Film horror

In my efforts to procrastinate on whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing (which isn’t much, which is why I procrastinate so badly—my own fear of empty space practically rules me), I’ve been reading a lot of weblogs I used to be in touch with and reminiscing. Many of the bloggers had seen the new film WALL-E recently, and had given it good reviews as a cute animated movie. Well, I have seen this movie recently too, and I wonder if those people and I saw entirely different movies.

(I am probably going to spoil the movie, but as I can’t even think about it as a movie anymore, I’m not sure how. If you don’t want to know ANYTHING about the movie, please don’t read ahead. Use your best judgment on your “spoiler” tolerance, please.)

One blog in particular said it provided “interesting social commentary”, a phrase that puzzled me. I hadn’t seen any commentary in the film, since none of the people in it questioned the situation they were in. Pixar took a fairly realistic idea of what the future could look like, and built a kid’s story around it. A story that depressed me so much that I had a very hard time just sitting and enjoying the storyline. And now, a week and a half later, all I can recall from the movie are moments, moments that fill me with dread and horror. WALL-E isn’t a movie to me, but a disturbing look into a probable future. (If we develop good enough space technology to get all 6 billion of us off into Earth and into life-supporting spaceships, of course.)

Perhaps I’ve been reading too much of Chile Chews, Crunchy Chicken, Green Bean Dreams, or Arduous Blog, but my mind zeroed in on the devastation of the Earth caused by mankind’s waste. In the beginning, the camera flew over the a city, with ancient skyscrapers reminding us of the power of humankind, next to new skyscrapers made of… what’s that? compacted trash?? We soon find that more of these trash-skyscrapers are made daily. Where did we get enough trash to build skyscrapers? And to zoom out to find the atmosphere filled with pieces of scrap metal and other floating wastes. Is this what we’re heading to? Our beautiful world completely destroyed by human trash?

The point is, we completely destroyed the earth. Humans were supposed to go on a 5-year cruise in space to allow “Buy n Large” time to fix it, to make it habitable for life again. The 5 years soon stretched to 700. Seven hundred years on a cruise only supposed to last 5. And did any current member of this cruise ever wonder why or how a five year cruise could become seven hundred? No, they didn’t. Not once did a person say “hang on, what exactly happened on Earth and why aren’t we helping fix it??” Even when they learned more about the situation, they still couldn’t think past, “Oh cool! We’re going home!” to the whys and hows and questions. In that sense, it does seem a kid’s movie: none of the thinking involved in a good movie that you can sink your teeth into. And in that sense, I couldn’t see the commentary Pixar apparently showed. I saw rather the situation they portrayed, one possibility of many for our Earth’s future, and asking instead the viewers to reach their own conclusions about it.

Of course, it wasn’t an entirely depressing movie. There were good moments, too. Like newfound friendships and loves. WALL-E’s re-use of other (long worn out) WALL-E’s parts, rather than scraping the last resources of the Earth to make more. (O! it set my heart aflutter, that did.) The captain, staying up late following link after link after link, curiosity getting the better of sleep, when he first beheld the idea of plant life on Earth. That scene made me smile in its familiarity to me, as many a night I stay up past my bedtime reading and reading and learning new things as well. There were the little things to attest to human’s adaptability and take care of themselves, but to me it seemed too late. 700 years. I wish others would see this movie as a warning, as I do. I want it to be in our power to continue to stay alive, not under control of mass marketing (practically hypnosis). I don’t want the Earth to end up the way it does in the movie.

So, I covertly keep up with environmentalist blogs and do whatever I can to reduce my own impact on the Earth, so that the skyscrapers in WALL-E stay completely fictional. So that I can look upon my home and feel joy in its beauty. So that we always have the Earth to come back to, not a place we can no longer remember what it’s like.