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[[Image:Walle.jpg|right|WALL?E with a Rubik's cube]]
'''''WALL?E''''' is an Oscar-winning 2008 [[CGI]] feature film directed by [[Andrew Stanton]] for [[Pixar Animation Studios]]. It is Pixar's ninth full-length feature film.
==Plot==
In the distant future, humanity has taken to the stars and left an environmentally-wrecked Earth behind. The task of cleaning up humanity's mess had fallen to the '''W'''aste '''A'''llocation '''L'''oad '''L'''ifter '''E'''arth-Class robots, but all but one have long since been deactivated. Now, the last remaining WALL?E encounters EVE, a state-of-the-art robot sent down to Earth with a specific purpose, he seeks her companionship and falls in love with her, while trying to get her to be capable of falling in love with him. But when EVE's spaceship returns to take her back, WALL?E must travel with it to the spacecraft Axiom - where mankind has undergone a change for the worse.
==Characters==
:'''WALL?E:''' 700 years old, WALL?E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is the sole activated member of a series of robots designed to clean up Earth. As well as his trash-compacting capibilities, WALL?E has a laser for cutting, and a recording device. Glitches in his programming manifest in the form of a personality, and a somewhat eccentric one at that; he enjoys collecting objects such as a Rubik's cube and playing an old video of ''Hello, Dolly!''. Voiced by [[Ben Burtt]].
:'''EVE:''' A slick, high-tech robot dispatched from the Axiom to Earth. Her body is white and egg-shaped with limbs that detatch when she is activated; her eyes are represented by LEDs. She moves using antigravity and is armed with a plasma cannon. Voiced by [[Elissa Knight]].
:'''Captain B. McCrea:''' The man in charge of the Axiom - a job that doesn't require much effort. Like the other humans on board the ship, he is a fat, bloated individual apparently incapable of standing under his own weight. Voiced by [[Jeff Garlin]].
:'''Auto:''' The Axiom's autopilot, Auto is a robotic helm wheel willing to perform the Captain's every command - up to a point.
:'''John and Mary:''' Two typical inhabitants of the Axiom - morbidly obese, reliant on mobile chairs to travel and communicating only by holographic screens that hover in front of their faces. They become aware of the outside world for the first time after accidents involving WALL?E's adventures on board the ship. Voiced by [[John Ratzenberger]] and [[Kathy Najimy]].
:'''Shelby Forthright:''' Former CEO of the ubiquitous Buy n Large corporation. Long gone by the time the film takes place, he appears only in old video footage, and like other humans of his generation he is portrayed by a live actor (in this case [[Fred Willard]]).
:'''M?O:''' M?O (Microbe Obliterator) is a tiny robot tasked with cleaning the Axiom and examining incoming shipments. He ends up with the unenviable task of cleaning up after WALL?E. Voiced by Ben Burtt.
:'''Hal:''' Apparently one of the few organic lifeforms left on Earth, Hal is a cockroach who is kept as a pet by WALL?E. He is unnamed in the film, but was christened Hal by the crew in reference to both 1920s film producer Hal Roach and the HAL character from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''.
:'''BURN?E:''' A welding robot. Later got his own short film.
==Notable staff==
{| width="100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Director'''<br>[[Andrew Stanton]]
'''Producer'''<br>[[Jim Morris]]
'''Co-producer'''<br>[[Lindsey Collins]]
'''Executive producer'''<br>[[John Lasseter]]
|'''Original story'''<br>[[Andrew Stanton]]<br>[[Peter Docter]]
'''Screenplay'''<br>[[Andrew Staton]]<br>[[Jim Reardon]]
'''Original score'''<br>[[Thomas Newman]]
'''Editor'''<br>[[Stephen Schaffer]]
|}
==Production history==
====Storyline====
In 1994, when ''[[Toy Story]]'' was still in production, a group of Pixar employees - Andrew Stanton, [[John Lasseter]], [[Peter Docter]] and [[Joe Ranft]] - had a discussion about future projects over lunch. As well as the ideas that would turn into ''[[A Bug's Life]]'', ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' and ''[[Finding Nemo]]'', the germ of ''WALL?E'' was laid out. "One of the things I remember coming out of it was the idea of a little robot left on Earth," recalled Stanton. "It was sort of this Robinson Crusoe kind of little character?like, what if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off, and he didn?t know he could stop doing what he?s doing?". The idea stuck: "we had just come off of two hard years of banging our heads against the wall, trying to make our main character, Woody, really appealing," said Stanton. "t was a lesson for us, to suddenly say a sentence like that and already care about this sort of anonymous character." Details about the character began falling into place; for one, Stanton had the idea of making him a trash collector, partly to emphasise his low position in society. The central image of trash, particularly stacked cubes of trash as seen at recycling centres, also resonated with the filmmakers. Stanton later hit on what he describes as "this really fantastical, little kid point of view of covering the world in trash... that's a six-year-old point of view of the future, of something going bad, and so I thought that was a real faiy tale way of looking at it."
At one point the film had the working title of ''Trash Planet''. Stanton worked on the story with [[Pete Docter]] but it had trouble developing; eventually, when Stanton and Docter were close to scrapping the project, John Lasseter suggested that they turn it into a love story; Stanton liked the idea as he recognised that the main character was essentially lonely, and that the opposite of loneliness is love. Docter then left the film to work on what would become ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' and ''Trash Planet'' was left on the sidelines, but Stanton remembered the idea while working on ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' in 2002. The key plot element of WALL?E finding a plant came about because Stanton felt that the character's existence reminded him of a flower growing up through a pavement. The script was influenced by [[Dan O'Bannon]]'s script for ''Alien'': "He would do little four-to-eight-word descriptions and then sort of left-justify it and make about four lines each, little blocks, so it almost looked like haikus," said Stanton. "It would create this rhythm in the readers where you would appreciate these silent visual moments as much as you would the dialogue on the page... I was really inspired by that, so I used that format for WALL?E." Although the robot characters would communicate in noises instead of full sentences, the script gave them lines in brackets to describe the impression that their speech would give - "that would be the intention of the line, and we would replace it with whatever noises would be a good surrogate", as Stanton says. After ''Finding Nemo'''s release Stanton and some associates put together a story reel of the film's first twenty minutes, which won the approval of Lasseter and Steve Jobs.
[[Image:Gels.jpg|The Gel royal family|right]]
Pixar went to Professor James Hicks for views on how the film's humans of the future should look. "I did not think 700 years was enough time for significant evolutionary change to occur in humans," says Hicks, "but if we look at the data on astronauts and "bed rest" studies, we know that the skeletal muscle gets smaller -- about 1% per week -- and bone density declines -- about 1-2% per month. They'd have tremendous bone density loss and very little muscle mass. If we extend that out to a lifetime of an individual 75 years of age, that person would just turn into a big blob." At one point Stanton planned to take this idea to an extreme - portraying humans as having devolved into green, gelatinous, see-through creatures (mock-ups made of Jell-O were produced by the film's crew) named Gels, who spoke a made-up language and at the end of the film found out that they were from Earth in a twist that Stanton compares to ''Planet of the Apes''. At this point in development the Gels were planned to have a royal family, complete with castle; WALL?E's task was to lead the downtrodden robots in a Spartacus-like rebellion against the cruel Gels. The Axiom was also somewhat different, able to curl up into a ball when landing. The whole Gel idea was abandoned on the basis that it would be both too complex and too silly and so the characters had recognisably human elements added until they eventually came to resemble giant babies, tying in with the concept of neotony (introduced to Andrew Stanton by Peter Gabriel) - "sort of a metaphor for 'It's time to get up and grow up!'", says Stanton. The director also observed that "[m]ost sci-fi doesn't deal with how humanity has gone to a happy place. Most sci-fi deals--directly or indirectly--with some misdirection or misstep with mankind or society. And I didn't want to do that gratuitously... I knew that I wanted the byproduct of [WALL?E and EVE] falling in love to improve the world". Earlier versions of the film had the captain appear more dimwitted than he was meant to be, wearing his hat upside down; in the finished film he is instead shown with the hat balanced loosely on top of his head, achieving in the intended effect.
As is the norm, some scenes were deleted during production. One (titled ''Secret Files'' on the DVD) was to take place fairly early on in the film, after EVE ended up back on board the Axiom. It depicts an earlier, more mobile version of Auto travelling into a secret ("sort of ''Get Smart''" in Stanton's words) room shaped like a brain, where he views historical footage of Earth; this fills in a chunk of the film's backstory. Stanton states in the DVD commentary on the scene that the sequence interrupted the film's momentum, and so all the relevant information was given later on in the film instead.
====Production design====
[[Image:WALLEcolour.jpg|right|Digital colour script by Ralph Eggleston]]
Stanton has commented that the film's fantasy world made it the Pixar art department's most difficult undertaking since ''Monsters, Inc''. While Pixar features generally have 75,000 storyboards at the most, WALL?E ended up with more than 125,000. Production designer [[Ralph Eggleston]] made heavy use of colour and lighting to set mood - the first act emphasises romance and emotion, while the second focuses on sterility and order - but with romantic lighting gradually being re-introduced. "[O]ne of my goals on this film was to bleach out the whites. I wanted the audience to feel like they might need their sunglasses while they were watching the movie... t makes Wall-E so vulnerable", said Eggleston. The effect of overexposure was also used to give the impression of vastness to the Earth-bound scenes. "As the trash recedes into the distance, through haze and atmosphere, the details fall away, but the chunks of trash actually get larger because we needed to maintain clear silhouettes," says Eggleston, explaining another technique used in building ''WALL?E'''s world. "And, a lot of our design choices were also a practical matter. Our world on Earth was (virtual) miles across. Rendering some of the vistas is very expensive and time consuming." Subtle pinks and blues are introduced when EVE reaches Earth; her presence prompts WALL?E to "[pull] out the stops and [turn] on all of the lights he?s gathered -- making the truck look like the inside of a warm, inviting Christmas tree", in Eggleston's words. Green and bright yellow were largely avoided in the Earth sequences, so that WALL?E (coloured yellow himself to suggest tractor trucks) and his plant stood out more against their beige backdrop.
Stanton and his crew rented Arriflex cameras and 70mm film to create reference material by shooting a physical model of WALL?E, hoping to emulate the same racking focus, barrel distortion, chromatic abberation and lens flare in their CGI film; "[a]nd so we've been able to now play a much more accurate grammar of what we've all unconsciously been used to seeing in a lot of our favorite sci-fi films", said Stanton. He also describes being "so seduced by the underwater feel we managed to get [on ''Finding Nemo''], this extra-dimensional sense, that I asked if we could do that in the air." The visual effects specialist Dennis Muren and cinematographer Roger Deakins each worked as consultants on the film for a short time: "Dennis Muren was with us a little bit longer--a couple of months and he's such a master from the live-action side of integration effects," said Stanton. "Roger Deakins was the shortest time we were with. First he came on a weekend to give us this workshop that he does, a sort of Cinematographer 101. And that was so inspiring that we asked him to stay for a couple more weeks, and we ended up showing how we work... we'd sort of overcomplicated it for ourselves. And he has a very simplistic way of looking at things, but deceivingly simple." Stanton also cites Gus Van Sant such as ''Finding Forrester'' and ''Good Will Hunting'' as influences: "he likes to direct your eye with focus. There is an air of intimacy that you achieve by using that as part of your storytelling that I want to use."
