comment #1

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

The Apple is Mickey. Mickey is the Apple.

comment #2

K. Bowen says ...

Really, that's bizarre.

comment #3

cinefan says ...

I'm not that impressed by Crair's argument - when I saw the film, I didn't notice at all any of the Apple or Ipod references. Also, Crair's argument that Wall-E is drawn to EVE because he's in love with the Ipod is incredibly moronic and completely unsupported by the content of the film.

comment #4

dipnut says ...

Still, I find it a bit perplexing that the guy who wasted a better part of a day last week waiting to get his hands on the new iphone (Wells) would link to this article. Sounds like he -- like most of us -- has his consumption price. There's a fat rube of the future inside all of us. Apple -- like any corporation -- would just prefer us to get fat on them.

comment #5

Richard_Stone says ...

I'm too tired to really make sense of the article's argument in depth at the moment, but it was clear while watching Wall-E that the guys were consciously or unconsciously pushing the "Apple is cool" message, which is either antithetical to the morale of the story they were telling or just gratuitously smug (I've been working in a CGI imagery IT company, and I bet the Pixar guys are in love with their computers and identify themselves to be part of the Apple family. Perhaps a shallow on my part here).

Anyways, let's review the Apple tidbits in Wall-E:

1) various Apple computer parts in trash piles everywhere -- most likely simple easter eggs.

2) Wall-E watches the musical comedy on an iPod -- a pretty obvious product placement that's unnecessary to the story (they could have used any other generic video products or created a futuristic design for a future gizmo). Let's drop the 700 years battery shelf life argument since electricity runs everywhere in Wall-E's inhabitated world and someone forgot to turn off all the PR and video announcements at the Buy N Large mall.

3) Wall-E is booted up twice and plays each time the Mac Os X boot sound. Another unnecessary and gratuitous reference that doesn't make sense in the context of the story (robots like this would not be powered by an OS like Mac Os X). All this achieves is that it sends the message that the cute and lovely robot is powered by Apple, thereby creating an unsubtle and unjustified association in the mind of the audience. I hate to be the guy that sees subliminal propaganda everywhere, and it's very probable the Pixar guys saw this as a cute harmless side-joke, but it's still a big judgement mistake in my opinion, and detracts from the artiness of the whole movie.

4) Eve is designed to resemble the sleek Mac aesthetic. I have little to say about this point since at least they bothered to create an original design and the link between the two is subtle

My comments are not very insightful thus far, but I'll conclude by saying I've been suspicious of the Pixar boys ever since I saw that annoying teaser humid with self-regard for Wall-E where the guys try to wax a myth out of some lunch they had 15 years ago. Perhaps I'm just hatin' because they remind of the smug assholes from my previous job.

comment #6

cinefan says ...

But you're assuming, Richard_Stone, that everyone in the U.S. owns a Mac and knows the Mac Os X boot sound. I'm a PC person and there are a lot of us out there (also, a large percentage of the film's audience is kids who probably wouldn't know that sound either). I guess I don't mind, also, that Wall-E plays the Hello Dolly clip on an I-pod because he also has a VCR and a videocassette of the film and I don't think you can argue that the filmmakers are pimping VCRs and videocassettes because of this fact.

comment #7

D.Z. says ...

Jeff: The talk-back for that New Yorker cover thing ain't working.

comment #8

Richard_Stone says ...

What you say is true, Cinefan, but I still think the obvious references to Apple products and design are not necessary to the story. Whether or not every member of the audience recognizes the reference is besides the point in my opinion.

And there never was an iconic, king-of-the-hill brand or model of VCRs like the iPod was for MP3 players, there was strong competition from multiple companies and they were less focused on design and marketing image. And Apple didn't manufacture a VCR either, so why would the Pixar boys pimp the VCR?

Ultimately, this is what I assume: the Pixar boys fashion themselves as part of the Apple family, and they proudly reference their products in this story, not for a nefarious plot of marketing and consumer brainwashing, but just out of smugness. The article says it better than I can.

I forgot to add that most of the robot noise aboard the ship are generated from the Mac speech synthetizer as well.

comment #9

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

I didn't even notice the iPod. Though if I did, it'd be like the Jaws toy in E.T., an amusing bit of self-awareness.

I thought it was pretty funny, actually, that everybody started with the OLD Mac chime. It's kind of like if the Dragnet theme played or something. And using the cheap Apple speech synthesizer is even funnier.

Eve doesn't look much like any Apple product, not more than she simply looks like a very retro-60s notion of the future.

