A trash bot named WALL-E is the only thing living on Earth. Humanity left the planet in the year 2110 after it got filled up with too much trash. WALL-E likes to collect some of the objects he finds because he thinks they are interesting. WALL-E gets lonely sometimes and wishes he had someone after seeing two people holding hands in a film he likes, “Hello, Dolly!". One day a space ship arrives dropping off a robot probe. WALL-E has never seen anything as beautiful as her before. Her name is Eve and her assignment is to find organic life on Earth. WALL-E shows Eve this little green plant he found and it is what she is looking for. The ship returns to take Eve away, WALL-E grabs on to it and it takes them both to the Axiom ship. Humanity has let itself go. All the robots on the Axiom work while the humans just sit down being lazy and look at the screen in front of them, but all that changes thanks to WALL-E. The plant shows that Earth is good enough to go back to now that there is life growing on it. Problem is the plant has gone missing. Eve is concerned that WALL-E is causing her nothing but trouble so she decides to send him back to Earth through an escape pod. A robot shows up and Eve and WALL-E hide. The robot has the plant and is trying to get rid of it, but WALL-E manages to get it.
The captain of the Axiom is curious to know what Earth is. He finds it very fascinating as he researches it on his computer. Eve brings the plant to the captain and he is very excited to see because it means everyone can go home. He looks through Eve’s memories to see what Earth is like. He’s a little let down that it is a wasteland, but he looks at the plant and realizes that there’s hope. He also realizes that he could be spending his life doing something and that is helping Earth be a clean environment again. Through Eve’s memories, she notices two lovers holding hands. WALL-E kept trying to grab Eve’s hand and she now realizes that WALL-E has romantic feelings for her. The captain informs the autopilot that they can go back to Earth now that the plant has been found. The autopilot won’t allow it because a new task was given a while back not to return to Earth because the President believed that it would be impossible for things on Earth to be the way they were before. That it will be nothing more than a giant piece of garbage. But the captain doesn’t believe that because the plant proves that new life is growing on Earth. The autopilot has had enough. He has the plant taken away. WALL-E shows up, manages to catch the plant and hides it inside him. The autopilot is furious, so he damages WALL-E’s circuitry and has him and Eve thrown down to the garbage depot. The autopilot has the captain locked up in his room and that makes him angry.
Down in the garage depot, Eve tries to find a new circuitry, but none of them match. WALL-E tells Eve that there is a replacement back on Earth and to get there they are going to have to put the plant in the ship’s Holo-Detector chamber, which will bring everyone straight back to Earth. Meanwhile the captain does everything he can to distract the autopilot by pretending he has the plant so he could lure it down to his room and he can tackle it. He hits the button and the passengers gather all together to the ships lido deck. The autopilot flips the ship over to the side and the plant falls out of WALL-E’s hand. Eve goes looking for the plant while all the passengers slide to the side. The ship’s monorail slides and is about to crush the passengers, but Eve stops it and holds it. The autopilot tries to close the ship’s holo detector, but WALL-E uses all his strength to keep it open. Eve is worried about WALL-E as she watches from the other side while holding the monorail. The autopilot has had enough and slams the button to close the holo detector causing it to crush WALL-E. Eve panics and everyone gasps. It’s all up to the captain now. He gets up on his feet for the first time in his life, attacks the autopilot, manages to turn him off and take control of the ship. Once the captain has flipped the ship back to it’s regular position, Eve rushes to the holo detector to get WALL-E out. One of the robots finds the plant and everyone passes it up to the holo detector. The holo detector activates and goes into speed. Once the ship lands, Eve rushes WALL-E back to his truck and repairs him. Eve then blasts a whole on the ruff so that the sun light can charge WALL-E. WALL-E reactivates, but his memory is gone. He just shows a blank look and does his regular thing. The WALL-E Eve knew is gone and she is heartbroken. Since this is goodbye, Eve holds WALL-E’s hand and gives him a kiss with a spark. The spark brings back WALL-E’s memory and personality. WALL-E notices he is holding Eve’s hand and he can’t believe he is finally holding it. WALL-E and Eve share a romantic moment and the humans and robots begin to restore Earth back to normal.
Blaine: Andrew Stanton grew loving sci-fi movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Wars”. He went to California Institute of the Arts and after he graduated he got a job at Pixar animated studios, co-founded by one of his classmates, John Lasseter. Andrew helped develop the story for Pixar’s first animated feature, “Toy Story”. “Toy Story” was still a year away from being released and during lunch, John Lasster asked he colleagues if they had any ideas for movies they could do in the future. Andrew had an idea about humanity leaving Earth and this robot being left behind. Andrew put that idea on the side after that because it was impossible for something like “WALL-E” to be made at the time. “Toy Story” was released in 1995, became a huge hit and the first computer animated feature. As time went on Pixar made other successful animated features, technology was enhancing and Andrew Stanton got to direct his first animated feature, “Finding Nemo”, which became a box office hit and won an oscar for best animated feature.
