Wall-E (2008) with Closeted History and Leftist Squidward

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Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

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Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.

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Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com and support at patreon.com

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Track 1: slash leftoftheprojectorpod.

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Track 1: This week on the show, we are discussing the night, uh, the,

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Track 1: this week on the show, we're discussing the 2008 film WALL-E.

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Track 1: And with me, I have back on the show Destiny, who is the host of Closet History,

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Track 1: LGBTQ Plus Stories of the Past, And Thomas, thank you both for being here today.

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Track 3: Thank you so much. Yeah, excited to get into it.

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Track 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.

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Track 1: Of course, we've been, I don't know if it was you, Destiny, had brought up,

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Track 1: I think you maybe and I at some point talked about a few animated films.

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Track 1: It was this one, I think Ratatouille as well, you know, ones that would be fun to do.

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Track 1: And WALL-E is one that I think anyone listening who's probably seen it probably

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Track 1: can immediately think of reasons it's worth talking about this film,

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Track 1: you know, as a just as an analysis. And then, of course, from sort of a leftist analysis.

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Track 1: And I'm curious if this is your favorite Pixar film. I'm going to put you on the spot.

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Track 1: Or if it's not this one, do you have like another preferred Pixar movie?

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Track 2: This is not my favorite Pixar film. So I feel like there are a lot.

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Track 2: It's kind of hard to choose, but probably Monsters, Inc. or Toy Story.

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Track 1: Good choices.

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Track 2: Are my favorites. But I do thoroughly enjoy this one.

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Track 2: And as you mentioned earlier, Ratatouille. I love that one.

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Track 2: I think that it's probably like a very working class pro proletariat kind of movie.

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Track 2: But yeah, I mean, WALL-E is good. it's solid I love it.

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Track 1: What about you Thomas?

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Track 3: I didn't see this movie until last year it's my partner's favorite movie and

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Track 3: they were very nervous about showing it to me,

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Track 3: and when I saw it I cried and I said it was like absolutely my new favorite

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Track 3: Pixar film re-watching it it just solidifies that yeah it is the best thing

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Track 3: Pixar I've ever made I do think that everything that Destiny has listed Ratatouille,

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Track 3: Monsters Inc, Toy Story are like classics but this is like,

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Track 3: I feel like this is the last truly elite thing that Pixar made.

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Track 3: Actually, no, sorry, Ratatouille came after this.

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Track 1: No, Ratatouille was the year before.

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Track 3: Oh, amazing. Then yeah, this is the last elite thing that Pixar ever made.

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Track 1: For me, I think I've probably seen Ratatouille more times than WALL-E,

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Track 1: but as far as a complete work, I think that WALL-E is probably the better film.

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Track 1: I mean, it's a close one on that. I mean, again, I think you're right.

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Track 1: It's probably the best one they've made. They've had lots of good ones since then.

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Track 1: I think, you know, some of the Toy Story sequels are fun and some of those other ones are good.

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Track 1: But WALL-E is just, it's hard.

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Track 1: So that leads me to like the actual film itself is you really don't have much

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Track 1: dialogue in this film and for a good 45 to 50 minutes into it.

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Track 1: And even in the beginning, when there is like little bits of dialogue,

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Track 1: It's mostly just like individual single words and, you know,

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Track 1: everything is done through emotion and, you know, things that are happening throughout.

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Track 1: So, like, do you think that's what makes it so impressive as just like a,

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Track 1: you know, I want to say like a kid's movie, but it's not really just a kid's

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Track 1: movie as an animated film.

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Track 1: It's, it's so much more than that.

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Track 3: I would say that, yeah, like the movie, you know, to some people,

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Track 3: that's a big criticism, right? That you feel like you're getting two different films in one.

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Track 3: To me, it's such an experimental and like left field approach to movie making

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Track 3: from a company that is making the kind of most normative, huge,

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Track 3: bestselling movies that almost any other company could possibly aspire to make.

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Track 3: So it's like to have so much amazing detail and exploration of theme be done

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Track 3: in these first 45 minutes with like almost no dialogue is just surreal to me.

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Track 3: And it's done so well and so beautifully. I was saying to both of you before

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Track 3: this call, 45 minutes in before any humans actually get introduced,

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Track 3: I had like a thousand words of like notes.

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Track 3: And I was like, I need to trim this down. I'm not going to be able to get all

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Track 3: of this into the pod without us just like endlessly discussing for like three

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Track 3: hours. But yeah, it's brilliant.

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Track 3: And like both halves, I think, equally have a lot of value to them.

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Track 2: Yeah, I agree. I think that I that's one aspect of the film that like I really

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Track 2: enjoyed was the storytelling.

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Track 2: Because, you know, like, yeah, it just it does such a good job of like telling

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Track 2: the story through the songs and like the dancing and it's so romantic.

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Track 2: It's just like such a cute, wholesome, amazing movie that has a lot of like

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Track 2: really great themes that then you can analyze and make lots of pages of notes.

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Track 1: Yeah. I mean, that's like that's sort of like what I was also going to say is,

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Track 1: you know, as you know, you could probably go down the list of Pixar films.

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Track 1: I'm sure you could go through a lot of them and say, like, there's stuff worth talking about.

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Track 1: Definitely in Ratatouille, I think, would be one that comes to mind.

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Track 1: But like, why would you say this?

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Track 1: I don't think I've ever asked this before. Like, what makes this? movie worth like

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Track 1: analyzing from a you know

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Track 1: a critical lens a leftist critical lens you

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Track 1: know as again an animated film where there's lots of limited dialogue for the

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Track 1: first half it's kind of like you said tom like two different kind of movies

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Track 1: in a way you have that first 40 minutes where they're on earth and then you

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Track 1: have the next 45 minutes or so on this uh you know this giant spaceship and

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Track 1: then returning back to earth again so i don't know yeah.

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Track 2: I mean i think it's important that like the very first

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Track 2: thing that we see is trash and like

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Track 2: you know that right there it's like oh okay there we're setting the tone for

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Track 2: the film that you know we're gonna talk about consumerism and capitalism and

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Track 2: you know our relationship with earth and like the ecosystem And just,

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Track 2: you know, like, even from the very first kind of frame,

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Track 2: it kind of...

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Track 2: Makes itself it lends itself well to to have those kinds of those it lends itself

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Track 2: well to have those kinds of conversations.

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Track 3: Yeah i would say that like unlike any

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Track 3: other time that disney has tried to have a sort of

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Track 3: progressive facing message this

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Track 3: movie is the most confrontationally honest

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Track 3: about the kinds of you know politics that

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Track 3: involve having a really progressive message like whoever

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Track 3: greenlit this movie was also

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Track 3: consciously being like we you know we're kind of admitting that

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Track 3: the current direction of capitalism is is essentially

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Track 3: an apocalypse like there is no other way out of

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Track 3: it sure there's this kind of you know cute message that.

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Track 3: Humans will survive and go away for a bit and and

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Track 3: maybe they can come back and there's still hope yada

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Track 3: yada but like the truth of the matter is that like the setting

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Track 3: of the movie from the very beginning is like the creators

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Track 3: telling you this is what big corporations do

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Track 3: this is the the monopoly theory that

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Track 3: also came true like eight years after the movie

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Track 3: with amazon so it's like i mean i think that

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Track 3: like you know this is a bit of a tangent but

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Track 3: i feel like in 2008 maybe they were thinking that walmart was

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Track 3: going to kind of become that like i feel like by and large kind

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Track 3: of reminds me a lot of walmart but uh but amazon

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Track 3: kind of ends up taking that spot and becoming the the everything company

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Track 3: that like we imagined uh was going

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Track 3: to eventually proliferate so like it is just a

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Track 3: it's such a coldly honest uh or not coldly but refreshingly honest take from

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Track 3: a company that you would not expect to be this honest and i and i really appreciate

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Track 3: that because it makes the the details and the and the sort of thematic investigations

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Track 3: of this movie really really interesting well.

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Track 2: I think it's also important to kind of note like the context of the movie also

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Track 2: i mean this is 2008 so like the recession i i think,

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Track 2: That definitely impacts the way that things were kind of portrayed through film

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Track 2: at the time, just because, you know, people had different perspectives after the recession.

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Track 2: And, you know, a lot of people kind of woke up to that reality.

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Track 2: So seeing it in a film's kit or a kid's film is super cool.

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Track 2: Um it kind of makes me think about i know

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Track 2: we talk about it often but uh idiosyncrasy

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Track 2: oh idiocracy idiocracy yeah

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Track 2: sorry but um it makes me think about that movie because you were talking about

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Track 2: that like maybe it was walmart but in that movie it was costco um and our current

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Track 2: climate it's amazon um but you know it's like that movie but without any of

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Track 2: the the eugenics well Well.

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Track 1: It's like both of those are like, I think that the context of when this film

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Track 1: came out is extremely interesting.

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Track 1: And I was looking like I watched a couple of the like behind the making of the

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Track 1: film and some of the other things with Andrew Stanton, who conceived the film

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Track 1: initially and directed this one. But he had originally come up with this idea,

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Track 1: like, around the time that Toy Story was released in 1994.

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Track 1: So he had been, like, putting this together for years and years.

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Track 1: Like, this was a culmination of, you know, more than a decade of preparing and

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Track 1: building and something.

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Track 1: And they also said it had twice as many storyboards as their normal Pixar film

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Track 1: and, like, the amount of work that went into this.

