Movie Insights

WALL-E's personality was designed to be a glitch that appeared after 700 years of use. He was created to be "the loneliest creature Pixar had worked with" [1].  When it came to WALL-E's environmental themes, Stanton stated:  “I hate being preached to and I assume other people do to in a movie. So I went there very reluctantly, and it ended up being out of pure necessity to my main drive, which was I just wanted to believe in the authenticity of why WALL-E was alone" [2]. He went on to state that he did what was logical at the time, he looked at the Amazon boxes that showed up at his doorstep every couple of days and wondered where all the trash went. Audiences were expected to be able to recognize the dystopian vision of Earth and understand how out of hand overconsumption had gotten in this universe [1]. His vision of the inhabitants of Axiom being buried in their screens was something he related to the first release of the iPhone. He stated that the feeling of playing with an iPhone felt similar to a nicotine hit, where he would use a cigarette to "pass the time and not be bored" [2]. 

References:

IMDb. (n.d.). Andrew Stanton. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004056/

[1] Pixar. (n.d.). Wall-E. Retrieved May 3, 2023, from https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/walle  

[2] McClintock, P. (2020, February 7). Wall-E Director Andrew Stanton: Film Was Inspired by Amazon, Apple. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/wall-e-director-andrew-stanton-film-was-inspired-by-amazon-apple-1279519/