After that, Andrew was interested in going back to his idea about a robot left behind on Earth. Andrew got addicted to the project the more he worked on it and it made him curious to know who this character was and what his story should be. Andrew wrote a few different drafts for how the story should go. Andrew wanted the robot to have a lot of character in him. It was a challenge for Andrew to figure out the right look for WALL-E until he was at a baseball game in 2003 and one of his friends handed him the binoculars. Andrew would play around with those binoculars because they would bend. It was at that moment that Andrew finally figured out the right look for his robot, WALL-E. Andrew cared about WALL-E sense he is left behind and just does the same thing everyday. He then thought about WALL-E having a love interest, Eve.
Andrew wrote down pages of how WALL-E and Eve would try to express themselves through their expressions and their movements. Andrew thought that WALL-E would make noises like R2-D2 and so he tracked down sound designer Ben Burtt. Ben was responsible for doing all the sounds in the “Star Wars” films, he has a collection of all these sound recordings he has done, he is a pro when it comes to sound and he is known as the godfather of sound design. Working with Ben Burtt was a great experience for Pixar and he was a huge help for “WALL-E". It took a year for Ben to find the right sounds for “WALL-E”. He would have Andrew listen to all the sounds he created and Andrew would choose which ones were suitable for a scene. WALL-E would make squeaks, beeps and squawks. Ben recorded his own voice trying to say words, then he would mix around with it on a soundboard and that’s how WALL-E’s voice was created. Elissa Knight is an employee at Pixar and Andrew liked her voice so much that he thought she should do the voice of Eve. Elissa would say words while her voice was being recorded and then Ben Burtt would give it electronic nuances, make the voice sound synthesized.
One of the things a 3D animated feature requires is a cinematographer even though they’re not shooting anything, but you can move what’s on the computer screen at a different angle. There’s also the look of each shot with the lighting and the tint. It’s like I said on my “Coco” blog, “it’s like photoshop”. Andrew wanted “WALL-E” to have a photographic look and make it look realistic. When they started the project all they had were images of art to show what the movie might look like. Andrew and his team needed to understand the camera better, so he asked Roger Deakins, an experienced cinematographer who’s done films like “Blade Runner 2049”, “No Country for Old Men” and “Skyfall” to give everyone at Pixar a lesson on cinematography. Roger taught 40 people on a soundstage using a little room as a example. He also showed lighting examples and the camera position. Everything Roger taught them was so interesting of what it takes to get a really good shot. It was almost like they were in a photography class. Roger even became a guide to Danielle Feinberg, the cinematographer for “WALL-E”, by explaining where the angle should be. While WALL-E is following Eve around it shows them in a supermarket and the cinematographer made the shot look like the focus is a little off. The lens zooms in a little as it shows WALL-E trying to get out through the entrance doors. Then Eve enters the shot and she is out of focus while shaking her head.
When Andrew first thought about the idea for “WALL-E” there were no humans. Instead there were aliens. But when Andrew started working on the script he wrote two different drafts. One was about WALL-E entering the ship that left Earth centuries ago, the other was with him entering an alien ship run by these jello like creatures. The animation department did several drawings and computer graphics of those jello aliens. They even sculpted this 3D model made out of jello as a test to see how the light would hit it and how it would jiggle around. The plot was supposed to be about aliens going to Earth and sending Eve to find something. It sounded interesting to Andrew once he thought about the idea. He didn’t have any interest of what happened to the human race after they left Earth. Andrew and his team spent eight months doing storyboards. The aliens even had a made up language. The robots aren’t treated with any respect and they are treated like slaves, but when WALL-E goes aboard their ship it becomes something like “Spartacus”. Andrew and his team decided to go back to humans because they felt the aliens was getting too dark. They did keep their jello designs and just added a nose, ears, skin and legs and became humans.
One of my favorite moments in “WALL-E” is when this robot is learning how to wave his hand after seeing WALL-E wave to him. And when the robot sees WALL-E again, he is very excited to see him and waves his hand fast. WALL-E changes the lives of everyone who is on the Axiom both man and machine. Before WALL-E came along, the humans did nothing and they didn’t realize how amazing the things around them are because they were too busy looking at the screen in front of them. Everyone loves WALL-E for what he has done and he’s so friendly and kind. At the end he’s not alone anymore, he’s with friends he made from the Axiom, including the female he has fallen in love with, Eve.
