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WHERE are you GETTING this stuff? I can point to evidence--actual evidence, not something I conjured up out of nothing--that contradicts EVERY SINGLE ONE of your assertions. Let's begin:

I disagree. The underlying theme is man's survival and man's dignity, which are supposedly threatened by his wasteful lifestyle. Man the despoiler of the planet is evil. Wall-E the robot, the conserver and recycler, is good.

The humans in the movie aren't portrayed as evil . . . in fact, the only potential "bad guy" in the movie is the AUTO-PILOT . . . a machine. The theme isn't and can't be survival because survival qua survival is actually portrayed as *undesirable*. (The oft quoted "I don't want to live, I want to survive!" line).

Wall-e doesn't recycle or conserve, he compacts trash and piles it up into big towers. (Which in itself is kind of neat, like he's trying to build his own skyscrapers.) He's actually portrayed as acquisitive--look at all the stuff he collects! He wants to be a "people", its obvious from the way he behaves throughout the movie.

I certainly didn't see that background static in The Incredibles or Ratatouille.

You obviously haven't read some of the reviews that I have--some of which are ON THIS SITE. The Incredibles got blasted as anti-capitalist and anti-achievement because the villain is a big corporate executive and an inventor, while the heroes are just some people who happened to luck into special abilities. Ratatouille got blasted, again, as being anti-capitalism because the villian was trying to use Gusteau's image to promote cheesy convenience food. It's EXACTLY what you're saying about Wall-E.

Values like conserving our resources, being good to the environment, cutting back on our rate of consumption, and the rest of the enviro-litany.

If that were true, the humans would have seen it as their duty to stay IN SPACE instead of going back to earth and putting the entire planet back into use for human desires. Notice no one ever said "let's go back and turn earth into a pristine wilderness!" No, their desire was "let's go back to earth so we can do something with our lives!"

Message: stop spending, spending, spending and be satisfied with what you have.

This is such a non-sequitor that I can't even begin to comprehend it. From the song during the opening credits: "There's a whole world out there, Barnaby!" to Wall-E constantly looking for new treasures and pursuing EVE, to the captain's initial complaints: "Why didn't you wake me for morning announcements! It's the only thing I get to do on this ship!" there is nothing in the movie that even HINTS at the idea of being content with what you have. It is all about struggling to achieve something that's worthwhile.

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Wall.e has something for everyone. Check this review: Pixar’s Catholic Masterpiece: A Review of WALL*E

This reviewer perceives

The social or political points in WALL*E aren’t “tacked on”; they’re part and parcel of the theme being explored and are consistently presented with a light, satiric touch (one of the writers, I’ve been told, was a regular scribe on The Simpsons TV show). And any political subtext should be equally offensive (in Pixar’s own gentle way, of course) to both Right and Left; the gargantuan, moronic government of the future world, for instance, is a perfect blend of Communism and Capitalism — a “utopia of usurers”, as Chesterton once predicted, where Big Business and Big Government have merged for their own common good and the enslavement of humanity.

In an address for the 1995 World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Pope John Paul II made a hopeful prediction: “In many young people,” he said, “disoriented by consumerism and by the crisis in ideals, the search for an authentic lifestyle can mature, if it is sustained by a coherent and joyful witness of the Christian community in its openness to listen to the cry of a world thirsting for truth and justice.” That cry is heard loud and clear in Pixar’s WALL*E-with a spoonful of high-tech sugar which makes the medicine go down like a raspberry cordial.

"... makes the medicine go down.. " That is exactly what creeps me out about this movie. It has an ulterior motive.

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The delusions of reviewers are not evidence of the merit or demerit of ANY movie. I know people who hated V for Vendetta because it was supposedly pro-gay marriage. Seriously.

Most of the messages you're claiming to see would be the result of such subtlety that the intended audience would never pick up on it. It always amuses me when people imagine the presence of an evil genius sneaking subliminal messages in everywhere. Maybe you should stop with the conspiracy theories.

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Lets see what the director has to say in this interview: The Little Robot That Could

It is a wonderful love story. But at the same time, it seemed to have heavier social commentary than most Pixar films. It seemed like a story about fat, lazy, American consumers who don't care about the environment and …

Stanton: That's your interpretation, but that's not where I was coming from. I certainly see the parallels, but honestly, all those factors came from very different places. All my choices in the film came from what I needed to amplify the main point, which was the love story between these robots. The theme that I was trying to tap into was that irrational love defeats life's programming—that it takes a random act of loving kindness to kick us out of our routines and habit.