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Track 1: So what I found interesting and maybe odd is there isn't as much said by the

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Track 1: creators of this film as like, yes,

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Track 1: we were clearly critiquing a company like Amazon or Walmart and doing it from this, you know,

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Track 1: very romanticized animated film.

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Track 1: And I only can think like, did they just want to not say that because it would, I don't believe them.

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Track 1: You know, sometimes directors will say like, I wasn't thinking about this politics

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Track 1: in this movie. And I'm just like, no, you're lying right now.

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Track 1: Like you were, and you just don't want to say it because you don't want people to come after you.

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Track 1: Or it's easier when you work for Disney or Pixar, like not to get into those things.

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Track 1: So, like, do you find that, like, impossible to have written this film and,

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Track 1: like, done it in a way where you have, like, the shot later on the ship where

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Track 1: it says, like, this is the economy, like, welcome to the economy.

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Track 1: And all these, like, very specific nods that it's impossible for me to say that

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Track 1: they weren't doing this very intentionally.

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Track 3: Yeah, I would say that it's definitely something that feels dishonest from the

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Track 3: creators after the fact of being like, we couldn't have done this.

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Track 3: Because they could have potentially done a more one-dimensional show of like,

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Track 3: oh, we're littering and littering is what's going to destroy the world.

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Track 3: But instead, right after the introduction of WALL-E, you get the by-and-large

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Track 3: supermarkets, you get the by-and-large gas stations, you get the by-and-large

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Track 3: banks, you get the by-and-large products that are advertised on these big Times Square-type signs.

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Track 3: Like, clearly the idea of the

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Track 3: monopolization of capitalism is at the forefront of why the world ends.

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Track 3: Like, yes, it's about waste, but it's also about a system eating itself by reaching

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Track 3: its sort of like, you know, self-centered endpoint.

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Track 3: And I feel like it, to me personally, it's probably them being in Disney and

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Track 3: Pixar and, you know, not wanting to get fired because like they're probably

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Track 3: happy that they managed to just get the movie out.

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Track 1: I know.

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Track 3: But yeah.

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Track 2: Yeah, but I think that there's something like just slightly that feels like.

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Track 2: Sort of performative or like fake

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Track 2: you know like i think that at least right now uh a lot of media that's like

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Track 2: anti-capitalist is like you know in um but i think that like the critique can

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Track 2: only go so far like you know this was made by disney so it's like yes but also no that.

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Track 1: Like brings up something i was going to mention maybe later but it's a good

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Track 1: point now is that this this comes up a lot in a lot of episodes is the book

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Track 1: Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, where he sort of, he actually references

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Track 1: this movie specifically as, you know, a movie where you would watch it and you say like,

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Track 1: this is very clearly a critique of capitalism, but, you know, and the waste and,

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Track 1: you know, the monopolies and all of these different things.

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Track 1: And the fact that at the end, the person who is

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Track 1: clearly in front of like the White House building is just the CEO of

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Track 1: the company you know like it's very clearly this merging of

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Track 1: uh you know the the state with um

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Track 1: you know corporations and it then

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Track 1: like okay i watched this movie like i've now done something i've now sort

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Track 1: of like this was me doing a thing whereas

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Track 1: you know you just watched a movie and again it's a big company selling

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Track 1: you on this idea they're making money they made which i

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Track 1: forgot to say at the beginning as i always do this movie made i

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Track 1: think 532 million dollars so

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Track 1: half a billion dollars plus whatever they made on dvds and everything like that

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Track 1: so they're making a lot of money selling you the idea of a company like themselves

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Track 1: being bad and it's it's always one of those things you just have to there's

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Track 1: only so much you can say about that i think you both said it so yeah.

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Track 2: Well and not to mention all the money they're gonna make off of merch.

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Track 1: Yeah oh yeah right because exactly you.

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Track 2: Know it's a kids movie like they're definitely trying to capitalize on having

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Track 2: toys that are associated with the film that also, you know, helps their bottom line.

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Track 3: Yeah, I agree. I think that the film and also other sort of films that,

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Track 3: like sort of walk this really awkward line of like

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Track 3: they were made by people that clearly reap the

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Track 3: benefits versus the film's quality is still great i

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Track 3: feel like there's a bit of me that wants to exist in a death of the

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Track 3: author type state and just enjoy the fact

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Track 3: that like the film obviously is is

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Track 3: not made by like the most it's not

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Track 3: made by che Guevara but like but it's

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Track 3: still saying some incredibly interesting things

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Track 3: and and it has more

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Track 3: longevity than like a lot of other films because of the

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Track 3: fact that it's able to say these interesting things um so

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Track 3: i don't know it's difficult as like as a as an isolated piece of

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Track 3: media it's brilliant and it's probably the best thing they've ever made but

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Track 3: like you're you're both 100 right that it's a

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Track 3: very difficult one one thing i will say is

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Track 3: that nowadays particularly with

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Track 3: how shit everything has gotten and trump having a second

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Track 3: term and you know people being disillusioned with capitalism i think that it's

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Track 3: much more popular to have this sort of superficial capitalism bad the richer

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Track 3: bad like i remember watching the glass onion and thinking it's a fine movie

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Track 3: but it's like just rich people making fun of being rich in 2008 that's kind

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Track 3: of what i meant yeah yeah like.

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Track 2: Glass onion what was the other one where they were like eating.

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Track 3: The menu yeah i think that in 2008

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Track 3: that wasn't so popular and i think about like the kind of

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Track 3: movies that surrounded the era of the

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Track 3: stock market crash like the hangover you know

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Track 3: it was like a sort of silly comedy movie but it was about like

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Track 3: middle class white guys financial fantasies of

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Track 3: spending as much money as possible in this kind of blackout

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Track 3: moment because i think at the time it was a movie made for like a lot of the

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Track 3: audience were people that had just been fucked over and probably lost their

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Track 3: homes and were watching this of fantasy as like a sort of wish fulfillment type

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Track 3: thing for a movie to go the opposite way in 2008 when we still didn't really

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Track 3: have that much of a progressive streak in america,

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Track 3: is kind of fascinating um so it was it's it's just interesting to see how it

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Track 3: stands with other films that were reacting to the economic uh circumstances of the time.

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Track 1: Well as in you want to go i was just gonna say like just as to put that in context

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Track 1: here are the top gross i just looked it up too yeah so the top grossing film

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Track 1: from 2008 which i knew the top grossing i didn't know all the whole list was

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Track 1: the dark knight and then you also had the the reboot of indiana jones Kingdom and the Crystal Skull,

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Track 1: Kung Fu Panda, so another animated film,

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Track 1: Hancock, Mamma Mia, Madagascar 2,

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Track 1: Quantum of Solace, the Bond film, Iron Man and the Chronicles of Narnia with Wally coming in ninth.

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Track 1: So I think it's still what you're saying makes is completely true.

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Track 1: Like none of those other movies I could even look at and be like,

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Track 1: yep, those have any kind of critique of anything at all, for the most part,

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Track 1: you know, or, and they're making tons of money.

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Track 1: And Wally was the ninth, you know, made the ninth most money that year.

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Track 1: So for it to be that popular of a message of this nature, I think is important.

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Track 1: And it's not, it's worth not like glossing over that.

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Track 3: For sure. Maybe Hancock has some kind of like, you know, they're inverting the superhero story.

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Track 3: He gets to be homeless and that's the joke, yada, yada. But also like that also

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Track 3: comes from like, if you see the movie, it becomes less and less relevant as

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Track 3: you like learn about the story.

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Track 3: So i don't know maybe i'm just pulling stuff out of my ass.

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Track 1: No there there are also probably other films that weren't like the top there

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Track 1: are some other great films like in bruges came out that year the

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Track 1: wrestler oh oh beautiful so

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Track 1: there were lots of other good films that had relatively like good in like good

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Track 1: messages waltz i think waltz with brazier also bashir came out that year another

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Track 1: worthwhile film anyway we don't need to talk about other movies it's easy to

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Track 1: do easy to do but yeah so like were you going to say something yesterday or

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Track 1: is it about the films of the year Yeah.

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Track 2: It was just about the films. Just because you said Iron Man and the Dark Knight.

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Track 2: And so, like, I just think that it's really interesting that, like, that was...

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Track 2: Right at the time where we were kind of like propelled into superhero universe

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Track 2: kind of mania um i mean because that's where it started iron man.

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Track 1: Yeah no that's a that's a good interesting like that could be an

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Track 1: entire episode i think could be about the kind of like the creation of marvel

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Track 1: and how it well one how it like changed the film industry for a long time i

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Track 1: think maybe finally sliding away a little bit but yeah i mean it was promoting

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Track 1: the military industrial complex and kind of just making you forget about the

Speaker: 00:18:51

Track 1: fact that the economy just literally just bombed.

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Track 1: And, you know, millions of people lost their jobs and homes and worse.

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Track 1: So, yeah, at least...

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Track 2: Well, and I wonder if... Because when did Disney buy Marvel?

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Track 2: Because I feel like that's also relevant that, like, you know,

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Track 2: we're getting this film that's seemingly anti-capitalist, but from a company

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Track 2: that continues to like monopolize and buy out other companies.

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Track 1: 2019.

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Track 2: Okay. Yeah. So it wasn't until later on, but you know, I feel like,

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Track 2: like even though I enjoyed the film so much, it is so wholesome. I love it.

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Track 2: I would say like 9.8 out of 10 only because there's like just that slight part

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Track 2: that feels like very disingenuous, like because it comes from Disney.

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Track 1: Yeah.

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Track 3: Yeah. I got that.

