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..."

Rated G!

Actually, Wall-E was much different than I expected. I know the critics really liked it, but I found it to be a bit heavy for younger kids, and probably not enough to grab very young kids' attentions. As an adult though, I thought the movie was incredible. I hadn't really read up on it before viewing it and had no idea it was going to be an entire social commentary-esque movie.

Definitely makes you think, though! And the animation was absolutely breathtaking at times.

Re:Rated G!

Kids don't take much to be entertained. "Oooo Robot Moving." or anytime he goofs up or does something silly.

Here be some spoilers, kind of.

I think this movie had more in it for adults than any other Pixar movie I've seen. The first thing I thought of when I saw the movie was Idiocracy. I imagine that the animators were probably fans.

Short Circuit, 2001 (I was really hoping they'd work in a "I'm sorry captain, I can't do that", Apple startup chime, references to all previous Pixar movies and of course Cliff Claven (John Ratzenberger).

From the beginning everything was very well done and even small details weren't over looked. I can't wait for the DVD to watch it again and just watch some things in the background to see what I missed in the theater.

Re:Rated G!

Actually, I have to disagree, I've taken my kids to see all of the Pixar movies since Finding Nemo (when my oldest was about 14 months old). I'd have to say that Ratatouille was by far the most adult-oriented Pixar movie. I mean a rat... in a fancy French restaurant?

Most kids don't dream of eating fine cuisine in a 5 start restaurant, but they do play with toys, imagine monsters, play with bugs, dream of exploring the ocean, obsess over superheroes, play with cars, and aspire to go to space. The only thing that was really kid-friendly in Rat was the sappy "you can be anything you want to be" moral lesson, and the fact that it's a cartoon about a nerd and his rat. The setting and the plot didn't really involve anything that kids are really into. Even all of the artwork, backgrounds and animation, as visually stunning as they were, still seemed kind of high-brow and adult-ish for a kids show. When we left the theater after Rat, my kids weren't quoting it or talking about it, I think they liked it, but nothing was really memorable to them. I really liked Ratatouille, but I didn't feel like it was one for kids to really enjoy.

We went to Wall-E on opening night after my kids had been watching the trailers for months, and they loved it. My daughter giggled uncontrollably through about half of the movie, whenever the robots would talk, or whenever Wall-E would do something silly. We'll be sure to buy this one when it's released on DVD. But Ratatouille is one that we're ok with just seeing once in our lifetimes.

Re:Rated G!

The rating doesn't mean that it's "for" kids, it just means that it won't "offend" them with the particular things that make the other ratings required for a movie. A documentary on beans could be rated G and would be so boring as to make kids run screaming from the room. Put the F word in that documentary a few times, and it's rated R, but still heinously boring to kids/etc.

Re:Rated G!

"Get these motherfucking beans out of my motherfucking documentary!", as narrator Sam Jackson would say ...

Re:Rated G!

For the sci-fi geeks, it really paid homage to many of the films that we consider classics. I read somewhere that they consulted with Oscar winning filmmakers to affect the look of the film. For example, they adjusted their software to simulate the look of the 70mm Panasonic cameras from the 70s to even include their imperfections.

Re:Rated G!

I enjoy many of the Pixar movies and "The Incredibles" is still my favorite. Wall-E is second though, displacing "Monsters, Inc." It grew on me.. I've seen it a couple times so far and enjoyed it far more on the second viewing (not that I didn't enjoy it the first go round).

I understand what you're saying about social commentary though. If not handled properly it can be annoying. This may sound like a copout, but I think science fiction has to handle it differently. In other genres the commentary is best hidden beneath layers of abstraction. Want to protest the madness of war in a drama and you make a "Romeo and Juliet" piece that ends in tragedy. Want to comment on the deterioration of the environment and you write about the flower girl that gets sick because a factory blocks her view of the ocean.. Not in science fiction.. In SF the skies turn violent because of pollution. The people wear gas masks. The effect of the disparity between rich and poor are farmed organ donors.

IMHO, this commentary on the cuff is what distinguishes SF. Traditional literature teachers scoff at SF because the themes and messages are so brazen, but it is precisely this "obviousness" that I enjoy.

Re:Rated G!

