FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: samir on June 28, 2008, 11:13:54 AM
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Loved it.
Jeff Garlin deserves a reprieve from the Hate Pit for being involved.
2001 meets Modern Times. With the visual flair of Monsters Inc. (but slightly more so)
Loved it.
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I give it ten popcorn buckets out of ten popcorn buckets.
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So, is it hypocritical for Pixar/Disney, a brand-heavy corporation, to make an anti-consumerism, pro-environmental art film?
I say no. I say it's the best thing they've done for a well while.
"Let's just stay the course."
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2001 meets Modern Times. With the visual flair of Monsters Inc. (but slightly more so)
Hey, I like one of those movies!
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2001 meets Modern Times. With the visual flair of Monsters Inc. (but slightly more so)
Hey, I like one of those movies!
You better be talkin' about Monsters Inc.
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2001 meets Modern Times. With the visual flair of Monsters Inc. (but slightly more so)
Hey, I like one of those movies!
You better be talkin' about Monsters Inc.
Obviously.
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So, is it hypocritical for Pixar/Disney, a brand-heavy corporation, to make an anti-consumerism, pro-environmental art film?
Yeah, I agree, definitely not. I got really annoyed reading some review that was saying that. I'm just curious, should they have never even approached the subject!? Would that be better? Also, Pixar is fully aware of the irony, I'm sure. I don't think they're trying to trick people and have them think, "Huh, I guess Disney isn't so bad!" or whatever. I think Pixar is trying to make a good movie, for kids, that incorporates some thoughtful messages. I'm positive their main goal is to make an impression on kids.
Also, it's a Sci-Fi film, and generally, very often, Sci-Fi incorporates some poignant, meaningful messages behind the futuristic backdrop. So I think they were staying true to the genre.
Anyway. I loved the film, it was really great. And I thought the second half was just as great as the first, to the chagrin of everyone I've read from on the subject. And I thought the live-action was interpolated perfectly, and kind of bumped up the atmosphere of the movie a lot. Blah blahlsjfsl.
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I too loved it. Both Ratatouille and Wall-E are 10/10. Between Monsters, Inc and Ratatouille, I became disappointed with Pixar's other movies but they seem to be on track with a lot of interesting projects.
Up (2009)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%20(2009%20film) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%20(2009%20film))
Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) has spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But one day, Carl finds himself to be 78 years old and his life has seemingly passed him by, until he befriends a chubby 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected villains, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the jungle.
newt (2011)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt%20(film) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt%20(film))
Newt and Brooke live in a community college science lab and don't care for each other, yet as the last remaining blue-footed newts on the planet they are forced to mate to save the species.
Neither sounds off the bat as interesting as Ratatouille or Wall-E but they sure beat Cars 2 (which is also being made :()
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So, is it hypocritical for Pixar/Disney, a brand-heavy corporation, to make an anti-consumerism, pro-environmental art film?
I say no. I say it's the best thing they've done for a well while.
"Let's just stay the course."
I've also heard people saying this and they said it about Over the Hedge a year ago because the messages were anti-consumerism and pro-conservation. People can complain about the hypocrisy but it's much better than if kids' movies (or movies in general) had no real themes or messages.
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Up (2009)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%20(2009%20film) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%20(2009%20film))
Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) has spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But one day, Carl finds himself to be 78 years old and his life has seemingly passed him by, until he befriends a chubby 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. The two opposites match up for thrilling adventures as they encounter wild terrain, unexpected villains, and all the terrifying creatures that wait in the jungle.
I'm incredibly excited for this movie. Ugh, so awesome sounding. Also, "John Carter of Mars". YES.
Has anyone read these articles analyzing Pixar films?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_2_60/ai_60100167
http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2008/05/11/ratatouille-as-a-metaphorical-history-of-disney-and-pixar/
I can't help but think both of these ideas were intentional from the start.
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Oh MovieBoy!
"Such is the case with "WALL•E," a truly romantic post-apocalyptic love story that nonetheless has the misfortune of being released six months after a somewhat similar sci-fi film, 2007's "I Am Legend.""
Hahahahahhahahahahahahhaha. Yes.
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Oh MovieBoy!
"Such is the case with "WALL•E," a truly romantic post-apocalyptic love story that nonetheless has the misfortune of being released six months after a somewhat similar sci-fi film, 2007's "I Am Legend.""
Hahahahahhahahahahahahhaha. Yes.
You beat me to it. I can't wait to see WALL-E fight crappy CGI vampire zombie monster things.
