Post
by Ben » August 3rd, 2008, 5:02 pm
Well, we'd checked out of the Disneyland Hotel. It was 11am and we didn't need to leave for the airport until 3pm. What to do? Hey, how about catch a morning screening of WALL-E at the Downtown Disney AMC?
And so, after a bite of pizza with Rand and family, that's just what we did!
After the previews (Chi-WOW-wa!) the new short Presto ran, of course. I liked the old style credits even if they were a little confused (the Disney background with the MGM font), but then again that might have been the point. The use of the MGM font for "Cartoon" certainly pointed to the Avery-esque tone of the short, which was fabulously frantic and funny. Pixar's shorts are always fun to watch, but this is easily their most all-round entertaining cartoon, and the bunny could well carry a series...!?
The fast and furious nature of Presto was spectacularly pinpointed to make the transition to the epic WALL-E that much more felt - the change in tones helping WALL-E make a heavy impact in its first few minutes. I was, quite simply, blown away and wanted to keep turning to Rand and say "wow" at every new shot that astounded me.
I don't want to put all my thoughts down here because I'm saving them for the eventual disc release, but some words on what's been discussed here: I loved the use of live-action...with WALL-E himself a "real" character in our real world, the use of humans was the right way to go, especially since they were referencing the Hello Dolly clip, which would have been prohibitive to have redrawn in CGI. I didn't have an issue with the CG humans later on either - this is what we're heading towards if we don't win the obesity battle, and rather than use actors with prosthetics the choice was made to use CG. This doesn't jar at all - it's evolution over 700 years, as witnessed by the fact that we still see the CEO on screen amongst these new human specimens.
To say this is an attack on CGI by Pixar is not only ludicrous but frankly dumb! CGI is the medium in which the studio has made its name and fortune...they're not going to use it in a derogatory sense no matter what! The choice to use CGI for the overweight humans was a necessity, I would imagine, determined by cost and the ease that they knew the filmmakers could churn out the required shots. I think it's a brave move to use real humans earlier and keep them real later on when the CG humans have evolved into lumpy lumps of fat. The company name also tells us, rather cleverly, where we are headed, by and large, if you think about it.
As for WALL-E and EVE's relationship...boy you guys read far too much into these things! WALL-E is a scruffy "male" - there's no explaining to do, he's just made that way. He's a tough guy with a tough job to do. EVE has been given, probably for the humans' comfort's sake, a female voice pattern - this makes her "female". He's beaten up, doing a heavy duty job, she's sleek, come down to explore but ultimately just come to look at flowers. That they should meet and become attracted to each other is natural law. There's just not enough to start pulling apart here!
Is WALL-E perfect? No, I don't think Pixar have made their perfect movie yet. Ultimately that WALL-E and EVE are not human might explain why they don't quite click with us emotionally and so the film perhaps doesn't resonate with us in the same way it might with "flesh and blood" characters (Belle and Beast, Ann Darrow and Kong), for instance. Then again we've become so jaded an audience that we know what to expect. Anyway, the ending didn't choke me up the way those other films did, or even how Ratatouille came closer to doing.
I couldn't believe some of the things I saw in WALL-E. It's an avant-garde arthouse movie masquerading as a summer blockbuster. I was awestruck at some of the shots on show. I felt as if there had been a shift in the intelligence that the studios had decided we audiences were capable of enjoying. WALL-E makes us think while it entertains, and does both effortlessly.
More than anything else, this is the <I>first</I> film I've seen that could <I>only</I> have been made in the CGI medium. Toy Story, The Incredibles, Horton, Ratatouille...they could have made just as much impact - maybe more - as traditional hand-drawn cartoons. But WALL-E could never have been classically animated. It simply demands the best CGI that can be created today and makes the best use of that technology. Pixar have always been a step ahead of the pack. With WALL-E, they just made a giant leap forward past two steps.
====================
BTW, I'll have to wait until the disc to catch anything that appeared post-credits as the movie ended at 2:40, we had to pick up our checked baggage and get to the bus stop for 2:50 to catch the 3pm Disneyland Express to LAX for our flight home, so every minute counted! But I was intrigued to spot a "live action visual effects" credit to ILM just before heading out the theater door...
humans in the spaceship. WALL-E and Eva help them realize this potential.