Actually, Wall-E was much different than I expected... I found it to be a bit heavy for younger kids,

I hear this a lot. Frankly, I don't understand why a movie that doesn't pretend to be a kid-friendly movie gets dinged for, well, not being very kid-friendly. My 8 year-old liked it (the messages were a bit over his head) but my 12 year-old really liked it and he understood the deeper themes. What really bothers me about bad reviews of this movie is the claim like, "I didn't laugh out loud one time!". Gee, maybe that's because it doesn't rely on low-brow humor to get its point across?

Re:Rated G!

I hadn't really read up on it before viewing it and had no idea it was going to be an entire social commentary-esque movie.

Actually, I listened to a really good interview NPR did with Andrew Stanton (director and co-author of Wall-E) [npr.org] and at one point he discusses that the story never was intended to be a social commentary on environmentalism. The story was written about a decade ago and while it certainly has the universal theme of protecting nature, he primarily used the concept of a polluted planet to avoid having to give some other explanation for humans leaving the planet that would have been to heavy for a children's movie (ie: global war).

Excellent Movie

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.

The end credits complete the story

the ending credits are absolutely beautiful and genius (how many different art styles can you spot?)

I absolutely agree; this film is a masterpiece, and what I find amazing is how Pixar turned the end credits into such a subtle and beautiful coda to the story. The art styles, and the scenes they depict, reflect the progressive rebirth of the newly-recolonized Earth, moving through hieroglyphics to a scene reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting, with Wall-E and EVE gazing up at the large tree, which one realizes is the same plant they struggled to protect, growing from the boot deep in the soil. I can't say enough about this wonderful film, and I continue to be stunned that Pixar keep outdoing themselves with each release.

More than taking care of the planet

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:More than taking care of the planet

The only individuals (and heroes) were the robots and the captain, plus John and Mary that broke out of the sameness.

Ok, spoilers I guess:


Actually one thing I really liked about Wall-E was how all the humans were shown as fundamentally decent people willing to give up ultimate comfort once an alternative was offered to them.

Incredibles - Exceptionalism should be rewarded

I really had issues with the Incredibles message. Unlike Wall-E the average human was portrayed as weak-willed, contemptible, and ungracious for not heaping glory on their superhuman betters. The line from the kid, "when everyone's special then nobody is" I found to be a pretty horrible statement, the implication being that he can't really shine unless everyone else is inferior in every way. And the race at the end, I didn't really see the point; it takes no effort to win, all he gets from winning is the dubious recognition of having won an elementary school race.

Cars - taking a different path is a good thing

I wish the writers had taken a different path instead of hitting every cliche along the way. Five minutes into Cars you know everything that's going to happen in the rest of the movie.

Re:Excellent Movie

The main character's directive is to compact trash, but for the most part the "message" is an incidental passive voice in the background of the movie. The last half of the movie is spent in outer-space (away from the planet), and a lot of the first half is setting up the romance between the two robots. This movie is way, way, way more than just "take care of the planet".

There's also social critique of how lazy humans are getting (fast food smoothies, etc). There are a lot of other smaller parts in the movie that are charming, as well (like Wall-E teaching the robot on the Axiom how to wave).

I find it really funny that you think the people who wrote this story and brought it to life are the same people who want to milk the franchise for all it's worth.

Re:Excellent Movie

I thought the message was 'geeky socially awkward guy robot gets the hot chick robot.'

IMO the whole 'taking care of the planet' business was nothing more than a macguffin [wikipedia.org]; the movie doesn't revolve around B&L, but around the interaction between Wall-E and EVE. You could have replaced B&L with anything, such as a post-apocalypse setting, or widespread disease, or simply running out of food (or space).

Re:Excellent Movie

Seen on Superpunch.

Wall-E: Best movie ever... featuring a creepy guy who lives in a garbage dump, drugs a girl into unconsciousness after she spurns his romantic advances, ties her up, and takes her bound, comatose body on dates. Naturally, she falls in love with him.
Ladies, better keep a close eye on your drinks if you meet anyone that works at Pixar.

Blew me away

To be quite honest, I wasn't all that thrilled about going to this movie. I walked into the movie by request of my little brother, and I figured I'd at least get a few laughs out of the movie.

What I got was a masterpiece.

Not two minutes into the film, I was enthralled by the sheer beauty of the landscapes. The incongruity between the cheerful opening tune and the devastated Earth landscape is absolutely delightful.