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Track 1: But I mean, I think when you look at it, though, I think you both were talking

Speaker: 00:19:43

Track 1: initially, like maybe we can talk about it further is, you know,

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Track 1: you said when you first see planet Earth, you see these, you see like tall buildings

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Track 1: in like what could be New York City.

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Track 1: And then you see tall buildings that are just trashed. It looked like the same

Speaker: 00:19:55

Track 1: thing that you think about how many years has been going on.

Speaker: 00:19:58

Track 1: And we realized later that it's been like 700 plus years that WALL-E and his

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Track 1: other WALL-E counterparts have been just building trash, you know,

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Track 1: buildings and skyscrapers of just all the excess.

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Track 1: And you talked about, Tom, earlier, like some of the little funny things.

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Track 1: I thought one of the funniest was when he has the little diamond ring and he

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Track 1: throws away the ring and he has... And it's also made by and large,

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Track 1: too, which I think is hilarious.

Speaker: 00:20:22

Track 1: Like they literally make every single product in, you know, in this world. And that is...

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Track 1: Starting to be Amazon, where I think for a while it was just them selling everything

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Track 1: and now they make their own, you know, everything like the cheap version of,

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Track 1: I don't know, water bottles and spices and like cookware, every,

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Track 1: you know, everything you can think of.

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Track 1: And it's not so hard to imagine in 10, 15 years where they just buy out all

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Track 1: of the companies where then you just have to buy all of your stuff from Amazon.

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Track 3: Yeah, we can only be grateful that Rings of Power was shit because it slows

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Track 3: them down a little bit, you know?

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Track 1: Yeah, the second season.

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Track 3: But no i agree i think that like uh i it's

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Track 3: so funny you know there's the whole disney theory that people

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Track 3: are obsessed with keeping up with about like by and

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Track 3: large being in the background of everything and i think it's so

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Track 3: clever that after years of people sharing this theory and spotting it and like

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Track 3: uh and i think it was like a bug's life and then they spot it in toy story to

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Track 3: finally have them as like the ultimate kind of villain of the entire world and

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Track 3: the and the ender of the world um but yeah yeah.

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Track 1: I think they're in they're in like um the incredibles

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Track 1: and finding i think they're like they're in a lot of the pixar movies like in

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Track 1: the background as you're saying and then it becomes this you know the evil company

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Track 1: that then takes over everything and destroys it and it's almost like wally is

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Track 1: like the last pixar movie you know like at the end of the the timeline i guess right.

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Track 3: Yeah and also like i wanted to touch on a point that you

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Track 3: about uh the the diamond ring thing the first 45

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Track 3: minutes they're so reliant on uh physical comedy and the incompetence and the

Speaker: 00:22:05

Track 3: silliness of wally bumping into things and and you know doing this kind of physical

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Track 3: comedy wally very much is like a robot charlie chaplin and i don't think that that's.

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Track 3: Like an accidental choice there i think that you know

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Track 3: charlie chaplin very like big sort of

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Track 3: kind of working class representative in

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Track 3: terms of like being constantly in films where he's just playing a different

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Track 3: working class role showing the sort of silliness and ridiculousness of like

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Track 3: the inner workings of capitalism um there's a really wonderful poem by this

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Track 3: brazilian uh uh poet called Carlos Drummond Jandradi,

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Track 3: where he dedicates an entire poem to Charlie Chaplin as this kind of socialist

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Track 3: hero who in every film is showing the kind of struggles of working class people

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Track 3: in a lighthearted way to allow them to pick themselves up after like a shit

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Track 3: time of constantly being exploited.

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Track 3: And I do think that Wally is sort of like both a robot,

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Track 3: but like the the last worker in, in late stage capitalism, you know, like Wally is the,

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Track 3: is the final worker and gains a sort of glitchy sentience because of the,

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Track 3: of the social alienation that he undergoes as like an individualized worker

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Track 3: that doesn't get to ever socialize again.

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Track 3: He yearns for like touch and connection and love partly because I do feel like

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Track 3: it is a bit of a nod to Marx's theory of alienation.

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Track 3: Like it's hard not to read it that way.

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Track 1: So, no, I think, I think that's a good point. So one thing I was maybe to like,

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Track 1: does this make sense is so you also have in that first 45 minutes,

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Track 1: too, which is kind of what the the creator Stan had mentioned as part of his

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Track 1: thinking when he was making, especially that first 45 minutes is just like the idea of nostalgia.

Speaker: 00:23:50

Track 1: Of all of these little items, Rubik's Cubes and these little things from the Not From The Past.

Speaker: 00:23:56

Track 1: He's watching over and over the Hello Dolly film on his little iPod that he

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Track 1: then projects through something and all of these little very nostalgic things.

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Track 1: It's like he is pining for these things that,

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Track 1: earth, you know, once had, you know, people were on earth and they,

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Track 1: you know, lived lives and they had these little items and trinkets and things,

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Track 1: but like none of them really brought them any,

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Track 1: true joy, you know, like, I don't think those things were the things that actually,

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Track 1: you know, made you connect with another person, which we find out later is once people stop,

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Track 1: engaging with technology and these little items, they can actually connect with

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Track 1: like the person next to them, literally that they've been there the whole time.

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Track 1: And so the same thing kind of happens with wally when eve comes down and he's

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Track 1: finally you know has someone else he can connect with like he can stop looking

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Track 1: at these trinkets and actually connect with another person.

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Track 3: Yeah i think that the uh the use of the trinkets and the relics and just inanimate

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Track 3: objects is such an interesting touch in the film because like i think it works

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Track 3: in a sort of in two different,

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Track 3: ways in one it's the thing you were saying about it's

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Track 3: there and people sort of obsess over them uh

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Track 3: but it doesn't bring them the ultimate joy that they're looking for which is

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Track 3: in the socialization in the sort of more social and communal aspect on the other

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Track 3: hand i also think that it shows the ways that like some so to go back a little

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Track 3: bit wally to me is like the last.

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Track 3: Creature in like the universe or in that

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Track 3: world that has what i would

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Track 3: call like a sort of realized sense of

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Track 3: like human agency in the sense that

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Track 3: like wally's imperfection allows wally to do human

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Track 3: stuff all the humans in the axiom the ship that left

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Track 3: when you know the toxicity levels were too high are in a sort of deep slumber

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Track 3: of like ai induced obedience and subservience so So the way that Wally interacts

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Track 3: with objects shows that kind of humanity.

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Track 3: When Eve shows up, Wally gives the objects to Eve, and Eve doesn't understand

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Track 3: what contemplation or valuing is.

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Track 3: Eve either fixes the object or turns it on in some kind of way.

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Track 3: There's always the capitalist, productive machinery working in Eve's design.

Speaker: 00:26:28

Track 3: Until WALL-E starts to infect her with the joyousness of human emotion and feeling.

Speaker: 00:26:38

Track 3: But yeah, I feel like there's a lot there with how inanimate objects play into the,

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Track 3: the consciousness of humanity when it's like tampered and not tampered by capitalism, basically.

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Track 2: Well, and it's important to note that like all of the little trinkets that he

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Track 2: has all came from the trash.

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Track 3: Absolutely.

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Track 2: You know, so it like really is saying something about humans and the way that we just consume.

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Track 2: And especially now with, you know, the way that products are so cheaply made,

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Track 2: they're designed to break so then you

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Track 2: have to buy them again like i was

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Track 2: wearing like a sweater the other day that i've had for

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Track 2: at least 10 years uh but

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Track 2: then you know you buy like a pair of sweat pants from

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Track 2: amazon or walmart or whatever and like

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Track 2: you know after a month or two it

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Track 2: has like a hole in the crotch or you know

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Track 2: whatever but um so it's it's interesting that like that's kind of where his

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Track 2: joy comes from but it's like it's something that we know didn't really bring

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Track 2: humans joy either um so that's an interesting perspective i like that.

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Track 3: Yeah for sure.

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Track 1: So one of one of the other things that like this maybe is

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Track 1: slightly related but slightly a little unrelated is

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Track 1: the you know we see how the like what happens

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Track 1: to earth it's been destroyed and later on we

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Track 1: see the video of like the ceo essentially of

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Track 1: of by and large showing this video to the

Speaker: 00:28:11

Track 1: captain on the ship which we later find out but something that like

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Track 1: kind of struck me as i was watching it this time maybe more than

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Track 1: others is like the the irony of like

Speaker: 00:28:19

Track 1: the capitalists and the owners of by and large

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Track 1: and other corporations they're selling you all these items like

Speaker: 00:28:25

Track 1: you said this crappy pair of sweatpants you buy that's going to just end up

Speaker: 00:28:28

Track 1: in a landfill in you know six months because it just isn't made to last they're

Speaker: 00:28:33

Track 1: selling you all this all this nonsense and all this stuff that's creating the

Speaker: 00:28:37

Track 1: mess that then they have to then swoop in and solve themselves by then saving

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Track 1: you with a ship that's going to then, you know,

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Track 1: take you to another, you know, to orbit or another planet because of the mess

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Track 1: that they have essentially created.

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Track 1: And I just think like the irony of them sort of selling you the thing that will

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Track 1: then save you, which doesn't really...

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Track 1: Work because we see later that the company does not want

Speaker: 00:29:01

Track 1: the anyone to go back to earth they want them to just

Speaker: 00:29:03

Track 1: continue to swirl around you know the you know the sky and these different gigantic

Speaker: 00:29:09

Track 1: ships because that's how they can continue to make money which side note i don't

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Track 1: understand how anyone has any money that they're buying things by and large

Speaker: 00:29:17

Track 1: at this point like what's the the money situation on the ship anyway like that's.

