By Scott Brown and Brian Raftery
Each week during the summer movie season, Wired writers and movie nerds Scott Brown and Brian Raftery fire up their instant-messaging clients and do a tag-team critique of a new flick. Sort of like Siskel and Ebert, but geekier and funnier. Like Statler and Waldorf but, you know, non-Muppet.
This week, Brown (Statler1976) and Raftery (Waldorf1975) blast off with Pixar Animation Studios' charming robot love story with an ulterior motive, Wall-E.
Statler1976: so what'd you think of "wall-e"?
Waldorf1975: more like "LAME-e"!
Statler1976: no kidding! worse than "the happening"!
Statler1976: they should've brought in m. night to make the robo-dialogue more stilted.
Statler1976: "404 ERROR FILE NOT FOUND! WE JUST? HAD. TIRAMISU!"
Waldorf1975: oh, "happening" references. Already so dated, a mere two weeks after the fact.
Waldorf1975: But all jokes aside, I loved "wall-e."
Statler1976: as did I.
Waldorf1975: in fact, i can't help but wonder if the movie's save-the-planet message will affect the environmental movement in the se way "bambi" affected the animal-rights movement.
Waldorf1975: or that "the great mouse detective" affected the pro-animal sleuth movement.
Statler1976: the big difference with "wall-e" is that most eco parables are essentially anti-technological.
Statler1976: and yet that's not the movie's message.
Statler1976: instead, it's the silicon valley credo: technology put us in this fix. and it will also save us.
Statler1976: but there's something about the imagery that's much darker than that. i don't know about you, but the big influences i saw here other than star wars were "the brave little toaster" and "the black hole."
Waldorf1975: and "disney's 'the road.'"
Waldorf1975: burnt skies, stray shopping carts, roger deakins cinematography.... it's cormac mccarthy, but for the whole family!
Waldorf1975: But i wonder if kids will see this and take to heart the anti-consumerism message, or whether they'll walk away thinking, "buy me some wall-e crap, and take me to Disneyworld."
Statler1976: Probably both, which is what's so interesting about a mass-market thinking-kid's movie.
Statler1976: this is either the most cynical kids movie in history, or the most subversive. At the end, the Buy n' Large logo appears after the Disney emblem.
Waldorf1975: but "wall-e" is not only anti-consumerism, it's anti-fatty.
Waldorf1975: and i'm sure some right-wing commenter will declare it anti-American in the coming days.
Statler1976: "look at what we've become!"
Statler1976: though the masses of slithering humanity were pretty striking
Statler1976: and the fact that humans play bumbling sidekicks to robots for, i think, the first time ever in a movie
Waldorf1975: true. But what really depresses me is that, in both "idiocracy" and "wall-e," it's implied that right before the world goes to poop, humans have a lot of fun and get to enjoy lots of wonderful cross-branding experiences. when will that happen, exactly?
Statler1976: I know! It's looking like we may not get the chance to die of our own excesses. I want to live long enough for Wal-Mart to fly me into space, with a Big Gulp!
Statler1976: where's the orgiastic capitalism of the final spasm?
Waldorf1975: i would like to be around for that!
Statler1976: or did that already happen, and all I got out of it was cheeseburger-flavored doritos?
Waldorf1975: I think it's supposed to happen just before the supposed robot invasion we've been warned about for years. for some reason, we've accepted robot dominance as an inevitability.
Waldorf1975: and yet, it's 2008, and as of today, there are no robots living in my neighborhood.
Waldorf1975: they're not really doing a good job of becoming our new overlords.
Statler1976: i think their love of musical theater makes them weak.
Statler1976: not to stereotype or anything.
Waldorf1975:: it's true. According to "wall-e," robots must always quote "hello, dolly!" that was one of asimov's rules.
Statler1976: Honestly, i never thought i'd live long enough to see a movie combine my two dominant dork passions: science fiction and musical theater.
Waldorf1975: and ben burtt sound effects!
Statler1976: Yes! I did love all the R2 bleeps and bloops. And the score that played with John Williams tropes.
Waldorf1975: how come "star wars" has inspired so much wonderfulness in the last 10 years, with the exception of the actual "star wars" movies?
Statler1976: i think the answer lies in legos.
Statler1976: because that's what "star wars" is – and I'm not even talking about "lego star wars."
Statler1976: we've been given all these wonderful parts, by people like george lucas
Statler1976: and now it's the job of future generations to assemble them into something, y'know, good.
Waldorf1975: true. meanwhile, my "radioland murders" playset is still sitting in the box.
Statler1976: finally, robot love: what do we think?
Waldorf1975: i went for it.
Statler1976: as did i.
Waldorf1975: it's a nice antidote to all those talky human romantic comedies nowadays.
Statler1976: yes. now we know what was wrong with all those movies:
Statler1976: 1) people
Statler1976: 2) language
Waldorf1975: exactly. in "wall-e," i can believe that two minimally expressive robots can woo each other and fall in love. that didn't work in "fool's gold."
Image courtesy Disney/Pixar
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