So, um, are you getting an iPhone 3G?
In the English language, there are these things called “loanwords” – words taken from other languages without the word being translated. The German word “Zeitgeist” is an example of a loanword. It’s a word that means “the spirit of the age”, or the intellectual and cultural climate of an era. When we’re talking our lovely decade, with the purveyance of our iPods, our glorious Web 2.0, and our Inconvenient Truths, some of the major ideas in our current zeitgeist must have to do with technology, the environment, connectivity and consumerism. Watching Pixar/Disney’s latest movie – Wall•E – I was utterly blown away by how a mainstream animation was able to talk about these big ideas beautifully and tap into our current zeitgeist.
The film tackles all these by being bold and making different choices. In movies like Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life or last year’s Ratatouille, they open with happy green pastures; but in Wall•E, the movie opens with desolation. The opening scene looks like a mix between Hong Kong and a desert, with garbage cubes replacing the IFC building. It is a harsh and scary preview at our unchecked consumerism. And it is against this backdrop that we meet Wall•E. Wall•E is the last remaining clean-up robot on Earth, and he has somehow developed a personality. (more…)
“It has less dialogue than a lot of our past films, but it’s still really fantastic. After all, the art of animation is about what the character does, not what it says. It all depends on how you tell the story, whether it has a lot of dialogue or not.” – John Lasserter (executive producer)
Show of hands, how many of you love movies by Pixar Animation Studios? Whether it is their characters, designs, visuals, technology, or layered screenplays, there is something in every Pixar film has enabled them to receive acclaim and box office numbers alike.
But with continued success, a creative group runs the risk of repeating itself. If you look at their past movies, you might notice some similarities: items being cutely personified, rescue missions, and stories about coming of age… Luckily, Pixar realized this, and on recent films such as The Incredibles and Ratatouille, they took the riskier approach, and explored new themes.
And they are going to try more new things this summer with WALL•E. For starters, its setting is darker: through rampant consumerism, Earth has been used up and has been abandoned by humans, and a robot (WALL•E) is left alone for 700 years to clean it up. But somehow, WALL•E has developed a personality and falls in love with a space drone.
Yes, consumerism, environmentalism, dystopian future, and learning to love – these are all big themes for Pixar. But perhaps even more surprising is the choice that WALL•E won’t contain much spoken dialogue. Instead, most of it will be told through animation and various robotic sound effects. In a way, this is different and jarring (can you imagine Toy Story without dialogue?), but the early trailers are captivating. WALL•E the robot is emotive and funny.
But while it sounds nice for a short film, can Pixar keep the audience engaged for an entire feature? Will the animation deliver? Will film audiences fall in love with this unconventional hero? We will find out on June 27.
Further reading:
Ain’t It Cool News – Interview with Andrew Stanton
Apple.com – WALL•E Trailers