Speaker: 00:29:22

Track 2: A good question that's that's a good question.

Speaker: 00:29:24

Track 1: But I think the whole like the point of just like the ship and the fact that

Speaker: 00:29:28

Track 1: they're just consuming and they've just gone to consume in a different,

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Track 1: more technologically, you know, superior, you know, in quotes,

Speaker: 00:29:36

Track 1: I guess, way where they can just like press a button on their little iPad or

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Track 1: they can call for a little, you know, droid to come over and give them their

Speaker: 00:29:43

Track 1: empty cup of, you know, like hamburger slurry or whatever.

Speaker: 00:29:46

Track 1: So, like, it's all very, it feels like we're on that trajectory and it makes me, it doesn't make me.

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Track 2: Yeah. Well, so since Alex isn't here, I know that, like, based on what you said,

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Track 2: that maybe she would have brought up the shock doctrine by Naomi Klein.

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Track 1: Good point.

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Track 2: That, you know, like you said, like when they give you this product,

Speaker: 00:30:10

Track 2: but then they're also selling you what the solution is supposed to be like,

Speaker: 00:30:14

Track 2: you know, it's kind of the same vibe that like capitalism is creating all of

Speaker: 00:30:20

Track 2: these disasters, you know, whether that's environmental,

Speaker: 00:30:24

Track 2: economic, whatever, but then also coming back and selling you what the quote

Speaker: 00:30:30

Track 2: unquote solution is supposed to be.

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Track 2: So it's just like this vicious cycle of consumerism, but also like exploitation.

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Track 3: Yeah, I would also like my whole theory of the ship is that.

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Track 3: First of all, I think that if it's not implied,

Speaker: 00:30:47

Track 3: it's at the very least maybe something that is highly likely to anyone that

Speaker: 00:30:53

Track 3: has left his perspective on this, that everybody that is on the ship is a descendant

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Track 3: of probably the richest people on earth.

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Track 3: Like those are probably the people that managed to get on the ship.

Speaker: 00:31:03

Track 3: So perhaps like an economy in terms of like hard labor wasn't intended because,

Speaker: 00:31:09

Track 3: you know, it was meant to be a villa for the people that can afford to have

Speaker: 00:31:12

Track 3: like a five year vacation.

Speaker: 00:31:14

Track 3: But my, my sort of theory of how an economy would develop on that ship would

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Track 3: be entirely like database.

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Track 3: Right. So the value is driven by how much the humans interact with the virtual

Speaker: 00:31:28

Track 3: screens and show their options and their preferences and the things they like

Speaker: 00:31:33

Track 3: to consume, the ways that they like to date.

Speaker: 00:31:36

Track 3: Those kind of things maybe are what feed the machines and allow them to learn

Speaker: 00:31:41

Track 3: from this and upgrade themselves.

Speaker: 00:31:44

Track 3: But that's like a sort of wacky, like, oh, let's imagine more things in WALL-E

Speaker: 00:31:48

Track 3: that aren't really talked about.

Speaker: 00:31:50

Track 1: No. So that's actually a good point, because what we also see on Earth is lots more space shuttles.

Speaker: 00:31:56

Track 1: Like initially when they show everyone leaving Earth, it's lots of spaceships, smaller ones.

Speaker: 00:32:01

Track 1: And so probably the working class people are on different ships going to other

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Track 1: planets to mine them and do all the hard labor on those places.

Speaker: 00:32:11

Track 1: And that's what's feeding the data and the things that are happening on this

Speaker: 00:32:15

Track 1: fancy ship are probably feeding... How are they continuously getting food on this ship, right?

Speaker: 00:32:20

Track 1: So someone's bringing it to them from somewhere else. So I think it makes perfect

Speaker: 00:32:25

Track 1: sense that that's the richest.

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Track 1: Those are the billionaires and the millionaires of people, and everyone else

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Track 1: is somewhere else doing hard labor.

Speaker: 00:32:32

Track 1: And they get to stay in space while this fancy ship gets to return to Earth and.

Speaker: 00:32:37

Track 3: Take it over.

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Track 1: Again and build a new working class for them to exploit.

Speaker: 00:32:40

Track 3: I'm just i'm just imagining like a a a deleted scene of like a planet full of

Speaker: 00:32:45

Track 3: working class people and like once a week one of them wins a lottery and the

Speaker: 00:32:50

Track 3: lottery is like they get to go up to the ship and they're just eaten by the people in the ship well.

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Track 1: I just picture like the other people like live in the alien timeline right like

Speaker: 00:33:01

Track 1: timeline like well i guess it's all the same timeline but they're on some you

Speaker: 00:33:04

Track 1: know planet mining the ore for you know weyland yutani or by and large or whatever.

Speaker: 00:33:09

Track 3: That's actually like i promise i'm not gonna do tangents every like five minutes

Speaker: 00:33:14

Track 3: but that's one of the things i really loved about the new alien film is so many

Speaker: 00:33:18

Track 3: of the alien films after the first two uh or first three i should say they have

Speaker: 00:33:24

Track 3: like so many kind of characters that are just,

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Track 3: rich or or you know like the the top of

Speaker: 00:33:30

Track 3: the line scientists and researchers of like

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Track 3: that the earth can offer and romulus

Speaker: 00:33:36

Track 3: right off the bat starts in a stark in a star colony

Speaker: 00:33:39

Track 3: where like everybody is essentially like an enslaved like like a wage slave

Speaker: 00:33:42

Track 3: type thing and it's and you know it's it's nice that like we're getting some

Speaker: 00:33:47

Track 3: sci-fi again that is giving the proper you know harsh critiques of of capitalism

Speaker: 00:33:54

Track 3: that sci-fi used to do as opposed to just kind of being like Like, what if, you know,

Speaker: 00:33:58

Track 3: scary alien killed a bunch of scientists?

Speaker: 00:34:01

Track 3: But yeah, I think that that's also one of the things I appreciate about WALL-E.

Speaker: 00:34:05

Track 3: It starts us off right in the in the shit, you know, like we are in the middle

Speaker: 00:34:09

Track 3: of the trash and we're not just getting the cool sort of ship concept.

Speaker: 00:34:13

Track 3: We we see an advert for the ship, but we don't really know what the sort of

Speaker: 00:34:17

Track 3: 700 years later picture is going to be until like halfway through the movie.

Speaker: 00:34:22

Track 3: I wanted to quickly say something before we move away from nostalgia,

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Track 3: which I know is like we kind of quickly went through

Speaker: 00:34:29

Track 3: it i think the nostalgia works both in a good and in

Speaker: 00:34:32

Track 3: a bad way in this film the bad way we talked

Speaker: 00:34:35

Track 3: about how it's a very easy way to fixate on items and not realize that what

Speaker: 00:34:41

Track 3: you actually should be face fixating on is the stuff beyond that and creating

Speaker: 00:34:45

Track 3: the memories as opposed to just being nostalgic but i think that there's something

Speaker: 00:34:49

Track 3: good in the former nostalgia that WALL-E has because,

Speaker: 00:34:54

Track 3: and this is something that I kind of wrote in my thousand word essay about the

Speaker: 00:34:59

Track 3: losing Guattari and WALL-E,

Speaker: 00:35:01

Track 3: but like the robots and the sort of unconscious humans who are being dictated

Speaker: 00:35:07

Track 3: their every move and thought by AI,

Speaker: 00:35:10

Track 3: they're living in this like ever present moment where there is no thought about

Speaker: 00:35:17

Track 3: the future or the past. And the.

Speaker: 00:35:20

Track 3: Wally thinking about the past becomes more human than most of them because Wally

Speaker: 00:35:25

Track 3: is yearning for a thing that is like forever gone that Wally will never have.

Speaker: 00:35:29

Track 3: And the humans in some way are yearning for a future they'll never have because

Speaker: 00:35:33

Track 3: of, uh, auto, the robots, you know, stopping them from being able to go back to earth.

Speaker: 00:35:37

Track 3: So it's like in the sort of ever present moment,

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Track 3: one is kind of like enslaved to be subjugated by capitalism and by the sense

Speaker: 00:35:50

Track 3: of constantly having to be productive,

Speaker: 00:35:52

Track 3: whether it's in the humans creating data for the robots or in WALL-E having to do the work.

Speaker: 00:35:57

Track 3: And allowing ourselves to exist in

Speaker: 00:36:01

Track 3: a time period that is not the present is also

Speaker: 00:36:04

Track 3: allowing ourselves to exist in a time period where we're not being productive

Speaker: 00:36:07

Track 3: and it's that sort of humanity that is lacking in like the perfect ai and the

Speaker: 00:36:13

Track 3: perfect robots of the movie uh which then we see that humanity in the robots

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Track 3: that start to have faults and start to show more humanity i don't know if that made sense but yeah.

Speaker: 00:36:24

Track 1: No, that makes sense. Yeah, no, I, that's a, I hadn't, I hadn't really considered that at all.

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Track 1: Oh, it was something to do with, well, I do, I do want to also talk about like

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Track 1: the other robots on the ship, which I think is like a really,

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Track 1: I mean, we can talk about them now.

Speaker: 00:36:37

Track 1: I mean, it's a, I think it's like a good, well, one, I think you pointed this

Speaker: 00:36:41

Track 1: out, Tom, and like your nose is the kind of the link or like the connection

Speaker: 00:36:45

Track 1: to the ship in 2001, a space odyssey.