Now, what bugged ME is that a movie saying we should all get off cruise ships and put our feet back in nature was released by the company that owns a cruise line and has built the most unnatural landscape in Florida....

comment #10

Richard_Stone says ...

"I didn't even notice the iPod. Though if I did, it'd be like the Jaws toy in E.T., an amusing bit of self-awareness." - Mgmax

And also Kubrick, with the 2001 soundtrack in Clockwork, etc. When I was a teen in love with Kubrick, I thought it was an amusing detail, but now I also sometimes think that it's quite smug and narcissistic, although I am more forgiving when it's pushing something artistic and personal like Kubrick's previous work, as opposed to the obvious and non-negligible commercial aspect of the Apple references in Wall-E.

comment #11

cinefan says ...

I don't think the obvious references to Apple are necessary, either, but I guess I'm less cynical in terms of how I view Pixar's use of them (more in line with Mgmax's take on the film). I do disagree with you, though, about it being beside the point as to whether every audience member gets the references. If Pixar was hawking Apple products or the company, I would expect a lot more than a few isolated, ambiguous allusions to apple products(compare, for example, Cast Away and Fed Ex or Back to the Future films and Pepsi for films with unsubtle, obvious product placement). IIn the case of Wall-E, doubt 2 out of every 10 people who saw the film would pick up on all the Apple references you mention.

comment #12

cinefan says ...

I don't think the obvious references to Apple are necessary, either, but I guess I'm less cynical in terms of how I view Pixar's use of them (more in line with Mgmax's take on the film). I do disagree with you, though, about it being beside the point as to whether every audience member gets the references. If Pixar was hawking Apple products or the company, I would expect a lot more than a few isolated, ambiguous allusions to apple products(compare, for example, Cast Away and Fed Ex or Back to the Future films and Pepsi for films with unsubtle, obvious product placement). In the case of Wall-E, I doubt 2 out of every 10 people who saw the film would pick up on the handful of Apple references you mention.

comment #13

Richard_Stone says ...

There was many knowing chuckles when the Mac Os X sound came up in my theater. I doubt the Pixar crew just went: "Hey, we need a boot sound for Wall-E. Oh fuck it, let's just use the Mac Os X chime, no one will notice."

But I pretty much agree with you nonetheless, cinefan, I don't think Pixar had a specific marketing agenda to push or anything like that. Ultimately, I just think it's a flat note in the middle of a nice concerto. It'd be interesting to hear Stanton adress this issue in detail one day.

Funny you mention Cast Away and FedEx, because to me that was a perfectly justifiable usage of the FedEx brand name in the context of the story. The story does not glorify FedEx in any specific way, although I guess you could argue about the welcome speech that Fred Smith gives to Tom Hanks -- this is off the top of my head -- although in my estimation that speech helps to express Tom Hanks' alienation from the civillization. I thought pretty much all the usages of the FedEx name were realistic and appropriate to the story they were telling. You could point out that Tom Hanks sings the praise of FedEx reliability in the opening scene in Moscow, but I think it makes sense since his character is a FedEx executive. It was an accurate depiction of the world we live in.

comment #14

Richard_Stone says ...

That said, I probably wouldn't have cared too much if they made up a fictional transport company for the purpose of the film. But it helped me believe this was a realistic character living in the same universe as I do.

comment #15

cinefan says ...

I guess, richard stone, we had different theater experiences with Wall-E because there was no crowd reaction at all to the Apple references when I saw the film (maybe, I saw the film with a lot of PC users). One thing, though - you mentioned in your earlier post that apple parts are shown piled up in the trash in the film - that image perhaps provides a possible counterargument to Crair's article: showing Apple and Ipods as being responsible for producing a lot of the trash which Wall-E has to compact could be a subtle dig at Apple.

comment #16

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

What mitigates it in Cast Away is that his FedEx sense of connectedness to everyone and last-minute-importance proves to be a complete illusion once he falls off the planet. In some ways it's a critique of the mentality that thinks we need such a service.

comment #17

Richard_Stone says ...

I hope you don't mind me reitering my point, cinefan, but still, Wall-E itself being an Apple product is a much more obvious reference than a few old computer parts in the background that I didn't notice until I stumbled on an online Wall-E easter eggs list.

The fact they consulted Jonathan Ive to help design Eve also shows their intentions to align the movie's definitions of beauty and attraction to Apple's.