You could blame consumerism as one thing that's happening in this film, but there's a million other things we do that distract us from connecting to the person next to us and from furthering relationships, which is truly the point of living. So I came up with the idea that as WALL•E was picking up trash, it would have all these signs of humanity for him to rifle through, to get him interested in what humans were all about. I loved the idea of WALL•E finding something real. He was fascinated with the idea of living. And what's the point of living? Something real. He was a manmade object with something real inside him. And he found something real while surrounded by manmade objects. That just was poetic for me.

OK, but why were the humans on the space station all fat and riding around in their hovering lounge chairs?

Stanton: I wasn't trying to make the humans into fat, lazy consumers, but to make humanity appear to be completely consumed by everything that can distract you—to the point where they lost connection with each other, even though they're right next to each other. The reason I made them look like big babies was because a NASA guy told me that they haven't yet simulated gravity perfectly for long-term residency in space. And if they don't get it just right, atrophy kicks in and you begin to lose your muscle tone—you just turn into a blob of goo. For a while, that's what I did with the humans in the movie; they were just big blobs of Jell-O. But it was so bizarre, we had to pull it back. So I said, well, let's just make them look like big babies. That's where all that came from.

I wasn't trying to make some sort of mean-spirited comment on consumerism or today's society. I was going with just the logic of what would happen if you were in a perpetual vacation with no real purpose in life. So I went with the idea that we'd become sort of big babies with no reason to grow up. I definitely saw humanity as victims of this system that they were in. They were just big babies that needed to stand on their own two feet.

The last thing I'm going to do is try to make a message movie!

Just as a man ignorant of philosophy nevertheless has an ill-defined and contradictory implicit philosophy because he is required to take action to live, a movie which depicts action taken will unavoidably have a philosophy behind it. Because Andrew Stanton doesn't want to make a message movie, he loses control over the messages that his movie has. This is why the movie is such a mess of contradictions.

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WHERE are you GETTING this stuff? I can point to evidence--actual evidence, not something I conjured up out of nothing--that contradicts EVERY SINGLE ONE of your assertions. Let's begin:

The humans in the movie aren't portrayed as evil

Earth got trashed by non-humans?

. . . in fact, the only potential "bad guy" in the movie is the AUTO-PILOT . . . a machine. The theme isn't and can't be survival because survival qua survival is actually portrayed as *undesirable*. (The oft quoted "I don't want to live, I want to survive!" line).

Yes, the form of survival taken by the earth émigrés (self-centered pleasure-seeking) is shown to be undesirable. That’s a key element in the theme.

Wall-e doesn't recycle or conserve, he compacts trash and piles it up into big towers. (Which in itself is kind of neat, like he's trying to build his own skyscrapers.) He's actually portrayed as acquisitive--look at all the stuff he collects! He wants to be a "people", its obvious from the way he behaves throughout the movie.

In the version I saw, Wall-E salvages items from the trash heap and uses them as needed. That’s how he replaces his left eye.

You obviously haven't read some of the reviews that I have--some of which are ON THIS SITE. The Incredibles got blasted as anti-capitalist and anti-achievement because the villain is a big corporate executive and an inventor, while the heroes are just some people who happened to luck into special abilities. Ratatouille got blasted, again, as being anti-capitalism because the villian was trying to use Gusteau's image to promote cheesy convenience food. It's EXACTLY what you're saying about Wall-E.

Let me see if follow you. I could not see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles. But someone else did. Therefore, I must be wrong about Wall-E because someone else was wrong about The Incredibles?

If that were true, the humans would have seen it as their duty to stay IN SPACE instead of going back to earth and putting the entire planet back into use for human desires. Notice no one ever said "let's go back and turn earth into a pristine wilderness!" No, their desire was "let's go back to earth so we can do something with our lives!"

Who said they were “putting the entire planet back into use for human desires”? I imagine that these dopey humans bought the standard environmentalist line: you can only save civilization by being kind to nature.

This is such a non-sequitor that I can't even begin to comprehend it. From the song during the opening credits: "There's a whole world out there, Barnaby!" to Wall-E constantly looking for new treasures and pursuing EVE, to the captain's initial complaints: "Why didn't you wake me for morning announcements! It's the only thing I get to do on this ship!" there is nothing in the movie that even HINTS at the idea of being content with what you have. It is all about struggling to achieve something that's worthwhile.

The message is solid green and hard to miss: if you don’t wake up, earthlings, and do something about your mess, you’re going to get kicked off the planet.