On designing the interior of the Axiom, Stanton says that he "had to tell what's happened over 1,000 years... [w]e wanted a city that looked the way Shanghai is starting to feel like now, or Dubai." Eggleston looked at NASA paintings from the fifties and sixties, as well as concept art for Disneyland's Tomorrowland. "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," explains Andrew Stanton. "We turned it into the phrase: 'Where's my jetpack feel?'". Field trips to luxury cruise ships (including Disney's own liners) and to Las Vegas to learn about artificial lighting also helped the film's crew to design the Axiom. Eggleston credits archetect Santiago Calatrava as an influence: "I love how he organizes organic forms into beautifully patterned structures. It?s so futuristic, and yet very comforting as well." Eggleston describes how he split "Economy class (the rear) was more boxy in shape, more basic in texture, more gray and cement composite in texture, and more centralized in its amenities... The graphics, which really do take up a majority of the screen space in this area, were kept to the colors of Buy'N'Large: white, blue, and red. There are a few other colors in the graphics, but the predominant impact was intended to be very basic. The coach class part of the ship is by far the largest of the living/shopping areas. It was based on 'S' shapes and the idea of 'what?s around the corner.' We put bigger flashier signs a little further away from the central decks so as to lure customers along." Eggleston says that he and Stanton disagreed about how signage should be handled, with Stanton wanting more signs; eventually Eggleston's idea of having fewer, larger signs won out. Finally, the premiere class section of the ship has a "Zen-like" spa (in Eggleston's words), with circular shapes and a cream, turquoise and tan colour scheme; connected to this area is the warm, wood-and-carpet Captain?s Quarters and the darker, sleeker Bridge. During the Axiom sequences the film's camera emulates the feel of a steadicam.
''WALL?E'' marks Pixar's first use of live action in a film. The movie uses live action footage from the film ''Hello, Dolly!''; having chosen to use these clips Stanton decided that, while the devolved humans from the film's present could be CG, all old footage of human characters in the film should be shot in live action for consistency (this had the added effect of emphasising the changes that humanity has undergone). Fred Willard was picked to play the live action character of Shelby Forthright because he is, to Stanton, "the most friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of". [[Derek Thompson]] observes that the usage of live action meant that the film's animatation had to be all the more realistic. [[Industrial Light & Magic]] provide visual effects for the live action material.
====Character design & animation====
Although Pixar created a non-talking character in the short film ''[[Luxo Jr.]]'', the idea of a feature film starring such a character posed problems, hence why the concept was set aside shortly being brought up. Andrew Stanton identifies two major types of robot in science fiction: "It's either the Tin Man, which is a human with metal skin, or it's R2D2. It's a machine that has a function", and it was decided that WALL?E would be the second type. "There is some unique power to bringing a machine to life than other kinds of machines that are designed to look like a character. There's something unique about that and I started to put it into the category of why we are so attracted to pets and infants," says Stanton. "I think there's something about something that's already appealing where you're kind of charmed by it, but it can't communicate fully. You're compelled...you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'" He has also said that the crew "wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life. The more they believe it?s a machine, the more appealing the story becomes. As research, Pixar looked at a police bomb robot, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Mars Rover.
[[Image:Stantontank.jpg|right|Andrew Stanton riding on a tank chair.]]
WALL?E's appearence was partly inspired by a pair of binoculars that Stanton used while watching a game of baseball: "my editor from ''Nemo'' passed me his binoculars," he said. "I spent the entire inning staring at the binoculars, making them move around. I said, 'That's it. That's exactly the face I need.'" Stanton also says that the binoculars reminded him of Buster Keaton's sad eyes, and from there decided not to give the character a mouth. Zoom lenses were added to WALL?E's eyes after the crew realised that they could mimic human pupils and eyebrow muscles. Ralph Eggleston notes that the character's large eyes lend a child-like quality. The film's crew looked at trash-compacting machines and recycling plants to get an idea of how WALL?E's own trash-compacting function would work. Early on the character also had elbows, but this idea was reworked on the grounds that it both looked flimsy in test footage, and was an essentially unrealistic concept: "He?s designed to do a task, which is to pull trash into his belly. Why would he have elbows? It didn?t make any sense", said supervising animator [[Steve Hunter]]. "So with Andrew?s help and an inspired idea by directing animator [[Angus MacLane]], we gave him a track around his side which allowed him to position his arms differently and give him a range of motion." MacLane got the idea from a mechanism used by inkjet printers, which his father used to design. "Anytime he's around EVE, we put the shoulders low and the hands close to the chest, which made him much more unsure and nervous looking. But whenever he's being the mechanical robot, his arms are back near his neck to make him more functional and competent," said MacLane. The character's tracks were suggested by the "tank chair", essentially a wheelchair with tank treads instead of wheels. It has been pointed out that WALL?E resembles Johnny 5, a character from the film ''Short Circuit''. "I was shocked to see that afterward. I never thought about it. I really didn't", said Stanton when the resemblence was brought up in an interview. "And I'll own up to anything. I am trying to homage to HAL [from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''] and all that, but I honestly never thought of ''Short Circuit''."
[[Image:Earlyauto.jpg|right|Early version of the Auto character.]]
A call to Steve Jobs led Apple designer Jonathan Ive to help Pixar come up with a suitably high-end design for EVE. "She's the opposite of WALL?E," said Stanton of the character. "High versus low technology. Her eyes are on a display screen that was sort of inspired by Lite Brite illuminated toys." Supervising animator [[Steve Hunter]] described the amount of effort that went into animating EVE: "Everything with her had to be really, really subtle. Basically, she consists of only four parts and two eyes that blink. We had a lot of discussions about how she would move using her arms. We treated her almost like a drawing in some ways and came up with just the right poses to express emotion." Supervising animator Alan Barillaro commented that "with all these robots we always study how can express, but still be true to their character - you know, if she's in love, don't have her eye screen go to hearts... that'd be the easy way out". Angus MacLane compares her movements to that of a manatee or narwhal. As can be seen in a deleted scene on the DVD, the character of Auto once looked very different from the version in the final film. On the subject of the other robot characters, co-producer Lindsey Collins said that "[w]e created a library of characters with interchangeable parts so that we could do a build-a-bot program... We had close to a hundred variations and about 25 different basic silhouettes that we could mix and match to make the world seem fuller." When designing the human characters, the crew looked at sea lions' blubber.
"We watched a Chaplin film and one of Keaton's at lunch every day for almost a year until we saw their entire body of work. We walked away thinking there's almost no emotion you can't convey visually", said Stanton; Harold Lloyd films were also watched for inspiration. Stanton credits Keaton's "Great Stone Face" with influencing the way WALL?E's expression doesn't change much throughout the film. He has also claimed that the advent of sound films meant that "got lazy and just sort of relied on the dialogue to get stuff across." The crew looked at films such as ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''The Black Stallion'' and ''Never Cry Wolf'' which had large portions that were not reliant on dialogue, or were even dialogue-free. Stanton has pointed to ''Silent Running'' as "the first one in the modern-day cinema to show you the appeal of a robot that wasn't designed to look like anything, it was designed to look like a character, but you were compelled to throw a character onto it". Stanton decided to make EVE taller than WALL?E because Woody Allen is shorter than his co-star Diane Keaton in ''Annie Hall''.
====Sound design====
As Stanton was heavily influenced by the R2-D2 character from ''Star Wars'', producer [[Jim Morris]] suggested hiring [[Ben Burtt]], the sound designer responsible for R2-D2's expressive noises. A few months before being hired Burtt had finished work on the last ''Star Wars'' film and told his wife that he would do "no more robots", but nevertheless he was taken by Pixar's project: "it was such a fresh and exciting idea, and the challenge of the sound in the film really appealed to me,? he said. Burtt came up with 2,500 sounds for the film, the most he had ever used and twice as much as the amount usually used in the ''Star Wars'' films. Burtt spent two years electronically modifying his own voice to create sounds for WALL?E's voice. "The bulk of the vocals, the expressive vocals, are really sounds that are more like a toddler makes... kind of the universal language of intonation," said Burtt. "'Oh,' Hm?,' Huh!,' you know?"
Burtt took inspiration from Jimmy MacDonald, a sound designer who worked with [[Walt Disney]]. As recording equipment of the time was bulky and not suited to location recording, MacDonald and his team designed a range of devices that could emulate various sounds; Burtt used these props while working on ''WALL?E''. Burtt's sound design was discussed heavily during production, as opposed to during post-production, which was unusual for Pixar.Burtt thought about what the various machines in the film's world would sound like if they really existed, paying attention to their physics, although he freely admits to taking artistic license if he had trouble findng a scientifically accurate sound. "I had to spend a lot of time with Ben Burtt auditioning stuff. We would discuss a character and show him drawings, and he'd go off and come up with a bevy of ideas of what he thought that machine, that robot would sound like", said Stanton. "I would sit down and cull it down to, 'This is the character.' And even after that you come away with anywhere near 100 sounds that are in this camp."
After seeng a hand-cranked generator in the John Wayne film ''Island in the Sky'', Burtt tracked down a somilar generator on eBay; this was used to provide the sound WALL?E makes when he moves slowly. Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching Island in the Sky, and bought an identical, unpacked device from 1950 on eBay to use for WALL-E moving around. Other noises were added digitally when he speeds up, in particular an inertia starter from an old aeroplane engine (the same device used to provde noises made by the Road Runner and Tasmanian Devil). A demolition yard was recorded to provide the noises made by WALL?E compacting trash. The humming noise made by EVE was designed to sound soothing and almost musical. As Burtt could not emulate a female voice himself, Elissa Knight ("one of our in-house Pixar players for lack of a better term", as Stanton describs her) was chosen as a stand-in to help develop a voice for EVE until a new actress was found. After Burtt began adding effects to her voice it was decided to keep her as EVE in the final film. The sound made by EVE when she flies was recorded from a ten-foot long remote-controlled jet plane, while the sound made by her laser gun was created by hitting a long slinky with a stick; Burtt describes this sound as a "distant cousin" to the noises made by the blasters in ''Star Wars''.
"We used the Apple program MacTalk for Auto", said Stanton. "I didn't want any human element. I wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless. So that sort of Stephen Hawking's kind of voice I thought was perfect." The noises made by Auto were designed to sound active and calculating. The ship's computer was voiced by Sigourney Weaver, a not to the film ''Alien'' in which weaver goes up against a ship's computer.
Burtt made several recordings of Niagra Falls in 1987, which he used in the films to make wind sounds; he also created a windstorm effect by dragging a heavy canvas bag across a carpet. For one scene, Burtt and his ten-year-old daughter went to a supermarket: "We put a recorder in the cart and covered it with bread," said Burtt. "We went over and banged into things in the parking lot. We actually took the shopping cart a block or so away, took it up a long, sloping hill and let it go, recording it roaring down the street." The scuttling noise made by Hal the cockroach is actually the sound of police handcuffs being taken apart and reassembled.
====Music====
The film's music was composed by [[Thomas Newman]], who had previously worked with Stanton on ''Finding Nemo''. Newman began work on the score in late 2005; "I started early with high hopes of really being able to do something different. I'm not sure that that was so effective because, of the nature of animation being so schedule dependent", he has said. "Maybe had I been working with Andrew when he was writing the script I could have had more of an effect?". Discussing a piece of music for the scene where EVE first leaves her spaceship that he recorded in October 2007, Newman said that "I wrote a piece that is much more orchestral than the piece that exists there now. There were some issues with it. Was it not feminine enough?... Andrew [wanted] me to just try again. I did and I think we all liked the new idea a lot better. That?s a good example of why you shouldn?t hold on to ideas, just because you wrote them." He has also said that "[o]ne of the abstract mandates early on was that if WALL-E?s music should be entirely orchestral, which would allow the sound effects to have a wonderful place to reside in, without the music getting in the way. But... dramatically it started to feel limiting, particularly when we got onto the Axiom spaceship. So that's when I started thinking outside just the realm of doing a full orchestral score, and going into more sequenced and robotic ideas."
