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Books Space Opera Week 2023

After 15 Years, Is There Anyone Left Who Doesn’t Love WALL-E? Well, Yes…

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Published on February 8, 2023

Credit: Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar Animation Studios
Credit: Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar Animation Studios

Don’t tell me how good WALL-E is. I’ve heard. I’ve been hearing. Don’t tell me it’s top tier Pixar, perhaps the GOAT from the studio. Not interested. Don’t tell me it’s both bleak and heartwarming, and confronts the destructive path of humankind with bravery and grace, a work of animated art everyone should watch. It’s still a “no” from me. I refuse.

Just kidding. I adore WALL-E. I saw it in the theater the week it came out, and the little robot’s story resonated deeply with my life situation at the time. I own the DVD and return to it every few years, finding new joys in each re-watch. It’d be my favorite Pixar if it wasn’t for a certain chef rat. The above paragraph was my attempt at inhabiting my sister-in-law’s consciousness. For the 15 long years that WALL-E has existed, this has been her mindset. My sister-in-law refuses to watch WALL-E, no matter how many times I try to convince her.

It’s never added up. She loves Pixar movies. She’s a dedicated environmentalist and advocate for climate justice. Her name is Eve. Okay, no it’s not. But the rest is true and seems to mean she’d gravitate toward WALL-E, instead of away. I finally have to know why. Is there something beyond youngest-child obstinacy? What lies at the dark heart of this refusal?

 

On a scale of 1-10, how annoying have I been about this subject over the past 15 years?

10. I think that every time someone has brought up space, or robots, or trash, or pollution, or the environment, or walls, or the letter “e” (what is this movie even about?! Nevermind, don’t want to know), you’ve asked me if I have seen or will watch WALL-E. I haven’t. I won’t.

Let me set the scene. It’s 2008. Early Summer. You’re 15 years old. We’re in a strange liminal space at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. Obama and Clinton are vying for the democratic nomination. Something awful has happened to you: I have just married into your family. WALL-E drops and I’m at one of the first screenings in our hometown. You are not. Weeks pass. What led you to initially deprive yourself of this life-affirming cinematic elixir?

I don’t know why I never saw it at first. I remember seeing ads for it. I don’t remember being particularly interested in it. The only scene I remember from a trailer is a vacuum looking guy floating around space, I think. Eh. I don’t remember if anyone suggested going to see it and I said no. I don’t think so. I think the opportunity just never arose, and that’s fine.

Your sister remembers things differently: Many times, when it was in theaters, she and other members of your family suggested going, and you refused then. Your reasoning was apparently that a friend told you it was boring. Does that ring a bell? Do you think that friend has since changed her tune about the movie? I bet she’s tatted up with full-sleeves of WALL-E by now. I’ll still never forgive her.

Hm. That’s interesting. I don’t remember it that way at all. In my mind, I was never invited to see it and then it just became a thing of never wanting to see it later on. But maybe I did hear it was boring and was kind of scared of seeing it (à la your brother and The Sound of Music). I do assume it’s a boring movie, so maybe that’s right, but I don’t remember that at all. Either way, I highly doubt anyone I would have associated with would get a WALL-E tattoo. Nobody wants to send out that signal to the world!

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Wild Massive

Wild Massive

Will you describe (in as much detail as you can) the plot of WALL-E, as you imagine it? 

I think it’s a movie about a robot. I feel pretty confident about that part. Everything else I feel much less confident about. I think the robot lives in space. I think there’s a big mound of trash floating through space ’cause humans have decided to put their trash in space and WALL-E (the robot’s name) is worried about the trash ’cause it’s coming towards his planet or where he floats around in space. And he has to do something about the trash. So he recycles it. All by himself. He floats around in space alone. He doesn’t have robot friends. Not sure how he recycles the trash in space. The moral of the story is don’t put your trash in space, and recycle your trash. If the mound of trash part is not accurate, that could be because I’m conflating it with when that mound of trash was floating through the ocean.

It still is! What’s the closest you’ve come to watching WALL-E?

I used to be a fourth-grade teacher. After state testing, there’s not much left to do towards the end of the year. During this part of the year, my kids would normally work for a little bit and then we’d celebrate being done with the state test and our work for the day by watching a movie. I’d give them three options of a movie to watch, write them on the board, and they’d put their heads down and vote by raising their hands, and I’d record the votes on the board. The way we would initially choose the movies is by scrolling through a website (projected from my computer onto the Smartboard) and picking three that students generally seemed excited about. This was a less democratic process but pretty manageable—often they would just want to watch the newest ones. Once we were scrolling through, and WALL-E happened to be on the part of the page I was projecting onto the Smartboard. I was worried because oh my god I have now spent so much of my life refusing to watch this and this can’t be how it all ends. If they pick it and I have to watch it I just won’t tell my family. But also I was not worried because it wasn’t super new and hopefully like me the kids knew it wasn’t a good movie. One kid did yell out, “WALL-E!” I pretended not to hear them and kept scrolling. I didn’t even give them a chance to vote on it.

You are famous—in our immediate family, and I assume to your friend group—for your commitment to bits. Is this a bit? A long-running, steadfast bit designed to torment me? Am I the astronaut on the left in the meme?

Not a bit. A lifestyle. It may have started as a bit but now it feels like it is critical to the core of my existence that I never watch WALL-E.

When I offered you a dollar per minute of viewing, you declined. Now that we’re having this conversation on record, will you watch WALL-E and share your thoughts for Tor.com’s readership, waiting with bated breath?

I’m worried nobody will see me as true to my word if I watch it. I think I would need a really compelling reason. And I can’t think of anything that would be compelling enough. Maybe like I go live on YouTube and everybody watches me and pays me a dollar per minute. But no, maybe not. I don’t think so. I think I would like to die having never watched WALL-E.

Henry Hoke is the author of five books, most recently the memoir Sticker from Bloomsbury. Open Throat, a novel, is forthcoming in 2023 from MCD/FSG and Picador. His work appears in No Tokens, Electric Literature, Triangle House, Carve, and the flash noir anthology Tiny Crimes. He edits humor at The Offing, and lives in New York City.

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