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This is why the movie is such a mess of contradictions.

So, it's not a MARXIST or ENVIRONMENTALIST movie, then, it's a mess of contradicting messages instead? You might do a better job of arguing your point if you'd pick ONE point and STICK with it.

A muddled message (assuming there even is one, which doesn't matter since art is not supposed to be didactic) is a trait of just about every movie I've seen this year or any year. I judge art on esthetic concerns such as theme, plot, characterization, style, and (in the case of movies) visuals. I think the theme was a bit too ambitious for the skill of the storyteller in this case, but I judge it to be significantly above average because there's an identifiable theme and it is a life-affirming one. It's better than Hancock, which has nearly no identifiable theme, or Wanted, which has a hideous, nihilistic theme.

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Earth got trashed by non-humans?

Here you're making an assumption and adding something in--that trashing the earth is inherently evil or is portrayed as evil in the movie. No appraisal is really put forward--in the movie it's treated like a natural disaster or a mistake.

Yes, the form of survival taken by the earth émigrés (self-centered pleasure-seeking) is shown to be undesirable. That’s a key element in the theme.

Even if this is true, since when is mindless hedonism a good thing?

In the version I saw, Wall-E salvages items from the trash heap and uses them as needed. That’s how he replaces his left eye.

There's no indication that he salvaged those eyes from the trash. They looked brand-new, and if he's self-aware enough to try and preserve his existence, he's going to keep spare parts around. It's probably the reason why he's still functioning while all the other Wall-e robots shown have ceased working.

Let me see if follow you. I could not see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles. But someone else did. Therefore, I must be wrong about Wall-E because someone else was wrong about The Incredibles?

Yes, because you are using the same method they were using: drawing your conclusions based on background and setting instead of on matters of more primary importance, such as plot and characterization. If your method is bad, you're going to get the same crappy results they got.

Who said they were “putting the entire planet back into use for human desires”? I imagine that these dopey humans bought the standard environmentalist line: you can only save civilization by being kind to nature.

You *imagine*? So, this has no basis in fact whatsoever, you just pulled it out of thin air? At the end of the movie, they're talking about farming--which is using land for human purposes. They were not, say, talking about cleaning up all the trash, planting a bunch of trees and flowers, and leaving, which WOULD be your "standard environmentalist line".

The message is solid green and hard to miss: if you don’t wake up, earthlings, and do something about your mess, you’re going to get kicked off the planet.

Yeah, and you'll live on a cruise ship in outer space! What a horror!

If it were actually meant to be an environmentalist message they would have made it a hell of a lot more explicit. I think they were looking for a world-ending disaster that would make sense to people in a modern context--particularly one they could link to the turn-on-and-tune-out attitude. Nuclear holocaust? World war? Wouldn't work. Besides, it's dated. Comet from space? Wouldn't work. Virus wipes out the population? Wouldn't work. Also overdone. If you look at other movies, this has become a prevailing problem of distopian futures--trying to come up with some method via which the world was destroyed. In the Time Machine remake, for instance, the moon was accidentally blown up by a resort company!

They tried to be creative, and since creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum they wound up using something related to modern worries. Don't confuse most people's earnest and worthwhile concern with the cleanliness of their living space with environmentalism. The one is anti-filth, the other is anti-man. Wall-e is anti-filth, not anti-man.

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Yes, the form of survival taken by the earth émigrés (self-centered pleasure-seeking) is shown to be undesirable. That’s a key element in the theme.
With one critical correction, this is a key element in the theme and appears to have been an explicit one. That one correction is your conceptualization of it as "self-centered pleasure-seeking". Whether this is right depends on what types of things one thinks of as selfish and as pleasurable.

The humans were shown as being without purpose. Therefore, what they were doing was not self-centered nor pleasurable. In fact, one gets the sense that they're bored. The director seems to have gone for this effect, as he says in the interview above: "I was going with just the logic of what would happen if you were in a perpetual vacation with no real purpose in life. So I went with the idea that we'd become sort of big babies with no reason to grow up."

The background is a hedonistic dystopia, against which a few protagonists rebel because they want to live with purpose, as value creators rather than passive value receivers who have no need for action or ethics.

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I think I'm going to bow out because I've succumbed to a desire to Have The Last Word. I think I've pointed to more than enough supporting evidence while contrary views have consisted increasingly of assertions without additional evidence.