The film's opening sequence was originally planned to have 1930s French swing music over shots of stars, but Stanton decided against this after seeing ''[[The Triplets of Belleville]]'', which also used French swing music. Instead, he decided to use the song ''Put on Your Sunday Clothes'' from ''Hello Dolly!'' (In 1980 Stanton played the character of Barnaby in a high school production of ''Hello, Dolly!''; he thanked his drama teacher in his Oscar acceptance speech). After the decision to use the song was made, cowriter [[Jim Reardon]] suggested that ''Hello, Dolly!'' be worked into the plot by having WALL?E find a video of the film. "I started exploring the other songs in the play, and when I found ''It Only Takes a Moment,'' it just became this godsend because I was always looking for ways to tell the story without the need to use conventional dialogue", said Stanton. "This song became a great device for showing WALL?E's interest in what love is... I happened to have read somewhere that holding hands is the most intimate public display of affection, which led to the idea of WALL?E learning that action by watching the movie." The ''Hello, Dolly!'' songwriter, Jerry Herman, was impressed with how his work was used. "I had immediately said yes because it was Disney asking for the usage, but I had no idea that it was going be that instrumental in the message of the film. So I'm absolutely thrilled", he said. "I think this guy is some kind of genius." Stanton also found out that ''Hello, Dolly!'''s composer, Lionel Newman, was the uncle of ''WALL?E'' composer Tom Newman.
Tom Newman travelled to London to work with Peter Gabriel (a musician whom Stanton is a fan of) to create the song ''Down to Earth''; the song prompted the crew to add some extra story points to the film's ending to match its feel. Louis Armstrong's ''La Vie en rose'' is also used in the film. Stanton at one point planned to have an instrumental version of ''Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head'' over the montage sequence where WALL?E tries to wake up the catatonic EVE, but Newman wanted to score that part of the soundtrack himself. Similarly, the script called for WALL?E and EVE's dance in space to be set to Bing Crosby's ''Stardust'' (Stanton also considered an Ella Fitzgerald song), but it was eventually decided that a reprisal of the theme that played when WALL?E first saw EVE flying would be more appropriate.
==Themes==
Stanton has summerised the film's central theme as "Irrational love defeats life's programming". "I realized that that's a perfect metaphor for real life", he has said. "We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another". He has also said that he "felt that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for humanity of the planet, so to me, my focus was connectivity."
The Christian commentator Rod Dreher identified the film as a "traditionalist conservative critique of modernity" and identified technology as the film's villain, in a complex sense. "As humanity became more technologically sophisticated", he writes, "they became ever more divorced from Nature, and their own nature. They developed a culture and society that was mechanistic and artificial, versus organic and natural (the grotty little Wall-E robot is an instructive contrast with the sleek, ultraclean robots on the Axiom). Consequently, they've become slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher notes that the film ultimately shows humans and machines working together: "See, "Wall-E" is not a Luddite film", he says. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature -- that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along."
Andrew Stanton, a Christian, named EVE after the Biblical figure; however, he stopped short of naming the film's hero "Adam" ("'Adam' just didn't have the underdog ring to it as the main character", he said. "WALL?E was a little bit more sad sack"). Dreher interprets the story of WALL?E and EVE as an inversion of Adam and Eve's story: here, EVE's "apple" (the plant that she brings to the Axiom) encourages humanity to reject their false god. Dreher also notes another inversion of the Genesis story: although work is, in the Biblical tale, the result of in, the film portrays it differently: ""Wall-E" contends that what makes us human is labor. In the film's most meaningful iconic image, the Tree of Life on the new earth grows out of an old work boot." Another Christian commentator, Megan Basham, has also seen Biblical themes in the film: "WALL?E, the meek little trash collector, accepts stewardship in a way that people have rejected. And because love springs from service, he comes to love the creatures that inhabit Earth", she says. "That's not an environmental message, it's a biblical one".
The character of WALL?E has been compared to various mythological figures including Prometheus, Sisyphus and Butades. On the Butades connection, Hrag Vartanian notes the scene where WALL?E makes a replica of EVE and writes that "[t]he Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover?s shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of relationships".
==Tie-ins==
Animatronic replicas of the WALL?E character were made and placed in the Disney amusement parks, the Philadelphia Science Museum, the Miami Science Museum and Seattle Center. There were saftey concerns regarding the 700 pound robots and the potential results of them rolling over a child's foot, and so their appearences in theme parks were restricted. There were similar concerns when an animatronic WALL?E was scheduled to appear at the film's Japanese premiere.
The film did not spawn a large amount of merchandise. ''[[Cars]]'' toys were still popular at the time, and larger toy comapnies generally favoured the live action ''Speed Racer'' film despite its box office failure. ''WALL?E'' toys were instead manufactured by smaller companies such as Thinkway (Thinkway had previously handled ''[[Toy Story]]'' merchandise, which was similarly unpopular with larger companies). Amongst the toys produced by Thinkway was the Ultimate WALL?E figure, which boasted voice activation and infrared sensors to allow it to avoid objects; the toy carrie a price tag of $189.99.
==Release==
The film's release was accompanied with the short film ''[[Presto]]''.
The film had its world premiere at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 21, 2008 and went on to open in 3,992 theatres across the US and Canada on June 27. Its first weekend gross was $63 million, putting it at number one at the box office. This was, at the time, the third-best opening weekend for a Pixar film. It went on to cross the $200 million mark in its sixth week, earning it a totaly gross of over $204 million on the first weekend of August 2008. In total, the film earned a domestic gross of $223,808,164 with a worldwide overall of $521,268,237; it was the ninth highest-grossing film of 2008.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 18 2008. Amongst the extras included across the various editions were ''Presto'', the ''BURN-E'' short, [[Leslie Iwerks]]'s documentary ''[[The Pixar Story]]'', shorts about the inner workings of the film's fictional Buy n Large company, numerous behind-the-scenes features and a Digital Copy of the film.
==Reception==
''WALL?E'' has received a vast amount of positive reviews. At the time of writing it has a score of 96% at Rotten Tomatoes across 224 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10; and a score of 93 out of 100 across 39 reviews (and a user score of 8.9) at Metacritic. When Indiewire polled 100 critics to compile a list of the best films of 2008, ''WALL?E'' came in at number 3. When Movie City News combined 286 "top ten films of 2008" lists, ''WALL?E'' was found to have been mentioned on more lists than any other film.
Richard Corliss of ''Time'' picked ''WALL?E'' as his personal favourite movie of the year. "Andrew Stanton... experimented with what talking pictures could plausibly do without", he said. "How about depriving the two main characters... of emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders, elbows? Yet with all the limitations he imposed on himself and his robot stars, Stanton still connected with a huge audience... WALL-E and EVE could be the 29th century version of Tracy and Hepburn". A number of other critics also named ''WALL?E'' as their film of the year, including Tom Charity of CNN, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of the ''Boston Globe'', Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''Entertainment Weekly'', Liam Lacey of the Toronto ''Globe & Mail'', A.O. Scott of the ''New York Times'', Anthony Lane of the ''New Yorker'', Noel Murray of the Onion AV Club and Joe Morgenstern of the ''Wall Street Journal''.
"Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder of the animated world is a simple yet deeply imagined piece of speculative fiction", said Todd McCarthy of Variety. "[The film] walks a fine line between the rarefied and the immediately accessible as it explores new territory for animation, yet remains sufficiently crowd-pleasing". He also compared it to other science fiction films, pointing to its unusually optimistic portrayal of a post-apocalyptic scenario. Kirk Honeycutt of the ''Hollywood Reporter'' stated that "[t]his is getting to sound like a broken record: Pixar Animation Studios has just topped itself. Again." He praised the film for having "all the heart, soul, spirit and romance of the very best silent movies 80 years ago", cited its usage of ''Hello, Dolly!'' as a "real stroke of brilliance", and also praised Ben Burtt's sound design: "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."
Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said that "''WALL-E'' succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story... here is a film, like ?Finding Nemo,? that you can enjoy even if you?ve grown up." He also said that "it can easily cross language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story". He also commented on the film's "bright and cheerful, but not too pushy" colour pallette, and described the film's visual style as "Comic Book Cool, as perfected in the funny comics more than in the superhero books". He compared the film's lead favourably to the hero of ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'': "[t]he panda was all but special-ordered to be lovable, but on reflection, I think he was so fat, it wasn?t funny anymore. WALL-E, however, looks rusty and hard-working and plucky". He concluded that the film "involves ideas, not simply mindless scenarios... It involves a little work on the part of the audience, and a little thought, and might be especially stimulating to younger viewers." He later picked the film as one of his twenty favourites of 2008, calling it "[t]he best science-fiction movie in years".
In terms of the film's themes, Todd McCarthy observed that the film "pushes an agenda that could, and no doubt will, be interpreted as "green," or ecologically minded". Kyle Smith stated that "I?m trying to think of a major Disney cartoon feature that was anywhere near as dark or cynical as this. I?m coming up blank. I?m also not sure I?ve ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers" - referring to the characters that he described as "peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk... uncomfortably close to paying guests of Walt Disney World". Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report asked if the film would "make kids more likely to recycle in the school cafeteria, or plant sprouts...? Will seeing the frighteningly obese humans of the future make a kid more likely to play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate?"
Certain right-leaning commentators objected to the film's themes. "From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind", said Shannen Coffin. "The story was just awful". Glenn Beck commented that "if your kid has ever come home and said, 'Dad, how come we use so much styrofoam,' oh, this is the movie for you", while blogger Dirty Harry asked "[h]ave we lost Pixar? Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us ''[[The Incredibles]]'' and ''[[Ratatouille]]'' to Bush Derangement Syndrome? Here you have a winning streak going back ten-years.. and they stop things cold, yanking you out of the story with the liberal nonsense." Patrick J. Ford of the ''American Conservative'' defended the film from these criticisms: "they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E?s future". He concluded that "y steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice."
Other negative comments on the film came from critic and former mayor of New York City, who called it "dull, dull, dull" and not cute, amusing or uplifting, but "a bore." Matthew Odam of Austin360 said that "I liked the post-apocalyptic visuals, although was bored by the lack of dialogue. But the second and third acts spiraled into the expected." The film has also been labelled "preachy". Some of the reviews sent in by children to the [[Children's BBC]] website identify the film as boring.
====Awards====
''WALL?E'' won the 2008 [[Academy Award for Best Animated Feature]]; it was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song (''Down to Earth''), Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. It was not nominated for Best Picture, however, despite a push from Disney; this was met with some objection from commentators. "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E," said Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone''. When asked if the introduction of the Best Animated Feature category merely ghettoised animation instead of empowering it, Stanton stated that "t's just a sign that times have changed. Because from the live action side, animation -- and computers in general -- are being used as a tool in so many movies now. The line is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie. And what I'd love is to get to the point where someone just goes, 'I don't care.'"
''WALL?E'' was named best film of 2008 by numerous critics' organisation, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics (tied with ''Slumdog Millionaire''), the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society. It was also picked as one of the ten best films of 2008 by both the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review.
As well as the Oscars, ''WALL?E'' also won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards.
categories at the 2009 Annie Awards: Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production and Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production (for Ben Burtt) but lost in each category to ''Kung fu Panda''. The film won the [[BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film]], and was nominated in the categories for Best Music and Best Sound; it also won the BAFTA Children's Award for Best Feature Film. Two songs from the film, ''Down to Earth'' and ''Define Dancing'' both won Grammy awards. At the Visual Effects Society Awards the film won Outstanding Animated Character (specifically, for WALL?E and EVE in the truck sequence), Outstanding Effects Animation and Outstanding Animation in an Animated Motion Picture. It won Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) at the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, and Best Script at the Nebula Awards. At the Saturn awards ''WALL?E'' won Best Animated Film; Andrew Stanton was nominated for Best Director but lost to ''Iron Man'' director John Favreau. It won Best Family Film at Britan's National Movie Awards.
The character of WALL?E himself came in at #63 on Empire Magazine's list of the 100 greatest movie characters.
