by Megan As Well

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2009

Pixar took a unique approach to illustrating concepts like loneliness, monotony, feeling out-of-place, friendship, the future, and of course, love. Since three of the main characters are two robots and a cockroach, scenes revolving around these three have no dialogue. So naturally, the film relies heavily on the quality of the animation and the sound effects (both of which were absolutely spectacular).

As the movie opens, we see that Earth has become completely covered in trash, at the fault of the careless, selfish human race. Wall-e is an old, dirty robot who was designed hundreds of years ago by humans to help clean up all the trash, while humans escaped to outer space in the meantime. There are no humans on Earth, no animals, no vegetation. Nothing. There are only the tremendous heaps of garbage and advertisements left abandoned for hundreds of years. Wall-e, partnered up with his cockroach buddy, compacts trash into blocks, out of which he constructs skyscraper-sized "buildings." In his home, he collects items that appeal to him, such as bubble wrap, Zippo lighters, and a Rubix Cube.

As for the humans, the last of them live on a spaceship called Axiom, which is strangely similar to a cruise ship, expect everyone has dumbed down and fattened up. The scenes with the human depict a radical idea of what could happen if mankind depended entirely on robots. In a way, it is pathetic, even though it is portrayed through humor. The humans are big dumb helpless oafs who literally can't get out of their seats. It is dark, but still entertaining to children and adults alike. As the movie progresses, this problem fades.

The leaders of Axiom send new, more advanced robots down to Earth to search for any kind of life forms. Vegetation, particularly. WALL-E meets one of them and they befriend each other. They are very different, but as with all G-rated movies, they overcome their differences and become inseperable. Wall-e's affection and desire to hold the other robot's "hand" is what drives the entire plot.

Even without much dialoge, Wall-e's story is fantastic. He is basically a good-hearted, lonely, old robot, considered a nobody, who finds friendship and love, who works really hard at fixing his problems, and who, more than anything, discovers that even though he is different from and less useful than all of the newer, technologically advanced robots, he's still just as valuable.

The creators of Wall-e (at Pixar) did an outstanding job at depicting such an in-depth story with no dialogue from three of the main characters. I was both touched by the story and impressed by the quality. Bravo!

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