Speaker: 00:36:48

Track 1: And then also i didn't know this but the the uh

Speaker: 00:36:51

Track 1: the cockroach is named hal i didn't

Speaker: 00:36:55

Track 1: realize that was his name which is also the name of the you know

Speaker: 00:36:58

Track 1: the person in 2001 species clearly they're throwing a

Speaker: 00:37:01

Track 1: bunch of the you know these little nods to other sci-fi

Speaker: 00:37:04

Track 1: but i love how the robots have this

Speaker: 00:37:07

Track 1: initial sort of programming where they have to follow the

Speaker: 00:37:10

Track 1: little you know lines that are created on the ship and

Speaker: 00:37:13

Track 1: they have this very structured way of doing things like he sees

Speaker: 00:37:16

Track 1: a contaminant and he has to brush it away and then slowly they realize there

Speaker: 00:37:21

Track 1: is like another way to this it's almost like they become they're like the robots

Speaker: 00:37:26

Track 1: like revolution uh like uh became class conscious almost right like towards

Speaker: 00:37:30

Track 1: the end when they get released from that little like prison of,

Speaker: 00:37:34

Track 1: broken robots they then realize okay well maybe i should be doing what wally's

Speaker: 00:37:40

Track 1: doing maybe he is the one that actually has this thing and it's it's interesting

Speaker: 00:37:43

Track 1: that he comes from earth and he's coming there in chasing eve and all of this

Speaker: 00:37:48

Track 1: and it eventually leads to help you know they all come together i don't know

Speaker: 00:37:52

Track 1: i don't know what i'm saying exactly but.

Speaker: 00:37:53

Track 3: No i get you there's actually like a sequel to

Speaker: 00:37:56

Track 3: wally where uh the robots like destroy themselves to

Speaker: 00:37:59

Track 3: death because one of them believes in rosa luxembourg and the other

Speaker: 00:38:02

Track 3: one raised lennon so you know it's the class consciousness is strong in the

Speaker: 00:38:06

Track 3: robots but like yeah it's it's a major part of the movie i feel like um wally

Speaker: 00:38:11

Track 3: is the more awakened and human and connected to the world around them and like the,

Speaker: 00:38:23

Track 3: The perception is that WALL-E is broken or faulty, but truly what is considered

Speaker: 00:38:34

Track 3: a glitch or a fault in WALL-E is actually the most human parts of WALL-E.

Speaker: 00:38:37

Track 3: It's that imperfection that drives people to break away from the capitalist,

Speaker: 00:38:41

Track 3: ever-present mode of production.

Speaker: 00:38:43

Track 3: And until WALL-E shows up and breaks the faulty robots free, that's all they are.

Speaker: 00:38:48

Track 3: They're just faulty robots. it takes them interacting with the world outside

Speaker: 00:38:52

Track 3: them to realize that there is no fault with them they've just gained sentience.

Speaker: 00:38:56

Track 1: Yeah i mean and not just that like wally also

Speaker: 00:38:59

Track 1: is the per you know the person they say that the the

Speaker: 00:39:03

Track 1: the reason that the humans eventually

Speaker: 00:39:06

Track 1: like drop their device and for the first

Speaker: 00:39:09

Track 1: time ever like realize what's around them oh like we have

Speaker: 00:39:12

Track 1: a pool you know like the this like this realization

Speaker: 00:39:15

Track 1: and all these things and then they you know the you know

Speaker: 00:39:18

Track 1: then there's the person next to them and they like touched hands and they

Speaker: 00:39:20

Track 1: realized like oh wait there is human connection like

Speaker: 00:39:23

Track 1: so the thing that like wally was yearning for more than anything he then brings

Speaker: 00:39:28

Track 1: that to you know both the humans on the ship and then also to like the the robots

Speaker: 00:39:34

Track 1: giving them like almost giving them a you know human like humanizing them in a way that's uh,

Speaker: 00:39:42

Track 1: you know taking them beyond just the simply like medial tasks that they're being

Speaker: 00:39:46

Track 1: forced to do like Like I have to brush and I have to, you know,

Speaker: 00:39:50

Track 1: clean or whatever their different little tasks are.

Speaker: 00:39:53

Track 1: So, yeah, I just think it's such a like a wonderful touch, all of that.

Speaker: 00:39:57

Track 3: I mean, like it really shows with like, you know, the biggest villain of the

Speaker: 00:40:00

Track 3: movie, aside from CEO Shelby Forthright, is a robot called Otto.

Speaker: 00:40:05

Track 3: Like the the the the biggest threat to humanity is the idea of switching off

Speaker: 00:40:12

Track 3: and just automating everything and never thinking about doing anything imperfectly

Speaker: 00:40:16

Track 3: ever again it's it's the idea that like you know,

Speaker: 00:40:20

Track 3: the only thing you can ever be in life is productive. And I really appreciate

Speaker: 00:40:25

Track 3: that kind of little detail.

Speaker: 00:40:27

Track 3: Um, auto obviously being another visual, uh, reference to 2001,

Speaker: 00:40:33

Track 3: very much looking like how 9,000.

Speaker: 00:40:35

Track 1: And like, it's funny, you mentioned that too, is because he's

Speaker: 00:40:38

Track 1: meant to be like an AI autopilot

Speaker: 00:40:42

Track 1: in like 2008 when people were not really like

Speaker: 00:40:46

Track 1: large language models for AI we have now did not exist at

Speaker: 00:40:48

Track 1: that time like that was not a thing and not to mention the

Speaker: 00:40:52

Track 1: actual voice for the auto was

Speaker: 00:40:55

Track 1: actually the like macbook computer program

Speaker: 00:40:59

Track 1: auto voice like they based like it wasn't actually a person they

Speaker: 00:41:01

Track 1: like were creating that through like that's why

Speaker: 00:41:04

Track 1: also the little wally boot up symbol is also really

Speaker: 00:41:07

Track 1: funny too but i just like the idea that they had to almost defeat an ai robot

Speaker: 00:41:12

Track 1: to return to home is is it's also very uh you know perceptive in a way that

Speaker: 00:41:20

Track 1: i don't know if they meant it then maybe they got lucky but i think it's a good

Speaker: 00:41:24

Track 1: like critique of ai as well no.

Speaker: 00:41:26

Track 3: I agree 100.

Speaker: 00:41:27

Track 1: Oh i think this like we kind of skipped past this but

Speaker: 00:41:30

Track 1: i wanted to like maybe go back to it and i think so we didn't really talk too

Speaker: 00:41:33

Track 1: much about eve and sort of the like again one thing you don't also really totally

Speaker: 00:41:39

Track 1: see is there's clearly wally is not like an individual like he's not the only

Speaker: 00:41:42

Track 1: robot wally like there's clearly hundreds of these robots that were doing this

Speaker: 00:41:46

Track 1: task just like there's hundreds of ease probably that are going off,

Speaker: 00:41:50

Track 1: exploring like what do

Speaker: 00:41:53

Track 1: you think the actual directive of eve

Speaker: 00:41:56

Track 1: was because it does seem like it was meant to go find whether earth was inhabitable

Speaker: 00:42:00

Track 1: again but it actually isn't what you know like the ai programming wanted so

Speaker: 00:42:05

Track 1: do you think they were also like just scouting for resources that they could

Speaker: 00:42:09

Track 1: use you know for their like giant ship or am i just reading too much into it.

Speaker: 00:42:14

Track 3: I i i think that like there are so

Speaker: 00:42:16

Track 3: many elements to eve that are interesting

Speaker: 00:42:19

Track 3: eve also i think was the first thing in the

Speaker: 00:42:22

Track 3: movie that made me cry um and i'll

Speaker: 00:42:25

Track 3: get to that in a second but eve is interesting

Speaker: 00:42:28

Track 3: i i believe that eve's directive at the beginning is

Speaker: 00:42:32

Track 3: find plant life feed it back to humans get

Speaker: 00:42:35

Track 3: them to come to earth uh and and it is clearly not a thing that is consciously

Speaker: 00:42:40

Track 3: done by any living person in axiom it is like an automated process because like

Speaker: 00:42:45

Track 3: obviously once the captain sees it for the first time he's shocked and he has

Speaker: 00:42:49

Track 3: no idea what to do with it um but,

Speaker: 00:42:52

Track 3: Eve is so interesting. Eve is obviously the first convert in the church of Wally.

Speaker: 00:43:00

Track 3: I'm going to use they, them pronouns for Wally and Eve because I think that

Speaker: 00:43:04

Track 3: Destiny was telling me a while back, what if the two of them are non-binary?

Speaker: 00:43:09

Track 3: And I kind of really like the, I see the vision, basically.

Speaker: 00:43:14

Track 2: You're a convert, too.

Speaker: 00:43:15

Track 3: Oh, absolutely. You know, I was a convert since I came out of my egg.

Speaker: 00:43:19

Track 3: But basically, Eve, you know, starts off with this incredibly capitalist minded

Speaker: 00:43:27

Track 3: design and function, right?

Speaker: 00:43:30

Track 3: Eve is both I like like in a in a sort of paradoxical way looking for plant life but also,

Speaker: 00:43:38

Track 3: annihilating with a laser beam anything that moves in

Speaker: 00:43:42

Track 3: the planet and it really shows that kind of like really

Speaker: 00:43:45

Track 3: awful human instinct within capitalism of like you got to do your thing you

Speaker: 00:43:49

Track 3: got to you got to try and keep the survival of the race but you also have to

Speaker: 00:43:52

Track 3: be like a like the greatest product that humans can make which is like kind

Speaker: 00:43:57

Track 3: of sorry I'm doing like so many tangents here But Eve is like the,

Speaker: 00:44:02

Track 3: the par excellence thing that like humans have created versus Wally,

Speaker: 00:44:07

Track 3: which is like a broken trash compactor machine, right?

