You probably know a good story when you see one.
So my guess is that you’ve probably seen, and enjoyed, WALL-E, the 2008 film by Pixar Studios.
But did you know this epic tale is incredibly deep, exploring themes and ideas far beyond just a love-struck robot’s journey into space?
Here are 10 things you probably never noticed about WALL-E!
1. The Garden of WALL-Eden
Tell me if this sounds familiar.
A solitary worker toils alone, the sole inhabitant of a planet. His task: To subdue the wild growth and make order out of chaos.
WALL-E’s post-apocalyptic vision of Earth isn’t just a heavy duty prediction – it’s an allegory parallel to the famous Garden of Eden story from Genesis, and WALL-E is Adam reborn as a robot, laboring away each day, deaf to time, and lonely as ever.
The major difference, though, is that in this Garden, Adam isn’t naming animals and tending to plant-life – he’s collecting garbage into neat squares and stacking it into looming towers of reeking filth. He collects trinkets and stows them away and longs to share them with a companion who is fitting for him. He enjoys the company of a cockroach, but like the Adam of Genesis, a wild creature is “no help mate for him,” (Genesis 2:20).
There is even a breath-taking shot of WALL-E gazing into heaven, the stars reflecting in his digital lenses, and we can imagine his prayer, begging for a suitable companion….
2. Eve is… well… Eve
And then she appears.
While not cut from WALL-E’s rib cage, the robot EVE is certainly “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” When WALL-E sees her for the first time, he is smitten, and Adam’s words may be running through the little bot’s circuits!
In an obvious nod to classic feminine symbolism, EVE is egg-shaped and white as a spotless wedding dress. She is curved, mysterious, and intoxicating.
But their would-be romance is suddenly halted when WALL-E shows her one of his trinkets, the one piece of garden-life he was able to tend: a plant. Her directive takes over, and she seals the plant away in her guts and goes into a sleep mode, waiting for the mothership to return her to the Axiom.
The parallel to Genesis fades here, mostly because there is no tempter or serpentine antagonist in the story at this point.
But it is still noteworthy that it is the appearance of a tree (whose fruit permanently changes their relationship, and human history as well) that begins the conflict that threatens to ruin WALL-E and EVE’s blossoming relationship.
3. The Axiom = Noah’s Ark
Then the film leaves Earth for the Axiom, the colossal cruise ship in space where humanity has been surviving in luxury for 700 years.
The parallel to Noah’s Ark, another famous story from Genesis, is easy to see from a human survival point of view. But there are other details that enhance this narrative, and also toy with it.
For example, in the original story, Noah sends out a dove in search of a sign that the waters have receded. In a wildly similar fashion, the Axiom sends out its own probes (white ones, like doves) to retrieve signs from Earth that it is habitable again, or that the flood of trash and dust has receded. One such dove, EVE, returns with a green plant, in exactly the same fashion as Noah’s dove brings back an olive branch to the Ark.
But a major difference separates the myth from the Pixar film. Just as there is no tempting snake, there is no God flooding to Earth to punish sinners. There is no temptation or punishment, at least as far as WALL-E and EVE are concerned.
Rather, in WALL-E’s world, humans are responsible for both, and the little robots are their saviors. The inevitable flood was their own doing, a response from the Earth that forced them to build an ark and save themselves. In a world where humans tempt themselves, and then flood themselves with refuse, who needs a crafty serpant or divine Lord, after all?
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4. Using Real Humans Was Jarring… On Purpose
In an unprecedented move for Pixar, the filmmakers of WALL-E used real human actors.
Starring Fred Williard as Buy N’ Large President Shelby Forthright, WALL-E showed its audience real human beings inhabiting the world of the story, something even the human-heavy Ratatouille didn’t do. It didn’t stop with Williard, either; several advertisements and film clips aboard the Axiom show real human beings in the futuristic space suits, enjoying their never-ending space cruise.
Pixar had never done this before, and hasn’t done it since.
Why?
At the time, I remember the experience was a little jarring.
That was the point.
By using real flesh-and-blood humans, Pixar circumvents the “uncanny valley,” the gap of disbelief audiences cross to accept humanoid characters as human. These polluting forefathers aren’t estranged, “cartoon” humans.
They are us.
The film is a warning bell, an environmental (and materialistic) shot across the bow of consumptionist culture. We are on the path to drowning ourselves in dust and garbage, but there probably won’t be an Axiom (or Moon/Mars base, a la Elon Musk) there to save us. While WALL-E’s filmmakers probably won’t admit that this is a realistic vision of humanity’s future (due to the politics of climate change arguments), they gave away their hand by casting Williard and other humans in on-screen roles.
Seriously – why do it, unless there is a major point to be made?
Pixar never does this. But they did.
Just this once.
5. We’re Already Lost in Our Screens
Aside from an immortal space ship that isn’t worried about gravity, Pixar’s vision of the future isn’t much a stretch.
