Wall-E Seminar Questions Part 3

6. Identify one item in the "avalanche of detritus" you feel is an important symbol. Why?

I loved the recording from Hello, Dolly!, especially since it was referenced throughout the movie. This is Wall-E's first knowledge of humans (unless if he remembers them from when he was first built), and ironically, it comes from a machine. The music seems anachronistic in comparison to the Axiom and desolate Earth, but it fits and helps tie the movie together.

7. The Axiom might be described as a "utopic" existence. Do you agree or disagree with that description?
There is no suffering on the Axiom. Everyone is at peace, and has all of their needs and want. So I would agree that it portrays a utopian society. The word "utopia" actually seems to have gained some negative connotations with books like 1984 and Brave New World. The Axiom reminds me a lot of the society in Brave New World. People had everything they needed and there was no bad feeling, but they weren't able to take care of themselves or experience true emotion or critical thoughts. They weren't living fulfilling lives, because they didn't really notice or interact with the world around them.

8. What is the impact of an almost complete lack of dialogue?
The lack of dialogue at the beginning of the movie was barely noticeable, surprisingly. The scenes did not need dialogue to convey emotion and hold the audience's interest. Pixar did a similar thing at the beginning of Up, although the time period without dialogue was much shorter.

9. How does the film depict the human condition and what contemporary references could you use as analogies?
Every film depicts the human condition. Everything depicts the human condition. Broad question! But like we were saying in class, what's interesting is the robots taking on human characteristics that humans themselves seem to have abandoned. It forces you to think about how much technology can change the act of being human. A lot of things that would have once taken long periods of work can now be accomplished with button clicks. Is that bad?

10. The Captain states, "I don't want to survive, I want to live." Interpret this statement.

Surviving on the Axiom is very easy; it means nothing. So the Captain wants to do something worthwhile with his life. Staying in space would have ensured the survival of everyone on the Axiom, but their lives would be monotonous and unfulfilled. By returning to Earth, the Captain is able to discover new things, work hard, and truly think about and experience the act of living.

Wall-E Seminar Questions Part 2

2. The genre of "Wall-E" is an allegorical romance. Why do you think that classification is appropriate?

I thought this was an odd way of looking at the romance between Wall-E and Eve, because I didn't initially see their romance as directly symbolizing any one thing in the way that an allegory does. They represent different aspects of love and romance, but I didn't really want to analyze it in that manner. However, after thinking about it, I do understand what could be seen as allegorical about the romance in this movie. As people have pointed out in class, the two characters most capable of human emotion are machines. As humans continue to give more aspects of lives to technology, from physical activity and labor, to entertainment, perhaps we are slowly eroding at our humanity. The lives of humans in Wall-E are completely dictated by machinery. After letting machines take over so many aspects of life, could we unintentionally sacrifice something as crucially human as emotion?
That seems a bit drastic, especially considering that even the people in Wall-E were capable of some level of emotion as soon as they became more aware. But I can see aspects of this even in present day. People live their lives though screens because they are unwilling to live through themselves. If you let Google research for you, if you let a computer think for you, and you let screens create entertainment for you, what is left for you to do? Of course, I'm not exempting myself from this, and I don't think technology is all bad. The computer and internet has helped to make great leaps in communication and accessing information, but we can't let an Auto-Pilot make our decisions for us!
I kind of side-tracked from the question here, but basically, I think it's a profound idea that the two individuals most capable of experiencing human life and emotions like love are not in fact human.

3. What environmental message does Wall-E send?

The first time I saw this movies in theaters, I found the opening scenes jarring, especially since they do not seem that far removed from reality. If we continue to abuse our planet and create more and more, we can not sustain it. And still we produce and produce irresponsibly. There needs to be a much greater effort to work towards sustainable development. Wall-E highlights the dire effects of not being careful- we can ruin the beautiful world we inhabit.

4. How does the movie relate to self-identity? (ontology)

Both Wall-E and Eve first tie their identity with their directive, yet as the movie progresses, they identify themselves with their relationship towards one another. Yet even at the beginning of the movie, Eve seems more self-aware than the people on the Axiom. Eve's directive is to find life. Humans have no directive, except to consume. There isn't critical thought in either instance, but Eve is more motivated and experiencing more. And when Wall-E and Eve meet each other, they continue to develop their self-identity by making decisions for themselves instead of doing what they are programmed to do. And it takes Wall-E and Eve to help others find their own identity (in the cases of the Captain and two people they run into).

5. What might be the significance of calling the corporate company "Buy 'n Large"?

Buy 'n Large recalls the likes of WalMart, Target, and IKEA. Out of these three, I've only been to Target, but it is easy to see the huge influence places like these hold in America. Go to one of these stores and you can spend hours buying...everything! Everything is one place, and you are constantly encouraged to buy bigger and buy more. In a way it creates a feeling of uniformity- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it means that we become more and more alienated from the product. We are also buying a ton of crap. Does anyone really need all of this stuff? Like in the movie, just about everything will be trash one day.

Wall-E Seminar Questions, Part 1

1. Quote from NY Times article, Walt Rich, "Wall-E for President": This movie seems more realistically in touch with what troubles America than either the substance or the players of the political food fight beyond the multiplex's wall. Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why?

Wall-E touches upon many problems which are facing America today that are ignored or touched upon in a superficial way. The first time I watched this movie, the first thing I noticed was the jarring environmental message. We are consuming resources and producing at a rate at which the Earth can not keep up with. Our population has been growing rapidly since the industrial revolution, and as a group, we do not behave responsibly enough to handle everything we are doing to the world around us. I remember learning in Environmental Systems last year that some scientists see this as another wave of extinction- this is how severely we are harming the other species around us .

This movie also focused on corporatism and mass production, which contribute heavily to the irresponsibility in environmental matters. They also make consumers dependent on them- without these corporations and mega-stores, so many would be without a source of income or a place to buy products. I think that Wall-E demonstrated how becoming reliant on a company such as Buy n' Large and their products diminishes our individual autonomy and puts too much power in the hands of company owners. I especially liked Jordan's comment on how people in oligarchic-like states can turn to these cheaper, easier kind of stores, which then turn into tyrannies.

If one has been paying any attention to the GOP primaries, it is pretty easy to see that the political atmosphere is not centered around the big problems which are relevant to the country as a whole. We are taking up a massive amounts of debt, greatly hurting our environment, and having a lot of problems internationally. Yet, because some of these problems are difficult to face, politicians chose to ignore them outright.

Red Celia and Last Thoughts on Philosophy of Art

This is the piece I chose for the practice IA. After writing 3 pages on it, I still can't quite put into words why I like it so much. Throughout this unit, I've found that it really is difficult to write about any form of art. I'm sure that's partially do to the fact that I am no art expert by any stretch of the imagination, but there is another problem. It's trying to logically explain an emotional response. So many times during my paper, I was tempted to stop explaining and say "Well, just look at it! Don't you get it?" I felt similarly trying to write about why I liked certain songs. Sometimes a song will just hit me at the right time. I'll listen to it for hours on end for weeks on end, and then forget about it completely when something else comes along. If I try to listen to it again, I'll have no idea why I got so caught up in it the first place, but I'll still love it just as much because it reminds me of a way I felt at a certain time. So much of it is a gut feeling- some word or note or image just stuck.

I don't think any essay or paper on aesthetics can ever hold the same weight as a piece of art itself. Still, I definitely think this was a fascinating and worthwhile unit. It was very interesting to try and examine what makes something art, or good art. It's difficult to interpret the various reactions we have to art, but they say so much about who we are.


photo: http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=80010