==References==
* [http://adisney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/wall-e/media/downloads/WALLEProductionNotes.pdf ''WALL?E'' Production Notes]
* [http://www.avclub.com/articles/andrew-stanton,14263/ Andrew Stanton | Film | The A.V. Club]
* [http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14127 WORLD Magazine | WALL?E | Megan Basham]
* [http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=398f8b3e-09c9-45e1-b705-c0ba4691bc47 The last robot left has to put out the trash - Canada.com]
* [http://creativescreenwritingmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/12/andrew-stanton-wall-e-q.html Andrew Stanton Q&A Podcast]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-06-24-wall-e-main_N.htm 'WALL-E' focuses on its hero's heart - USATODAY.com]
* [http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/01/23/breaking-out-of-the-box-wall-e-director-andrew-stanton-on-the-oscars-the-blurring-of-the-line-between-animation-and-film-and-writing-strong-female-characters.aspx Mr. Oscar, Tear Down This Wall! - Newsweek]
* [http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/06/23/interview-wall-es-writer-and-director-andrew-stanton/ Interview: Wall-E's Writer and Director Andrew Stanton - First Showing.net]
* ''Captain's Log'' DVD feature
* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=awardcentral&jump=contenders&id=oscarsanimation&articleid=VR1117997104 The Science of 'Wall-E' - Entertainment News, Los Angeles, Media - Variety]
* [http://www.newsarama.com/film/080704-wall-e-stanton-2.html How Andrew Stanton & Pixar Created WALL*E - Part II]
* [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37209 Andrew Stanton Gives Up the Goods on WALL-E and JOHN CARTER to Capone! -- Ain't It Cool News]
* [http://www.awn.com/articles/stanton-powers-iwall-ei Stanton Powers Up WALL?E - AWN]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1741889/2/exclusive_the_storyboards_of_wall_e The Storyboards of WALL-E - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.animationartconservation.com/wall_e_design_with_a_purpose.html Design With A Purpose, An Interview With Ralph Eggleston]
* [http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/14915/1/REGARDING-WALL-E/Page1.html REGARDING WALL-E - Chud]
* [http://www.awn.com/articles/production/hello-iwall-ei-pixar-reaches-stars Hello, WALL?E!: Pixar Reaches for the Stars]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1741516/exclusive_the_world_of_wall_e The World of WALL-E - Rotten Tomatoes]* [http://www.newsarama.com/film/080701-wall-e-lasseter.html HOW ANDREW STANTON & PIXAR CREATED WALL*E - PART I]
* [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/11/wall-e-dvd/ NASA's Robot Smarts Give Wall-E a Ration of Realism - Wired.com]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/25/DDEN11CQ3M.DTL&type=movies Planet WALL-E - San Francisco Chronical]
* [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/06/22/2008-06-22_walle_is_a_real_character.html 'WALL-E' is a real character - NYDailyNews]
* [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987668.html How to build a better robot - Variety]
* [http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/09/technology/siklos_walle.fortune/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote Pixars iPod-like heroine]
* [http://www.metroactive.com/moviesandtvblog/?p=2071 WALL-E World - An Interview With Andrew Stanton - Metroactive]
* ''WALL?E and EVE'' DVD feature
* [http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45885 WALL?E Writer/Director Andrew Stanton - ComingSoon.net]
* [http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/07/03/bob-thompson-bet-on-burtt-to-get-the-right-wall-e-sounds.aspx Bob Thompson - Bet on Burtt to get the right Wall-E sounds - National Post]
* [http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/2008/06/28/20080628wallevoice.html Voice of 'WALL-E': Robot sounds toddler-inspired - azcentral]
* ''Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds From The Sound Up'' DVD feature
* [http://pixarplanet.com/blog/qa-with-walles-ben-burtt Q&A With WALL?E's Ben Burr - Pixar Planet]
* [http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_14899.html Andrew Stanton Interview, Wall-E - MoviesOnline]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1742259/2/exclusive_ben_burtts_wall_e_sound_masterclass Ben Burtt's WALL-E Sound Masterclass - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/27/PKA711B9NF.DTL All Ears on 'WALL-E' - SFGate]
* ''Life of a Shot: Deconstructing the Pixar Process'' DVD feature
* [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356 ScoreKeeper Chats With Composer Thomas Newman!! - Ain't It Cool News]
* [http://ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=3193 E-notes: Thomas Newman gives a chilling workout in 'Revolutionary Road' and some robotic impulses in 'WALL-E']
* [http://oscar.com/oscarnight/winners/?pn=detail&nominee=Wall-E%20-%20Best%20Animated%20Feature%20Film%20Nominee Andrew Stanton's Oscar Acceptance Speech - Oscar.com]
* [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20211943,00.html 'WALL-E': How he found 'Hello, Dolly!' - Entertainment Weekly]
* Andrew Stanton's DVD commentary
* [http://disneystudiosawards.movies.go.com/wall-e_script.pdf WALL?E script]
* [http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/walle WALL-E reviews at Metacritic.com]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/ WALL-E Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.awardsdaily.com/?p=5193 Indiewire Polls 100 Critics]
* [http://moviecitynews.com/awards/2009/top_ten/00scoreboard.htm MCN Awards Watch: The Awards Scoreboard]
* [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863826_1863827,00.html WALL-E - Top 10 Movies - Time]
* [http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/31/best.2008/ Review: The best (and worst) films of 200 - CNN.com]
* [http://www.metacritic.com/film/awards/2008/toptens.shtml Metacritic: 2008 Film Critic Top Ten Lists]
* [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937536.html?categoryid=3266&cs=1 Wall-E Movie Review - Variety]
* [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?JSESSIONID=stXDLjWG25pv31dwl2yynPgffjhWyvSk96w52TwNp9jZphdLSkRG!-209288430&&rid=11329 Film Review: WALL-E - Hollywood Reporter]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080626/REVIEWS/963071290 Wall-E: rogerebert.com]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081205/COMMENTARY/812059997/1023 The best films of 2008... and there were a lot of them - rogerebert.com]
*[http://kylesmithonline.com/?p=1319 Disney's "Wall-E": A $170 Million Art Film - KyleSmithOnline.com]
* [http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/fresh-greens/2008/6/30/will-wall-e-make-us-greener.html Will 'WALL-E' Makes US Greener? - usnews.com]
* [http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/01/right-wing-hates-wall-e/ Right-Wing Apoplectic Over Pixar's WALL-E]
* [http://dirtyharrysplace.com/?p=2127 Dirty Harry's Place: Wall-E"]
* [http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/06/30/wall-es-conservative-critics/ The American Conservative >> WALL-E's Conservative Critics]
* [http://www.forward.com/articles/13740/ Thumbs Up for 'Wall-E'? Ed Koch Dissents - Foreward.com]
* [http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/mo/entries/2008/07/25/is_walle_overrated.html Is 'Wall-E' overrated? - The M.O.]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7500000/newsid_7504500/7504559.stm CBBC Newsround | Reviews | Film review: WALL-E]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7842438.stm The Oscars 2009 - BBC News]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/movies/28stud.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Studios Are Pushing Box Office Winners as Oscar Contenders]
* [http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/risky-business/2009/01/22/academy-awards-controversy-wall-e-gets-snubbed-for-best-picture-oscar.html Academy Awards Controversy: Wall-E Gets Snubbed For Best Picture Oscar - Risky Business (usnews.com)]
* [http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/23/2473002.htm?section=entertainment Academy accused of snubbing Dark Knight, Wall-E - ABC News]
* [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117997085.html?categoryid=13&ref=ra&cs=1 L.A. critics wired for 'Wall-E' - Variety]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/14/afis-top-10-movies-of-2008-boston-critics-name-wall-e-and-slumdog-best-picture/AFI's Top 10 Movies of 2008; Boston Critics Name WALL-E and SlumDog Best Picture]
* [http://www.chicagofilmcritics.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61:wall-e-cleans-up-chicago-film-critics-awards&catid=3:newsflash&Itemid=65 WALL-E Cleans Up Chicago Film Critics Awards]
* [http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/ohio-film-critics-awards-2009/ Central Ohio Film Critics Awards 2009]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7839300.stm Online film critics back Wall-E - BBC]
* [http://www.afi.com/tvevents/afiawards08/default.aspx AFI AWARDS 2008]
* [http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117996815.html?nav=news&categoryid=1983&cs=1 NBR names 'Slumdog' best of year - Variety]
* [http://www.goldenglobes.org/nominations/year/2008 HFPA Nominations and Winners]
* [http://www.annieawards.org/foryourconsideration.html Annie Awards 2007: For Your Consideration]
* [http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=24160 Slumdog Bags The BAFTAs - Empire Online]
* [http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens/nominations-childrens-awards-in-2008,593,BA.html Children's Awards Winners in 2008 - BAFTA site]
* [http://www.grammy.com/grammy_awards/51st_show/list.aspx 51st Grammy awards]
* [http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/9623 Button, WALL?E Dominates VES Awards - Animation Magazine]
* [http://www.ace-filmeditors.org/newace/eddieNominees.html ACE Eddie Awards - American Cinema Editors]
* [http://www.sfsite.com/news/2009/04/26/nebula-winners/ SF Site News - Nebula Winners]
* [http://www.saturnawards.org/nominations.html The 35th Saturn Award Nominations]
* [http://www.nationalmovieawards.com/movie_awards_previous_winners.aspx National Movie Awards - Previous Winners]
* [http://www.empireonline.com/100-greatest-movie-characters/default.asp?c=63 The 100 Greatest Movie Characters | 63. Wall-E]
* [http://gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_054221319.html An Oscar shout-out - GloucesterTimes.com]
* [http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/07/walle-aristotelian-crunchy-con.html "Wall-E": Aristotelian, crunchy con]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20080722233943/http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/andrewstanton.html Interviews: The Little Robot That Could - Christianity Today via Archive.org]
* [http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14127 WORLD Magazine | WALL?E]
* [http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45885 WALL?E Writer/Director Andrew Stanton ]
* [http://hragvartanian.com/2008/10/21/wall-e/ "Wall-E" as a Return to the Promise of Animation - Hrag Vartanian]
* [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS95494+20-Jun-2008+BW20080620 Disney-Pixar's WALL-E World Premiere Saturday, June 21 at the Greek Theatre - Reuters]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=wall-e.htm WALL-E (2008) - Weekend Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=pixar.htm Pixar Moviesat the Box Office - Box Ofice Mojo]
* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117989981&categoryid=13 'Dark Knight' narrowly slays 'Dragon' - Variety.com]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wall-e.htm WALL-E - Box Office Mojo]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/10/31/3-disc-special-edition-of-wall-e/ 3-Disc Special Edition of WALL-E | /Film]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/14/must-watch-animatronic-wall-e-spotted-in-la/ MUST WATCH: Animatronic WALL-E Spotted in LA | /Film]
* [http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2008/06/18/when-it-comes-to-the-retail-world-speed-racer-whomps-wall-e.aspx Jim Hill When it comes to the retail world, Speed Racer whomps WALL-E]
* [http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hilll/archive/2009/02/06/test.aspx Jim Hill: Why For isn't WALL?E rolling around the Disney theme parks yet?]
[[Category:2000s animated features]]
[[Category:Science fiction animation]]
'''''WALL?E''''' is an Oscar-winning 2008 [[CGI]] feature film directed by [[Andrew Stanton]] for [[Pixar Animation Studios]]. It is Pixar's ninth full-length feature film.
==Plot==
In the distant future, humanity has taken to the stars and left an environmentally-wrecked Earth behind. The task of cleaning up humanity's mess had fallen to the '''W'''aste '''A'''llocation '''L'''oad '''L'''ifter '''E'''arth-Class robots, but all but one have long since been deactivated. Now, the last remaining WALL?E encounters EVE, a state-of-the-art robot sent down to Earth with a specific purpose, he seeks her companionship and falls in love with her, while trying to get her to be capable of falling in love with him. But when EVE's spaceship returns to take her back, WALL?E must travel with it to the spacecraft Axiom - where mankind has undergone a change for the worse.
