25 Weeks of Pixar: Week 10 Viewing

This week, we watched the short Presto, WALL-E, and the short BURN-E. Presto is a short about the relationship between a magician and his rabbit. When the rabbit doesn’t get the carrot he is hungry for, he goes on strike until he can eat. This short is hilarious, and an honest take about the reliance we have on our fellow performers to help make us look good and vice versa. Our feature film this week was Pixar classic: WALL-E. I am slightly ashamed to say that prior to this week I had never seen this film. I know, how could I call myself a Pixar fan and not have ever watched WALL-E? I am not sure why I never got around to see it sooner. This movie came out when I was 11 and our family almost always went to the theater to see the latest Pixar film, but this one must have slipped through the cracks. However, I am happy to say that WALL-E lives up to all its hype. One of Pixar’s many strengths is the ability to make us, the audience, connect emotionally to something that is normally an inanimate object. This is on display here, as WALL-E follows the story of a cleaning robot of the same name that is all alone on Earth in a future in which it is uninhabitable for humans to live. When WALL-E meets a new robot named EVE, he learns about what love is and how to coexist This film is an excellent commentary both on the present and a scary potential future in which humans stop seeing things around them and enjoying life because they are glued to their own personal screen. The moment concerning the captain in the second half of the movie felt extremely on the nose as an example of a realistic wake-up call from the media in which one could be addicted. This may be even more relevant in 2018 than it was in 2008. As a musical theater performer and fan, it was a delight to see the use of clips from Hello, Dolly. I will never look at “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” the same way again.  That song and “It Only Takes a Moment” were used excellently and were one of my favorite aspects of the film. For Pixar fans who, like me, had never gotten around to watching WALL-E, I highly recommend it. As a companion to WALL-E, Pixar released a short film on the home video titled BURN-E, which follows the story of a fixer robot aboard the Axiom. This short takes place during the feature film and is really only for those who have watched the film first. It is a great companion piece and I suggest watching it immediately followed WALL-E. Next week, we will be watching the short Partly Cloudy, the feature film Up, and two shorts that were released on home video, Dug’s Special Mission and George & A.J.   Happy watching!