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JMeganSnow wrote:

Here you're making an assumption and adding something in--that trashing the earth is inherently evil or is portrayed as evil in the movie. No appraisal is really put forward--in the movie it's treated like a natural disaster or a mistake.

I'm assuming that the filmmakers were not in love with the hideous landscape shown in the first part of the movie. It does not require much guessing to determine where the mountains of waste came from. Hubcaps, empty beer cans, and broken toys were not likely beamed down to earth by aliens.

Even if this is true, since when is mindless hedonism a good thing?

All the more reason to see Buy N’ Low as the chief villain.

There's no indication that he salvaged those eyes from the trash. They looked brand-new, and if he's self-aware enough to try and preserve his existence, he's going to keep spare parts around. It's probably the reason why he's still functioning while all the other Wall-e robots shown have ceased working.

Don’t throw away that entire machine. Simply replace the broken part. Conserve resources. Don’t overload our landfills. And vote Green in November.

Yes, because you are using the same method they were using: drawing your conclusions based on background and setting instead of on matters of more primary importance, such as plot and characterization. If your method is bad, you're going to get the same crappy results they got.

This does not compute. I could not see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles. But someone else did. And you say we used the same method. Kindly explain how you get opposite results using the same method. Did you see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles? If not, perhaps your method was the same as mine.

You *imagine*? So, this has no basis in fact whatsoever, you just pulled it out of thin air? At the end of the movie, they're talking about farming--which is using land for human purposes. They were not, say, talking about cleaning up all the trash, planting a bunch of trees and flowers, and leaving, which WOULD be your "standard environmentalist line".

So how do you conclude from the planting of a few sprouts that the human race is “putting the entire planet back into use for human desires”? Where is your basis in fact for this? A copy of the director’s shooting script? Or did you just pull it out of thin air?

Yeah, and you'll live on a cruise ship in outer space! What a horror!

Since when is mindless hedonism a good thing?

If it were actually meant to be an environmentalist message they would have made it a hell of a lot more explicit.

Really? Is that Disney corporate policy?

I think they were looking for a world-ending disaster that would make sense to people in a modern context--particularly one they could link to the turn-on-and-tune-out attitude. Nuclear holocaust? World war? Wouldn't work. Besides, it's dated. Comet from space? Wouldn't work. Virus wipes out the population? Wouldn't work. Also overdone. If you look at other movies, this has become a prevailing problem of distopian futures--trying to come up with some method via which the world was destroyed. In the Time Machine remake, for instance, the moon was accidentally blown up by a resort company!

They tried to be creative, and since creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum they wound up using something related to modern worries. Don't confuse most people's earnest and worthwhile concern with the cleanliness of their living space with environmentalism. The one is anti-filth, the other is anti-man. Wall-e is anti-filth, not anti-man.

They tried to be creative, and by golly they came up with a cartoon version of An Inconvenient Truth.

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Don’t throw away that entire machine. Simply replace the broken part. Conserve resources. Don’t overload our landfills. And vote Green in November.

Are you really serious?

I know that when my computer's keyboards break that I throw away my entire computer and buy a new one.

Or, being more specific, WALL-E, being a robot has spare parts because if he scrapped himself, he'd be killing himself. You don't kill yourself for losing a limb, do you? No, you get a replacement part (a prosthetic).

I could not see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles. But someone else did. And you say we used the same method. Kindly explain how you get opposite results using the same method. Did you see an anti-capitalist theme (or background) in The Incredibles? If not, perhaps your method was the same as mine.

She's saying (I think) that someone who finds an anti-capitalist theme in The Incredibles is nit-picking, and nitpicking HARD. You're just not nitpicking as much as that other person. It's the same process applied less intensely. (Nitpicking means attacking inessentials).

Here's an example of analogous nitpicking: "Harry Potter" is a story that outright advocates collectivism because each house in Gryphindor is awarded points collectively for individual achievements and rule-breaking.

The truth is that the Harry Potter series is NOT about collectivism, and WALL-E is NOT about environmentalism. Both things are inessential.

Edited by Chops
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So, it's not a MARXIST or ENVIRONMENTALIST movie, then, it's a mess of contradicting messages instead? You might do a better job of arguing your point if you'd pick ONE point and STICK with it.

From my very first post I've conceded the movie had its "good points". Its also has several negative, contradictory features which I specifically identified. Why stick with a single criticism when so many apply? Why should I stick to a single point when the movie clearly does not? The very ambiguity of the movie is itself a criticism.