==Characters==
:'''WALL?E:''' 700 years old, WALL?E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is the sole activated member of a series of robots designed to clean up Earth. As well as his trash-compacting capibilities, WALL?E has a laser for cutting, and a recording device. Glitches in his programming manifest in the form of a personality, and a somewhat eccentric one at that; he enjoys collecting objects such as a Rubik's cube and playing an old video of ''Hello, Dolly!''. Voiced by [[Ben Burtt]].
:'''EVE:''' A slick, high-tech robot dispatched from the Axiom to Earth. Her body is white and egg-shaped with limbs that detatch when she is activated; her eyes are represented by LEDs. She moves using antigravity and is armed with a plasma cannon. Voiced by [[Elissa Knight]].
:'''Captain B. McCrea:''' The man in charge of the Axiom - a job that doesn't require much effort. Like the other humans on board the ship, he is a fat, bloated individual apparently incapable of standing under his own weight. Voiced by [[Jeff Garlin]].
:'''Auto:''' The Axiom's autopilot, Auto is a robotic helm wheel willing to perform the Captain's every command - up to a point.
:'''John and Mary:''' Two typical inhabitants of the Axiom - morbidly obese, reliant on mobile chairs to travel and communicating only by holographic screens that hover in front of their faces. They become aware of the outside world for the first time after accidents involving WALL?E's adventures on board the ship. Voiced by [[John Ratzenberger]] and [[Kathy Najimy]].
:'''Shelby Forthright:''' Former CEO of the ubiquitous Buy n Large corporation. Long gone by the time the film takes place, he appears only in old video footage, and like other humans of his generation he is portrayed by a live actor (in this case [[Fred Willard]]).
:'''M?O:''' M?O (Microbe Obliterator) is a tiny robot tasked with cleaning the Axiom and examining incoming shipments. He ends up with the unenviable task of cleaning up after WALL?E. Voiced by Ben Burtt.
:'''Hal:''' Apparently one of the few organic lifeforms left on Earth, Hal is a cockroach who is kept as a pet by WALL?E. He is unnamed in the film, but was christened Hal by the crew in reference to both 1920s film producer Hal Roach and the HAL character from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''.
:'''BURN?E:''' A welding robot. Later got his own short film.
==Notable staff==
{| width="100%"
|-valign="top"
| '''Director'''<br>[[Andrew Stanton]]
'''Producer'''<br>[[Jim Morris]]
'''Co-producer'''<br>[[Lindsey Collins]]
'''Executive producer'''<br>[[John Lasseter]]
|'''Original story'''<br>[[Andrew Stanton]]<br>[[Peter Docter]]
'''Screenplay'''<br>[[Andrew Staton]]<br>[[Jim Reardon]]
'''Original score'''<br>[[Thomas Newman]]
'''Editor'''<br>[[Stephen Schaffer]]
|}
==Production history==
====Storyline====
In 1994, when ''[[Toy Story]]'' was still in production, a group of Pixar employees - Andrew Stanton, [[John Lasseter]], [[Peter Docter]] and [[Joe Ranft]] - had a discussion about future projects over lunch. As well as the ideas that would turn into ''[[A Bug's Life]]'', ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' and ''[[Finding Nemo]]'', the germ of ''WALL?E'' was laid out. "One of the things I remember coming out of it was the idea of a little robot left on Earth," recalled Stanton. "It was sort of this Robinson Crusoe kind of little character?like, what if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off, and he didn?t know he could stop doing what he?s doing?". The idea stuck: "we had just come off of two hard years of banging our heads against the wall, trying to make our main character, Woody, really appealing," said Stanton. "t was a lesson for us, to suddenly say a sentence like that and already care about this sort of anonymous character." Details about the character began falling into place; for one, Stanton had the idea of making him a trash collector, partly to emphasise his low position in society. The central image of trash, particularly stacked cubes of trash as seen at recycling centres, also resonated with the filmmakers. Stanton later hit on what he describes as "this really fantastical, little kid point of view of covering the world in trash... that's a six-year-old point of view of the future, of something going bad, and so I thought that was a real faiy tale way of looking at it."
At one point the film had the working title of ''Trash Planet''. Stanton worked on the story with [[Pete Docter]] but it had trouble developing; eventually, when Stanton and Docter were close to scrapping the project, John Lasseter suggested that they turn it into a love story; Stanton liked the idea as he recognised that the main character was essentially lonely, and that the opposite of loneliness is love. Docter then left the film to work on what would become ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' and ''Trash Planet'' was left on the sidelines, but Stanton remembered the idea while working on ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' in 2002. The key plot element of WALL?E finding a plant came about because Stanton felt that the character's existence reminded him of a flower growing up through a pavement. The script was influenced by [[Dan O'Bannon]]'s script for ''Alien'': "He would do little four-to-eight-word descriptions and then sort of left-justify it and make about four lines each, little blocks, so it almost looked like haikus," said Stanton. "It would create this rhythm in the readers where you would appreciate these silent visual moments as much as you would the dialogue on the page... I was really inspired by that, so I used that format for WALL?E." Although the robot characters would communicate in noises instead of full sentences, the script gave them lines in brackets to describe the impression that their speech would give - "that would be the intention of the line, and we would replace it with whatever noises would be a good surrogate", as Stanton says. After ''Finding Nemo'''s release Stanton and some associates put together a story reel of the film's first twenty minutes, which won the approval of Lasseter and Steve Jobs.
[[Image:Gels.jpg|The Gel royal family|right]]
Pixar went to Professor James Hicks for views on how the film's humans of the future should look. "I did not think 700 years was enough time for significant evolutionary change to occur in humans," says Hicks, "but if we look at the data on astronauts and "bed rest" studies, we know that the skeletal muscle gets smaller -- about 1% per week -- and bone density declines -- about 1-2% per month. They'd have tremendous bone density loss and very little muscle mass. If we extend that out to a lifetime of an individual 75 years of age, that person would just turn into a big blob." At one point Stanton planned to take this idea to an extreme - portraying humans as having devolved into green, gelatinous, see-through creatures (mock-ups made of Jell-O were produced by the film's crew) named Gels, who spoke a made-up language and at the end of the film found out that they were from Earth in a twist that Stanton compares to ''Planet of the Apes''. At this point in development the Gels were planned to have a royal family, complete with castle; WALL?E's task was to lead the downtrodden robots in a Spartacus-like rebellion against the cruel Gels. The Axiom was also somewhat different, able to curl up into a ball when landing. The whole Gel idea was abandoned on the basis that it would be both too complex and too silly and so the characters had recognisably human elements added until they eventually came to resemble giant babies, tying in with the concept of neotony (introduced to Andrew Stanton by Peter Gabriel) - "sort of a metaphor for 'It's time to get up and grow up!'", says Stanton. The director also observed that "[m]ost sci-fi doesn't deal with how humanity has gone to a happy place. Most sci-fi deals--directly or indirectly--with some misdirection or misstep with mankind or society. And I didn't want to do that gratuitously... I knew that I wanted the byproduct of [WALL?E and EVE] falling in love to improve the world". Earlier versions of the film had the captain appear more dimwitted than he was meant to be, wearing his hat upside down; in the finished film he is instead shown with the hat balanced loosely on top of his head, achieving in the intended effect.
As is the norm, some scenes were deleted during production. One (titled ''Secret Files'' on the DVD) was to take place fairly early on in the film, after EVE ended up back on board the Axiom. It depicts an earlier, more mobile version of Auto travelling into a secret ("sort of ''Get Smart''" in Stanton's words) room shaped like a brain, where he views historical footage of Earth; this fills in a chunk of the film's backstory. Stanton states in the DVD commentary on the scene that the sequence interrupted the film's momentum, and so all the relevant information was given later on in the film instead.
====Production design====
[[Image:WALLEcolour.jpg|right|Digital colour script by Ralph Eggleston]]
Stanton has commented that the film's fantasy world made it the Pixar art department's most difficult undertaking since ''Monsters, Inc''. While Pixar features generally have 75,000 storyboards at the most, WALL?E ended up with more than 125,000. Production designer [[Ralph Eggleston]] made heavy use of colour and lighting to set mood - the first act emphasises romance and emotion, while the second focuses on sterility and order - but with romantic lighting gradually being re-introduced. "[O]ne of my goals on this film was to bleach out the whites. I wanted the audience to feel like they might need their sunglasses while they were watching the movie... t makes Wall-E so vulnerable", said Eggleston. The effect of overexposure was also used to give the impression of vastness to the Earth-bound scenes. "As the trash recedes into the distance, through haze and atmosphere, the details fall away, but the chunks of trash actually get larger because we needed to maintain clear silhouettes," says Eggleston, explaining another technique used in building ''WALL?E'''s world. "And, a lot of our design choices were also a practical matter. Our world on Earth was (virtual) miles across. Rendering some of the vistas is very expensive and time consuming." Subtle pinks and blues are introduced when EVE reaches Earth; her presence prompts WALL?E to "[pull] out the stops and [turn] on all of the lights he?s gathered -- making the truck look like the inside of a warm, inviting Christmas tree", in Eggleston's words. Green and bright yellow were largely avoided in the Earth sequences, so that WALL?E (coloured yellow himself to suggest tractor trucks) and his plant stood out more against their beige backdrop.
Stanton and his crew rented Arriflex cameras and 70mm film to create reference material by shooting a physical model of WALL?E, hoping to emulate the same racking focus, barrel distortion, chromatic abberation and lens flare in their CGI film; "[a]nd so we've been able to now play a much more accurate grammar of what we've all unconsciously been used to seeing in a lot of our favorite sci-fi films", said Stanton. He also describes being "so seduced by the underwater feel we managed to get [on ''Finding Nemo''], this extra-dimensional sense, that I asked if we could do that in the air." The visual effects specialist Dennis Muren and cinematographer Roger Deakins each worked as consultants on the film for a short time: "Dennis Muren was with us a little bit longer--a couple of months and he's such a master from the live-action side of integration effects," said Stanton. "Roger Deakins was the shortest time we were with. First he came on a weekend to give us this workshop that he does, a sort of Cinematographer 101. And that was so inspiring that we asked him to stay for a couple more weeks, and we ended up showing how we work... we'd sort of overcomplicated it for ourselves. And he has a very simplistic way of looking at things, but deceivingly simple." Stanton also cites Gus Van Sant such as ''Finding Forrester'' and ''Good Will Hunting'' as influences: "he likes to direct your eye with focus. There is an air of intimacy that you achieve by using that as part of your storytelling that I want to use."
On designing the interior of the Axiom, Stanton says that he "had to tell what's happened over 1,000 years... [w]e wanted a city that looked the way Shanghai is starting to feel like now, or Dubai." Eggleston looked at NASA paintings from the fifties and sixties, as well as concept art for Disneyland's Tomorrowland. "We are all probably very similar in our backgrounds here [at Pixar] in that we all miss the Tomorrowland that was promised us from the heyday of Disneyland," explains Andrew Stanton. "We turned it into the phrase: 'Where's my jetpack feel?'". Field trips to luxury cruise ships (including Disney's own liners) and to Las Vegas to learn about artificial lighting also helped the film's crew to design the Axiom. Eggleston credits archetect Santiago Calatrava as an influence: "I love how he organizes organic forms into beautifully patterned structures. It?s so futuristic, and yet very comforting as well." Eggleston describes how he split "Economy class (the rear) was more boxy in shape, more basic in texture, more gray and cement composite in texture, and more centralized in its amenities... The graphics, which really do take up a majority of the screen space in this area, were kept to the colors of Buy'N'Large: white, blue, and red. There are a few other colors in the graphics, but the predominant impact was intended to be very basic. The coach class part of the ship is by far the largest of the living/shopping areas. It was based on 'S' shapes and the idea of 'what?s around the corner.' We put bigger flashier signs a little further away from the central decks so as to lure customers along." Eggleston says that he and Stanton disagreed about how signage should be handled, with Stanton wanting more signs; eventually Eggleston's idea of having fewer, larger signs won out. Finally, the premiere class section of the ship has a "Zen-like" spa (in Eggleston's words), with circular shapes and a cream, turquoise and tan colour scheme; connected to this area is the warm, wood-and-carpet Captain?s Quarters and the darker, sleeker Bridge. During the Axiom sequences the film's camera emulates the feel of a steadicam.
