wall*E (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS)
Jun. 29th, 2008 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerY'know, there's one thing keeping me from fully embracing WALL*E as a brilliant film. Well, not one thing per se, as my favorite joyless bastard Devin at CHUD.com makes a compelling argument how the film abandons greatness halfway through and settles for just being "good." (Don't read that until you've seen the film, lest it risk you enjoying WALL*E for what it was, not what it perhaps should have been.)
I don't know if I agree with him, but he makes some good points. He certainly echoes my early concerns when I was disappointed to learn that WALL*E would not be a silent (dialogueless) film after all.
But what's really bugging me about WALL*E was the ending.
You did read there were SPOILERS SPOILER SPOILERS here, right?
Okay.
The ending of WALL*E.
As EVE began to frantically reconstruct Wall*E, I started wondering what it was that made Wall*E a person. He could replace any of his parts and still be Wall*E, except for one. His motherboard, his brain, even perhaps his soul? Hold on to that thought. Whatever it was, it wasn't looking too good last we checked, and now it looked like she was downright replacing everything, including the broken motherboard. (My apologies to computer geeks if that was not, in fact, a motherboard, and I am displaying my technological illiteracy full-force)
So when Wall*E reactivates and becomes just another robot, I think I caught on much sooner than many others in the audience. The second there was a lack of recognition, I went, "Oh fuck no."
Dread began to sink in, and soon that dread gave way to a worse dread as I came to realize that the ending--if it's going where I thought it was going--might actually work. I mean, in the OLD YELLER kind of way. And maybe it's the "insane asylum" robots that started to get me thinking of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, but I was seriously halfway expecting the CUCKOO'S NEST ending, if you know what I mean. Okay, so maybe that would have been too dark, but still.
But then Wall*E "came back," and huzzah, happy ending.
Except... uh... how? How did he "come back?"
I guess the bigger question to ask is, what went "wrong" with Wall*E in the first place that made him different from the other cleaning bots? How did he develop his "soul"? With that unanswered (and I'm not saying that should necessarily be answered, mind you) it raises the question of what makes Wall*E Wall*E.
Was the motherboard repaired and did I just miss it? Perhaps I'm forgetting something that happened on the ship's garbage compactor, but he wasn't looking too good. And it sure looked like she was replacing such hardware along with the new eye, etc. When he booted up, he went back to being just another cleaning bot, because whatever he was had (it seemed to be) been replaced. Maybe it was one part, maybe it was several. Maybe I'm overthinking this.
But that he could just, "Oh, hi, I'm back!" like that... I just don't know if I buy it.
What think you, folks? Did I miss something? Because I seriously want to hail this as a new Pixar masterpiece.
I don't know if I agree with him, but he makes some good points. He certainly echoes my early concerns when I was disappointed to learn that WALL*E would not be a silent (dialogueless) film after all.
But what's really bugging me about WALL*E was the ending.
You did read there were SPOILERS SPOILER SPOILERS here, right?
Okay.
The ending of WALL*E.
As EVE began to frantically reconstruct Wall*E, I started wondering what it was that made Wall*E a person. He could replace any of his parts and still be Wall*E, except for one. His motherboard, his brain, even perhaps his soul? Hold on to that thought. Whatever it was, it wasn't looking too good last we checked, and now it looked like she was downright replacing everything, including the broken motherboard. (My apologies to computer geeks if that was not, in fact, a motherboard, and I am displaying my technological illiteracy full-force)
So when Wall*E reactivates and becomes just another robot, I think I caught on much sooner than many others in the audience. The second there was a lack of recognition, I went, "Oh fuck no."
Dread began to sink in, and soon that dread gave way to a worse dread as I came to realize that the ending--if it's going where I thought it was going--might actually work. I mean, in the OLD YELLER kind of way. And maybe it's the "insane asylum" robots that started to get me thinking of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, but I was seriously halfway expecting the CUCKOO'S NEST ending, if you know what I mean. Okay, so maybe that would have been too dark, but still.
But then Wall*E "came back," and huzzah, happy ending.
Except... uh... how? How did he "come back?"
I guess the bigger question to ask is, what went "wrong" with Wall*E in the first place that made him different from the other cleaning bots? How did he develop his "soul"? With that unanswered (and I'm not saying that should necessarily be answered, mind you) it raises the question of what makes Wall*E Wall*E.
Was the motherboard repaired and did I just miss it? Perhaps I'm forgetting something that happened on the ship's garbage compactor, but he wasn't looking too good. And it sure looked like she was replacing such hardware along with the new eye, etc. When he booted up, he went back to being just another cleaning bot, because whatever he was had (it seemed to be) been replaced. Maybe it was one part, maybe it was several. Maybe I'm overthinking this.
But that he could just, "Oh, hi, I'm back!" like that... I just don't know if I buy it.
What think you, folks? Did I miss something? Because I seriously want to hail this as a new Pixar masterpiece.
