Wall-E, an Example of Animation Movies

Wall-E and Eve

Talking about animation movie, in many people’s opinions, is like talking about movies for children. This is due to the characters brought in animation movie which are created in funny and cute way, so that they seem to be created to only entertain children. However, animation movie is not always so; animation movie is also for adult. It can be seen from some themes brought in animation movie such as love story, war, fight, etc, which are, of course, not created for children. Finally, when it comes to the definition of animation, different people may have different definition. McLaren in Meerson (2010) says that animation is the arts of movements that are drawn, not the art of drawing that moves. Meanwhile, Svankmajer in Brooke (2007) defines that the activity of animating is actually an activity of liberating which means that in animating, an animator can do anything he likes, regardless the believability. Thus, animation can be anything, since it is liberal, which moves and is drawn.

Wall-E, a movie produced in USA in 2008, is a good example of animation movie. It tells the story of the life of Wall-E, a collecting-and-cleaning-the-world’s-waste robot, and Eve, a looking-for-vegetation robot. Wall-E lives on Earth, while Eve lives in Axiom, a spaceship outside Earth. One day, Eve goes down to Earth to look for vegetation; there, she meets Wall-E. When she gets the vegetation, she is picked up by a plane to the Axiom, and the vegetation will enable all the Axiom inhabitants to come back living on Earth. However, when the captain wants to start coming to Earth, the autopilot hampers him by showing a warning video sent in 2110 (the past 700 years from that time) saying that Earth is unsustainable, so that they better stay in Axiom. Nevertheless, the captain, who is helped by Eve, Wall-E, and all Axiom inhabitants, insists. They fight the autopilot and win. Eventually, they come back to Earth.

As an animation movie, Wall-E belongs to movies targeted for all ages. It is friendly to the children, but contains a message in which children may somehow need adults’ help in revealing and understanding the message. The message is that when people who inhabit Earth litter, it may have bad long term impact: Earth gets dirty and contaminated which causes the living creatures unable to live on it. This message is delivered in the movie by portraying the representation of Earth which is full of waste; there is no human living on it since they move to Axiom (the past 700 years from that time). There is only Wall-E that is accompanied by a cockroach. However, after a very long time collecting the waste, he once finds vegetation and when Eve comes, he gives it to her. When the captain sees the vegetation, he insists to come back to Earth although he sees the warning video. This is because he believes that Earth changes and is sustainable to live on. He is sure since the vegetation he sees also is able to live on Earth. Finally when they come back, the captain leads all people who used to live in Axiom to plant that priceless vegetation to make Earth green like it used to be, before the waste conquers Earth.

The criticism to the condition of Earth which is full of waste is delivered, in my opinion, in an effective way. It is through, for example, the captain’s utterance showing his wonder. Firstly, he asks the computer to tell him about many things related to Earth such as definition of Earth, sea, dancing, etc. And the computer satisfies him by giving answers which is the ideal: how the good condition of Earth is. Since he is “blind’ of Earth, he takes the information for granted. However, when he watches the real video of Earth recorded in Eve’s mind, he gets disappointed since he sees Earth which is not like Earth. He says “What is it about? Oh no, don’t tell me! I want to see it myself. Wait, that does not look like earth. Where is the blue sky? Where is the grass?” That is an honest opinion of a person who does not know Earth: that the good Earth turns to be bad one, and it makes it not like it. However, that kind of opinion only emerges from person who does not live on Earth since people who live on Earth may not realize about that and may not feel that Earth turns bad due to their bad habit: littering.

Moving on to the technical condition of animation, animation movies should fulfill some “requirements”. One example is Jan Svankmajer’s definition that animating is liberating. The meaning of liberating is that animation can be of any forms, any movements, and anything. Liberating is also regardless the believability that should be held by others kinds of movie. In animation, the believability does not really apply since it justifies anything unbelievable such as dead creature with broken head can live again normally, animals can talk, a giraffe falls in love with a hippopotamus that lives on land for so long, a small speaking-English-with-Indian-dialect monkey becomes the king of all animals in a forest, etc. Finally, the thing to put emphasis on is that talking about animation movie is not whether or not some scenes are logical and believable since anything is justified in this kind of movie.

The liberating applies in Wall-E, for example, in the condition of life in Axiom. Everything in axiom seems very structured but monotonous. No man walks on their feet; they all, including the captain, always sit on their own seats which also become their beds. Their daily activities are always the same everyday and every human. They walk while sitting on their seats through certain lines. They eat and milk from bottle every time the schedule says so. Even their time to have recreation is scheduled. The recreation is in the surroundings of a swimming pool which, when the time is not for recreation, the swimming pool will be closed by the captain and become like ordinary floor. After that, the entire human in Axiom, except the captain, wear the same clothes every time, either the red or blue uniform. However, they do not put the clothes on by themselves. Instead, it is automatically worn when the captain presses a certain button. Although it looks monotonous, they do those daily activities without any complaints even after 700 years. Meanwhile, for us, if we have those monotonous activities to do in our entire life, we may have got tired and feel like complaining. However, although we realize very well that the condition in Axiom is unbelievable, we do not have to complain since, again, we do not complain or question on the truth of animation.

One other example of the liberating in Wall-E is shown by the relationship between Wall-E and Eve. Even though their functions and forms are different, they both are, like is known, robot. Wall-E is a waste-collector that, from the voice, seems to be male; Eve is a vegetation-seeker that seems to be female. When we talk about fact and reality, robots are not to be created with sexes. Even if they have clear sex, robot has no heart so that they have no feeling. However, in this discussion, it is justifiable to, even we have to, ignore the truth of reality because, again, animation is of different world from reality. And in the movie, it is shown that Wall-E and Eve, finally, fall in love with each other. Firstly, it is only Wall-E who loves Eve, while Eve does not. However, after seeing, through her recorded memory, what Wall-E does to protect her when she is inactive, she is touched and starts to love him. Thus, when Wall-E is sick, or broken, Eve tries really hard to fix him by changing his body parts, or spare parts, with other similar stuffs, like what Wall-E used to do to himself when he feels a little bit broken.

Finally, as the point of conclusion, it can be said that Wall-E is an attractive animation movie which is widely targeted for all ages. Not only containing point of entertainment, this movie also brings a simple but crucial message: Earth where we live on may get unsustainable if we, as the inhabitants of Earth, keep on littering. The way that message is delivered is effective by depicting the scene where Earth is dry and full of waste, and showing criticizing-the-condition-of-Earth utterances by a character who does not know what and how Earth is, so that the utterances feels neutral and deep. Meanwhile, speaking about technical thing, Wall-E fulfills some characteristics of animation movie in which it acts like liberating, regardless the truth and believability of the reality.

References

Brooke, M. 2007. “The Visionary cinema of Czech Surrealist Jan Swankmajer offers a stratling critique of contemporary society and values” / Vertigo Magazine. http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/showarticle.php?sel=bac&siz=1&id=759 retrieved on 16 January 2010.

Meerson, R., et al. 2010. “McLaren, Norman” / Film Reference. http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Atists-Lo-Me/McLaren-Norman.html retrieved on 16 January 2010.