"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Favorite Characters: WALL*E (WALL*E)



I believe WALL*E is the first non-organic life form to grace the blog, so bully for him; he deserves it.  This is an all-around great movie that I’ve been known to love to bits, and that’s largely because of its leading robot.



Not many movies (especially children’s movies!) could pull off a nearly dialogue-free opening sequence, a long stretch that mainly focus on one character going about his day.  Thanks to the strength of WALL*E’s personality, this movie not only pulls it off – it excels at it.  Watching WALL*E on his solitary mission – taking the massive landfills of the abandoned Earth and converting them into skyscrapers of garbage, one compacted cube at a time – is honestly one of the highlights of the film.  I like the cheerful way he goes about his lonely job, keeping himself occupied by finding whimsical treasures in the refuse and chirruping away to his cockroach companion.  Unlike his broken-down predecessors (and most likely his contemporaries,) he keeps going by repairing himself whenever he gets too rattly, and his enthusiasm never wanes.  His little abode, bedecked with DIY decorations and holding such precious objects as Rubics cubes and a spork, immediately gives us a look into his imagination and appreciation for simple, wonderful things.



It’s also where we see his most beloved pastime:  watching Hello Dolly! ad infinitum.  His treaded-tire dance is, of course, ridiculously endearing, but it’s the rapt attention he pays to “It Only Takes a Moment” that completely and utterly sells you on WALL*E.  His enormous, inquisitive eyes get so wide and so still, and when he brings his clawed metal hands together, trying to imitate holding hands, I defy anyone not to be on his side forever.  He wants so desperately for someone whose hand he can hold, but, although we don’t even know how long he’s been on his own, he never wallows in it.  He simply keeps on – keeps on working, keeps on dreaming, keeps on finding things to delight in. 



This innate sense of hope, the way he always finds something positive on which to focus, is his best quality, and it dovetails into another – his general irrepressibility.  Over the course of the movie, we see that there’s plenty at which he isn’t adept; EVE rebuffs all his early, excited advances, he’s definitely more gung ho than competent, and he gets himself into all manner of ludicrous trouble.  However, he never stops trying.  He’ll blunder into absolutely anything, and there’s a better than even chance he’ll make a mess of things at first, but he’ll keep attacking the problem until he gets it right.



And usually, he does in the end (there’s a reason he’s the one robot left after all the others have fallen apart.)  He learns quickly and can generally be counted on for his creativity and resourcefulness.  One of my personal favorites is when he’s on a space walk with EVE (who, unlike WALL*E, can fly,) and he uses a fire extinguisher to propel himself.  More than that, he’s so earnest and loving that he acquires allies almost the second he’s put in close proximity to anyone else.  Granted, EVE is a tough nut to crack, but pretty much everyone else is immediately won over by the little trash compactor with the big heart.  From fellow machines to pampered humans, he inspires others to step outside their hardwired routines, connect with one another, and do great things.  Not bad for a robot that hardly counts as lingual.

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