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Apparently, the guy who did the sound design for Star Wars did the sound design for Wall-E (which was fantastic). I thought I noticed some R2-D2ness going on.
I also heard fat people were getting offended by it, or something.
Loved it loved it loved it!!! The best picture made by Pixar, hands down. Everyone should see it.
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I saw this last night and thought it was DELIGHTFUL!!!
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to counteract the limitless joy of wall-e, i went to see wanted yesterday.
it was not so great (http://areyougenehackman.blogspot.com/2008/06/ripples-of-our-decisions.html).
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I saw this last night also. I'm not ashamed to say, I teared up a little during a specific part of the movie. Try to guess which one - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
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I saw it today, and didn't tear up (I did in Monsters Inc though, wanna fight me over it?) but had a general feeling of elation the whole time while watching it. Great movie.
Also, in the spirit of the movie, I'm going to go order some of the Wall*E toys from ToysRus.com now.
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I saw this last night also. I'm not ashamed to say, I teared up a little during a specific part of the movie. Try to guess which one - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
When the ship turned sideways and all of the fatties rolled across the floor?
Oh, you did mean tears of laughter, right?
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I'm not quite ready to call it my favorite Pixar film after one viewing, but man that was fantastic. The lowpoint of my moviegoing experience was some of the worst trailers I've ever seen. Beverly Hills Chihuahua? Meet Dave? Yikes.
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I'm not quite ready to call it my favorite Pixar film after one viewing, but man that was fantastic. The lowpoint of my moviegoing experience was some of the worst trailers I've ever seen. Beverly Hills Chihuahua? Meet Dave? Yikes.
I will see this in theaters because I hate myself.
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It was good. I am happy that Pixar exists.
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Guess I better add a few more thoughts, lest I get called out for pasting. Having read all the stellar reviews mentioning how touched people were after seeing the movie, I was a bit skeptical going in. I have to say, this is one film that deserves all the hyperbolic praise it has been getting. I think I'll be seeing it again real soon.
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im such a twerp. i cried THREE times (no sobbing, just tears). i was surprised at myself but he's cute and he loves her and theyre robots!!
also, i think samir and i are on the same moviegoing schedule. i saw WANTED and the only part i felt good about was hearing Morgan Freedman say, "...or shoot this mothafucka."
otherwise, whatever, i called it.
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Saw WALL-E over the weekend as well. I'm not sure I've seen all the Pixar talkies yet, but this is probably my favorite so far. 2001 meets Modern Times? More like E.T. meets Short Circuit meets Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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I loved it as well.
Someone wrote that, like Ratalouie, it was 10/10 stars. However, as a parent, Wall-E was superior. Ratalouie worked for me big time, but the kids were bored. Wall-E worked for everyone in the theater.
Given the unanimous praise so far, I can only assume Tom is going to rip into it. "Why" is the question. Maybe:
1. Peter Gabriel song?
2. The voice of Jeff Garlin?
3. The presence of Fred Willard?
We shall see...
-JFM
P.S. How dare I try to predict the opinion of Tommy Tornado?
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I loved it as well.
Someone wrote that, like Ratalouie, it was 10/10 stars. However, as a parent, Wall-E was superior. Ratalouie worked for me big time, but the kids were bored. Wall-E worked for everyone in the theater.
Given the unanimous praise so far, I can only assume Tom is going to rip into it. "Why" is the question. Maybe:
1. Peter Gabriel song?
2. The voice of Jeff Garlin?
3. The presence of Fred Willard?
We shall see...
-JFM
P.S. How dare I try to predict the opinion of Tommy Tornado?
Ratatouille got unanimous praise and it seemed like Tom liked that quite a bit (although there is no Patton in WALL-E). As far as the Peter Gabriel song, it was a non issue for me, since it was over the credits and not shoved into the movie like Randy Newman all over Toy Story 1 & 2.
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Discussion of the Apple and Macintosh references that permeate the film:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/wall-e-an-homage-to-mr-jobs/index.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Other easter eggs:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/06/27/wall-e-easter-eggs/
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The latest Studio 360 podcast has a really interesting interview with Ben Burtt, who is responsible for most of the sound in WALL-E, as well as all the Star Wars films.
http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/06/27
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I loved it as well.
Someone wrote that, like Ratalouie, it was 10/10 stars. However, as a parent, Wall-E was superior. Ratalouie worked for me big time, but the kids were bored. Wall-E worked for everyone in the theater.
Given the unanimous praise so far, I can only assume Tom is going to rip into it. "Why" is the question. Maybe:
1. Peter Gabriel song?
2. The voice of Jeff Garlin?
3. The presence of Fred Willard?
We shall see...
