Tailkinker

29th Jul 2010

Wall-E (2008)

Question: I have three questions. First, on one of the holo-screens in the beginning, (the one saying: "Too much garbage in your space? There's plenty of space out in space"), there are two Axiom cruisers leaving. I thought it was just one. Question number two: What's the purpose of that robot that is clicking on a keyboard? (The one that lets GO-4, Wall-E and Eve pass to the bridge.) Last question: In the Axiom garbage disposal thing area, there are two gigantic Wall-A's. What does the A stand for?

Answer: (1) If you continue to listen to the announcement that you quote, the next line is "BnL Starliners leaving each day". Clearly there's a sizeable fleet of ships, as you'd expect, given the necessity to completely evacuate Earth's population, with the Axiom, described as "the jewel in the BnL fleet", presumably being the flagship. Whether any of the other ships were also still functioning remains unrevealed. (2) It's presumably some sort of administration robot, with specific duties regarding access to the captain's office. (3) It stands for "Axiom".

Tailkinker

21st Jan 2009

Wall-E (2008)

Question: What's the name of the song that is playing at the start of the credits, before it actually begins scrolling upwards?

Answer: "Down to Earth", by Peter Gabriel, composed specifically for the film.

Tailkinker

16th Dec 2008

Wall-E (2008)

Question: When Wall-E and Eve are in the repair ward, and Wall-E is misinterpreting Eve's cleaning as torture, what is the second "scene" supposed to be? I understand that the first one looks like Eve is having her arm ripped off and the third looks like Eve is having her head chopped off, but I can't figure out what the second one with the malfunctioning umbrella is supposed to be.

Answer: It's a combination of what WALL-E sees happening to EVE, with her circuitry lighting up and her head bobbing up and down as she laughs, with the noise of the umbrella as the diagnostic arms try to force it down. All WALL-E can hear is something that resembles a mechanical screech, along with EVE reacting - he thinks that she's being electrocuted and is in pain.

Tailkinker

6th Dec 2008

Wall-E (2008)

Question: Perhaps I missed it somewhere, but how is it that the Wall-E main character is the only functioning Wall-E unit left?

Answer: All the others have either malfunctioned or been damaged beyond repair in the 700 years since they were built - their mission was only intended to last five years, so they're a long way past their expected functional lifespan. WALL-E has simply lasted the longest and has kept himself going by replacing his own worn-out parts with those scavenged from other defunct WALL-E units.

Tailkinker

11th Sep 2008

Wall-E (2008)

Question: How could Auto act against his directive? He's playing the top-secret order he got (never to come back to Earth) in front of the captain, yet isn't able to act against it again because things might have changed in the 700 years since the order was received. And in the face of the new evidence (the plant), doesn't that contradict the order?

Answer: One of the key points of the movie is that programming can evolve - WALL-E being the most obvious case in point. After all this time, Auto's entitled to be somewhat erratic in how he deals with things. Besides, he's still very firm on his primary directive, to prevent the return to humanity to Earth - keeping the existence of that directive a secret is rather less critical. As for the plant, that does very little to invalidate the directive. It may show that the principles underlying that directive are flawed, but Auto's not got the leeway to deal with that. The directive still stands.

Tailkinker

4th Aug 2008

Wall-E (2008)

Question: Just a question about the remarkable resemblance to Johnny Five from the Short Circuit films. Is Wall-E intentionally modeled this way or is it just a coincidence they look so alike?

Answer: It certainly wasn't intentional, although the director, Andrew Stanton, has acknowledged that he did see Short Circuit many years ago and agrees that it could well have been a subconscious influence. WALL-E was principally designed with the job that he does in mind - the design brief was to consider WALL-E as an appliance first, what he would need to look like in order to do his job efficiently, then work out how to read emotion into the character after that. Stanton has stated that the chief inspiration for WALL-E's eyes came from a pair of binoculars, which he decided looked happy or sad depending on which way up they were.

Tailkinker

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