''WALL?E'' marks Pixar's first use of live action in a film. The movie uses live action footage from the film ''Hello, Dolly!''; having chosen to use these clips Stanton decided that, while the devolved humans from the film's present could be CG, all old footage of human characters in the film should be shot in live action for consistency (this had the added effect of emphasising the changes that humanity has undergone). Fred Willard was picked to play the live action character of Shelby Forthright because he is, to Stanton, "the most friendly and insincere car salesman I could think of". [[Derek Thompson]] observes that the usage of live action meant that the film's animatation had to be all the more realistic. [[Industrial Light & Magic]] provide visual effects for the live action material.
====Character design & animation====
Although Pixar created a non-talking character in the short film ''[[Luxo Jr.]]'', the idea of a feature film starring such a character posed problems, hence why the concept was set aside shortly being brought up. Andrew Stanton identifies two major types of robot in science fiction: "It's either the Tin Man, which is a human with metal skin, or it's R2D2. It's a machine that has a function", and it was decided that WALL?E would be the second type. "There is some unique power to bringing a machine to life than other kinds of machines that are designed to look like a character. There's something unique about that and I started to put it into the category of why we are so attracted to pets and infants," says Stanton. "I think there's something about something that's already appealing where you're kind of charmed by it, but it can't communicate fully. You're compelled...you almost can't stop yourself from finishing the sentence 'Oh, I think it likes me! I think it's hungry! I think it wants to go for a walk!'" He has also said that the crew "wanted the audience to believe they were witnessing a machine that has come to life. The more they believe it?s a machine, the more appealing the story becomes. As research, Pixar looked at a police bomb robot, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Mars Rover.
[[Image:Stantontank.jpg|right|Andrew Stanton riding on a tank chair.]]
WALL?E's appearence was partly inspired by a pair of binoculars that Stanton used while watching a game of baseball: "my editor from ''Nemo'' passed me his binoculars," he said. "I spent the entire inning staring at the binoculars, making them move around. I said, 'That's it. That's exactly the face I need.'" Stanton also says that the binoculars reminded him of Buster Keaton's sad eyes, and from there decided not to give the character a mouth. Zoom lenses were added to WALL?E's eyes after the crew realised that they could mimic human pupils and eyebrow muscles. Ralph Eggleston notes that the character's large eyes lend a child-like quality. The film's crew looked at trash-compacting machines and recycling plants to get an idea of how WALL?E's own trash-compacting function would work. Early on the character also had elbows, but this idea was reworked on the grounds that it both looked flimsy in test footage, and was an essentially unrealistic concept: "He?s designed to do a task, which is to pull trash into his belly. Why would he have elbows? It didn?t make any sense", said supervising animator [[Steve Hunter]]. "So with Andrew?s help and an inspired idea by directing animator [[Angus MacLane]], we gave him a track around his side which allowed him to position his arms differently and give him a range of motion." MacLane got the idea from a mechanism used by inkjet printers, which his father used to design. "Anytime he's around EVE, we put the shoulders low and the hands close to the chest, which made him much more unsure and nervous looking. But whenever he's being the mechanical robot, his arms are back near his neck to make him more functional and competent," said MacLane. The character's tracks were suggested by the "tank chair", essentially a wheelchair with tank treads instead of wheels. It has been pointed out that WALL?E resembles Johnny 5, a character from the film ''Short Circuit''. "I was shocked to see that afterward. I never thought about it. I really didn't", said Stanton when the resemblence was brought up in an interview. "And I'll own up to anything. I am trying to homage to HAL [from ''2001: A Space Odyssey''] and all that, but I honestly never thought of ''Short Circuit''."
[[Image:Earlyauto.jpg|right|Early version of the Auto character.]]
A call to Steve Jobs led Apple designer Jonathan Ive to help Pixar come up with a suitably high-end design for EVE. "She's the opposite of WALL?E," said Stanton of the character. "High versus low technology. Her eyes are on a display screen that was sort of inspired by Lite Brite illuminated toys." Supervising animator [[Steve Hunter]] described the amount of effort that went into animating EVE: "Everything with her had to be really, really subtle. Basically, she consists of only four parts and two eyes that blink. We had a lot of discussions about how she would move using her arms. We treated her almost like a drawing in some ways and came up with just the right poses to express emotion." Supervising animator Alan Barillaro commented that "with all these robots we always study how can express, but still be true to their character - you know, if she's in love, don't have her eye screen go to hearts... that'd be the easy way out". Angus MacLane compares her movements to that of a manatee or narwhal. As can be seen in a deleted scene on the DVD, the character of Auto once looked very different from the version in the final film. On the subject of the other robot characters, co-producer Lindsey Collins said that "[w]e created a library of characters with interchangeable parts so that we could do a build-a-bot program... We had close to a hundred variations and about 25 different basic silhouettes that we could mix and match to make the world seem fuller." When designing the human characters, the crew looked at sea lions' blubber.
"We watched a Chaplin film and one of Keaton's at lunch every day for almost a year until we saw their entire body of work. We walked away thinking there's almost no emotion you can't convey visually", said Stanton; Harold Lloyd films were also watched for inspiration. Stanton credits Keaton's "Great Stone Face" with influencing the way WALL?E's expression doesn't change much throughout the film. He has also claimed that the advent of sound films meant that "got lazy and just sort of relied on the dialogue to get stuff across." The crew looked at films such as ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''The Black Stallion'' and ''Never Cry Wolf'' which had large portions that were not reliant on dialogue, or were even dialogue-free. Stanton has pointed to ''Silent Running'' as "the first one in the modern-day cinema to show you the appeal of a robot that wasn't designed to look like anything, it was designed to look like a character, but you were compelled to throw a character onto it". Stanton decided to make EVE taller than WALL?E because Woody Allen is shorter than his co-star Diane Keaton in ''Annie Hall''.
====Sound design====
As Stanton was heavily influenced by the R2-D2 character from ''Star Wars'', producer [[Jim Morris]] suggested hiring [[Ben Burtt]], the sound designer responsible for R2-D2's expressive noises. A few months before being hired Burtt had finished work on the last ''Star Wars'' film and told his wife that he would do "no more robots", but nevertheless he was taken by Pixar's project: "it was such a fresh and exciting idea, and the challenge of the sound in the film really appealed to me,? he said. Burtt came up with 2,500 sounds for the film, the most he had ever used and twice as much as the amount usually used in the ''Star Wars'' films. Burtt spent two years electronically modifying his own voice to create sounds for WALL?E's voice. "The bulk of the vocals, the expressive vocals, are really sounds that are more like a toddler makes... kind of the universal language of intonation," said Burtt. "'Oh,' Hm?,' Huh!,' you know?"
Burtt took inspiration from Jimmy MacDonald, a sound designer who worked with [[Walt Disney]]. As recording equipment of the time was bulky and not suited to location recording, MacDonald and his team designed a range of devices that could emulate various sounds; Burtt used these props while working on ''WALL?E''. Burtt's sound design was discussed heavily during production, as opposed to during post-production, which was unusual for Pixar.Burtt thought about what the various machines in the film's world would sound like if they really existed, paying attention to their physics, although he freely admits to taking artistic license if he had trouble findng a scientifically accurate sound. "I had to spend a lot of time with Ben Burtt auditioning stuff. We would discuss a character and show him drawings, and he'd go off and come up with a bevy of ideas of what he thought that machine, that robot would sound like", said Stanton. "I would sit down and cull it down to, 'This is the character.' And even after that you come away with anywhere near 100 sounds that are in this camp."
After seeng a hand-cranked generator in the John Wayne film ''Island in the Sky'', Burtt tracked down a somilar generator on eBay; this was used to provide the sound WALL?E makes when he moves slowly. Burtt saw a hand-cranked electrical generator while watching Island in the Sky, and bought an identical, unpacked device from 1950 on eBay to use for WALL-E moving around. Other noises were added digitally when he speeds up, in particular an inertia starter from an old aeroplane engine (the same device used to provde noises made by the Road Runner and Tasmanian Devil). A demolition yard was recorded to provide the noises made by WALL?E compacting trash. The humming noise made by EVE was designed to sound soothing and almost musical. As Burtt could not emulate a female voice himself, Elissa Knight ("one of our in-house Pixar players for lack of a better term", as Stanton describs her) was chosen as a stand-in to help develop a voice for EVE until a new actress was found. After Burtt began adding effects to her voice it was decided to keep her as EVE in the final film. The sound made by EVE when she flies was recorded from a ten-foot long remote-controlled jet plane, while the sound made by her laser gun was created by hitting a long slinky with a stick; Burtt describes this sound as a "distant cousin" to the noises made by the blasters in ''Star Wars''.
"We used the Apple program MacTalk for Auto", said Stanton. "I didn't want any human element. I wanted Auto to be the epitome of a robot, cold, zeros & ones, calculating, and soulless. So that sort of Stephen Hawking's kind of voice I thought was perfect." The noises made by Auto were designed to sound active and calculating. The ship's computer was voiced by Sigourney Weaver, a not to the film ''Alien'' in which weaver goes up against a ship's computer.
Burtt made several recordings of Niagra Falls in 1987, which he used in the films to make wind sounds; he also created a windstorm effect by dragging a heavy canvas bag across a carpet. For one scene, Burtt and his ten-year-old daughter went to a supermarket: "We put a recorder in the cart and covered it with bread," said Burtt. "We went over and banged into things in the parking lot. We actually took the shopping cart a block or so away, took it up a long, sloping hill and let it go, recording it roaring down the street." The scuttling noise made by Hal the cockroach is actually the sound of police handcuffs being taken apart and reassembled.
====Music====
The film's music was composed by [[Thomas Newman]], who had previously worked with Stanton on ''Finding Nemo''. Newman began work on the score in late 2005; "I started early with high hopes of really being able to do something different. I'm not sure that that was so effective because, of the nature of animation being so schedule dependent", he has said. "Maybe had I been working with Andrew when he was writing the script I could have had more of an effect?". Discussing a piece of music for the scene where EVE first leaves her spaceship that he recorded in October 2007, Newman said that "I wrote a piece that is much more orchestral than the piece that exists there now. There were some issues with it. Was it not feminine enough?... Andrew [wanted] me to just try again. I did and I think we all liked the new idea a lot better. That?s a good example of why you shouldn?t hold on to ideas, just because you wrote them." He has also said that "[o]ne of the abstract mandates early on was that if WALL-E?s music should be entirely orchestral, which would allow the sound effects to have a wonderful place to reside in, without the music getting in the way. But... dramatically it started to feel limiting, particularly when we got onto the Axiom spaceship. So that's when I started thinking outside just the realm of doing a full orchestral score, and going into more sequenced and robotic ideas."
