Unraveling The Secrets of Dystopian Society in Pixar’s Movie, Wall-e

Pixar’s WALL-E is a creatively and brilliantly animated children’s movie. Though entertaining, it has an underlying message and warning. This film represents a dystopian community, perhaps portraying America’s supposed future, hidden behind a sweet love story between two robots. The theatrical elements such as specific portrayal of color, shadow and light, and angles, along with the story elements such as settings, appearance of characters, and objects, work fluently together to depict this dystopian society.

It is apparent that the company Buy-n-Large completely rules the earth. The logo is cleverly inserted anywhere it can be on Earth. We are shown very early on in this film that Buy-n-Large is a huge association, or least once was. While Wall-E is scampering around doing what he does, the logo flashes on buildings and objects all around him. Buy-n-Large is the company responsible for taking all of the humans in this story to space, and the logo can be seen all around the Axiom that they are living on as well. It is obvious that the Earth that Wall-E lives on has been polluted and abandoned. Everything is a shade of brown, or a dull version it’s original color. Things have a dirty and old tint to them. When Eve arrives in this setting, her bright white color stands out tremendously, signaling that she is newer and nicer than anything on Earth. The white and reflective look of Eve also foreshadows the technological advances being made on the Axiom. When we are given a shot of a sort of common area on the ship, it is bright and colorful, with robots swarming around, and electronic billboards lighting up the area, most of which are displaying food. Buy-n-Large targeted Earth with their flashy signs and logos once too, but that has all faded away now, thus the brown and dull color.

The people aboard the Axiom all look relatively the same. They all wear the same jumpsuit. At one point, in the film, a blue jumpsuit is offered instead of a red, and everyone changes over to it as one collective group. They are all obese. This is because they do not exercise in any way, or even walk. They simply float around in chairs and stare at screens in front of them. Their weight can also be attributed to the fact that they eat food in a cup, like a milkshake. This form of food is displayed over and over again. It is advertised almost constantly, and it can be seen in the hands of a large portion of the citizens. Even the children are in smaller versions of the floating chairs and all wear the same clothing. The only person who differs is the captain of the Axiom. He wears a white jumpsuit with red stripes, a jacket around his back and neck like a cape, and a cap. We are shown an excellent shot of all of the captains that the ship has had. As the pictures progress, each captain gets bigger, and their time in charge gets shorter. It can be assumed that their life spans are shorter, since they are living such unhealthy lifestyles. These pictures demonstrate that these ultimate lazy states developed gradually.

While the people of the Axiom are all the same, with no one person being better or worse than another, the robots all have distinct personalities and jobs. They have assumed human like qualities, like gesturing and even talking conversationally. The Axiom itself is a wonderful sight. Everything is busy and constantly moving, as opposed to the Earth displayed, where things are still. It is also dark on Earth, with a lot of shadows, until the Axiom lands. The scene when the Axiom returns to the planet shows it breaking through the clouds, and Earth becoming a lot brighter than we have seen it in the entire film. There is an obvious contrast between the bright people and robots, and the dull environment when they step onto Earth.

An interesting part of this film is that there are two instances when there is actual footage and images used, and not animation. The first is when the captain watches a briefing on how to get the Axiom back to Earth. The person speaking in the video (a reference to an American president) is not animated. He, and his background, are real. Then, when the captain is searching for and observing pictures of Earth on his large screen, the pictures are of actual people and places on Earth, not animations, as the film. These are making the film feel more real to those watching, making us wonder if this could actually happen to our society.

WALL-E, at first glance, is just a quirky film about robots. However, there is a much deeper meaning and there are several elements in the context of this film that represent a dystopian community.