Willfully blinding myself just so I can pretend to experience the unalloyed joy of a "great" movie will never be my practice. Yeah it sucks it be dedicated to rationality when pop culture is not, it puts one in the nitpicking oppositional role all too often. Tough. Aesthetic judgement benefits from the virtue of integrity as much as any other aspect of human life.

A muddled message (assuming there even is one, which doesn't matter since art is not supposed to be didactic) is a trait of just about every movie I've seen this year or any year. I judge art on esthetic concerns such as theme, plot, characterization, style, and (in the case of movies) visuals. I think the theme was a bit too ambitious for the skill of the storyteller in this case, but I judge it to be significantly above average because there's an identifiable theme and it is a life-affirming one. It's better than Hancock, which has nearly no identifiable theme, or Wanted, which has a hideous, nihilistic theme.

Your criterion appears to a comparative one ("above average"). I am going to go out on a limb here and claim that an objective criterion is superior. Evaluate how ALL of the elements of the artwork relate to the theme (not just the "essential ones"), without referencing other artworks. Now, if I'm already at the movie a better vs. worse rule of thumb is useful, but if I'm interested enough in a movie to search out reviews after I've already seen it, I want the critic's A-game, their best effort.

Is Atlas Shrugged didactic? Wikipedia thinks so. It also thinks the Poe's poem The Raven and Pilgrim's Progress are didactic. Why?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/didactic

By the second definition "making moral observations" Rand's best work was didactic. Hell, all of her work was didactic. As a generalization, art is not necessarily didactic but the storytelling art forms, film and literature specifically, achieve their greatest scope when they are. Literature and film can hardly help being didactic, in the same way a man can hardly help being philosophic, and for the same reason.

Overall, I have to conclude that the methods and standards of film criticism JMeganSnow has displayed in this thread are inadequate to the task.

Edited by Grames
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I personally enjoyed the movie very much. I thought the art, color, animation, direction was beautiful. The story was cute and enjoyable.

I thought there were some points that conflicted with objectivism, but I don't think it was much of a attack on capitalism but more on being content with a small existence & being materialistic. I'm definitely bourgeois but I agree its better to go out and enjoy life experiences, travel, explore, including enjoy nature rather than sitting behind my computer all the time. I think the points definitely were not worth throwing this movie under the bus.

Edited by Dorian
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Are you really serious?

I know that when my computer's keyboards break that I throw away my entire computer and buy a new one.

Tsk, tsk.

Or, being more specific, WALL-E, being a robot has spare parts because if he scrapped himself, he'd be killing himself. You don't kill yourself for losing a limb, do you? No, you get a replacement part (a prosthetic).

Wall-E sets a fine example for the kiddies. There's gold in them junk piles!

She's saying (I think) that someone who finds an anti-capitalist theme in The Incredibles is nit-picking, and nitpicking HARD. You're just not nitpicking as much as that other person. It's the same process applied less intensely. (Nitpicking means attacking inessentials).

I did just as much picking on The Incredibles and still came up with no nits to show for it.

Here's an example of analogous nitpicking: "Harry Potter" is . . .

I'll have to take your Harry Potter comments for granted. I couldn't finish the first book and haven't bothered with any of the movies.

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I did just as much picking on The Incredibles and still came up with no nits to show for it.

Mr Incredible hates his job at the insurance agency, which clearly demonstrates Pixar's beliefs: That working in a typical office is demoralizing. And an office, being the defacto example of modern capitalism, demonstrates Mr Incredible's distaste for capitalism in general.

The Incredible family lives a middle-class suburban lifestyle, while the super-villian, Syndrome is a rich weapons designer. Why is it that the middle-class family is the hero, while the rich guy is the villian? It's because Pixar hates capitalism, and believes that weapons manufacturing is outright evil.

It's 100% clear to me that Pixar hates capitalism. The Incredibles is conclusive proof. I don't see how you can't see this. It's so obvious.

Edited by Chops
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Knowing that Pixar typically produces quality movies and being a fan of science fiction, I went in to seeing Wall-E with somewhat high expectations. Not only was I let down by the quality of the movie itself but the basis of the movie is absolutely deplorable. The future mankind has been forced to abandon Earth because it is overrun with garbage. What caused this catastrophe? Capitalism. The movie makes the same point over and over, it's big corporations, consumer culture, and mass consumption that are at fault. Humans have also somehow been turned into dumb, fat, lazy creatures incapable of taking care of themselves.

