finding Nemo or The Incredibles.  But I still feel like Pixar can do no wrong.  I have yet to watch a Pixar film that I didn't enjoy.

[Moliere]

Do you have to run out and hunt your food or grow it yourself?  Nope, but people used to have to do that and they were in much better shape than we are because of it. 

Really? You're going to make the claim that a hunter gather society or sustenance farmers are healthier than modern man? You can't even compare the quality of life, cleanliness of food and advantages of diversified labor.

how much of a stretch is it to think that if we used technology to basically take care of everything for us that we might grow to a state where we just do nothing but be entertained all day (heck, with TV, radio, movies,  and the Internet, we have actually become very entertainment-centric).

I never disputed the fact that people could turn into lazy slobs if everything was provided for them. In fact, I would say that's the more likely outcome. My point was that life would be incredibly harsh for these people landing back on earth if that's the lifestyle they were used to.

I'm not sure what you meant by the garbage comment.

Disposal of garbage could be handled a little more imaginatively than compacting it into squares and stacking them up. If this society had the technology to build robots and space ships they should have been able to figure out what to do with a little trash.

[Isgrimnur]

Don't forget about the Burn-E short on the disc.  My family heartily enjoyed that one over the holidays.

And as for garbage disposal, you could always go the Superman IV/Futurama route and just launch it into space/the sun...

[Chaz]

I'm pretty sure there was a shot where you saw the garbage cubes being loaded into what I think were rockets, but all the equipment doing the loading was broken, so the whole operation just froze.  My guess (and they allude to this in one of the commentaries) is that the WALL-Es would compact the garbage for loading into ships that would carry it off for disposal.  All the robots besides WALL-E broke down, leaving him with nothing to do but what he was made to do, which is to compact the garbage and stack it ready for the loaders that would never come.

As for why they didn't deal with the garbage before launching everyone into space, I suspect that there was more motivation for BnL to launch the ship (thus creating a captive consumer base) than to clean up the planet.  Obviously they set up a system to clean things while the humans were gone, but equally obviously, it wasn't nearly enough.  From the perspective of BnL, keeping the humans in space is a much better deal than bringing them back to Earth.

Finally, the credit sequence showed that the robots helped the humans with their new agriculture exploits.  It's likely that the robots in fact did most of the work until the humans started regaining the ability to function on their own. 

[The Grue]

Do you have to run out and hunt your food or grow it yourself?  Nope, but people used to have to do that and they were in much better shape than we are because of it. 

Really? You're going to make the claim that a hunter gather society or sustenance farmers are healthier than modern man? You can't even compare the quality of life, cleanliness of food and advantages of diversified labor.

I meant they were more in shape (more muscular, leaner, etc.).  Also, I bet they didn't die from things like heart disease and clogged arteries as much.

[Moliere]

I bet they didn't die from things like heart disease and clogged arteries as much.

I'll take clogged arteries at 50 over pre-antibiotic infections at 20 any day.

[Razgon]

average age of most non-industriel people was what, 36?

[Isgrimnur]

Wiki

• Upper Paleolithic - 33
• Neolithic - 20 (advent of agriculture)
• Bronze Age - 18
• Pre-Columbian North America - 25-35
• Medieval Britain - 20-30
• Early 20th Century - 30-40
• Current world average - 66.12

Andorra has the world's longest life expectancy of 83.5 years.