The film's opening sequence was originally planned to have 1930s French swing music over shots of stars, but Stanton decided against this after seeing ''[[The Triplets of Belleville]]'', which also used French swing music. Instead, he decided to use the song ''Put on Your Sunday Clothes'' from ''Hello Dolly!'' (In 1980 Stanton played the character of Barnaby in a high school production of ''Hello, Dolly!''; he thanked his drama teacher in his Oscar acceptance speech). After the decision to use the song was made, cowriter [[Jim Reardon]] suggested that ''Hello, Dolly!'' be worked into the plot by having WALL?E find a video of the film. "I started exploring the other songs in the play, and when I found ''It Only Takes a Moment,'' it just became this godsend because I was always looking for ways to tell the story without the need to use conventional dialogue", said Stanton. "This song became a great device for showing WALL?E's interest in what love is... I happened to have read somewhere that holding hands is the most intimate public display of affection, which led to the idea of WALL?E learning that action by watching the movie." The ''Hello, Dolly!'' songwriter, Jerry Herman, was impressed with how his work was used. "I had immediately said yes because it was Disney asking for the usage, but I had no idea that it was going be that instrumental in the message of the film. So I'm absolutely thrilled", he said. "I think this guy is some kind of genius." Stanton also found out that ''Hello, Dolly!'''s composer, Lionel Newman, was the uncle of ''WALL?E'' composer Tom Newman.
Tom Newman travelled to London to work with Peter Gabriel (a musician whom Stanton is a fan of) to create the song ''Down to Earth''; the song prompted the crew to add some extra story points to the film's ending to match its feel. Louis Armstrong's ''La Vie en rose'' is also used in the film. Stanton at one point planned to have an instrumental version of ''Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head'' over the montage sequence where WALL?E tries to wake up the catatonic EVE, but Newman wanted to score that part of the soundtrack himself. Similarly, the script called for WALL?E and EVE's dance in space to be set to Bing Crosby's ''Stardust'' (Stanton also considered an Ella Fitzgerald song), but it was eventually decided that a reprisal of the theme that played when WALL?E first saw EVE flying would be more appropriate.
==Themes==
Stanton has summerised the film's central theme as "Irrational love defeats life's programming". "I realized that that's a perfect metaphor for real life", he has said. "We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people. of dealing with the person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another". He has also said that he "felt that disconnection is going to be the cause, indirectly, of anything that happens in life that's bad for humanity of the planet, so to me, my focus was connectivity."
The Christian commentator Rod Dreher identified the film as a "traditionalist conservative critique of modernity" and identified technology as the film's villain, in a complex sense. "As humanity became more technologically sophisticated", he writes, "they became ever more divorced from Nature, and their own nature. They developed a culture and society that was mechanistic and artificial, versus organic and natural (the grotty little Wall-E robot is an instructive contrast with the sleek, ultraclean robots on the Axiom). Consequently, they've become slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human". Dreher notes that the film ultimately shows humans and machines working together: "See, "Wall-E" is not a Luddite film", he says. "It doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology is properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature -- that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along."
Andrew Stanton, a Christian, named EVE after the Biblical figure; however, he stopped short of naming the film's hero "Adam" ("'Adam' just didn't have the underdog ring to it as the main character", he said. "WALL?E was a little bit more sad sack"). Dreher interprets the story of WALL?E and EVE as an inversion of Adam and Eve's story: here, EVE's "apple" (the plant that she brings to the Axiom) encourages humanity to reject their false god. Dreher also notes another inversion of the Genesis story: although work is, in the Biblical tale, the result of in, the film portrays it differently: ""Wall-E" contends that what makes us human is labor. In the film's most meaningful iconic image, the Tree of Life on the new earth grows out of an old work boot." Another Christian commentator, Megan Basham, has also seen Biblical themes in the film: "WALL?E, the meek little trash collector, accepts stewardship in a way that people have rejected. And because love springs from service, he comes to love the creatures that inhabit Earth", she says. "That's not an environmental message, it's a biblical one".
The character of WALL?E has been compared to various mythological figures including Prometheus, Sisyphus and Butades. On the Butades connection, Hrag Vartanian notes the scene where WALL?E makes a replica of EVE and writes that "[t]he Ancient Greek tradition associates the birth of art with a Corinthian maiden who longing to preserve her lover?s shadow traces it on the wall before he departed for war. The myth reminds us that art was born out of longing and often means more for the creator than the muse. In the same way Stanton and his Pixar team have told us a deeply personal story about their love of cinema and their vision for animation through the prism of all types of relationships".
==Tie-ins==
Animatronic replicas of the WALL?E character were made and placed in the Disney amusement parks, the Philadelphia Science Museum, the Miami Science Museum and Seattle Center. There were saftey concerns regarding the 700 pound robots and the potential results of them rolling over a child's foot, and so their appearences in theme parks were restricted. There were similar concerns when an animatronic WALL?E was scheduled to appear at the film's Japanese premiere.
The film did not spawn a large amount of merchandise. ''[[Cars]]'' toys were still popular at the time, and larger toy comapnies generally favoured the live action ''Speed Racer'' film despite its box office failure. ''WALL?E'' toys were instead manufactured by smaller companies such as Thinkway (Thinkway had previously handled ''[[Toy Story]]'' merchandise, which was similarly unpopular with larger companies). Amongst the toys produced by Thinkway was the Ultimate WALL?E figure, which boasted voice activation and infrared sensors to allow it to avoid objects; the toy carrie a price tag of $189.99.
==Release==
The film's release was accompanied with the short film ''[[Presto]]''.
The film had its world premiere at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 21, 2008 and went on to open in 3,992 theatres across the US and Canada on June 27. Its first weekend gross was $63 million, putting it at number one at the box office. This was, at the time, the third-best opening weekend for a Pixar film. It went on to cross the $200 million mark in its sixth week, earning it a totaly gross of over $204 million on the first weekend of August 2008. In total, the film earned a domestic gross of $223,808,164 with a worldwide overall of $521,268,237; it was the ninth highest-grossing film of 2008.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 18 2008. Amongst the extras included across the various editions were ''Presto'', the ''BURN-E'' short, [[Leslie Iwerks]]'s documentary ''[[The Pixar Story]]'', shorts about the inner workings of the film's fictional Buy n Large company, numerous behind-the-scenes features and a Digital Copy of the film.
==Reception==
''WALL?E'' has received a vast amount of positive reviews. At the time of writing it has a score of 96% at Rotten Tomatoes across 224 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10; and a score of 93 out of 100 across 39 reviews (and a user score of 8.9) at Metacritic. When Indiewire polled 100 critics to compile a list of the best films of 2008, ''WALL?E'' came in at number 3. When Movie City News combined 286 "top ten films of 2008" lists, ''WALL?E'' was found to have been mentioned on more lists than any other film.
Richard Corliss of ''Time'' picked ''WALL?E'' as his personal favourite movie of the year. "Andrew Stanton... experimented with what talking pictures could plausibly do without", he said. "How about depriving the two main characters... of emotional signifiers like a mouth, eyebrows, shoulders, elbows? Yet with all the limitations he imposed on himself and his robot stars, Stanton still connected with a huge audience... WALL-E and EVE could be the 29th century version of Tracy and Hepburn". A number of other critics also named ''WALL?E'' as their film of the year, including Tom Charity of CNN, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of the ''Boston Globe'', Lisa Schwarzbaum of ''Entertainment Weekly'', Liam Lacey of the Toronto ''Globe & Mail'', A.O. Scott of the ''New York Times'', Anthony Lane of the ''New Yorker'', Noel Murray of the Onion AV Club and Joe Morgenstern of the ''Wall Street Journal''.
"Pixar's ninth consecutive wonder of the animated world is a simple yet deeply imagined piece of speculative fiction", said Todd McCarthy of Variety. "[The film] walks a fine line between the rarefied and the immediately accessible as it explores new territory for animation, yet remains sufficiently crowd-pleasing". He also compared it to other science fiction films, pointing to its unusually optimistic portrayal of a post-apocalyptic scenario. Kirk Honeycutt of the ''Hollywood Reporter'' stated that "[t]his is getting to sound like a broken record: Pixar Animation Studios has just topped itself. Again." He praised the film for having "all the heart, soul, spirit and romance of the very best silent movies 80 years ago", cited its usage of ''Hello, Dolly!'' as a "real stroke of brilliance", and also praised Ben Burtt's sound design: "If there is such a thing as an aural sleight of hand, this is it."
Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said that "''WALL-E'' succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story... here is a film, like ?Finding Nemo,? that you can enjoy even if you?ve grown up." He also said that "it can easily cross language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story". He also commented on the film's "bright and cheerful, but not too pushy" colour pallette, and described the film's visual style as "Comic Book Cool, as perfected in the funny comics more than in the superhero books". He compared the film's lead favourably to the hero of ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'': "[t]he panda was all but special-ordered to be lovable, but on reflection, I think he was so fat, it wasn?t funny anymore. WALL-E, however, looks rusty and hard-working and plucky". He concluded that the film "involves ideas, not simply mindless scenarios... It involves a little work on the part of the audience, and a little thought, and might be especially stimulating to younger viewers." He later picked the film as one of his twenty favourites of 2008, calling it "[t]he best science-fiction movie in years".
In terms of the film's themes, Todd McCarthy observed that the film "pushes an agenda that could, and no doubt will, be interpreted as "green," or ecologically minded". Kyle Smith stated that "I?m trying to think of a major Disney cartoon feature that was anywhere near as dark or cynical as this. I?m coming up blank. I?m also not sure I?ve ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers" - referring to the characters that he described as "peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk... uncomfortably close to paying guests of Walt Disney World". Maura Judkis of U.S. News & World Report asked if the film would "make kids more likely to recycle in the school cafeteria, or plant sprouts...? Will seeing the frighteningly obese humans of the future make a kid more likely to play outside rather than in front of the computer, to avoid a similar fate?"
Certain right-leaning commentators objected to the film's themes. "From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind", said Shannen Coffin. "The story was just awful". Glenn Beck commented that "if your kid has ever come home and said, 'Dad, how come we use so much styrofoam,' oh, this is the movie for you", while blogger Dirty Harry asked "[h]ave we lost Pixar? Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us ''[[The Incredibles]]'' and ''[[Ratatouille]]'' to Bush Derangement Syndrome? Here you have a winning streak going back ten-years.. and they stop things cold, yanking you out of the story with the liberal nonsense." Patrick J. Ford of the ''American Conservative'' defended the film from these criticisms: "they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E?s future". He concluded that "y steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice."
Other negative comments on the film came from critic and former mayor of New York City, who called it "dull, dull, dull" and not cute, amusing or uplifting, but "a bore." Matthew Odam of Austin360 said that "I liked the post-apocalyptic visuals, although was bored by the lack of dialogue. But the second and third acts spiraled into the expected." The film has also been labelled "preachy". Some of the reviews sent in by children to the [[Children's BBC]] website identify the film as boring.
====Awards====
''WALL?E'' won the 2008 [[Academy Award for Best Animated Feature]]; it was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song (''Down to Earth''), Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. It was not nominated for Best Picture, however, despite a push from Disney; this was met with some objection from commentators. "If there was ever a time where an animated feature deserved to be nominated for best picture it's Wall-E," said Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone''. When asked if the introduction of the Best Animated Feature category merely ghettoised animation instead of empowering it, Stanton stated that "t's just a sign that times have changed. Because from the live action side, animation -- and computers in general -- are being used as a tool in so many movies now. The line is just getting so blurry that I think with each proceeding year, it's going to be tougher and tougher to say what's an animated movie and what's not an animated movie. And what I'd love is to get to the point where someone just goes, 'I don't care.'"
''WALL?E'' was named best film of 2008 by numerous critics' organisation, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics (tied with ''Slumdog Millionaire''), the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society. It was also picked as one of the ten best films of 2008 by both the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review.
As well as the Oscars, ''WALL?E'' also won Best Animated Feature Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards.
categories at the 2009 Annie Awards: Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production and Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production (for Ben Burtt) but lost in each category to ''Kung fu Panda''. The film won the [[BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film]], and was nominated in the categories for Best Music and Best Sound; it also won the BAFTA Children's Award for Best Feature Film. Two songs from the film, ''Down to Earth'' and ''Define Dancing'' both won Grammy awards. At the Visual Effects Society Awards the film won Outstanding Animated Character (specifically, for WALL?E and EVE in the truck sequence), Outstanding Effects Animation and Outstanding Animation in an Animated Motion Picture. It won Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) at the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, and Best Script at the Nebula Awards. At the Saturn awards ''WALL?E'' won Best Animated Film; Andrew Stanton was nominated for Best Director but lost to ''Iron Man'' director John Favreau. It won Best Family Film at Britan's National Movie Awards.