Speaker: 00:44:11

Track 3: Eve is a, a war machine, a nomadic war machine.

Speaker: 00:44:15

Track 3: If you like to lose, uh, that is like sent to the earth to uphold the survival

Speaker: 00:44:20

Track 3: of humanity, but also could destroy anything in their path and.

Speaker: 00:44:25

Track 3: It takes interacting with WALL-E and seeing a robot be able to show inefficiency,

Speaker: 00:44:31

Track 3: incompetence, ineptitude for Eve to start to be charmed and to start to also

Speaker: 00:44:36

Track 3: interact in a way that fits with WALL-E.

Speaker: 00:44:40

Track 3: And the full extent of the conversion of Eve.

Speaker: 00:44:45

Track 3: I mean, I think that Eve gains a form of sentience during that time when they're

Speaker: 00:44:50

Track 3: learning about WALL-E and realizing that there's more to life than just one's directive.

Speaker: 00:44:54

Track 3: But i think the the sort of turning point of the movie and

Speaker: 00:44:57

Track 3: the bit that makes me cry is when eve admittedly like

Speaker: 00:45:01

Track 3: you know not thinking too much about the humans at the time throws away

Speaker: 00:45:05

Track 3: the plant like behind them and is like

Speaker: 00:45:08

Track 3: you're my directive wally is my directive and suddenly

Speaker: 00:45:11

Track 3: you realize that like this robot has just rejected

Speaker: 00:45:14

Track 3: all of like its human commands and

Speaker: 00:45:17

Track 3: its entire design and its entire reason to

Speaker: 00:45:20

Track 3: exist for the sake of like that that

Speaker: 00:45:23

Track 3: social connection which is what capitalism tries

Speaker: 00:45:26

Track 3: to destroy in all of us by making us alienated workers so there's something

Speaker: 00:45:30

Track 3: truly beautiful about like the the journey that eve takes themselves like like

Speaker: 00:45:35

Track 3: not even sort of thinking about their relationships with other characters in

Speaker: 00:45:39

Track 3: the in the movie just eve and their progression is just really beautiful to watch yeah.

Speaker: 00:45:44

Track 1: All of the scenes where they're you know kind of

Speaker: 00:45:47

Track 1: like looking lovingly into each other's like

Speaker: 00:45:50

Track 1: robot eyes you know it's just

Speaker: 00:45:52

Track 1: like when wally sort of has those moments where they

Speaker: 00:45:55

Track 1: think they're on the axiom and he's waiting you

Speaker: 00:45:58

Track 1: know in the little with the towels on his head and he's like peeking out looking

Speaker: 00:46:02

Track 1: at her like it's like you can't help but it's like it's almost i don't know

Speaker: 00:46:09

Track 1: sometimes you see in films where there's uh you know animated films with animals

Speaker: 00:46:12

Track 1: that are kind of anthropomorphized or just simply animals where they don't really have that same...

Speaker: 00:46:18

Track 1: I don't know feeling of them being truly human but

Speaker: 00:46:23

Track 1: they really really like nailed it with

Speaker: 00:46:26

Track 1: just the way that they look it doesn't whether or not you like you

Speaker: 00:46:28

Track 1: buy it or not that's fine you know but just simply just

Speaker: 00:46:32

Track 1: the way that they look at each other is it's like it's a pretty incredible animation

Speaker: 00:46:35

Track 1: of just it's hard

Speaker: 00:46:38

Track 1: to look at them they're like progression too and

Speaker: 00:46:41

Track 1: then especially later when while he's injured and they go

Speaker: 00:46:44

Track 1: back to earth and she's you know rescuing him and thinks that

Speaker: 00:46:46

Track 1: he's not gonna or they they don't think that

Speaker: 00:46:49

Track 1: they're going to uh you know uh make it

Speaker: 00:46:52

Track 1: like he doesn't have the same memories as they did before and

Speaker: 00:46:55

Track 1: you see that they do and it's just that's that's the part that like for me is

Speaker: 00:46:59

Track 1: like the most like chilling like you want to cry from is when you think at first

Speaker: 00:47:04

Track 1: that wally is not going to remember eve and then he closes his uh his claw over

Speaker: 00:47:10

Track 1: over Eve's claw or hand whatever it is.

Speaker: 00:47:13

Track 2: I think any pronouns for them.

Speaker: 00:47:16

Track 1: Are fine because.

Speaker: 00:47:18

Track 2: Like they're robots but I I

Speaker: 00:47:21

Track 2: do think that it's important to to point out like how um their relationship

Speaker: 00:47:26

Track 2: in the movie and how like it just became very like heteronormative and like

Speaker: 00:47:33

Track 2: you know there's something to be said about that but I think that as far as

Speaker: 00:47:37

Track 2: the pronouns like you know,

Speaker: 00:47:39

Track 2: They're just robots. But yeah, I like I cried when they were dancing together

Speaker: 00:47:46

Track 2: because it's just like it is very human and like just the way they like yearn for each other.

Speaker: 00:47:54

Track 2: Like it's it's a gay love story. I mean, it doesn't get any gayer than that.

Speaker: 00:47:59

Track 3: Absolutely. There's nothing more gay than like falling in love within a day of knowing one another.

Speaker: 00:48:04

Track 3: You know, I'm going to get the U-Haul right now. with after.

Speaker: 00:48:08

Track 1: Having just watched hello dolly like on the little uh you know together.

Speaker: 00:48:11

Track 3: Briefly absolutely i i

Speaker: 00:48:14

Track 3: wanted to bring up something really interesting that happens with

Speaker: 00:48:17

Track 3: eve in particular uh during uh

Speaker: 00:48:21

Track 3: like the first night i think or maybe the second night that eve is on earth

Speaker: 00:48:25

Track 3: um they shut down because i guess they're just recharging or whatever it is

Speaker: 00:48:29

Track 3: that they need to do And Wally thinks of doing this romantic gesture where they

Speaker: 00:48:34

Track 3: create like a structure that looks kind of like,

Speaker: 00:48:38

Track 3: I think either Wally or Eve, they create a structure that looks like a robot

Speaker: 00:48:41

Track 3: and Eve not having spent enough.

Speaker: 00:48:44

Track 3: So it's like, it's a very human thing to do.

Speaker: 00:48:47

Track 3: Wally is creating a romantic gesture and the romantic value behind it is the

Speaker: 00:48:53

Track 3: fact that that gesture took time and effort and labor to make.

Speaker: 00:48:57

Track 3: And Eve being still a hundred percent in this mentality of being a robot doesn't

Speaker: 00:49:03

Track 3: value the strain and the labor it takes to create a gesture like that because

Speaker: 00:49:07

Track 3: Eve is a robot designed not to feel strain or effort or time.

Speaker: 00:49:11

Track 3: So Eve shakes it off and goes away.

Speaker: 00:49:14

Track 3: Then they start to

Speaker: 00:49:17

Track 3: properly connect and fall in love and Eve starts to see

Speaker: 00:49:20

Track 3: the world view of Wally as a human and when you get to the sort of climactic

Speaker: 00:49:25

Track 3: scene of Eve replaying their recordings and finally getting to see how much

Speaker: 00:49:30

Track 3: time and effort and energy Wally spent taking care of Eve while Eve was shut

Speaker: 00:49:35

Track 3: off for however many days,

Speaker: 00:49:38

Track 3: there's a beautiful moment where Eve recognizes.

Speaker: 00:49:41

Track 3: Like gestures based on labor and

Speaker: 00:49:44

Track 3: time and effort which are impossible for a robot to do

Speaker: 00:49:47

Track 3: so it's like a sort of full circle moment where you

Speaker: 00:49:50

Track 3: had eve not understanding that sort of that that human concept at all to suddenly

Speaker: 00:49:55

Track 3: being like oh my god this robot really loves me and i really love this robot

Speaker: 00:50:00

Track 3: and i think that to me is fucking gorgeous it's it's such a beautiful way of

Speaker: 00:50:05

Track 3: like type of storytelling that didn't involve any fucking dialogue whatsoever yeah.

Speaker: 00:50:09

Track 2: Yeah i didn't really realize like how much this movie

Speaker: 00:50:12

Track 2: like really speaks to mark's isolation um

Speaker: 00:50:16

Track 2: because i mean you know that's what happens we

Speaker: 00:50:19

Track 2: get really separated from our labor and even the things that we consume we become

Speaker: 00:50:25

Track 2: separated from the labor that it takes to create like you know you can order

Speaker: 00:50:31

Track 2: door dash and listen this is not a judgment i order it way too often but But

Speaker: 00:50:37

Track 2: like you can order DoorDash and like, you know,

Speaker: 00:50:39

Track 2: you're separated from the labor that it took to create that meal or even where

Speaker: 00:50:46

Track 2: the food came from, like, you know, growing it,

Speaker: 00:50:49

Track 2: harvesting it, taking care of it.

Speaker: 00:50:51

Track 2: Like, it all takes work. And I think that the more isolated we become and the

Speaker: 00:50:57

Track 2: closer we get to our work and letting that define us, you know,

Speaker: 00:51:05

Track 2: the more that happens, unfortunately.