-JFM
P.S. How dare I try to predict the opinion of Tommy Tornado?
Ratatouille got unanimous praise and it seemed like Tom liked that quite a bit (although there is no Patton in WALL-E). As far as the Peter Gabriel song, it was a non issue for me, since it was over the credits and not shoved into the movie like Randy Newman all over Toy Story 1 & 2.
I kind of liked the Peter Gabriel song. :-[.
Also, I thought the credits were fantastic. It was neat how they told the rest of the story with the paintings. Dug it.
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Yeah the credits were one of my favorite parts. The fact that they went through from hieroglyphics to mosaic to impressionist, etc. etc. etc. in chronological order was pretty awesome.
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Yeah the credits were one of my favorite parts. The fact that they went through from hieroglyphics to mosaic to impressionist, etc. etc. etc. in chronological order was pretty awesome.
Of course almost no one in the theater I was at bothered to stick around at all, but I guess the credits aren't of much interest to the little ones.
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Don't get me wrong, folks. I will admit to being a huge Peter Gabriel fan. I was just trying to predict Tom's reaction.
I loved the closing credits.
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I liked the Finding Nemo riff in the end credits (Was that the mosaic?)
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Shit, chaps. I wasn't expecting such a glow about Wall-E. The trailer didn't whet any part of me.
I trust you all 100% though, for whenever it's out here.
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Best romantic comedy since Punch Drunk Love, yes?
It was more than romantic comedy, of course, but the love element of WALL-E caught me completely off guard. The animation, probably the best animation ever committed to film, was the 11th best part of the movie.
I will try to describe my favorite moment without spoiling anything: the moment where she first saw what he had done for her.
OOF! That was the moment for me.
Pixar is the Paul Thomas Radiohead of Digital Animation.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbyLzfz9NoY[/youtube]
This is essentially the same thing, right?
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Pixar is the Paul Thomas Radiohead of Digital Animation.
Except they're good. Zzzzzzing!
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The part that did it for me was when she was trying to jog his memory and she kinda hummed that song to him. I welled up.
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Dorvid and I held hands involuntarily at several points during the movie. That's right, we were on a date.
On the way home, I proposed marriage to a fire hydrant.
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That's right, we were on a date.
Showoff.
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cartoons are for babies.
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you're a baby!!!
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I will try to describe my favorite moment without spoiling anything: the moment where she first saw what he had done for her.
same here.
he truly pined for her. :'(
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Given the unanimous praise so far, I can only assume Tom is going to rip into it. "Why" is the question. Maybe:
1. Peter Gabriel song?
2. The voice of Jeff Garlin?
3. The presence of Fred Willard?
We shall see...
-JFM
P.S. How dare I try to predict the opinion of Tommy Tornado?
Tom's latest update on Facebook suggests that I may not have been far off in my prediction...
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Oh noooooo. It's a cartoon! A cute one! With cute robots!
Boo.
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EDIT - HE LIKED IT.
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I am now personally responsible for getting Garlin removed from the pit.
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I liked it a lot. Visually it was really fantastic. Though for me the story didn't resonate as much as the two Brad Bird movies, it was definitely a top tier Pixar movie, which puts it at the top of the food chain.
I can't be the only one who found Fred Willard a little too on the nose, though, right?
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Wall-E Easter Eggs, or "Things you might've missed"
Some good stuff there...
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/06/27/wall-e-easter-eggs/
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Michael Ian Black had mixed feelings -
http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/some-thoughts-o.html
I don't know why that would matter to anyone.
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He has some points.
BUT. I bought his stand-up album a few weeks ago and was left disappointed. Unlike WALL-E. Therefore, moot.*
*Okay, not really I guess.
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He has some points.
BUT. I bought his stand-up album a few weeks ago and was left disappointed. Unlike WALL-E. Therefore, moot.*
*Okay, not really I guess.
Him and Michael Showalter aren't too great with stand-up. I don't think they've both been doing it for too long and are more familiar with sketch work. I still think they can be funny doing stand-up but no where as funny with Stella or the State.
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I kind of liked the Michael Ian Black CD. But the Michael Showalter one? Yikes!
Fun tip, English majors: Michael Showalter is *the* Showalter's son!
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I didn't mind him mostly, but the audience bothered me a lot, for whatever reason.
I do love the Stella internet shorts and a lot of their stuff in general though.
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Him and Michael Showalter aren't too great with stand-up. I don't think they've both been doing it for too long and are more familiar with sketch work. I still think they can be funny doing stand-up but no where as funny with Stella or the State.
