Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story

Denofgeek wrote in to tell us about their story where "Pixar's supervising animator Angus MacLane gives an interesting interview about the technical challenges in bringing Wall-E to the screen. Plus he squeezes in a bit on his love of Lego, too..."

Excellent Movie

[D Ninja]

I will admit - I don't watch too many movies. However, I am extremely glad I spent the money to see Wall-E and I will be buying it on DVD when it is released.

The animation of this movie is amazing. Using almost no words (two?), the animation team captures a wide range of emotion: love, sadness, fear, humor and anger. What's even better is that they capture these emotions in the form of robots - something that typically is not associated with emotion. The storyline itself is fantastic. Not only is it simplistic enough that even a child can understand it and enjoy it, there is a definite adult theme throughout the entire movie which emphasizes taking care of this planet that we live on.

Additionally, this movie starts up with a great short (haha...that rabbit is awesome), the ending credits are absolutely beautiful and genius (how many different art styles can you spot?) and the soundtrack is great.

I would highly recommend that everybody check this movie out in the theater. It's definitely worth it.

Best. Movie. Ever.

[nomadic]

Well maybe not best movie EVER, but close to it. And I'm someone who's always found Pixar's stuff way overrated.

Re:Shorts

[PlatyPaul]

"The Incredibles" opened with "Boundin'" [wikipedia.org].

Nice animation, but a little too saccharine for me.

Re:Shorts

[PlatyPaul]

It was "Cars" [wikipedia.org].

And, in case you haven't seen: they're all here [pixar.com].

More than taking care of the planet

[xzvf]

The most important message wasn't taking care of the planet, but individualism and personal responsibility. Notice that all the people were dependent on the corporation (or it could have been government) for their every need. They all had the same clothes and ate the same food and lived in the same size rooms and had communal access to same facilities. The only individuals (and heroes) were the robots and the captain, plus John and Mary that broke out of the sameness. It's the theme of most Pixar movies: Incredibles - Exceptionalism should be rewarded, Cars - taking a different path is a good thing, Nemo - importance of family and not being afraid of life, Bug's Life - break out the the commune and use new ideas, Toy Story - freindship, loyalty and service. They may have thought they were making an environmental movie, but underlying Pixar theme of individual rights and personal responsibility shone through.

Re:Rated G!

[Anonymous Coward]

"70mm Panasonic cameras"

um, I think you probably mean Panavision there...

Panasonic?

[MsGeek]

I think you mean Panavision [wikipedia.org].

Re:Real people VS 3d people

[UnknowingFool]

Andrew Stanton explained the use of live action in this USA Today article. [usatoday.com] For some things like Hello, Dolly there was no real alternative than using the real footage from the film.

Re:Shorts

[Anonymous Coward]

A list of Pixar movies paired with Pixar short:

Toy Story x Tin Toy
A Bug's Life x Geri's Game
Toy Story 2 x Luxo Jr.
Monsters, Inc. x For the Birds
Finding Nemo x Knick Knack
The Incredibles x Boundin'
Cars x One Man Band
Ratatouille x Lifted
WALL-E x Presto

Re:Excellent Movie

[bjdevil66]

"What really bugged me was if we could build starships that could run themselves for 700 years why didn't they keep building new robots to clean up the earth? Eva was a marvel why where there not millions of Eva style robots restoring the planet? Frankly it should have been an Eden by now with that tech." ****************

Two reasons:

1. They didn't know they needed to send more help because of the cover-up. The company sent everyone away, saying, "Don't worry. We'll take care of it and call you when it's done." Then the ship's AI kept the last transmission - about the dire situation on Earth after they left and that the cleanup was failing - a secret, away from the people on the Axiom. Therefore, they didn't know that the clean-up needed help. Over time, the people grew lazier and more comfortable, eventually forgetting about their old home altogether.
2. Even if they did know, they were on a ship that didn't have the resources to build more robots back to clean up the planet.

IMO, the movie was great. I can't wait for this to come out on DVD. This was definitely one of Pixar's best. (Can they keep this up?)