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WALL-E
Better than better than good. It is, however, not recommended for children. WALL-E is to film as Moses and Aaron is to opera, albeit cast with two robots and a bunch of figures from a Botero painting. The first week gross will be high but I fear that next week some bold genius at Pixar will be fired.
Addendum: Here's one financial analysis of the movie's prospects. And note that movies with no dialogue in the first half hour are not ideal for DVD sales to children.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 27, 2008 at 08:40 PM in Film | Permalink
Comments
I don't know why you think kids wouldn't like it. I just got back from seeing it, and a little toddler ran up to the screen at the end of the movie and was jumping, pointing at Wall-E in the end credits. I think kids would love it, it's a fantastic film.
I really, really liked it myself, although the previews for other kids movies looked horrendous and I was eager to get to the feature presentation.
Posted by: Erik at Jun 27, 2008 9:16:41 PM
While I agree it is a great movie, I do not agree that kids will not like it. I merely think they will simply get a different story and message from it than adults will.
- Scott
Posted by: Scott Nolan Smith at Jun 27, 2008 10:15:20 PM
You are pretty much rolling the dice with that prediction and hedging your bets. I will bet you ten dollars that no "bold genius" will be fired w/r/t WALL-E assuming your definition of "bold genius" isn't trivial.
Posted by: themightypuck at Jun 27, 2008 10:49:44 PM
I should have added my reasoning so I apologize for the double post. To wit: Pixar is not the Obama campaign.
Posted by: themightypuck at Jun 27, 2008 10:52:32 PM
Kids have more patience for minimal dialogue than adult viewers do. They haven't yet been fully trained to watch films a certain way and expect certain things. We need more films willing to cast off the crutches of the spoken word. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but for a great many movies, words words words just fill up where story, plot, etc. is supposed to be.
Posted by: Jacob Oost at Jun 28, 2008 1:30:33 AM
I have two issues with your comments:
a) "not recommended for children."
You are delusional. Its rated G so even the idiots at the MPAA got it and its wonderful for children. Why do I believe this? Because a child told me.
b) but I fear that next week some bold genius at Pixar will be fired.
"cars" is the worse movie that pixar put out and it is getting a sequel. Why? Because it rules on the DVD and other markets. Opening weekend hasn't mattered for some time now.
So don't quit your day job. You are pathetic as a movie critic and as someone who understands Pixars business. Matter of fact - i am unsubscribing from your blog because anyone this clueless isn't worth following.
Posted by: tim at Jun 28, 2008 3:15:09 AM
"i am unsubscribing from your blog because anyone this clueless isn't worth following."
Wow, I just spent an hour reading blogs and comments, and this is the dumbest thing I have read. Congratulations!
Posted by: Commenterlein at Jun 28, 2008 3:22:56 AM
Ever since Bugs Bunny, films with cartoon characters often work on two levels: as mostly visual entertainment for kids, and at a more sophisticated level (dialog and themes) for adults. The latter harmlessly sails right over the heads of the kids. Pixar in particular has found much financial success with this.
Animated film is a particularly suitable medium for this sort of balancing act, although you might see it in literature as well (the Lemony Snicket books, perhaps).
More broadly, your paper in the "someone will get fired" link doesn't seem to take into account the possibility of an artist achieving self-satisfaction by introducing subtly subversive elements or inside jokes into mass-market art. Again, think Bugs Bunny, which snuck in an awful lot working within the cultural strictures of the mid-twentieth century.
"Someone will get fired" is thus mply a provocative hook to get people to click on the link to your paper, yes? rather than a literal prediction. If it's the latter, then I'm with Unsubscribe Rage Guy. Don't quit your lucrative blogging day job!
Posted by: at Jun 28, 2008 4:52:14 AM
Tyler, you are such a prankster. chug
Posted by: chug at Jun 28, 2008 6:46:29 AM
I don't understand why so many people are assuming that a film full of robots will have little appeal to kids. Were these people never little?
BTW it's 'Moses and Aron'. Schoenberg had an irrational fear of the number 13, which is how many letters 'Moses and Aaron' has.
Posted by: Gnome at Jun 28, 2008 12:15:09 PM
How exactly does one unsubscribe from a blog?
Posted by: spike at Jun 28, 2008 3:30:19 PM
I just saw it with my 3 children (10/8/5). I think it will be very popular with kids. The emotional communication with nothing more than eyes and hands is easy for them to understand. The silly robots are fun, the bad guys have red auras and the good guys care for each other and help each other.
As we were leaving, my 8 year old boy made a comment about the problems with large-scale automation. ( I don't want to be clearer than that because it would be a spoiler)
They all begged me to buy it on DVD when it comes out. If any of my friends ask me if they should take their kids to it, I will give a hearty yes.
Will 3 year olds get it? Not sure. Finding Nemo was much better for the toddler phase, but I think this one is smart, emotionally gripping, visually appealing and hilarious far more often than not. I think it will play well with the 5-12yo range, and with any parent thereof.