The character of WALL?E himself came in at #63 on Empire Magazine's list of the 100 greatest movie characters.
==References==
* [http://adisney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/wall-e/media/downloads/WALLEProductionNotes.pdf ''WALL?E'' Production Notes]
* [http://www.avclub.com/articles/andrew-stanton,14263/ Andrew Stanton | Film | The A.V. Club]
* [http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14127 WORLD Magazine | WALL?E | Megan Basham]
* [http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=398f8b3e-09c9-45e1-b705-c0ba4691bc47 The last robot left has to put out the trash - Canada.com]
* [http://creativescreenwritingmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/12/andrew-stanton-wall-e-q.html Andrew Stanton Q&A Podcast]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-06-24-wall-e-main_N.htm 'WALL-E' focuses on its hero's heart - USATODAY.com]
* [http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/01/23/breaking-out-of-the-box-wall-e-director-andrew-stanton-on-the-oscars-the-blurring-of-the-line-between-animation-and-film-and-writing-strong-female-characters.aspx Mr. Oscar, Tear Down This Wall! - Newsweek]
* [http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/06/23/interview-wall-es-writer-and-director-andrew-stanton/ Interview: Wall-E's Writer and Director Andrew Stanton - First Showing.net]
* ''Captain's Log'' DVD feature
* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=awardcentral&jump=contenders&id=oscarsanimation&articleid=VR1117997104 The Science of 'Wall-E' - Entertainment News, Los Angeles, Media - Variety]
* [http://www.newsarama.com/film/080704-wall-e-stanton-2.html How Andrew Stanton & Pixar Created WALL*E - Part II]
* [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37209 Andrew Stanton Gives Up the Goods on WALL-E and JOHN CARTER to Capone! -- Ain't It Cool News]
* [http://www.awn.com/articles/stanton-powers-iwall-ei Stanton Powers Up WALL?E - AWN]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1741889/2/exclusive_the_storyboards_of_wall_e The Storyboards of WALL-E - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.animationartconservation.com/wall_e_design_with_a_purpose.html Design With A Purpose, An Interview With Ralph Eggleston]
* [http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/14915/1/REGARDING-WALL-E/Page1.html REGARDING WALL-E - Chud]
* [http://www.awn.com/articles/production/hello-iwall-ei-pixar-reaches-stars Hello, WALL?E!: Pixar Reaches for the Stars]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1741516/exclusive_the_world_of_wall_e The World of WALL-E - Rotten Tomatoes]* [http://www.newsarama.com/film/080701-wall-e-lasseter.html HOW ANDREW STANTON & PIXAR CREATED WALL*E - PART I]
* [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/11/wall-e-dvd/ NASA's Robot Smarts Give Wall-E a Ration of Realism - Wired.com]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/25/DDEN11CQ3M.DTL&type=movies Planet WALL-E - San Francisco Chronical]
* [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/06/22/2008-06-22_walle_is_a_real_character.html 'WALL-E' is a real character - NYDailyNews]
* [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987668.html How to build a better robot - Variety]
* [http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/09/technology/siklos_walle.fortune/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote Pixars iPod-like heroine]
* [http://www.metroactive.com/moviesandtvblog/?p=2071 WALL-E World - An Interview With Andrew Stanton - Metroactive]
* ''WALL?E and EVE'' DVD feature
* [http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45885 WALL?E Writer/Director Andrew Stanton - ComingSoon.net]
* [http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/07/03/bob-thompson-bet-on-burtt-to-get-the-right-wall-e-sounds.aspx Bob Thompson - Bet on Burtt to get the right Wall-E sounds - National Post]
* [http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/2008/06/28/20080628wallevoice.html Voice of 'WALL-E': Robot sounds toddler-inspired - azcentral]
* ''Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds From The Sound Up'' DVD feature
* [http://pixarplanet.com/blog/qa-with-walles-ben-burtt Q&A With WALL?E's Ben Burr - Pixar Planet]
* [http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_14899.html Andrew Stanton Interview, Wall-E - MoviesOnline]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1742259/2/exclusive_ben_burtts_wall_e_sound_masterclass Ben Burtt's WALL-E Sound Masterclass - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/27/PKA711B9NF.DTL All Ears on 'WALL-E' - SFGate]
* ''Life of a Shot: Deconstructing the Pixar Process'' DVD feature
* [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356 ScoreKeeper Chats With Composer Thomas Newman!! - Ain't It Cool News]
* [http://ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=3193 E-notes: Thomas Newman gives a chilling workout in 'Revolutionary Road' and some robotic impulses in 'WALL-E']
* [http://oscar.com/oscarnight/winners/?pn=detail&nominee=Wall-E%20-%20Best%20Animated%20Feature%20Film%20Nominee Andrew Stanton's Oscar Acceptance Speech - Oscar.com]
* [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20211943,00.html 'WALL-E': How he found 'Hello, Dolly!' - Entertainment Weekly]
* Andrew Stanton's DVD commentary
* [http://disneystudiosawards.movies.go.com/wall-e_script.pdf WALL?E script]
* [http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/walle WALL-E reviews at Metacritic.com]
* [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/ WALL-E Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes]
* [http://www.awardsdaily.com/?p=5193 Indiewire Polls 100 Critics]
* [http://moviecitynews.com/awards/2009/top_ten/00scoreboard.htm MCN Awards Watch: The Awards Scoreboard]
* [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863826_1863827,00.html WALL-E - Top 10 Movies - Time]
* [http://edition.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/31/best.2008/ Review: The best (and worst) films of 200 - CNN.com]
* [http://www.metacritic.com/film/awards/2008/toptens.shtml Metacritic: 2008 Film Critic Top Ten Lists]
* [http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937536.html?categoryid=3266&cs=1 Wall-E Movie Review - Variety]
* [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?JSESSIONID=stXDLjWG25pv31dwl2yynPgffjhWyvSk96w52TwNp9jZphdLSkRG!-209288430&&rid=11329 Film Review: WALL-E - Hollywood Reporter]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080626/REVIEWS/963071290 Wall-E: rogerebert.com]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081205/COMMENTARY/812059997/1023 The best films of 2008... and there were a lot of them - rogerebert.com]
*[http://kylesmithonline.com/?p=1319 Disney's "Wall-E": A $170 Million Art Film - KyleSmithOnline.com]
* [http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/fresh-greens/2008/6/30/will-wall-e-make-us-greener.html Will 'WALL-E' Makes US Greener? - usnews.com]
* [http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/01/right-wing-hates-wall-e/ Right-Wing Apoplectic Over Pixar's WALL-E]
* [http://dirtyharrysplace.com/?p=2127 Dirty Harry's Place: Wall-E"]
* [http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/06/30/wall-es-conservative-critics/ The American Conservative >> WALL-E's Conservative Critics]
* [http://www.forward.com/articles/13740/ Thumbs Up for 'Wall-E'? Ed Koch Dissents - Foreward.com]
* [http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/mo/entries/2008/07/25/is_walle_overrated.html Is 'Wall-E' overrated? - The M.O.]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7500000/newsid_7504500/7504559.stm CBBC Newsround | Reviews | Film review: WALL-E]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7842438.stm The Oscars 2009 - BBC News]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/movies/28stud.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Studios Are Pushing Box Office Winners as Oscar Contenders]
* [http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/risky-business/2009/01/22/academy-awards-controversy-wall-e-gets-snubbed-for-best-picture-oscar.html Academy Awards Controversy: Wall-E Gets Snubbed For Best Picture Oscar - Risky Business (usnews.com)]
* [http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/23/2473002.htm?section=entertainment Academy accused of snubbing Dark Knight, Wall-E - ABC News]
* [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117997085.html?categoryid=13&ref=ra&cs=1 L.A. critics wired for 'Wall-E' - Variety]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/14/afis-top-10-movies-of-2008-boston-critics-name-wall-e-and-slumdog-best-picture/AFI's Top 10 Movies of 2008; Boston Critics Name WALL-E and SlumDog Best Picture]
* [http://www.chicagofilmcritics.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61:wall-e-cleans-up-chicago-film-critics-awards&catid=3:newsflash&Itemid=65 WALL-E Cleans Up Chicago Film Critics Awards]
* [http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/ohio-film-critics-awards-2009/ Central Ohio Film Critics Awards 2009]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7839300.stm Online film critics back Wall-E - BBC]
* [http://www.afi.com/tvevents/afiawards08/default.aspx AFI AWARDS 2008]
* [http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117996815.html?nav=news&categoryid=1983&cs=1 NBR names 'Slumdog' best of year - Variety]
* [http://www.goldenglobes.org/nominations/year/2008 HFPA Nominations and Winners]
* [http://www.annieawards.org/foryourconsideration.html Annie Awards 2007: For Your Consideration]
* [http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=24160 Slumdog Bags The BAFTAs - Empire Online]
* [http://www.bafta.org/awards/childrens/nominations-childrens-awards-in-2008,593,BA.html Children's Awards Winners in 2008 - BAFTA site]
* [http://www.grammy.com/grammy_awards/51st_show/list.aspx 51st Grammy awards]
* [http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/9623 Button, WALL?E Dominates VES Awards - Animation Magazine]
* [http://www.ace-filmeditors.org/newace/eddieNominees.html ACE Eddie Awards - American Cinema Editors]
* [http://www.sfsite.com/news/2009/04/26/nebula-winners/ SF Site News - Nebula Winners]
* [http://www.saturnawards.org/nominations.html The 35th Saturn Award Nominations]
* [http://www.nationalmovieawards.com/movie_awards_previous_winners.aspx National Movie Awards - Previous Winners]
* [http://www.empireonline.com/100-greatest-movie-characters/default.asp?c=63 The 100 Greatest Movie Characters | 63. Wall-E]
* [http://gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_054221319.html An Oscar shout-out - GloucesterTimes.com]
* [http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/07/walle-aristotelian-crunchy-con.html "Wall-E": Aristotelian, crunchy con]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20080722233943/http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/andrewstanton.html Interviews: The Little Robot That Could - Christianity Today via Archive.org]
* [http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14127 WORLD Magazine | WALL?E]
* [http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45885 WALL?E Writer/Director Andrew Stanton ]
* [http://hragvartanian.com/2008/10/21/wall-e/ "Wall-E" as a Return to the Promise of Animation - Hrag Vartanian]
* [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS95494+20-Jun-2008+BW20080620 Disney-Pixar's WALL-E World Premiere Saturday, June 21 at the Greek Theatre - Reuters]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=wall-e.htm WALL-E (2008) - Weekend Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=pixar.htm Pixar Moviesat the Box Office - Box Ofice Mojo]
* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=print_story&articleid=VR1117989981&categoryid=13 'Dark Knight' narrowly slays 'Dragon' - Variety.com]
* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wall-e.htm WALL-E - Box Office Mojo]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/10/31/3-disc-special-edition-of-wall-e/ 3-Disc Special Edition of WALL-E | /Film]
* [http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/14/must-watch-animatronic-wall-e-spotted-in-la/ MUST WATCH: Animatronic WALL-E Spotted in LA | /Film]
* [http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2008/06/18/when-it-comes-to-the-retail-world-speed-racer-whomps-wall-e.aspx Jim Hill When it comes to the retail world, Speed Racer whomps WALL-E]
* [http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hilll/archive/2009/02/06/test.aspx Jim Hill: Why For isn't WALL?E rolling around the Disney theme parks yet?]
[[Category:2000s animated features]]
[[Category:Science fiction animation]]