Speaker: 00:51:08

Track 3: 100%. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:51:09

Track 1: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker: 00:51:12

Track 2: I did see your... Oh, sorry.

Speaker: 00:51:14

Track 1: No, no, go ahead. You go.

Speaker: 00:51:15

Track 2: I did see someone's note about Eve and how like Adam and Eve,

Speaker: 00:51:20

Track 2: I thought that was interesting.

Speaker: 00:51:22

Track 2: I'm not Christian, so I guess I didn't like initially think about that.

Speaker: 00:51:26

Track 2: But yeah, who put that? Talk more about that.

Speaker: 00:51:30

Track 1: So I put that down and the only thing I could think of sort of as I thought

Speaker: 00:51:33

Track 1: about it was and before they leave Earth and they've now, they go up to the

Speaker: 00:51:37

Track 1: ship and then they eventually return is obviously they can't populate Earth.

Speaker: 00:51:42

Track 1: You know, they're just, they're just robots. They can't, I guess they could

Speaker: 00:51:45

Track 1: build more robots, you know, theoretically if they had the parts too.

Speaker: 00:51:48

Track 1: But I just saw like, you know, these are like the first, not the first two,

Speaker: 00:51:52

Track 1: but you know, the only two people living on Earth at the time.

Speaker: 00:51:56

Track 1: And like, they're a couple, whether you want to refer to them as like man and

Speaker: 00:51:59

Track 1: woman, you know, you could. Thank you.

Speaker: 00:52:01

Track 1: Take that or leave it but it i this could be just a stretch because like her name is the,

Speaker: 00:52:09

Track 1: extraterrestrial vegetation evaluator it's like that's just you know but creating

Speaker: 00:52:14

Track 1: that acronym and have it be eve i don't know couldn't have been could have been

Speaker: 00:52:17

Track 1: religious in nature could not have been i don't know.

Speaker: 00:52:20

Track 3: Yeah i i'm vegetarian so whenever sabrina eats my food that's like my nickname for.

Speaker: 00:52:24

Track 1: That well actually so in the actually so sorry i didn't mean to cut you off

Speaker: 00:52:27

Track 1: in the that's fine in the wikipedia page under like the theme section there is one that says uh that,

Speaker: 00:52:35

Track 1: stanton who created the film was a christian and he named eve after the biblical

Speaker: 00:52:38

Track 1: figure so i i swear i didn't see that before that just uh no.

Speaker: 00:52:43

Track 3: I i see the connection i think that like you know it like

Speaker: 00:52:46

Track 3: i was saying a while back to me after

Speaker: 00:52:50

Track 3: the world has ended and humanity has become this husk

Speaker: 00:52:53

Track 3: of themselves as just like essentially waking like

Speaker: 00:52:57

Track 3: uh what's it called like they're just in waking dreams of like having to constantly

Speaker: 00:53:02

Track 3: be under the spell of ai wally is like the last or maybe the first ever semblance

Speaker: 00:53:07

Track 3: of humanity enacting itself or or outwardly projecting uh in a world that like

Speaker: 00:53:14

Track 3: hasn't seen that in centuries so it's like,

Speaker: 00:53:18

Track 3: after WALL-E manages to get Eve not to be so robot-like, it is true that they

Speaker: 00:53:25

Track 3: are the first two reintroductions of humanity to the Earth. So I can see that.

Speaker: 00:53:32

Track 3: It makes sense, and I understand why Eve was...

Speaker: 00:53:36

Track 3: I mean, there's also, I guess, maybe perhaps a maternal read there of Eve literally

Speaker: 00:53:42

Track 3: puts the plant in their belly.

Speaker: 00:53:45

Track 3: Eve has to be the first sort of life form,

Speaker: 00:53:51

Track 3: or I guess, I don't know how to explain it, but Eve has to be the first sort

Speaker: 00:53:54

Track 3: of person or robot to carry life within them, which, I don't know,

Speaker: 00:54:01

Track 3: perhaps that's the kind of, maybe that's why Eve is called Eve.

Speaker: 00:54:05

Track 1: It also says in this Wikipedia, someone notes that Eve was named,

Speaker: 00:54:11

Track 1: like they named him Eve or named the robot Eve also because it's like the idea

Speaker: 00:54:15

Track 1: that the plant will tell humanity to return to Earth and move away from like

Speaker: 00:54:19

Track 1: the false god of, you know,

Speaker: 00:54:22

Track 1: by and large, which can be read as a religious version.

Speaker: 00:54:26

Track 1: But at the same time, I read that more of a they're rejecting the idea of this

Speaker: 00:54:31

Track 1: capitalist excess ship and instead moving back where they can now like till

Speaker: 00:54:37

Track 1: the land and like work together because you have like during the credit scene,

Speaker: 00:54:40

Track 1: you kind of see their progression of planting and fishing and all these different things.

Speaker: 00:54:45

Track 1: So I like to think of it less as religious text and more of a rejection of corporate bullshit.

Speaker: 00:54:51

Track 3: Yeah, 100%.

Speaker: 00:54:52

Track 2: Yeah, for sure. The only other critique that I had about the movie that I didn't

Speaker: 00:54:58

Track 2: I forgot to put my notes is like it's a little bit low key fat phobic because

Speaker: 00:55:03

Track 2: like everyone gets fat on on the spaceship and like.

Speaker: 00:55:10

Track 2: You know, being fat is not a moral failing. It's not like a result of capitalism.

Speaker: 00:55:16

Track 2: So I just didn't love that part of the film.

Speaker: 00:55:21

Track 2: But, you know, also, this is 2008. And so I feel like conversation around fat

Speaker: 00:55:27

Track 2: phobia was a lot different.

Speaker: 00:55:29

Track 1: Yeah.

Speaker: 00:55:30

Track 2: But I feel that's my only other gripe.

Speaker: 00:55:33

Track 3: So I, I don't want to start like a whole, uh, uh, you know, uh,

Speaker: 00:55:38

Track 3: leftist infighting thing here.

Speaker: 00:55:40

Track 3: Um, and I definitely think that like it being 2008, there were probably like

Speaker: 00:55:45

Track 3: liberties taken with the representation of, of, uh, you know,

Speaker: 00:55:49

Track 3: fatness and obesity that like were probably done carelessly.

Speaker: 00:55:54

Track 3: But i i think i guess maybe i avoided

Speaker: 00:55:57

Track 3: the movie originally because i'd seen shots of like

Speaker: 00:56:00

Track 3: you know the fat humans and i thought okay this movie is like fat shaming or

Speaker: 00:56:03

Track 3: whatever but when i watched the film for the first time and every time since

Speaker: 00:56:08

Track 3: i become less and less convinced that the movie is like really being outwardly

Speaker: 00:56:14

Track 3: fat phobic i think my read of the of the humans on the axiom is that.

Speaker: 00:56:20

Track 3: They're fat by necessity of the narrative showing that they are like cattle

Speaker: 00:56:24

Track 3: to the ai that like the ai have kind of create like become uh complacent in

Speaker: 00:56:31

Track 3: a system where they feed off the,

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Track 3: the necessity of keeping humans docile and

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Track 3: and not doing anything with their lives um

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Track 3: and i think that there's a lot of like criticism that

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Track 3: could be made of like we've we talked about like does the axiom have an economy or

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Track 3: is it actually bad that the humans managed to find a a

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Track 3: system in which they'll never have to work again uh like

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Track 3: there's a lot of complexities to

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Track 3: the whole thing but i feel like it doesn't

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Track 3: it doesn't do too much that

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Track 3: i think outwardly feels horrible and like you know i don't i don't know that

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Track 3: like too many of the characters like become the butt of a joke because of them

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Track 3: being fat um maybe there's a couple of instances which like obviously are not great but,

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Track 3: where they fall down they.

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Track 1: Can't get it back up.

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Track 3: Yeah but I think also it's I think that there's a natural thing of like you

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Track 3: know in a ship you will like your bone density will just be fucked with because

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Track 3: like that is what being in a ship is and I do think that there is something there to like,

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Track 3: the fatness not being a bad thing so much as just being a natural end point

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Track 3: of like they are like them not being able to get up if they fall,

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Track 3: reminded me of like the whole uh i don't know if it's a myth or if it's like

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Track 3: genuine fact but like you tip a cow over they can't get up the humans are kind

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Track 3: of in a farm of sorts for the for the ai,

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Track 3: like they are made to act like cows where like their their bodies are the most

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Track 3: like valuable their bodies and minds are the most valuable thing for the ai

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Track 3: but like not them exerting those things in any kind of like autonomous way and

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Track 3: that felt like more of a comment on you know,

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Track 3: how ai is like toxic under a

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Track 3: capitalist lens as opposed to like you know the idiocracy type like we have

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Track 3: to be bigoted if we're going to like criticize uh dystopian like humans in a

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Track 3: dystopian type of way you know yeah it's still not great it's still not perfect

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Track 3: and it's still not great I.

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Track 2: Feel like you can send that message without like, like, cause every single person had gotten fat.

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Track 2: And I just feel like, like, if you are going to show what the human experience

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Track 2: is on this ship, like we can do that in a more nuanced way.

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Track 3: Yeah. I think.

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Track 2: But again, it was 2008. So like my expectations are pretty low.

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Track 3: It's 2008, you know, stock market crash has only just happened.

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Track 3: There's still like a long way

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Track 3: for people to get properly radicalized in a kind of more mainstream way.

