Pixar Theory
I grew up on Pixar. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to appreciate the filmmaking within their stories. So this theory me trying to explain why I enjoy watching 3 of their movies now more so than I did when I was younger.
The maturation of their films from stories like Toy Story and Monsters Inc. to films like Ratatouille, Wall-e, and Up coincides with an increase in age of their original audience. Which I think is why their themes and stories became a bit more nuanced and dark in some cases. I mean what children's movies say anything about suicide like Ratatouille. Or have a social critique on life being too easy and the loneliness that comes with that like in Wall-e. Or a story about chasing an ideal life for someone you lost, while gaining something you never had along the way? It’s a creative endeavor that most studios only hope to chase. The idea of increasing your ability to tell more meaningful stories because of how well your previous story was told is something most artists only dream of.
I think it would be best to dissect the film that has the largest social criticism. The wondrous and illustrious Wall-e. The other films can be darker in places but they don’t hold the same social impact that Wall-e could. I think it would be interesting to dissect it a bit harder than the others. Maybe another time I’ll get around to Ratatouille, it is one of my favorite films. And Up after that. But for now. We’ll have to settle for Walle-e.
Wall-e focuses upon abandonment and the way people will survive whenever you are surrounded by too much “easiness”. It’s quite simply a massive social critique on laziness. Which might not seem that dark but in actuality it coincides with a time in history whenever laziness and “fat acceptance”. I know that isn’t the best term for it but I couldn’t think of another term that would accurately capture what I’m trying to say. I do think that idea flies under the radar in this movie though because it does focus on two robots falling in love. Which is kind of an odd occurrence. And maybe that’s another theme that could be explored at a later date. The idea of robots becoming so complex that they hold emotions that us as humans do, and whenever that happens maybe humans will be like robots, which is kind of what is shown in the film. But, I don’t really need to focus upon that right now. Whenever humans fall into patterns of laziness we begin to think too hard about ideas that don’t need to be thought hard about. Like being healthy. We start to think that if we create a society where everything is easy it doesn’t matter how you eat or how you treat yourself. And really, the secondary theory kind of becomes my main theory. What if as humans we get to a point where everything is so easy that the robots we created to make it easier for us start working harder than we do? What if that causes humanity to fall into the patterns robots fall into? Where they repeat the same pattern over and over with no feeling or regards for the person next to you? At that point do robots become even more human than humans themselves? I just hope we don’t ever get to that point. Maybe Pixar discounted the human race a bit too easily in this film. Maybe.