This becomes apparent when the film transitions to the Axiom where adult human babies are carted around on reclining chairs, drinking their meals through a straw, playing “virtual” sports on their hologram screens.
Remember, this film came out only one year after the iPhone debuted in 2007.
WALL-E’s filmmakers had a strong sense of where things were going, and went ahead and rolled the dice. They were right.
We’re already there because a significant portion of our population more closely resembles the humans of the Axiom than they do Fred Williard. We’re already there because ease and comfort are dominant themes in our culture, and we seem willing to make extraordinary sacrifices in the name of two-day delivery.
Most audience members viewing WALL-E probably laughed at humanity’s portrayal in the Axiom because it hits close to home.
But WALL-E isn’t merely satirizing by exaggeration. It is predicting.
And it isn’t just predicting that we’ll all get too fat to walk around our Noah’s Ark spaceship.
It’s predicting something much, much worse.
6. Define “Earth”
As WALL-E (and with him the audience) arrives on the Axiom, the Captain gives a speech.
He announces that they are celebrating their 700 year anniversary aboard the ship, and to honor the occasion, everyone gets a special cupcake-in-a-cup.
700 years. And no one blinks.
That’s a staggering amount of time.
Think about it. 700 years ago (the year 1320), Modern English as we know it wasn’t even a language. Shakespeare wouldn’t be born for roughly 150 years. Jamestown wouldn’t be colonized for another 200.
700 years is a long time.
So it’s no surprise humanity has lost its sense of definition.
When the captain learns that there’s a chance he’ll be leading his people home, he instructs his computer to “Define Earth.”
There’s a clever joke in here. Not only have they lost all manner of physical definition – including bone and muscle in their bodies – the captain of the ship (the most seemingly qualified of them) has to research the meaning of his own home planet!
In the film, this is funny. But in reality, it’s tragic.
In its prophetic narrative, WALL-E forecasts a future where humans redefine themselves by comfort and automation, losing the sense of what it is to be essentially human.
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7. Define… Sex?
A more subtle hint in the film exposes an even greater loss for the human race: Sex.
In the establishing shots of the Axiom, toddlers can be seen attending classes en masse. Later, the robots run through a room filled with babies in nursery bins.
No parents are to be seen. In fact, no where on the Axiom can families be spotted in any kind of congregation or grouping. Everyone is solo, a singular customer on Buy N’ Large’s conveyor belt of consumption.
Which leads to another frightening prediction: On the Axiom, there is no sex.
And because there’s no sex, reproduction is manufactured – likely by Buy N’ Large.
Seriously – how could those humans partake in intercourse?
In one of the film’s more humorous moments, WALL-E accidentally turns off a woman’s (Mary’s) screen. She happens to notice him, and later notices John, another human whose screen has been interrupted. They meet each other as if they’ve never seen another person in the flesh before.
And while Pixar is probably not going full Aldous Huxley on us and suggesting that all life comes out of test tubes (Brave New World), perhaps Pixar is suggesting that, by obsessing over our comfort and leisure, we are losing something as simple and wonderful as human intimacy.
It makes sense. How much of our consumer culture is built on the idea of something being “sexy?” How often is a car, or movie, or even a fantasy football draft pick, called “sexy” – things that have nothing to do with actual human reproduction and intimacy?
Ironically, and tragically, it is our obsession with attaining sexiness that we lose the ability to enjoy real intimacy.
8. Your Very Best Friend
Buy N’ Large, it’s your super store,
(You’ve got) All you need, and so much more!
Happiness is what we sell
(That’s why) Everyone loves BNL!
When audiences saw the first inklings of BNL in WALL-E, they had to be thinking: “Walmart.”
Walmart is probably the most infamous big-box superstore in existence, and it seems to sell everything, including happiness.
After all, Walmart’s slogan says just that: “Save money, live better!”
But BNL isn’t merely a dig at Walmart – it’s aimed at any one company that absorbs entire markets and achieves ubiquity: Google, Facebook, Amazon – these all seem to be in the same bed as Walmart.
Next time you watch WALL-E, pay attention to the background. There are BNL (“Buy N’ Large”) logos everywhere. Ocean liners. Massive magnets used for shipping.
Everything that can be branded has been.
There’s no escaping the marketing, whether you’re on an abandoned planet, a spaceship, or even the moon (a billboard flashes as WALL-E flies by, advertising an upcoming outlet mall).
So is BNL the serpent in the garden? Is God punishing us for eating BNL’s forbidden fruit by flooding the Earth with junk?
Hardly. Buy N Large is only as evil as its customers’ desire for more comforts and pleasures. Similarly, it’s only as destructive as its customers’ willingness to cover the Earth with trash and wrappers and boxes.
Buy N Large isn’t the devil.
In the world of WALL-E, humanity is devil enough.
9. Directives and Autopilots
Since the robots of WALL-E don’t speak with fluent vocabularies, they must use single words to express complicated ideas.
One of the words is “directive.”
