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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..."
Anyone else want to go see this just for the shorts in the beginning?
Actually, Wall-E was much different than I expected. I know the critics really liked it, but I found it to be a bit heavy for younger kids, and probably not enough to grab very young kids' attentions. As an adult though, I thought the movie was incredible. I hadn't really read up on it before viewing it and had no idea it was going to be an entire social commentary-esque movie.
Definitely makes you think, though! And the animation was absolutely breathtaking at times.
-MelRom
Wall-E was an incredible movie. The character development was outstanding, emotions were believable, and scenes really made impressions on me.
What I found most interesting about TFA was about the software they use for long-term development.
It said that for long-term development movies (Wall-E was 3 years, right?) they use the same software all the way through. I had always wondered about that kind of thing.. Since 3D software and rendering engines and such is always improving, how do these guys make the movies? Do they constantly re-render with the better software throughout the process, etc.? How do they keep up with competition in that regard?
So it was neat to finally find that out. The article also offers a lot of insight into the team arrangement at Pixar. I like that they aren't chained to animating a certain character/part- That they really observe who likes to animate who and what kind of scenes and kind of let them do what they enjoy best in the project. I wish programming jobs were like that- Where we could work on parts that we really liked instead of being moved from language to language and to different teams etc. like our preference doesn't matter. I think it's a really good thing they have over there.
If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, it's well worth the ticket price!
Wall-E is an ayahuasca trip. Right after Wall-E finds the vine in the boot (traveling vine) a bunch of explosions right out of Altered States happen. Then we meet a white angel/alien thing right out of psychedelic literature. Then they undergo joseph Campbell's archetypal hero journey, complete with death and rebirth and the experience of the self as an object in the machinations of a higher order self. When wall-e and eve are watching that tree with the root in the vine in the boot, that is much more a symbol about hallucinogen use revealing esoteric mystical secrets and uniting the conscious and unconscious aspects of personality then anything social or ecological.
The movie also works as a drug trip, where the movie is the trip that inspired the director to create the film as social commentary. wall-e is the persona, Eve is Anima, The captain is the soul in charge, the axiom is the engrained pattern of thinking in one person, the ecological stuff is a parable about psychological debris, the earth is the body. When the ship comes to earth, it's the psyche returning to the body, where the director/captain spreads ecological wisdom. The first thing wall-e does when brought back to life after being reprogrammed by the unconscious aspect of personality is make a junk cube with a rubiks cube in it. Then we see that vine and tree. This movie works as social commentary, but it encodes the psychedelic hero's journey. I think this is the deepest meaning of the film.
The movie also works as a commentary of the drug war (as the rogue robots try and keep the plant from auto, which will let the people wake up and be free.)
Those end credits are a rosetta stone to decipher the film. The same forces that we saw as aspects of one personality (in the ayahuasca interpretation) and characters in one film are presented throughout history and as archetypes.
Actually his name is Dash, and when the line comes up again later on, it's worded slightly differently... Syndrome talks about how he's making inventions to rival the Supers, then he's going to give them away to everyone when he gets old, because "when everyone is Super... Noone will be".
In Dash's case, he's complaining about having to lower himself to the level of regular people (and thus competing on regular human terms), while Syndrome is talking about raising regular people to the level of superheroes through technology, thus competing with the Supers based on powers.
In the end, Dash learns that family and being a regular kid (but still having his unique personality) is more important than showing off and being the fastest runner.
No, they were shown as not being gratful for the positive impact that people with special talents can make. Chastising the people with gifts because they are different, and misunderstood.
If everyone is special, and has the same capabilities, then let someone else do it. And if we are all basically the same, why should I push to be the best I can be. Why try to be different? Why try to be special? Why try to accomplish something that no one else has done? Why try to think of a truly new idea? If someone can get C's without trying, why should they try to get an A?
But, he didn't try to win, he just wanted to play with the other kids. Remember the beginning of the movie he wasn't allowed to play because he expose what he inherently was. It's like a kid who can do Calculus being held in a math class were everyone is still learning how to do multiplication. We often think about how we're not allowing those with disadvantage opportunities, but we don't think about how we might be depriving those with talent.
Incredibles - Exceptionalism should be rewarded
The message of the film is that mediocrity is celebrated.
I really had issues with the Incredibles message. Unlike Wall-E the average human was portrayed as weak-willed, contemptible, and ungracious for not heaping glory on their superhuman betters. The line from the kid, "when everyone's special then nobody is" I found to be a pretty horrible statement, the implication being that he can't really shine unless everyone else is inferior in every way.
s/every/some. But yes, that is true. It may not be pleasant, or nice, but it is true. It's kind of the definition of special really. And you know what? The average human is weak willed, ungracious and contemptible. In the film, it's not that they didn't heap praise, it's that they forced them away. They forced the incredibles to be as mediocre as they were. That is what people are like.
Much as I don't particularly like it, I'm like that too, to some extent. Have you never felt ill will towards someone who got/achieved something you didn't manage to do? If you ever have, then you have those tendencies too.
And the race at the end, I didn't really see the point; it takes no effort to win, all he gets from winning is the dubious recognition of having won an elementary school race.
So the best guy shouldn't win, so everyone else can have a chance? Why shouldn't he win? Because there's nothing special about special? Because the mediocre people should be celebrated too? Your comment is the point of the film.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
As I watched the short Presto I couldn't help but imagine a guy at Pixar playing Portal on their lunch break and going "Hey, I've got an idea!"