Also, Pixar has gotten so good at what they do that they don't even need words to tell a story. The first 45 minutes of the movie has pretty much ZERO dialogue with the exception of BnL ads for background. Oh, also a word or two (literally) from the robots.

Particularly well done were the flight scenes - the part in the beginning where EVE watches the ship leave and start cruising around while WALL-E watches in awe, and when the two of them are dancing around the Axiom. I could watch those two scenes over and over again and still be thrilled.

Also, the (oft overlooked) soundtrack is phenomenal as well. I bought it the instant I could, and I've had it on repeat for about a week now. (2815 AD and Define Dancing are my favorites)

I can honestly say that this is the best (in terms of sheer all-around quality) film that I have ever seen, and I fully expect this to just rake in its well-deserved awards.

Re:Blew me away

Indeed, the lack of dialogue is the single biggest reason I'm not going to see the movie until I, at the very least, pirate it to see if it's any good: stories without dialogue don't work. Period. There's a reason why we quit making silent movies, and it really disappointed me that Pixar is taking a step backward in that regard.

2001: A Space Odyssey is 141 minutes long and has 28 minutes of dialog. And no massive explosions, gunfights, etc. either.

That "story without dialog didn't work"? Riiiiiiiight.

Great stuff!

Wall-E was an incredible movie. The character development was outstanding, emotions were believable, and scenes really made impressions on me.

What I found most interesting about TFA was about the software they use for long-term development.
It said that for long-term development movies (Wall-E was 3 years, right?) they use the same software all the way through. I had always wondered about that kind of thing.. Since 3D software and rendering engines and such is always improving, how do these guys make the movies? Do they constantly re-render with the better software throughout the process, etc.? How do they keep up with competition in that regard?

So it was neat to finally find that out. The article also offers a lot of insight into the team arrangement at Pixar. I like that they aren't chained to animating a certain character/part- That they really observe who likes to animate who and what kind of scenes and kind of let them do what they enjoy best in the project. I wish programming jobs were like that- Where we could work on parts that we really liked instead of being moved from language to language and to different teams etc. like our preference doesn't matter. I think it's a really good thing they have over there.

If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, it's well worth the ticket price!

Greatest Wall-E Triumph: the roach!

They were able to make a roach cute. And no, not some Disneyesque anthropomorphic huggable buggable plushified abomination to be mass-marketed to yowling ankle-biters everywhere, no, no, no! This was a realistic roach, the kind that makes me reach for a shoe and go Khrushchev on its filthy self. My family went to see this movie together and my own mother, my earliest memories of which involve her screaming hysterically and attacking palmetto bugs with a toilet plunger wielded with the sort of two-hand grip reserved for viking warhammers, she found the roach cute! She gasped when Wall-E rolled over it that last time, thinking it might be dead.

If Pixar can make her identify and sympathize with a realistic roach, the animators at those other studios should just hang up their keyboards and go home.

Re:Shorts

Whoa, whoa, whoa... You went to a Pixar film not realizing that there would be a short before it? What rock have you been living under?

Re:Shorts

The look of the people in The Incredibles was definitely different than in previous Pixar movies, but they were less about trying to look realistic (which I think was the attempt it Toy Story, where it ends up looking somewhat creepy), and more about making the characters look like action figures. Because hey, they're super heroes. If they wanted to try to make the people really realistic, I'm sure the look would have been vastly different.

And now, in Wall*E, the people (for the most part) have a very cartoony bubbly look, which is obviously intentional to represent how far the human race has degenerated during the time it has been waited on hand and foot by robots in space. The obviousness of that intent is highlighted by the fact that in the line up of photos of all of the previous captains, the first one was very realistic looking, and they gradually get more cartoony and fat from there. Also, all of the videos of Fred Willard are actual videos of the actor, not animations. That serves to further show the contrast between what humans were and what they have become. I think when Toy Story came out, they were focused on showing off this new medium and how realistic it can be, so they tried to even make the people lifelike, which was hard to do. So in subsequent movies, they've avoided the Uncanny Valley [wikipedia.org] by making the humans cartoonish in different ways, depending on the theme of the movie.

Re:Shorts

The only movie I remember without a short was The Incredibles. But all the others had shorts. I've always like them myself, a tribute to the old movies. Besides if you are going to be that serious then why the heck are you going to a kids movie.

Re:Shorts

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

Nice animation, but a little too saccharine for me.

Re:Shorts

It was "Cars" [wikipedia.org].

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