Back to the Earth with WALL-E

By Cailin Reedy

Many environmental films take the form of documentaries on the given subject. They usually run between one and three hours in length. They feature a single problem or group of people to focus in-depth on a single scenario. And they tend to follow similar patterns: here is a problem, here is how we fix it and here is what happens if we’re too late. Viewers who aren’t interested in hearing such dire prognoses for the planet might not be interested in watching them.

But alternatives to such depressing environmental documentaries do exist, and according to technology magazine Wired, one of the “most powerful” environmental films of the 2000s is a Disney animated movie.

The film is "WALL-E," and it is anything but depressing. The plot centers around a steward robot, named WALL-E (or Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class), left behind on a post-apocalyptic Earth to collect trash and junk. After he meets another robot, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), the two discover a seedling growing on the barren planet. Eventually, because they believe the planet has healed itself after extensive pollution and warfare, humans return to Earth and find it still largely barren.

“It looks like Earth. But where’s the blue sky? Where’s the grass?” one character, the human captain of the spaceship, remarks when the crew makes landfall. That question encompasses the theme of the film: people have an “ideal” vision of what Earth and nature should be, but many are still unmotivated when it comes to keeping Earth in such a state, especially if it takes more than a bit of easy work.

It’s not only Wired that believes "WALL-E" to be effective on the environmental front. TIME Magazine named "WALL-E" the “Best Movie of the Decade,” though Disney and Pixar continue to disavow the film’s environmental implications. But even if Disney doesn’t want to officially step on any toes, the film's message continues to speak for itself. And it may be the hopeful message people need to start changing for the better.