It's not apocalypse. It's not the Great Flood. It's not a Nostradamus prediction. It's hope--hidden under all these.
We take a good look at our candy wrappers now, only to foresee these will be part of a colossal Smokey Mountain we've never imagined before: the world. And it can only be as horrible and inevitable as we choose it to be, whether we're aware of it or not.
Pixar's vision, along with every scientist's wonder, also produced a rough sketch of the world scores after, with its innovative release of WALL-E (2008, directed by Andrew Stanton). And it's not based on any written scriptures or wild predictions all telling us we couldn't possibly do anything about it. The movie was based on man's timeless weakness: discipline.
Laid on the metal claws of a charming mute robot named WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Lift Loader, Earth-Class) while the human race searched for its new haven in a humongous space ship far out in the Milky Way, the earthly waste land was peacefully decomposing in methane and carbon monoxide. But not until hardworking WALL-E (Ben Burtt) digged out another color people had long forgotten, and proof of the world's hopeful existence: a green sprout.
The movie, I realized was far more optimistic on several levels. It was not only about the green sprout and the captain's enthusiasm to go back to earth. Even its unique idea that the planet was destroyed by unbelievable tons of human waste still reflects on a promising hope as it rooted from human discipline, a part of our nature that can still be changed.
WALL-E's attitude of being obsessively organized in "cubing" and collecting and arranging things always reminds me of how I used to do the same thing, then getting all upset when my siblings would mess it all up. It must also be a revolutionary break-through with Pixar's portrayal of technology evolution with all the electronic and path-finding chairs and hologram computers, the new "oxygen tanks" of the human race back then.
Hope is not hiding from us, nor is it hiding from the brokenhearted world. We simply have to choose to see and believe in it.
WALL-E Fact Sheet
1. "In the world of animation, pantomime is the thing that animators love best. It's their bread and butter." Although absence of dialogue became one of the challenges for Pixar animators in WALL-E, director Andrew Stanton considered it an exciting one.
2. The man behind WALL-E's voice, multiple Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, also made R2-D2's voice a timeless wonder.
2. The big innocent bulgy eyes of WALL-E were coined from its likeness with binoculars, according to John Lasseter (creator of Toy Story movies).
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