Nazulu said:
WALL-E and Toy Story are some others.
WALL-E isn't just overrated, it's bad. Not awful, but not good either.
The first act was great. But then once they got to the Axiom and introduced human characters, everything went downhill.
John is an awful character. When he tries to get Wall-E to take the empty cup from him, why does he completely flip out? "Here, take the cup.
Take the cup. TAKE THE CU-" *falls* Seriously? The robot doesn't respond immediately, so you practically jump out of your seat over a minor inconvenience? We're supposed to like this asshole?
Then we meet that fat lady, I forget what her name was. She and John meet each other later in the movie and become friends. I felt that her awe at seeing the rest of the ship once her holographic screen thing gets shut off was a bit lame, but that's just a minor niggle. What really bothered me was the "We have a pool?!" joke. It's a very weak joke, and it has already been established that she's discovering things she never noticed before. It's a pointless moment.
When Wall-E and Eve are being taken to the bridge, they pass through this lobby with a one-eyed secretary robot hanging from the ceiling. This is actually my favorite character, because out of all the others it receives some of the most meaningful development. Wall-E waves to it before riding up the elevator, and the robot tentatively waves back, and then looks at its arm-thing curiously and repeats the gesture. Later, when it shows up again, it waves vigorously at Wall-E as he passes by. I didn't even notice what that meant at first. This is a non-speaking character you only see twice, but its actions give it a surprising amount of personality and are a very simple example of how Wall-E's appearance on the ship has influenced people.
The sad thing about the secretary robot is that it is more compelling than the villain, Otto. Otto has no personality at all. Its motivations are simplistic, and it has no distinguishing features aside from copying the appearance of Hal-9000. Why is it that, while over the course of 700 years of solitude a little trash-collection robot has developed a distinct personality, the ship AI who has interacted with hundreds of human beings for an equal amount of time is the same mindless drone that it was when it was made? Why are all the other robots in the movie apparently programmed to demonstrate complex, individual behaviors, while the one specifically designed to be intelligent is so dull?
The captain is almost as bad. He makes a big deal about almost missing a daily announcement, apparently one of the highlights of his day, but then when he actually gives it he looks and sounds so bemused. He makes a cheap fat joke ("We have a gym?"). After searching through the ship's database and finding various facts about Earth, he's completely enthralled. But later when he and Otto are discussing whether the Axiom should go back to Earth, he sounds like he's arguing that humans have a duty to take care of their home, when it would make much more sense for him to say something like "We've been cooped up on this ship doing nothing for 700 years, and now we have this chance to do something new and glorious." This is a man who has never known real responsibility in his entire life, because everything is automated.
Why the hell do they need a plant sample to be able to return to Earth? Doesn't the ship have navigation computers? Couldn't they just look up Earth's coordinates?
Why does Buy and Large give an order that the Axiom should
never return to Earth? It's almost understandable that they would give up the salvage attempt, but why completely burn that bridge when there was a possibility that the Earth could have healed enough to sustain human life again on its own? Why continue sending down probes if it didn't matter anyway? It isn't as if any of the passengers would know.
Why does the presence of plant life show that Earth is habitable again? Couldn't the plants have adapted to survive a toxic atmosphere? Why not just have the Eve probes analyze the atmosphere directly, reading the chemical makeup of the air to determine if it's breathable?
Why, in 700 years, is this the first time Wall-E has ever seen one of these probes? Judging by his reaction to that rocket the first time it lands, and his reaction upon seeing Eve, this is completely new to him. Did the Axiom just then start sending probes down? Do they pick random spots to search in? Why do they fly back to the Axiom after searching for such a short period? Couldn't they just stay there and travel back only when the atmosphere improved enough for the humans do go back home?
Why does Eve have a cannon in her arm? What possible use could that serve? (On a slightly related note, why does Wall-E have a cassette player built into his body?) She appears to be the most technologically advanced robot on the entire ship, able to fly, inflict massive destruction with her arm-cannon, and somehow articulate her limbs and head without them needing to physically connect to her body. Why waste something like that to look for weeds when they could be put to such better use as ship security? Eve completely outclasses the guard robots that the Axiom
does use.
Is the Axiom the only ship that actually returns to Earth? Early in the movie, a Buy and Large commercial on a billboard says that there's an entire fleet of ships. What happened to all of them?
This writing is terrible, and nothing makes sense.
But the thing that really ruined the movie for me is from when Wall-E is trying to bring the plant sample to that plant-analyzer thing, and Otto tilts the ship. Everything starts sliding "down" in the direction that the ship tilts (gravity does not work like that in space, damnit), including a big goup of small children. John and that fat woman from earlier show up again and they rescue the children from being crushed under a large bench or something, and just before they do the woman makes the most terrible pun I have ever heard in my entire life:
"John, get ready to have som kids."
WHAT SICK PERSON WROTE THIS
Wall-E is so overrated it isn't funny. I think it's probably the worst Pixar film I've ever seen.
