Tangy Travis

Yay, I finally get to watch Wall-E. Reviews are extremely positive of the film, 8.7 on IMDB and 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Plus, its from Pixar, creator of Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Toy Story etc. This 2 reasons are good enough for me to spend some money and enjoy the film in a nice and comfortable cinema. By the way, something unexpected happen in Mid Valley - I saw Ah Fai and the Little Yellow Devil queueing for movie tickets!!! I went up and had a quick chat, but gosh, she keep asking me for strawberries. Oh no!!!! Guess I gotta go to Cameron Highlands again this weekend to pluck some strawberries for her.

Back to da film, Wall-E is actually the name of a robot, alone in the deserted earth cleaning up garbages for the past 700 years!! I don’t want to reveal too much spoilers here, just that the film is related to global warming, a really good theme for times like this. The plot revolves around the “robotic romance” between Wall-E and another much more advanced robot, Eve, which really looks like an iPoD. (After doing some digging, I realize Eve and iPoD are from the same designer. Credits of the film has a special thanks to Steve Jobs.) We are all familiar with humans romantic stuff but what if its between robots? You will be more impressed with Pixar studios if you think the idea of rats cooking impresses you enough.

Humans in the film have become way too fat to even walk on their own because they have robots to do everything for them. All they have to do is sit on the electronic chair and ask for help. I keep on laughing cause they need robots to do every small little thing for them. The end result is the decrease of bones in their body. I got a feeling that humans might turn into such state if technology keeps on improving. Technology should be something that assists humans but not something humans should rely on. A deserted earth might also become reality if earth keeps getting warmer and warmer.

One of my favourite scene where Wall-E is holding Eve's hand

Another element that impresses me is the sound of the film. The first 40 minutes of the film has no dialogues at all because the robots can’t speak properly. They use some “beep beep” sound or simple words to communicate. Because of this, it is important to make sure the sound these robots use are good enough to replace ordinary dialogues, with the core meaning still there and is easily understood by the audience. To achieve that, Pixar hires Ben Burtt to do the character’s sound design. Below is quoted from Wikipedia:

Benjamin Burtt, Jr. is a four time Academy Award-winning sound designer and sound editor for many famous and noteworthy films, as well as directing an Oscar-nominated documentary. Burtt’s most memorable work includes creating the “voice” of robot R2-D2 in the Star Wars films, as well as various sound effects like the lightsaber, the heavy breathing sound of Darth Vader and the speederbike chase sounds from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

He is one of the person that made Star Wars so successful back in the 80s. Needless to say, the sound he designed for Wall-E is excellent. Those sounds are really really cute and with the wonderful eye expression of Wall-E, this film is simply one of the best movie I watched this year. It is an absolute must watch film for everyone especially for its global warming issue.

Films