I'm pretty much out of arguments now and only repeating myself, but one last pointless note: when I first heard the Mac Os X sound in Wall-E, I mistakenly thought it was actually the Microsoft Windows boot noise. I thought it was sort of gracious of them to give a nice nod to the fraternal enemy. (And when you think about it, Wall-E looks more Microsoft than Apple, with his utilitarian and beat-up design). It was only on the second instance I realized it was the Mac noise.

comment #18

MovieBob says ...

Except Eve DOESN'T look like an Ipod, or an Apple product. If anything, she looks like a hyper-evolved version of today's "Asimo" robot, which I'm pretty certain is a Honda creation.

comment #19

CinemaPhreek says ...

Talk about missing the forest for the trees-

The worse aspect of this film for me is that instead of suggesting that we could very well make the planet inhospitable to human life, it suggests that we can stop it all by simply planting gardens.

A far more courageous film would have had Eve, WallE and the rest trying to keep the bad robots from taking all the humans back to Earth once life was returning.

comment #20

cinefan says ...

You're right, CinemaPhreek, it would have been much better if Pixar had told countless numbers of children that the earth was doomed and that there was nothing we could do to save it. How dare the filmmakers not provide a cynical, nihilistic ending in the manner of, say, There Will Be Blood.

comment #21

BurmaShave says ...

Precisely. Gotta grow up sometime.

comment #22

JCEFalconi says ...

Am I a sheep for thinking they could've referenced Apple because they love the design of their products?

Removing EVE from his argument, the other references are just little easter eggs for Apple-fans.

comment #23

snoopy_says_bleah says ...

This is nitpicky, but Wall*E lost me when Fred Willard showed up. Live action Fred Willard.

Imagine if Planet of the Apes ended with Charlton Heston breaking down on the beach... and then the reveal was a Cartoon Statue of Liberty.

Going back to the nuke-the-fridge vs. jumping the shark debate, the movie jumped the shark at that point and couldn't get me back.

I was baffled that Stanton couldn't animate humans in that INCREDIBLY expository scene, explaining that we were giving up, just keep floating out there, no matter what.

And I think this is why some people -- people who understand the importance of point of view in animation and storytelling in general -- feel the movie deflate when the movie tries to shift from Junk Earth to the Cruise Ship Humans.

Because when Finding Nemo shifts from the ocean to the Dentists' Office, it still tells the story from the Fishes' point of view. It doesn't tell the story of the Dentist's realization that he's affected the Circle of Life by kidnapping fish that should have stayed in the ocean.

Yet Wall*E doesn't believe in its central conceit -- as Stanton described it himself on Fresh Air -- of "The Last Robot on Earth." It doesn't see it through to its logical conclusion, where Wall*E has to decide whether or not humans deserve to go back to Earth. No, no, no, he has to shift the rooting interest onto humans we don't care about and haven't spent time with.

And, sure, Wall*E saves the day. But his role in the story at that point is secondary to the characters who can actually affect change, the humans.

And, at that point, they're so fat and worthless, who cares about them? (cf. Wells' Ricky Gervais "fat people clip" from yesterday)

comment #24

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

I agree with your basic point, Snoopy, though for me it's less about Willard than about the fact that the movie becomes a Jeff Garlin monologue for half an hour. It's like if Bambi forgot about the forest animals and did 30 minutes of Phil Harris as a bumbling hunter.

comment #25

JHRussell says ...

I thought Eve looked like a SONY robot...Rolly? or something like that...the Apple product "placements" were obvious, but way too much is being made about all of this.

comment #26

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

My first thought at the sight of Eve was this:

http://www.antiqueradio.org/jvc01.htm

comment #27

Brock Landers says ...

I didn't see anyone else mention this - the moment with the iPod when Wall-E put the giant magnifying glass in front of the iPod's tiny-ass screen. That got a laugh out of me.

The idea of watching movies intended for the big screen on the ridiculously small iPod should be appalling to any true movie lover.

And 'Wall-E' is definitely intended to be seen on a big screen, with a crisp, clear sound system. I'm not sure why there's so much hatin' - I thought it was a big step up from Pixar's rat movie and one of the best of the year so far. And, it held my six-year-old's attention for the entire thing - no small feat.

comment #28

Richardson says ...

When I saw '2001' on the big screen a month back, I was *shocked* to see several uses of the IBM logo. Nice job selling out, Stanley!

comment #29

Howlingman says ...

"I'm not sure why there's so much hatin'?" Really, Brock, this is the internet -- it's hip to hate here.

comment #30

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