I liked Michael Showalter's routine about his high school poem, but that comes more from the awfulness of the poem than anything he added.
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(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PVvF7olDL._SS500_.jpg)
Case closed.
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I liked Showalter and Black's albums. Showalters was a lot better though.
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Him and Michael Showalter aren't too great with stand-up. I don't think they've both been doing it for too long and are more familiar with sketch work. I still think they can be funny doing stand-up but no where as funny with Stella or the State.
Humor's subjective, of course, but I think Showalter's pretty good at stand-up. I've seen him live twice, and he didn't fail to crack me up either time. His album, though, is terrible. Really really terrible. I think it might be because his best live stuff is all improvised, just feeding off of the audience and hecklers. You don't really get that on the album except for the cat thing, and even that's not him at his best.
Black isn't nearly as good, but he's not bad.
Sorry to be so off-topic. I'm planning on seeing Wall-E this weekend.
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I only know Michael Ian Black from VH1's myriad "I Love the..." shows, and he never fails to make me want to punch him in the face. Obnoxious and so NOT funny, at least on there. Maybe his sketch and standup work is different.
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Back on topic, though, apparently not everyone is in love with Wall-E:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/01/right-wing-hates-wall-e/
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Back on topic, though, apparently not everyone is in love with Wall-E:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/01/right-wing-hates-wall-e/
Those people really don't count.
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Him and Michael Showalter aren't too great with stand-up. I don't think they've both been doing it for too long and are more familiar with sketch work. I still think they can be funny doing stand-up but no where as funny with Stella or the State.
I liked Michael Showalter's routine about his high school poem, but that comes more from the awfulness of the poem than anything he added.
Yeah, that's exactly how I felt about it. I'm sure I'll end up buying Ian Black's book. It's one of those few books by a comedian that interest me. (Sorry Larry the Cable Guy!)
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I have avoided this thread until seeing the movie, but put me in the column of people who can't gush about it enough. I "got something in my eye" several times.
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This was waiting for me on my porch when I got home tonight. I'm a little embarrassed by how cool the little guy is, although not as cool as the interactive remote controlled version that's coming out in the fall. Cursed toys.
(http://murdershow.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/wall-e01.jpg)
(http://murdershow.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/wall-e02.jpg)
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So, did anyone take their kids to see this? Or did anyone attend a viewing with the theater packed with frustrated, noisy kids who had no idea what was going on?
I know it's a kid's movie, but... do kids like this?
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The kids sitting next to me were pretty chatty throughout, but I don't know if that's because they were bored or just because they're kids.
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So, did anyone take their kids to see this? Or did anyone attend a viewing with the theater packed with frustrated, noisy kids who had no idea what was going on?
I know it's a kid's movie, but... do kids like this?
I was in a theater full of kids and it was silent the whole time except when *spoiler* and a young boy said to his dad "I really feel bad for her".
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My kids (6 & 4 yrs) liked it, although the show was probably too long for the 4 yr old. Not the robot's fault, but the 30 minutes of ads and trailers & the short made it a really long sitting.
After I demonstrated for them how the director came up with the idea for WALL-E's eyes from a pair of binoculars, they are planning on building their own robot, as I'm sure millions of their contemporaries are also working on.
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Back on topic, though, apparently not everyone is in love with Wall-E:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/01/right-wing-hates-wall-e/
Those people really don't count.
They count at times that you want to be really sure about something, i.e., they hate it so there's a pretty decent chance that it's gonna be good. I was looking for a reason not to see this movie, but after reading the disses of those bozos, I have no choice but to see it. Aren't those guys instinctively opposed to anything that is the color green, literally or figuratively, with the exception of phlegm?
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I saw it twice and both times had a lot of kids under 10 in attendance. It's hard to gauge if they liked it because the movie isn't really a comedy so they aren't laughing out loud a lot.
I do know that every kid in the theater shouted "CHIHUAHUA!" after the Beverly Hills Chihuahua trailer for about 30 seconds, which is always cute and goofy.
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Frank Rich loves this movie, but uses it as a tool to illustrate the jejune quality of the discourse surrounding the presidential race. Wasn't sure how far he could ride this theme, but he did it all the way through his column in the Sunday Times. I'd be curious to hear how those who have seen it react to his words.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06rich.html?ref=opinion (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06rich.html?ref=opinion)
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Great movie! Easily the best of the recent crop of summer flicks.
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I wasn't in the theater with Mr. Rich, but I thought the following was probably a stretch:
At the end [the children in the audience] clapped their small hands. What they applauded was not some banal cartoonish triumph of good over evil but a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out.
