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Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story
Denofgeek wrote in to tell us about their story where "Pixar's supervising animator Angus MacLane gives an interesting interview about the technical challenges in bringing Wall-E to the screen. Plus he squeezes in a bit on his love of Lego, too..."
Kids don't take much to be entertained. "Oooo Robot Moving." or anytime he goofs up or does something silly.
Here be some spoilers, kind of.
I think this movie had more in it for adults than any other Pixar movie I've seen. The first thing I thought of when I saw the movie was Idiocracy. I imagine that the animators were probably fans.
Short Circuit, 2001 (I was really hoping they'd work in a "I'm sorry captain, I can't do that", Apple startup chime, references to all previous Pixar movies and of course Cliff Claven (John Ratzenberger).
From the beginning everything was very well done and even small details weren't over looked. I can't wait for the DVD to watch it again and just watch some things in the background to see what I missed in the theater.
Whoa, whoa, whoa... You went to a Pixar film not realizing that there would be a short before it? What rock have you been living under?
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
The rating doesn't mean that it's "for" kids, it just means that it won't "offend" them with the particular things that make the other ratings required for a movie. A documentary on beans could be rated G and would be so boring as to make kids run screaming from the room. Put the F word in that documentary a few times, and it's rated R, but still heinously boring to kids/etc.
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To be quite honest, I wasn't all that thrilled about going to this movie. I walked into the movie by request of my little brother, and I figured I'd at least get a few laughs out of the movie.
What I got was a masterpiece.
Not two minutes into the film, I was enthralled by the sheer beauty of the landscapes. The incongruity between the cheerful opening tune and the devastated Earth landscape is absolutely delightful.
Also, Pixar has gotten so good at what they do that they don't even need words to tell a story. The first 45 minutes of the movie has pretty much ZERO dialogue with the exception of BnL ads for background. Oh, also a word or two (literally) from the robots.
Particularly well done were the flight scenes - the part in the beginning where EVE watches the ship leave and start cruising around while WALL-E watches in awe, and when the two of them are dancing around the Axiom. I could watch those two scenes over and over again and still be thrilled.
Also, the (oft overlooked) soundtrack is phenomenal as well. I bought it the instant I could, and I've had it on repeat for about a week now. (2815 AD and Define Dancing are my favorites)
I can honestly say that this is the best (in terms of sheer all-around quality) film that I have ever seen, and I fully expect this to just rake in its well-deserved awards.
They were able to make a roach cute. And no, not some Disneyesque anthropomorphic huggable buggable plushified abomination to be mass-marketed to yowling ankle-biters everywhere, no, no, no! This was a realistic roach, the kind that makes me reach for a shoe and go Khrushchev on its filthy self. My family went to see this movie together and my own mother, my earliest memories of which involve her screaming hysterically and attacking palmetto bugs with a toilet plunger wielded with the sort of two-hand grip reserved for viking warhammers, she found the roach cute! She gasped when Wall-E rolled over it that last time, thinking it might be dead.
If Pixar can make her identify and sympathize with a realistic roach, the animators at those other studios should just hang up their keyboards and go home.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I enjoy many of the Pixar movies and "The Incredibles" is still my favorite. Wall-E is second though, displacing "Monsters, Inc." It grew on me.. I've seen it a couple times so far and enjoyed it far more on the second viewing (not that I didn't enjoy it the first go round).
I understand what you're saying about social commentary though. If not handled properly it can be annoying. This may sound like a copout, but I think science fiction has to handle it differently. In other genres the commentary is best hidden beneath layers of abstraction. Want to protest the madness of war in a drama and you make a "Romeo and Juliet" piece that ends in tragedy. Want to comment on the deterioration of the environment and you write about the flower girl that gets sick because a factory blocks her view of the ocean.. Not in science fiction.. In SF the skies turn violent because of pollution. The people wear gas masks. The effect of the disparity between rich and poor are farmed organ donors.
IMHO, this commentary on the cuff is what distinguishes SF. Traditional literature teachers scoff at SF because the themes and messages are so brazen, but it is precisely this "obviousness" that I enjoy.