Andrew Stanton, the director of Disney/Pixar’s “WALL*E,” contends his film isn’t a message movie.
And Sylvester Stallone shot the latest “Rambo” sequel because there were so many unanswered questions left by “Rambo III.”
We can take Stanton at his word, but I wonder what he thinks about this?
(UPDATE: This link no longer goes to a faux web site called www.buynlarge.com that mocks corporate activities. Disney has changed the link … now it goes directly to its Wall*E site)
Buy N Large is the corporation at the heart of “WALL*E.” The film implies that corporate greed, and the consumerism it breeds, left the earth in the sorry shape it’s in (El Planet Trasho).
But what about this faux Web site? Why create it in the first place? Who is meant to see it? It doesn’t seem to steer people back to anything related to “WALL*E.” It seems some of the minds behind the movie have very real axes to grind.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it does open the film up to new levels of debate. Stanton’s attempts to cry, “no message here” seems hollow - unless he truly knows nothing about this intriguing web site.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
K 07.16.08 at 1:29 am
CT: The link goes to the actual Wall-e site, not the “Buy N Large” one.
Stanton also wrote the screenplay for Monster’s Inc, another anti-business film where the ultimate bad guy, who is torturing children for energy and profits, is the company CEO.
I’d say the man has some major issues and isn’t to shy about sharing them with the audience.
Joseph Kastner 07.16.08 at 2:30 am
Monsters, Inc. isn’t anti-corporation. In the end, the company goes back into business, but instead of screams the monsters capture laughter for energy. It dealt with ethical issues involved in corporations - yeah, the city was in an energy crisis and Mr. Waternoose wanted to maintain his family’s company, but kidnapping children and essentially torturing them - sucking the scream right out of them - crosses a major moral line. I don’t see WALL-E as anti-corporation either. Why would Stanton or for that matter PIXAR do that? Isn’t that essentially biting the hand that feeds them and aren’t they themselves the very thing you or others claim it is mocking? Frankly, though, it wouldn’t surprise me. They came from George Lucas who while warning others of the dangers of the ‘dark side’ of the force has become the very embodiment of what he has argued against - he is the emperor. Ask any movie gossip site owner who has been ordered to remove such and such related to Star Wars, etc. from their site.
cftoto 07.16.08 at 3:26 am
K — that link worked a little while back … Disney must have nixed the site and made it steer visitors directly to Wall*E site. Thanks for the heads up.
Joseph, my memories of “Monster, Inc” aren’t fresh enough to comment more on it … but I think Pixar is biting the hand that feeds it with Wall*E - or at least being hypocritcal. The film warns us about overconsumption and the problem of companies trying to sell us anything and everything, but go to your local shop and I bet you’ll find plenty of Wall*E merchandise you really don’t need.
Joseph Kastner 07.16.08 at 9:01 pm
I don’t view as such. It advocates against over consumption. Consumption and consumerism is not bad, I don’t it goes that far, but constantly buying for the sake of buying even when we don’t need it is a bad thing. That is what I took from that.