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I wasn't in the theater with Mr. Rich, but I thought the following was probably a stretch:
At the end [the children in the audience] clapped their small hands. What they applauded was not some banal cartoonish triumph of good over evil but a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out.
Yeah, I liked Rich's book "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" but I think that commentators from both the left and the right need to stop using WALL-E to talk about political points. It's okay to use allusions to pop culture when it is valid but a lot of the stuff I've read about WALL-E doesn't really relate well.
This was in yesterday's Boston Globe. It's an article with quotes from MIT robot engineers about what makes everybody love the character WALL-E.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/080706_wall_e/
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it seems like a real no brainer, WALL-E acted like a human being the way human beings are supposed to act: loving, selfless, giving, hard-working, humble, and trying to make the world a better place through these actions.
...next.
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So, did anyone take their kids to see this? Or did anyone attend a viewing with the theater packed with frustrated, noisy kids who had no idea what was going on?
I know it's a kid's movie, but... do kids like this?
Took my kids...4 and 8. They loved it and asked to see it again. We've seen it twice now.
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I don't see what there is for a kid not to understand in that movie.... it's a straight up kids movie. They usually have an underlying adult-focused message, and this one was no different.
Emdasher, were these kids you saw the movie with eating lead candy?
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It was the presumption that the kids were applauding "a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out" that got me.
Come on.
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I don't see what there is for a kid not to understand in that movie.... it's a straight up kids movie. They usually have an underlying adult-focused message, and this one was no different.
Emdasher, were these kids you saw the movie with eating lead candy?
The physical choreography of the film seems more akin to a set piece in an adult action movie than anything in any kids movie I've ever seen. On my first viewing, I myself can admit to getting a bit lost in the rapid-fire physical aspect of the film. More than subject matter or underlying message, I could see kids getting frustrated at the intricacy of everything going on on the screen.
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I could see kids getting frustrated at the intricacy of everything going on on the screen.
I think you may have been projecting a little onto the kids. Like us, they filter out what is irrelevant to them. We see masterful storytelling and gorgeous animation, the kids see a fish singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy," robots making funny noises, and good guys beating the bad guys.
On a more tragic note, when my 4-year-old son saw all the people on the Axiom in their hovering chairs, he whispered to me, "I wish I was them. Those chairs are cool!" Ew buoy.
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http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/080706_wall_e/
Hey, I totally know that guy.
Now that you've gotten through that great story with something for everybody, I just saw Wall-E and I definitely liked it, but not as much as Ratalouie. I tend to think that the real ideology of any Hollywood movie, "liberal" or "conservative," is, in the end, the ideology of Hollywood (for example, it's love for Wall-E that compels Eve to complete her mission, rather than her programming or any moral or ethical sense; that's just fine, of course, but that's an example of what I mean - was it Deleuze and Guattari* who said that the movie was a machine for the production of the couple?).
But anyway, I wish somebody would tell the people who are treating the movie like a revolutionary act that it is a movie, one that (like most movies) probably ate up a lot of energy to produce, and that there are going to be millions of plastic tie-in toys, and so on. Again, I'm not complaining about this - it was a terrific movie, certainly worth my $20 (with popcorn and sody), and if I had a kid I'd be happy to buy him/her a cute Wall-E toy - but it seems emblematic of our current mess that a cartoon fantasy of environmental reclamation is being mistaken for the real thing. Yay Pixar, but phooey on both Frank Rich and those clueless right-wing goons.
*Forgive me for being a pedantic ass
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I only know Michael Ian Black from VH1's myriad "I Love the..." shows, and he never fails to make me want to punch him in the face. Obnoxious and so NOT funny, at least on there. Maybe his sketch and standup work is different.
i'm on the opposite plane. i've only seen him live. it was good. showalter was better. their blogs are fine.
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I nominate WALL-E as the official movie of hardhat radio.
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The LA Times on the new Beck album: "Modern Guilt is “Wall-E” for anyone who prefers rock 'n' roll to kids' movies."
My head just exploded.
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I totally loved it!
I saw it at 10:30 PM, so there weren't a lot of small children to deal with- much to my disappointment, there were a whole four other people besides myself and a friend in a theater. Rather ironically, at the camp where I work a kid was talking about how his mom wouldn't get him the official toy from the Disney website because it was too expensive, but that sort of thing is to be expected from any movie aimed at children.
Plus, everyone's favorite fundamentalist website, Rapture Ready (http://www.raptureready.com/rap49.html), thought it was "full of lib agenda" (http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=51437), so there's that.
