Stephen Thompson
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
If you're too cool for Pixar, don't hang out with me.
Aisha, I think you and I are of one mind on this one.
I'm very intrigued to discuss it with you.
To be fair to this film, unlike Up, what people talk about when they talk about Up is often a sequence of about eight and a half minutes.
In the case of WALL-E, it is a much longer sequence.
It basically plays out as a masterful silent film.
largely wordless, in which this little robot kind of moves through the world and is like still kind of is very dutiful.
It's still like doing the tasks it was assigned to do, but it has such life and such personality.
It's an excellent short film.
If it were just a short film, it would be like one of the best short films I've ever seen.
I do not want to rain on the parade of how brilliant that movie is until the moment the rocket takes off with the little robot attached to it.
And as soon as it goes into space, it becomes not only a fairly rote Pixar quest epic, but it is also, Aisha, it is so deeply cynical about humanity in ways that I found shocking.
It's not just like I can't handle the fact that it's this scathing indictment of humanity's worst excesses.
It's a more cynical than accurate view of what humanity is capable of.