Posted by: jb at Jun 28, 2008 3:45:16 PM
You unsubscribe from an RSS feed, which Unsubscribe Rage guy clearly uses for his blog reading. I do too, but I'm not unsubscribing for this, even though it may just be the worst prediction I've seen in my years of reading this blog. Specifically, I'd believe that the getting fired remark may have been literary exaggeration, but I really, really, don't agree with the greater overtone that the movie is too-highbrow-to-sell.
Posted by: ideasarecheap at Jun 28, 2008 5:22:07 PM
WALL-E is not like Moses und Aron. In the opera the two characters hardly shut up for two hours. Something about a giant Idol...
Posted by: Eric Lum at Jun 29, 2008 1:03:58 AM
Doesn't Wall-E have a bit of a Frankfurt School view of the relationships between business and government and advertising and individual choice to be giving a thumbs-up on a libertarian blog?
Posted by: J at Jun 29, 2008 8:16:22 AM
I would have agreed with Tyler had I seen the movie by myself. But I saw it with my six-year-old daughter - who insisted we buy another ticket, to the next show.
Predicting what children will like is notoriously difficult. But I wouldn't argue with Pixar's track record, or fire anyone there even if they did have a bomb. They've had enough success to earn a mulligan.
Posted by: Stock Market Beat at Jun 29, 2008 10:22:18 AM
Actually, I think children (and other people with limited engineering and economic knowledge) are the only ones who can so completely suspend disbelief to truly enjoy this movie. I thought it was just OK.
Posted by: M. Hodak at Jun 29, 2008 11:11:51 AM
The movie sends an important message: What happens to the world after the socialists take over. WALL E as in GOR E.
No one is too young to learn this...!!
Posted by: jorod at Jun 29, 2008 11:20:56 AM
That blog that you linked to is the reason I stopped seeing movies. Were I a benign dictator, anyone who suggested that Pixar make movies less like Ratatouille and more like Fucking Kung Fu Fucking Panda would be tarred and feathered. No Excuse. Kung Fu Panda is a montage of fat jokes and cuts that would be impressive if FILMED, not constructed with a 3-D modeler. Ratatouille was a wonderful and thoughtful work of art that my children will see--and their children too.
Cars was the worst movie pixar made.
Posted by: Adam Hyland at Jun 29, 2008 12:26:00 PM
jb: interesting to know the age at which luddite tendencies start. I thought the movie was OK, but I'm afraid people will only get the leftist slant. Big stores are bad, we are destroying the environment, and we're all fat and stupid because of capitalism.
I actually thought the movie was best at displaying the advantages of large-scale automation. Civilization is measured by its level of automation. Frees up time to think innovate and choose the things we want to do. That the majority of people will start doing stupid things is their own choice. At least they don't have to do mindless work in the fields all day, now they can talk about mindless things and sit in a chair all day. Big improvement.
Posted by: paleohawk at Jun 29, 2008 12:37:30 PM
So, unlike most of the commenters here, I think I see what Tyler is saying. I found much of WALL-E utterly charming, but walking out of it, I did not feel the way I felt leaving Ratatouille, or Cars, or ... [insert every Pixar movie back to Toy Story.]
No, walking out of this movie I felt rather the way I did when I walked out of The Killing Fields, or Schindler's List: relief that the forces of good had prevailed, overlaid with immense sadness at the nightmare that had preceded it. I think that many children won't react this way, but I predict that a fair number of adults will. And I think that some perceptive children will grasp the potential reality of this dystopia also: my 8-year-old said it was the first Pixar movie he did not want to own...and he was terribly unsettled for the rest of the evening, until he had a chance to sleep it off.
I don't think Andrew Stanton will be fired for making this movie, but as Stanton was also the director of Finding Nemo, I think it will solidify his reputation for making new movies according to a very old, mythological formula. Most Pixar movies are wonderful and uplifting stories about the character ethic: the importance of relationships and of realizing one's potential. WALL-E (and I would argue, Finding Nemo as well) are different: they are underlaid with deep, existential truths about our tenuous place in the world.
Posted by: Rich at Jun 29, 2008 12:50:13 PM
Rich: for a minute, I thought they were going to.......HMMMM SPOILERS.....make the movie more sad by not finishing it the way they did (with respect to the main character). Had they done that, I would have agreed with Tyler's general feeling. But, it would have also been the first movie I would have cried at sine Iron Giant. Take that for what it is worth.
Posted by: Adam Hyland at Jun 29, 2008 12:58:49 PM
Wow. "more sad". Yeah, I have a college education. Yikes.
Posted by: Adam Hyland at Jun 29, 2008 12:59:37 PM
There are lots of ways these days to make money off a quality animated movie. Nobody at Pixar will get fired over Wall-E.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jun 29, 2008 10:57:20 PM
By the way, I hope everyone noticed how similar the depiction of life in 2810 AD was to life in 2505 AD in "Idiocracy."
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jun 29, 2008 11:00:24 PM