(On the standup of Michael(s) Ian Black/Showalter: I enjoyed them both live, particularly Showalter, but I didn't think either translated well to their albums.)
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I think this might the best piece of journalism I've read since Deion Sanders stuck up for Michael Vick:
Fat-E
The new Pixar movie goes out of its way to equate obesity with environmental collapse.
By Daniel Engber
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008, at 4:46 PM ET
The hero of Pixar's new film
Pixar's new animated feature Wall-E is more than a great movie. According to the critics, it's a trenchant social commentary. New York's David Edelstein calls it "one for the ages, a masterpiece to be savored before or after the end of the world … a sublime work of art." A.O. Scott coos over "a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in." Even New York Times columnist Frank Rich gets in on the action, lauding the film for being "in touch with what troubles America," and providing "a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out."
So what is this powerful and profound message? Wall-E tells us that if we don't change the way we live, we'll all get really fat and destroy the world. The plot begins with the idea that a megacorporation called Buy N Large has essentially taken over the planet and induced so much consumption and waste that humans must escape their dying planet on an enormous, space-faring cruise ship. Once onboard, their self-destructive tendencies only get worse: After 700 years adrift, humans have grown too bloated to walk and too lazy to think.
It's this cartoon of—oops, commentary on—modern life that so dazzles the critics. Slate's Dana Stevens describes a "richly detailed satire of contemporary humankind," in which the world is populated by "obese, infantile consumers who spend their days immobile in hovering lounge chairs, staring at ads on computers screens—in other words, Americans." (Edelstein sums things up in five words: "You should see these blobs.")
Let me raise a voice of dissent. Wall-E is an innovative and visually stunning film, but the "satire" it draws is simple-minded. It plays off the easy analogy between obesity and ecological catastrophe, pushing the notion that Western culture has sickened both our bodies and our planet with the same disease of affluence. According to this lazy logic, a fat body stands in for a distended culture: We gain weight and the Earth suffers. If only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet!
But the metaphor only works if you believe familiar myths about the overweight: They're weak-willed, indolent, and stupid. Sure enough, that's how Pixar depicts the future of humanity. The people in Wall-E drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," they never exercise, and if they happen to fall off their hovering chairs, they thrash around like babies until a robot helps them up. They watch TV all day long and can barely read.
It ought to go without saying that this stereotype of the "obese lifestyle" is simply false. How fat you are has a lot more to do with your genes than with your behavior. As much as 80 percent of the variation in human body weight can be explained by differences in our DNA. (Your height is similarly heritable.) That is to say, it may not matter that much whether you eat salads or drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," whether you bike everywhere or fly around in a Barcalounger. If you have a propensity to become obese, there's only so much that can be done about it.
That's not to say that our circumstances can't lead us to gain weight. But there's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting. (Most of us fluctuate around a natural "set point.") We also know that children who watch a lot of television are no less active than other kids and that pediatric obesity rates are not the direct result of high-fat diets.
Despite all this, there's an endless appetite for stories linking obesity and environmental collapse. Pounds of fat and pounds of carbon are routinely made to seem interchangeable. Two months ago, the Washington Post compared childhood obesity to global warming. Last year, an AP story called "Fighting Fat and Climate Change" claimed that we could cut annual CO2-emissions by 64 million tons if every American just got out of his car to walk for half an hour a day. (The nation would also burn 10.5 trillion calories!) The New York Times has reported that obese Americans make air travel less efficient, and that our extra pounds cost us 1 billion gallons of gasoline per year. And we didn't just figure this out, either: During the oil crisis of the 1970s, a pair of economists calculated that we could save 1.3 billion gallons by getting all overweight Americans to "optimum body weight."
These calculations show the obesity-ecology metaphor run amok. Like other spurious estimates of the "cost of obesity," they leave out important, mitigating variables. (Fat people tend to have shorter life spans, for example, thus reducing their lifetime carbon footprint.) It's pure fantasy to say that overweight Americans are causing global warming and misleading even to suggest that the two phenomena are related. After all, obesity is most prevalent among the poorest Americans, who almost by definition consume less than the skinny elite. Many live in dense neighborhoods and rely on public transportation. And the fattest people in the nation are not, as a group, the same folks you'd find driving Hummers or jetting back and forth between New York and L.A.
The desire to link obesity and environmental collapse seems to have more to do with politics than science. Eco-liberals put down their Nalgene bottles and wring their hands over the fat slobs in Middle America. It's these red-staters who are screwing things up with their shopping malls and their fast food. Of course, they can't exactly be blamed for their misfortune. Instead, we infantilize them and moan over the corporate interests that beguile our dumb cousins with super-sized portions and deceptive PR campaigns. Hence the overgrown babies of Wall-E, who have been duped into their lethargic lifestyle by the corporate overlords at Buy N Large.
