Like Short Circuit minus Steve Gutenburg, or THX-1138 plus cute robots
I am afraid for the youth of today. They are constantly assaulted by movies that teach them lessons about life, and, more often than not, love. The issue of love is especially prevalent in Wall-E. So what can an impressionable child learn about love from a post-apocalyptic animated romantic comedy featuring robots and very little dialogue?
Let’s do the list:
Lesson 1. It’s a good idea to base your ideals of love on a movie adapted from a Broadway musical. Due to the recent popularity of Hairspray, I can only assume there will be a lot of young boys attracted to men dressed as fat chicks.
Lesson 2: If you are completely alone and feel particularly lonely, you should immediately fall in love with the first person that comes in contact with you. This is especially true if the person at first ignores you, then tries to vaporize you with a hand cannon. Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson will now become Tiger Beat cover models.
Lesson 3: It is good if you can barely communicate with your significant other. I predict a generation of children who will fruitlessly log on to EHarmony in the hopes of contacting native peoples from the Amazon rainforest.
Lesson 4: If during your first date, your True Love shuts down completely and goes into a coma, you should carry her around with you everywhere, stay with her all the time, and pretend that she is not completely unresponsive. Take this one step further, and the incidents of Significant Other Taxidermy (S.O.T.) will rise exponentially. This is what psychologists refer to as “Norman Bates Syndrome.”
Lesson 5: If someone is significantly injured in a fight, even to the point of nearly dying, all you need to do to revive them is hold hands and kiss. Incidentally, this is also how babies are made. Medical school curricula will change to reflect these developments. This in turn will lead to the downfall of the human race, because, as we all know, kissing and holding hands are not viable methods of getting spermatozoa into the birth canal. Unless, of course, you are in a specific kind of porn film.
Lesson 6: It is endearing to say your lover’s name over and over again in a voice that sounds like the Redrum kid from the Shining.
Wall-E teaches children all of this. It also teaches them that the future will be a fucking scary, frightening place where physical contact and activity no longer exist, the government is run by a Wal-Mart-like corporation, the president is Fred Willard, earth is a landfill, and robots control all our daily activities.
Of course, if you are an adult, you might just enjoy the movie because of its visual innovation, the cute funny robots, or the fact that you can take your kids to a decent film. On the flipside, hearing those goddam robots say “Wall-E” and “Eve-A” over and over again in those grating, Danny Torrence voices for 90 minutes might make you want to shove a fork through your eardrum.
Lesson finished, class.
Time for recess.
My Reaction: Good (3 out of 5)
Next week: everyone’s favorite drunk superhero is back! Wait…it’s not Ironman? Shit, it’s goddam Will Smith in Hancock. Til then, I’ll be trying to taste the booze in my margarita. Stay knowledge hungry, kids!
i loved this movie
he’s so adorable
going to take my dad to see it next
because he loves cuteness and Hello Dolly, for starters
I’ve been saying Wall-Eeeeeeee constantly since I saw the movie. I also cried throughout the entire film. What can I say? I love robots!
July 3, 2008 at 12:53 pmLibby: “I also cried throughout the entire film.”
I did too. And I’m a dude. :P
July 3, 2008 at 2:45 pmIt got strange at the end. I think little Wall-E was a little bit obsessive. Clingy to be exact.
Libby & JP: maybe you guys need to take some type of anti-depressent. There were parts of the movie that weren’t THAT sad.
July 3, 2008 at 2:54 pmi’m right there with you Libby and JP
Jason: some manucation, crying is not always an expression of sadness, many times it can be an expression of joy, which i found in that little guy and his movie
July 3, 2008 at 4:20 pmsorry for the double-post, it didn’t show my original post when i first came back to the thread so i thought i’d repost and the doublepost content block would take care of it if need be
July 3, 2008 at 4:42 pmok lily. Thanks for ruining my joke.
July 3, 2008 at 5:40 pmMaybe I need to up my dosage of anti-depressants.
July 3, 2008 at 9:31 pmthis movie ruled. but man, i don’t think i’m going to eat sausages or hot dogs for like a year. fingers SO FAT!
i got a little choked up a few times. more than anything, i felt hopeful about humanity when the nearly-boneless fatties rose up in revolt as opposed to the romance.
July 4, 2008 at 10:06 amIf you take this movie at its complete face value then i would have to agree with your rants, however I dont think this movie was made to be taken at such a literal level. Good stories aren’t supposed to just give you all the facts and force feed the info to you. A good story makes you read in between the lines. I would find it hard pressed to believe that the creators of wall-e want children to think that the first one you come into contact with is going to be your life mate. Furthermore, i don’t think this movie was even made for kids necessarily. I think Disney used this as a tool to get baby boomer and slightly post baby boomer parents to take their children to a silly robot movie with a more adult storyline. Im not the best writer in the world, however I think my point came across. I can not wait to make my parents see this movie. They just happen to be those wal-mart lovin fox news worshipping people that this movie highlighted. Anyhoo…thats my rant.
July 6, 2008 at 11:59 amRyan - If you are reading this column for deep, intelligent, insightful film criticism you’ve come to the wrong place.
These columns are strictly an outlet for me to make jizz jokes.
July 6, 2008 at 11:51 pm
“Lesson 3: It is good if you can barely communicate with your significant other.”
I’m totally going to start hanging out on Florida Avenue outside Galludet.
July 3, 2008 at 10:37 am