This post is long overdue. Yes, I know it was a summer flick. I actually saw it when it was released, but for some reason or another (it was probably the dire summer heat swirling around in my apartment), I didn’t get around to writing about it then. But I just got the DVD for myself for a Christmas treat yesterday and saw it again, so I was re-inspired to write. So here it is!

Oh, one more thing before I begin: I don’t want this to come off as a movie review. The votes are in, they have been for a while, and everyone already knows Wall•E (or, Wall-E, for those unversed in the nerdy joy that is the Option key on a Mac) was a critical darling, a smashing triumph, or any number of jubilantly laudatory clichés. So I am not seeking to be redundant here, even though I do feel nothing but praise for this movie myself. Really what I want to share in this post was 2 of my random decidedly personal observations regarding it. So, like, don’t take it as an exhortation to see it or anything. (Psst, go see it! Yes, again!)

Where do I even start? Okay maybe we can start with how I’ve been most affected by the movie. The movie most affected me by making me open to the idea of being primarily an interaction designer rather than a print designer. Strangely enough, for the majority of my life up until this moment, I had always felt a bit of trepidation at the thought of working with digital media for the rest of my life. I fiercely enjoyed the tactile aspect of print work, which was the main reason I was so enthusiastic to take everything from small metals to bookmaking to acrylic media at SMFA. The aspect of web and UI design that bothered me the most was that I couldn’t for the life of me touch it. Add to this the fact that I had always kind of entertained a slight aversion to robots. They made me queasy in a sort of uncanny-valley kind of way. In the form of a children’s toy, robots were clunky and useless wastes of money, far inferior to the living breathing life-forms they were intended to portray (or, in more extreme cases, substitute.) In the form of laboratory experiments, they were downright scary, their electronic entrails kind of strewn everywhere in a techno-gory array as they appear to struggle desperately, mid-experiment, to interact with you. In the form of everything else that didn’t try to assume biomorphic form, they were kind of just plain difficult to relate to. Efficiency and downright usefulness aside, they were still symbols for that turn-of-the-century fear of the dehumanizing side-effects of the Industrial Age.

So perhaps I’m a bit old-school, that robots come off in this way to me. I have pretty much been left behind when the bandwagon of edgy indie hipsters, with their love of monkeys (another uncanny valley thing for me) and robots, left the station. But now it’s a little different, thanks to this ridiculously good movie. And I’m not even going to go at length into why — you know how it is: Pixar brings soulless entity to life with masterful styling; viewer falls for aforementioned soulless entity; viewer develops incongruous but irresistible affinity for all other soulless entities like it. Ta-da! A potential interaction designer is born.

From time to time, I consciously allow myself to be manipulated by Disney. Anyway, next point:

The other thing about Wall•E that struck me as thought-worthy was the response of its right-wing critics. It seems that some extreme rightists take major issue with Wall•E because they view it as a dangerous leftist piece of propaganda designed to scare their children into, heaven forbid, not trashing the Earth. I want to try and be an open-minded fair person here (as I have tried to do throughout the entire spectacle that was the 2008 Presidential Election), and consider why the extreme right might feel this way. But honestly I am failing, and for this reason: Do you have no soul, extreme right? How can you even watch this movie and not have every nerve in your heart be touched by it? Does everything have to ultimately come down to a cheap battle of beliefs? Did you not follow the love story? Did you not notice the beautiful score (which I think, in this case, has got to be as apolitical as it gets), or the stunning technical brilliance, or the endearing plot? Okay, sure, oftentimes in this dangerous modern world, you have to be on guard for being mindwashed by the “enemies,” but are we so utterly jaded and distrustful that we can’t even for a moment put aside the politics we make up and just walk away with a warm feeling from just having witnessed one of the purest, most innocent romances ever concocted by the powers of mass entertainment? Glearrgh!

Huff, huff.

Well, I guess I kinda answered my question with the reference to the Election up there.. yes, sometimes there are people out there who actually believe the seemingly unbelievable. (Or it just seems unbelievable to me because I’m one of them dangerous lefties.) After all, for every piece of great art, there are its fierce detractors. In this country, freedom is law and opinion is sacred. So really, I should just be content that the vast majority of people seem to agree with me that this movie was a masterwork.

But speaking as someone who hopes someday to make art powerful enough to change people’s lives, I cannot entirely be blamed for wanting this movie, or any great piece of art, really, to succeed completely in connecting us, inspiring us, and helping us find what is human and basic and common to all. If love, portrayed in as pure and un-corporal a way as only childlike animated robots can deliver, isn’t what that is, then what is?

Perhaps what this just says is that we, as cultural producers, need to try harder. Wall•E can teach us as much through its success as through its failure. It shows that there is much work to be done, and now is not so much a time to celebrate as to get down to business.

So let’s get down to business! Yeah!