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Track 3: But I think, yeah, there are problematic elements to the movie,

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Track 3: but there's also elements of the movie where it's like,

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Track 3: they're you know they become fat because like

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Track 3: every single human becomes imprisoned by

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Track 3: the virtual screen and is like may is kind of pressured by the robots never

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Track 3: to leave their chair again you know like none of the humans are are made aware

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Track 3: of like any facilities that would allow them to exercise it it's it's it's well that's not.

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Track 2: True they have a track yeah like the.

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Track 3: The captain's like jokes.

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Track 1: He's like, we have a track.

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Track 3: Yeah, like they don't know these things exist because the AI have been imprisoning

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Track 3: them in their own sort of like chairs for so long.

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Track 3: So I think that's just like, I'm willing to be a little more forgiving of the

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Track 3: movie because it feels like less about the fat shaming, even though there is some fat shaming still.

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Track 3: I don't know, it's complicated. But yeah, I agree with you, Destiny, but yeah.

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Track 2: I said a tiny bit, a tiny bit. Like I'm just,

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Track 2: i am aware that there is this

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Track 2: critique and that like i could see that for sure but yeah i still give it 9.8

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Track 2: out of 10 what about y'all what would you give it well you two are heavy on

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Track 2: letterbox and out of five so i gave what would you give it i.

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Track 1: Gave it four and a half out of five.

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Track 2: Okay what about you tom i.

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Track 3: Originally gave it four and a half i think that like to

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Track 3: me it's a five star film out of 10 it's probably like

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Track 3: a 9.8 9.9 but i feel like it

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Track 3: doesn't feel fair to say 9.9 and then it go

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Track 3: to four and a half i feel like that's a massive downgrade uh i

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Track 3: do think that it is the closest we'll get to like pixar and disney making like

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Track 3: an actually class conscious anti capitalist film i don't think we'll ever get

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Track 3: especially now in this current climate i don't think we'll ever get disney or

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Track 3: pixar doing anything remotely woke ever again no uh so,

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Track 3: you know c'est la vie but i i do think it's it's a it's a fucking classic it's so good yeah.

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Track 2: I would say 4.8 out of 5.

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Track 1: Yeah and i should say like saying it's 4.5 like

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Track 1: close to 5 at that point like we're kind of

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Track 1: like i guess splitting hairs i guess you could say i guess by saying it's like

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Track 1: it's not i don't know now i feel like i have to watch it again and say like

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Track 1: is it a five-star film like it's it's pretty damn close like i don't know like

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Track 1: if i was gonna 4.8 yeah like you said that's like that's it's it's whatever

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Track 1: we're it's a five star it's fine,

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Track 1: All right, everyone. I'm going to go change my Letterboxd review after this.

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Track 2: Well, this is what we're here to do. Analyze the film, you know, the good and the bad.

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Track 1: Yeah, it's funny that it's funny you mentioned like the stars on Letterboxd,

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Track 1: because recently I've been considering the prospect of instead of giving stars,

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Track 1: just writing like what I think.

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Track 1: Because sometimes it's so hard for me to say i see other people do this too

Speaker: 01:02:21

Track 1: where like one movie that like i like from my childhood that's a five-star film

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Track 1: and then i see some new movie that's like like the brutalist which i didn't

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Track 1: give five stars like how could i justify you know one of them it's just so hard

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Track 1: to like compare them i don't know i could go off on on this for a while but.

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Track 3: Here's here's my argument for for

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Track 3: rating it with stars even if you might be wrong at the time i've

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Track 3: thought about this i have friends that like don't do star ratings anymore

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Track 3: they'll just write an essay or just say logged and i

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Track 3: it would kill me to look at

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Track 3: like a list of a thousand films that i've seen and

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Track 3: there's not a single sort of instantaneous way for

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Track 3: me to know like i really like that or i didn't even if i feel like

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Track 3: oh maybe i actually would have rated it higher or i would have rated it lower

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Track 3: like i don't have time to read every single essay that i want to write about

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Track 3: every single film because i write like loads so it's nice to just have that

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Track 3: one snapshot at the top of my of my review just to be like yeah you gave this

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Track 3: a four you would absolutely love to re-watch this or you gave this two and a

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Track 3: half it's probably not going to be worth watching yeah.

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Track 1: That's that's partly why i keep it that way because sometimes i go back and

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Track 1: look like oh what did i rate five stars like last year like you know these are

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Track 1: my favorite films of that year and it would be much harder to do it in the way

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Track 1: you're describing of having like no context so,

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Track 1: for now letterbox fans i will stick to the rating system that has been prescribed

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Track 1: to me but i I sometimes wish they had like the quarter option, like 4.25, 4.5, 4.75.

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Track 1: So I can get real nuance in there.

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Track 3: We're spoiled for choice. There's a lot of websites where like you can only

Speaker: 01:03:51

Track 3: give it like entire star. You can't even do the 0.5 things.

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Track 1: Oh, that's true. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah.

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Track 1: But I'll also.

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Track 2: I feel like Ryan. Oh, sorry.

Speaker: 01:04:01

Track 1: I was going to say, you can follow Tom and I. Do you have an account, Destiny? No.

Speaker: 01:04:05

Track 1: Letterboxd? Okay, so you can follow all of us in Letterboxd.

Speaker: 01:04:07

Track 1: You'll see those links in the description of this podcast. But yeah,

Speaker: 01:04:11

Track 1: what were you going to say?

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Track 2: I feel like sometimes reviewing movies, like, ruins it.

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Track 2: Like, on Letterboxd, because people are so serious about, like,

Speaker: 01:04:24

Track 2: I watch movies, but I don't.

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Track 2: Sometimes i review them on letterboxd and sometimes i don't like because.

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Track 1: I do the same like sometimes i feel like i want to write something sometimes

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Track 1: i'm just like i watched that movie and that's the end of it i.

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Track 2: Liked it that's it you know.

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Track 3: No not me i'm a i'm a professional fucking yapper

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Track 3: i have like i i normally have at

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Track 3: least like a hundred words to say about every film and some of them

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Track 3: will go up to like a thousand a thousand five hundred i'm like i'm

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Track 3: so annoying on letterboxd but the annoying thing is like i

Speaker: 01:04:53

Track 3: will have like i'll spend like a solid hour two hours

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Track 3: really thinking about a movie and being like yeah i have like a

Speaker: 01:04:59

Track 3: lot to say about this and that will get like two likes

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Track 3: and then if i do a review of a letterbox film where i'm like where

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Track 3: what if willem dafoe in this movie was still willem dafoe but he was gay and

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Track 3: it'll get like you know 40 likes and people will actually appreciate that it's

Speaker: 01:05:13

Track 3: like letterbox unfortunately also does just reward people doing like bottom

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Track 3: of the barrel like bits that have been done a million times before yeah yeah.

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Track 2: Yeah social.

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Track 1: Media for you i suppose.

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Track 2: Yeah yeah yeah i've been kind of taking a step back a little bit yeah.

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Track 3: That's fair cool.

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Track 1: Well uh i think you everyone probably listening could have told earlier what

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Track 1: our general thoughts on this film are which are our high marks near near five

Speaker: 01:05:42

Track 1: across the board you know if we're like holding up our little signs for like, you know, afterwards.

Speaker: 01:05:47

Track 1: But Destiny, I think everyone has probably knows you from other episodes on this podcast.

Speaker: 01:05:53

Track 1: So, but do you want to remind everyone about your podcast and maybe what you

Speaker: 01:05:59

Track 1: have planned, if you'd like?

Speaker: 01:06:01

Track 2: Yeah, sure. So if you haven't already, go follow Closeted History on Instagram,

Speaker: 01:06:10

Track 2: YouTube, all the places.

Speaker: 01:06:11

Track 2: And the next episode coming up, we have an interview with a creator named Just

Speaker: 01:06:19

Track 2: Flint is fine, a fellow educator, and he just wrote a book.

Speaker: 01:06:24

Track 2: So it's an interview with him and...

Speaker: 01:06:30

Track 2: Yeah. You want to check out the pod closeted history.com. Thanks for listening.

Speaker: 01:06:34

Track 1: And Thomas, people can follow you on letterbox, but you still have your Tik

Speaker: 01:06:38

Track 1: TOK account. I should, I do.

Speaker: 01:06:40

Track 3: Yeah. I, I haven't, I had like some medical stuff where I wasn't able to post

Speaker: 01:06:45

Track 3: for like about a month, but I'm going to get back to it ASAP.

Speaker: 01:06:48

Track 3: Uh, people can follow me on pretty much almost all social media as leftist Squidward.

Speaker: 01:06:52

Track 3: Uh, and if you do find leftist Squidward, you'll like,

Speaker: 01:06:55

Track 3: you'll find the link tree that has all my other stuff on letterboxd i'm number

Speaker: 01:07:00

Track 3: one spy kids fan uh number one is like n-o dot one and then everything else

Speaker: 01:07:06

Track 3: is just like an individual word uh and yeah i am incredibly annoying across

Speaker: 01:07:12

Track 3: all social media so uh get ready for that.

Speaker: 01:07:15

Track 1: Yeah well that's that's that's perfect but uh but thomas and destiny it's been

Speaker: 01:07:19

Track 1: a great time talking about the best Pixar film we're just gonna we're gonna

Speaker: 01:07:25

Track 1: top it up to the best one but yeah thank you both for being here today yeah.

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Track 2: Thank you for having me.

Speaker: 01:07:30

Track 1: Of course and you can again we'll have links to everyone's shows and podcasts

Speaker: 01:07:37

Track 1: and letterbox reviews and you can go follow everyone there and we'll catch you next time.