All this may be enough to leave some overweight viewers of Wall-E in tears. It's easy to imagine how they might respond to Pixar's dystopic vision of our fat future, in which puffed-up bodies are played for cheap laughs. What happens when the movie ends and the lights come up? Does the rest of the audience stare at the lone fatty as she waddles her way toward the theater doors? Do they see in her body a validation of the film's "darker implications"—a signpost for what we might become if we don't change our ways? Or do they just scowl at her, convinced that she's part of the problem?
http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/ (http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/)
A lot of people left some pretty vicious comments; many posited that the author of the article is, in fact, a fatty. Here's my favorite comment, written by "tireguy":
What complete stupidity and twisted sense of righteous belief prompted you to write this ridiculous article? If you think that this is witty social commentary, think again. It is the worst sort of liberal drivel compounded by sophistry and incompetent manipulation of the English language. It is a cartoon, dummy - not an evil plot against the overweight. Get real or get out. Your editors should be ashamed - I doubt you possess a sense of shame, since you produced this sort of journalistic trash.
If only it weren't so long, it would be my new sig.
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Yeah the credits were one of my favorite parts. The fact that they went through from hieroglyphics to mosaic to impressionist, etc. etc. etc. in chronological order was pretty awesome.
Of course almost no one in the theater I was at bothered to stick around at all, but I guess the credits aren't of much interest to the little ones.
No, the moment the story ends, they have to get back to the vital work of destroying marriages.
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I read that Slate article. The author WAY overstates his case. If obesity were simply a matter of genetics, as he implies (writing "How fat you are has a lot more to do with your genes than with your behavior. As much as 80 percent of the variation in human body weight can be explained by differences in our DNA."), then the per capita number of obese people should be the same county to country, or through time. In actuality, the percentage of obese Americans has doubled since the early 1960s. The "caloric environment" (wide availability of high calorie, cheap food) obviously affects people's behavior. Due to genetic factors, it affects some people more than others.
I agree that people aren't necessarily to blame for their natural reactions to this situation, but it's disingenuous to claim that there is nothing that these people can do. There is some number of people who are obese today that wouldn't have been 50 years ago. If they can contrive, however difficult it may be, to eat and live as though it were 50 years ago, they would not be obese. Being hateful is not in order, but neither should we shrug our shoulders and pretend like there's no problem or that there's nothing that an obese person can unilaterally do to lose weight. In the end, unless we really want to contemplate pervasively regulating what food people can eat, the solution is going to have to come about from changes in people's behavior.
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I think this might the best piece of journalism I've read since Deion Sanders stuck up for Michael Vick:
Fat-E
The new Pixar movie goes out of its way to equate obesity with environmental collapse.
By Daniel Engber
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008, at 4:46 PM ET
The hero of Pixar's new film
Pixar's new animated feature Wall-E is more than a great movie. According to the critics, it's a trenchant social commentary. New York's David Edelstein calls it "one for the ages, a masterpiece to be savored before or after the end of the world … a sublime work of art." A.O. Scott coos over "a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in." Even New York Times columnist Frank Rich gets in on the action, lauding the film for being "in touch with what troubles America," and providing "a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out."
So what is this powerful and profound message? Wall-E tells us that if we don't change the way we live, we'll all get really fat and destroy the world. The plot begins with the idea that a megacorporation called Buy N Large has essentially taken over the planet and induced so much consumption and waste that humans must escape their dying planet on an enormous, space-faring cruise ship. Once onboard, their self-destructive tendencies only get worse: After 700 years adrift, humans have grown too bloated to walk and too lazy to think.
It's this cartoon of—oops, commentary on—modern life that so dazzles the critics. Slate's Dana Stevens describes a "richly detailed satire of contemporary humankind," in which the world is populated by "obese, infantile consumers who spend their days immobile in hovering lounge chairs, staring at ads on computers screens—in other words, Americans." (Edelstein sums things up in five words: "You should see these blobs.")
Let me raise a voice of dissent. Wall-E is an innovative and visually stunning film, but the "satire" it draws is simple-minded. It plays off the easy analogy between obesity and ecological catastrophe, pushing the notion that Western culture has sickened both our bodies and our planet with the same disease of affluence. According to this lazy logic, a fat body stands in for a distended culture: We gain weight and the Earth suffers. If only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet!