In terms of the movie itself, the first half hour is almost completely devoid of dialogue, which is understandable part of the time but becomes a drag later on. The plot never really materializes into anything spectacular or unpredictable anyway- it seems Pixar needed some antagonist and plot device so they decided to make it a cliche copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey (who didn't see that coming?). It then rushes into the conclusion which I will discuss below.

End spoilers below:

The ending also makes no sense at all. Humans return to Earth which still seems largely incapable of supporting life (they better find shelter from those bug, sudden windstorms pretty fast!) but that's not the big problem. Wall-E loses his memory trying to fight the evil computer, but then a dramatic pause and a touch on the arm later from Eve and it's magically restored. I mean, seriously?

2 NineInfinity: you are SO wrong, man.

2 All: watch this movie. It's great, and don't worry: it has a bit of anit-capitalism in it (anti-corporativism, actually), but its message is very humanistic, and the movie itself is fun. BTW: let's try to collect all references to Rand in it =)

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Mr Incredible hates his job at the insurance agency, which clearly demonstrates Pixar's beliefs: That working in a typical office is demoralizing. And an office, being the defacto example of modern capitalism, demonstrates Mr Incredible's distaste for capitalism in general.

The Incredible family lives a middle-class suburban lifestyle, while the super-villian, Syndrome is a rich weapons designer. Why is it that the middle-class family is the hero, while the rich guy is the villian? It's because Pixar hates capitalism, and believes that weapons manufacturing is outright evil.

It's 100% clear to me that Pixar hates capitalism. The Incredibles is conclusive proof. I don't see how you can't see this. It's so obvious.

If that's the case, then you shouldn't be surprised by the greenie sub-text of Wall-E.

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They tried to be creative, and by golly they came up with a cartoon version of An Inconvenient Truth.

:(

Is this a remotely serious statement? Is this sarcasm or hyperbole? An Inconvenient Truth was a journalistic documentary-type propaganda film with no plot. It was presented (falsely) as non-fiction; as a "factual" report on real events. Wall-E is a fictional cartoon centered on the love story of two anthropomorphized robots.

Did you miss the vast majority of the focus of the movie in which Wall-E follows Eve to the ends of the universe to win her love? At one point by jumping and clinging on to the outside of a launching spaceship?! Did you notice that everything Wall-E does is solely in order to win her love so he can hold (mechanical :P ) hands with Eve? In fact, even when Wall-E is "helping" the humans in the movie, it is largely in the way of a "comedy of errors". From Wall-E's perspective he is just trying to do whatever it takes to get Eve to hold hands with him like he saw in the old movie. That he helps the humans is practically incidental to him. Would he be chasing the plant around the ship if it was solely for the humans? Or to help "save the Earth"? No! It's all because he knows that it is what Eve wants (her "directive"). And like any good guy trying to win the love of the good gal he does everything he can.

Did you even notice the love story? If you did, are you saying that the love story in the movie is a smokescreen set up by Pixar so they can push an environmentalist agenda?

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If that's the case, then you shouldn't be surprised by the greenie sub-text of Wall-E.

I was being sarcastic. My review of The Incredibles was meant to be focusing on inessentials (nitpicking), just as the "greenie subtext" of WALL-E is inessential, and focusing on that perspective as if it were the theme and the purpose for the movie is placing the background above the theme itself in preference. You can take nearly any movie, bring part of it out of context, and then find fault, you just need to look hard enough.

Edited by Chops
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:P

Is this a remotely serious statement? Is this sarcasm or hyperbole? An Inconvenient Truth was a journalistic documentary-type propaganda film with no plot. It was presented (falsely) as non-fiction; as a "factual" report on real events. Wall-E is a fictional cartoon centered on the love story of two anthropomorphized robots.

Right. There was no love story in An Inconvenient Truth.

Did you even notice the love story? If you did, are you saying that the love story in the movie is a smokescreen set up by Pixar so they can push an environmentalist agenda?

Yes, that puts it neatly.

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Yes, that puts it neatly.

That's only because you want to see it that way. Why is this movie anti-capitalistic or pro-environmentalist or whatever it is you want it to be? Explain this too us in three sentences or less. I'm giving you three sentences because I want you to cut the obnixious, hyperbole shit and give us a decent answer for once.

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All righty, I'm closing this thread. Mammon, I don't recall that it's your job to dictate to other forum members the manner in which they should structure their arguments.

Unknown Idealist: if you've decided what your opinion is and you're no longer open to ANY amount of counter-argument, evidence, or whatever, it's time to make it clear that you're no longer taking part in the discussion.

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