WALL-E
| WALL-E | |
|---|---|
| File:Wall-E Poster.jpg Teaser poster | |
| Directed by | Andrew Stanton |
| Written by | Andrew Stanton |
| Produced by | Jim Morris John Lasseter Lindsey Collins |
| Starring | Jeff Garlin Fred Willard |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures |
Release dates | June 27, 2008 (USA) July 18 2008 (UK) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
WALL-E is a computer animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film, which has a robot as its title character, will be released on June 27, 2008.[1] The film is being directed by Andrew Stanton, whose previous film, Finding Nemo, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Jim Morris, who previously worked for Lucasfilm, will be the producer. Most of the characters are not voiced by actors, but by mechanical noises combined to resemble voices.
Premise
According to John Lasseter in a presentation to Disney corporate investors:
WALL-E is the story of the last little robot on Earth. He is a robot and his programming was to help clean up. You see, it's set way in the future. Through consumerism, rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots that went around to clean up the trash and make Earth habitable again. Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he's left on Earth doing his duty all alone. But it's not a story about science fiction. It's a love story, because, you see, WALL-E falls in love with EVE, a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth, and she's left there to check on and see how things are going and he absolutely falls in love with her.[2]
Production
Andrew Stanton developed WALL-E before Toy Story was made:[3] the original idea was, "What if mankind evacuated Earth and forgot to turn off the last remaining robot?"[4] The idea often preoccupied Stanton, because of his love of space opera and personifying inanimate objects. In his vision of the future, "WALL-E is the only one still truly living. And what is the ultimate purpose of living? To love. And WALL-E falls head over heels with a robot named EVE. Now, WALL-E’s feelings aren’t reciprocated because, well, she has no feelings. She’s a robot, cold and clinical. WALL-E is the one who has evolved over time and garnered feelings. So in the end, it’s gonna be WALL-E’s pursuit to win EVE’s heart, and his unique appreciation of life to become mankind’s last hope to rediscover its roots. In short, it’s going to take a robot's love to help make the world go round."[5]
After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt they "had really achieved the physics of believing you were really under water, so I said 'Hey, let’s do that with air.' Let’s fix our lenses, let’s get the depth of field looking exactly how anamorphic lenses work and do all these tricks that make us have the same kind of dimensionality that we got on Nemo with an object out in the air and on the ground.'"[3] Producer Jim Morris added that the film was animated so that it would feel "as if there really was a cameraman."[6] The design of the robots came about by Stanton telling his designers, "See it as an appliance first, and then read character into it."[3] In creating the title character, the animators were inspired by a pair of binoculars and Luxo Jr., the lamp featured in the Pixar logo.[5]
Stanton pitched the story to Ben Burtt who signed on to do the sound design.[5] There is little traditional dialogue in the film; Stanton joked, "I’m basically making R2-D2: The Movie", in reference to Burtt's work on Star Wars. To create dialogue, Burtt took various mechanical sounds, and combined them to resemble dialogue.[4] For a character named AUTO, Burtt used old Maritime military sounds to express the character's emotions.[5] Jeff Garlin is voicing a Captain, who is the only animated character who speaks.[7] Fred Willard will have a live action role as the CEO of Buy n Large.[8] John Ratzenberger will cameo, but his role is not yet determined.[9] Producer John Lasseter said about the film's lack of dialogue that "the art of animation is about what the character does, not what it says. It all depends on how you tell the story, whether it has a lot of dialogue or not."[10]
References
- ^ Information from Variety regarding producer Jim Morris and the release date
- ^ "2007 Disney Conference - Studio Presentation" (PDF). Disney Enterprises. 2007-02-08. Retrieved 2007-08-06.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b c Eric Vespe (2007-08-11). "Quint sits down with WALL-E director Andrew Stanton!!!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Eric Vespe (2007-08-01). "Quint catches up on Disney's Prince Caspian and WALL-E panel at Comic-Con!!!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b c d Peter Scieretta (2007-07-28). "Comic-Con: Indepth Wall-E Details Revealed". Slash Film. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Tom Ambrose (2007-07-26). "Heroes of 2008". Empire. p. 72.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Peter Scieretta (2007-09-25). "Jeff Garlin to Voice the Only Animated Speaking Character in WALL-E". Slash Film. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Fred Topel (2007-10-27). "Fred Willard Appearing Live Action in Wall-E". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Silas Lesnick (2007-11-01). "Wining and Dining with Pixar". IESB. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Steve Fritz (2007). "A TALK WITH JOHN LASSETER: WHAT THE MAN IN DISNEY'S CHAIR HAS TO SAY". Newsarama. Retrieved 2007-11-04.