But the metaphor only works if you believe familiar myths about the overweight: They're weak-willed, indolent, and stupid. Sure enough, that's how Pixar depicts the future of humanity. The people in Wall-E drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," they never exercise, and if they happen to fall off their hovering chairs, they thrash around like babies until a robot helps them up. They watch TV all day long and can barely read.
It ought to go without saying that this stereotype of the "obese lifestyle" is simply false. How fat you are has a lot more to do with your genes than with your behavior. As much as 80 percent of the variation in human body weight can be explained by differences in our DNA. (Your height is similarly heritable.) That is to say, it may not matter that much whether you eat salads or drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," whether you bike everywhere or fly around in a Barcalounger. If you have a propensity to become obese, there's only so much that can be done about it.
That's not to say that our circumstances can't lead us to gain weight. But there's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting. (Most of us fluctuate around a natural "set point.") We also know that children who watch a lot of television are no less active than other kids and that pediatric obesity rates are not the direct result of high-fat diets.
Despite all this, there's an endless appetite for stories linking obesity and environmental collapse. Pounds of fat and pounds of carbon are routinely made to seem interchangeable. Two months ago, the Washington Post compared childhood obesity to global warming. Last year, an AP story called "Fighting Fat and Climate Change" claimed that we could cut annual CO2-emissions by 64 million tons if every American just got out of his car to walk for half an hour a day. (The nation would also burn 10.5 trillion calories!) The New York Times has reported that obese Americans make air travel less efficient, and that our extra pounds cost us 1 billion gallons of gasoline per year. And we didn't just figure this out, either: During the oil crisis of the 1970s, a pair of economists calculated that we could save 1.3 billion gallons by getting all overweight Americans to "optimum body weight."
These calculations show the obesity-ecology metaphor run amok. Like other spurious estimates of the "cost of obesity," they leave out important, mitigating variables. (Fat people tend to have shorter life spans, for example, thus reducing their lifetime carbon footprint.) It's pure fantasy to say that overweight Americans are causing global warming and misleading even to suggest that the two phenomena are related. After all, obesity is most prevalent among the poorest Americans, who almost by definition consume less than the skinny elite. Many live in dense neighborhoods and rely on public transportation. And the fattest people in the nation are not, as a group, the same folks you'd find driving Hummers or jetting back and forth between New York and L.A.
The desire to link obesity and environmental collapse seems to have more to do with politics than science. Eco-liberals put down their Nalgene bottles and wring their hands over the fat slobs in Middle America. It's these red-staters who are screwing things up with their shopping malls and their fast food. Of course, they can't exactly be blamed for their misfortune. Instead, we infantilize them and moan over the corporate interests that beguile our dumb cousins with super-sized portions and deceptive PR campaigns. Hence the overgrown babies of Wall-E, who have been duped into their lethargic lifestyle by the corporate overlords at Buy N Large.
All this may be enough to leave some overweight viewers of Wall-E in tears. It's easy to imagine how they might respond to Pixar's dystopic vision of our fat future, in which puffed-up bodies are played for cheap laughs. What happens when the movie ends and the lights come up? Does the rest of the audience stare at the lone fatty as she waddles her way toward the theater doors? Do they see in her body a validation of the film's "darker implications"—a signpost for what we might become if we don't change our ways? Or do they just scowl at her, convinced that she's part of the problem?
http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/ (http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/)
A lot of people left some pretty vicious comments; many posited that the author of the article is, in fact, a fatty. Here's my favorite comment, written by "tireguy":
What complete stupidity and twisted sense of righteous belief prompted you to write this ridiculous article? If you think that this is witty social commentary, think again. It is the worst sort of liberal drivel compounded by sophistry and incompetent manipulation of the English language. It is a cartoon, dummy - not an evil plot against the overweight. Get real or get out. Your editors should be ashamed - I doubt you possess a sense of shame, since you produced this sort of journalistic trash.
If only it weren't so long, it would be my new sig.
Wait, so this guy is actually making the argument that an obese lifestyle is good for the environment because it shortens life spans? Holy moly.
He's kind of missing the whole point of the obesity/environmental decline correlation. It has a lot more to do with industrialized agriculture (i.e. the persistence of HFCS, corn-fed beef, artificial preserves, etc), than the fact that there are a lot of obese people.
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I'm so tired of overweight people being offended by Wall-E. SERIOUSLY, people? It's just a goddamn movie. And if you eat too much and are sedentary, you're gonna get fat. That's all the movie is saying.
Getting the vapors and letting your monocle fall out over this sort of thing is so lame.