"What is Earth?"

In 2008, Pixar released one of the cutest movies called WALL-E. WALL-E is based in the future where Earth has become filled with garbage that had made it too toxic for living organisms to survive. Therefore, the entire human race has taken refuge on star liners, built by the company Buy ‘n’ Large, that are sent into space while robots, who the main character is, are left to clean up the mess. Funnily, the mission was only supposed to take a few years; however, there was too much garbage and Earth could not be saved. It is WALL-E’s and Eve’s, a robot from the star liner, mission to find new plant growth and prove that life can be maintained on Earth. This movie is full of different messages, whether overt or implied and good or bad, that kids are able to take in and learn from

One message that I believe to be most important is the fact that the humans are heavily blinded from reality. We see on the star liner that life is “perfect” away from Earth. What was supposed to be a few years away from Earth for clean up and sanitation, led to generations of living on the star liners and forgetting the purpose of why the people were there. There have been so many advances in technology that the passengers have no reason to do anything on their own. The decedents of the original passengers have become morbidly obese and obsessed with the technology they have access to. 

The people are strapped away in floating recliners that have T.V. screens attached to them. They are able to do anything with these chairs, they don’t have to move to do or get anything; they even don’t have to communicate face-to-face with each other. Because of little bodily movement, these people have had no exercise therefore gaining weight. They are also so focused on their personal T.V. screens that in one scene where WALL-E accidentally takes one lady’s screen away, she is immediately amazed at what is around her and says, “I didn’t know we had a pool.” Also, it is interesting that there has been a loss of knowledge. In another scene, we see the captain asking a computer questions that anyone should know the answers to such as: “What is Earth” and “What is Sea” and “Define dancing.” This shows that humans have become a dumbed down race due to technology.

 This message from WALL-E is a good message for a bad situation that could realistically happen one day. Children need to learn that while technology is good, it can be fatal for our lives. We should not heavily rely on technology to do tasks that humans are born to do, like walk or read. Technology can make people obsessed and not be normal. WALL-E presents this message throughout the movie in subtle ways that are not completely obvious to children; however, just representing the possible outcomes of this can really impact a child. This movie can help children to learn not to be lazy and live a more healthy and wholesome life; therefore I give it a 3 out of 3.