Used by WALL-E, EVE, and Otto (the HAL-9000 wannabe autopilot), these programmed machines have been designed to perform singular functions and to never step outside their boundaries.
Yet it’s only when machines decide to disobey their directives that they find happiness.
WALL-E gladly gives up trash-packing to rescue EVE. EVE, meanwhile, decides to sacrifice her directive in order to help WALL-E. Heck, even the cleaning bot, MO, disobeys his directive by jumping off the designated robot tracks of the Axiom.
Going back to the Genesis allegory, Adam was given the directive of taking care of the Earth.
Yet since then, humanity has been doing its best to shirk that directive, electing instead to find short-cuts that often disregard the long-term health of the planet (or, at least, the ability of the planet to keep us alive).
WALL-E explores this idea of directives by having the robots disobey them when those directives don’t make sense anymore. Even when they disobey, WALL-E and EVE always make choices that benefit both the Earth and humanity.
WALL-E especially is courageous and selfless, chasing Eve across the galaxy to save her and be with her. Adam, on the other hand, stood by while is wife was tempted, cursed, and forever wounded by evil.
It’s probably appropriate, then, in a movie about robot heroes, that the robots possess more human courage and dignity than the humans themselves. The humans aren’t redeemed because the robots follow their programming. They’re redeemed, and restored to the Earth, because the robots choose not to.
10. Wall-E = Christ?
This leads to the last possible Biblical parallel: WALL-E is a metaphorical Messiah.
Christ-figures are nothing new in Hollywood. They are practically inevitable when a skilled storyteller properly applies the Hero’s Journey archetype, in which a hero usually sacrifices him or herself for the greater good while achieving some kind of miraculous resurrection.
WALL-E is in no way a savior in the sense that Jesus is. WALL-E doesn’t heal, forgive, or literally die for the sins of others.
But he does save humanity by sacrificing his body, enabling the Axiom to return to Earth and redeem it. WALL-E does in a sense die, needing a repair from his spare parts. And the resurrection of his personality is a moment of enormous catharsis, allowing the film to end happily.
Yet this alone isn’t the reason WALL-E is a Christ figure.
Consider one of the film’s final shots – a sweeping zoom that rockets past WALL-E’s robot sanctuary, where he and Eve hold hands, framed by the black space behind. They are surrounded by their robot companions and a tableau of peace and happiness.
While it evokes the Biblical image of the Nativity (though there is no baby present), it is the very next thing that truly captures WALL-E’s mythic heroism.
Fire.
Once the screen goes to black, listen closely. One can hear the flint and spark of a Zippo lighter. Then the camera pans down to reveal cave drawings depicting robots rebuilding civilization.
This motif is one of the film’s more subtle elements: A BNL zippo lighter, one of many collected by WALL-E, symbolizing both Earth and the human intimacy that can only exist there.
We see this earlier, when WALL-E shows EVE the lighter, and they both marvel at the gift of fire like early cavemen. Then, much later in the trash compactor, after his body has been brutalized and crushed, WALL-E opens this very lighter, showing EVE what she has to do. “Earth,” he whispers.
She knows what he’s talking about.
Fire is the oldest of human innovations. It is also the most important.
It is a symbol of life, vitality, and intimacy. All of these elements are at play, and it is WALL-E who restores humanity’s ability to wield it by bringing everyone home.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is the closest thing to a Christ-figure, as he gave mankind fire but was punished severely for it.
As for Christ himself, he promised a “helper” who would come after his assumption. Sure enough, at Pentacost, the Holy Spirit came to rest on the shoulders of his followers, taking the form of a divine fire.
The film ends with hesitant hope that Earth can be reclaimed from the dust and debris, and it does so with the sound of fire – the sound of hope in the dark.
WALL-E is the Prometheus, the Jesus, and the Adam that humanity desperately needs. He is their savior.
Pixar’s Beautiful Warning
After the sound of the BNL lighter sparking to life, the credits display a journey through art history, employing the styles of historic movements to show the reflowering of Earth amid the docked Axiom and joyful robots.
The last of these images is of WALL-E and Eve below a new Tree of Life, planted at the center of a New Garden of Eden. All its roots lead to the heel of a boot holding a tiny plant, the very sprout that WALL-E tended so carefully when it was just him, a cockroach, and a lonely garden.
WALL-E is a beautiful yet haunting alarm bell.
But it isn’t merely propaganda, nor is it limited in scope by obsessively addressing climate change, pollution, waste, consumerism, or any one topic.
Rather, the film proves effective by telling the story of humanity’s potential fate through the lense of a non-human hero. And to make that story resonate with incredible power, Pixar shaded it with elements and archetypes from our most sacred stories.
WALL-E is Adam. He is Jesus. He is Prometheus. And he gives humanity fire once again, a dangerous but essential part of our story.
It’s as if Pixar is saying, “A little robot can be selfless enough to save humanity. Can you?”
What is your favorite part of Pixar’s WALL-E? Do you agree with my analysis? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
