You Made Your Bed, Now Sleep In It: WALL-E

    Each of the several occasions that I “experienced” Wall-e, my head was spinning because there were so many pressing issues at hand. First of all, the critical side of me was curious to know how a cruise ship in outer space was able to maintain itself for seven hundred years. I found myself constantly questioning how they received water and food without any resources from the earth.  But with that inconsistency aside, I noticed that the film presented issues very relevant to life in society today.  Being a Pixar movie, it seems that the goal is to always teach about a greater moral or social issue with a child-friendly approach that can also appeal to adult audiences. Wall-e masterfully touched on some of the most relevant issues pressing our world while simultaneously achieving the status of a science fiction film. We are enlightened about neglect of our environment, dependency on technology, and general human laziness.

     One of the most alarming issues I found in the film was the fact that humans knew that they were doomed before-hand and still continued down their destructive path. The president in the film had an entire protocol arranged for various situations that may occur while in space. He knew they would have an issue with finding life on earth and he knew that the humans on the ship would become lazy and have a possible lack of bone density. Just as now in our current society; we know that our careless actions towards the environment will soon catch up with us, but we never take any great measures to protect the earth. If the president in the film knew of the world’s fate, why didn't he make a greater effort to fix things before they reached the level of extremity that they did? If he knew that the humans on the ship were going to get lazy to the point of losing their bone density, why didn't he make sure to not provide them with electric chairs that would deter them from something as basic as walking?  

    Another point of interest in the film was that the technology of the various robots had become so advanced that they were practically outsmarting the humans. The captain of the ship’s robot assistant, Auto, was determined to not let the captain perform the protocol necessary to return to earth. This sends a message to the audience that we cannot become too dependent upon the luxuries and comforts of technology because it can prove to take over our lives if we’re not careful. This draws me to a connection with the movie Artificial Intelligence where many humans had a severe dislike for the “mecha” because they felt threatened of what they could do to the “orga” humans. Additionally, much of the world had been flooded due to the irresponsibility of humans in regards to the environment. In the end of Artificial Intelligence humans eventually died off and robots were the only thing left in memory of their existence. In Wall-e, we are similarly shown that the earth cannot sustain abuse forever, and that continuation of our actions can lead to us to total dependency on technology. Fortunately, in Wall-e the human race survived (barely) and was able to restore the earth with the assistance of the robots, as shown in the credits.