Curiosity feature - Entertainment Edition - WALL-E and D-Sat: Robots With a Human Heart and a Love F
Animation movies are always an opportunity for a family night. WALL-E, a poetic environmental tale about love and friendship from Disney-Pixar, is a film that will satisfy in equal measure kids and their parents.
It’s the year 2700. WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a little robot living alone in an exhausted planet Earth abandoned by all humans. Humans have evacuated into a luxurious space ship named Axiom, where they live a lazy and laid back life, constantly entrained, but never fulfilled.
Earth has lost its colors, and the landscape is a never-ending wasteland. WALL-E’s task is to clean up all the waste human have produced, and despite being the last functioning model of its kind, he persevere on his mission undeterred.
One day WALL-E bumps into EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a female robot looking for traces of vegetation. Excited, WALL-E introduces EVE to his world, but when he shows her a plant he had found days earlier, she incubates it inside her chest and goes into hibernation, waiting to be collected by her mothership. WALL-E, however, is not ready to let his new friend go, so he embarks in an adventure that will lead him to discover how to bring life back to Earth.
While touching topics such as environmental responsibility, pointless consumerism, and waste management, this story makes us wonder about the impact that we humans have on our planet. If we don’t take care of our planet, nobody is going to do it for us. Even the poor WALL-E, left alone to clean up the mess, is unable to revert the situation until the surviving humans, inspired by him and EVE, decide to leave the safety of their life in orbit and go back home to start cleaning up the chaos by themselves.
A major feature of this movie is the near complete lack of dialog. Honestly, you soon realize it is not really necessary. The message is conveyed very well by the show of emotions, the interaction between the characters, and the beautiful scenes. This combination earned it a Best Animated Feature Film’s Oscar in 2009.
The main characters in the movie are robots, brought to life by Pixar animators who give them emotions, character, and personality, irrespectively of their lack of humanoid form. The most extreme example is Auto, the ship’s autopilot system, an authoritarian and manipulative villain whose main feature is a red eye reminiscent of “2001 a Space Odyssey” encased at the center of the ship’s wheel. Despite missing any humanoid feature, Auto is as evil as a villain can be.
Humans, on the other hand, are the ones who seem to have lost their humanity, living in an entirely digital world, not caring about Earth nor knowing much about it. It will take the heart of a robot to wake them up (or better yet “stand them up”) from their lethargic life.
This movie presents a distinctive approach to a topic we are also very sensible about. Our D-SAT mission is all about sustainability in space, respect for our planet, and safety of life on Earth. Visit our Kickstarter campaign page and learn about our sustainable project.
This movie presents a distinctive approach to a topic we are also very sensible about. Our D-SAT mission is all about sustainability in space, respect for our planet, and safety of life on Earth. Visit our D-Sat on Kickstarter page and learn about our sustainable project.
Trailer WALL-E
Credits: Disney Pixar
