WALL*E

Last night Will and I went to see WALL*E. Now, to get a 12 year old to see a movie with his dad is one thing, to get him to go see a Pixar movie with his dad is quite another thing. I was pleasantly surprised when he actually jumped at the chance when I suggested it at dinner. Sunday, he and I spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning his room and boxing up a number of toys that he's outgrown. It's a bittersweet deal, knowing your youngest child is, well, really no longer a child. But I digress. I had read a number of really good reviews and comments about the movie. I was intrigued by the entire premise of the movie - that earth is no longer habitable and earthlings had become fat, lazy, drones of a corporation who no longer really lived but rather existed. Intermingled within this story is a love story about two robots, WALL*E and EVE, that I found less compelling than many critics have. Yet this is a really good movie, one that takes a not so subtle swipe at the choices we humans have made with respect to using our natural resources as well as the rampant hyper-consumerism that we now view as a standard way of life. Which leads me to the biggest problem I have with this movie. Well, not the movie itself, but rather the Disneyfication of the message. Despite ripping on the hyper-consumerism during the movie, Disney/Pixar are marketing this movie and all the associated trinkets that go along with it, i.e. toys, bed sheets, back packs, etc., just like every other movie that has come from their studios. How refreshing it would have been to not be able to link to a page full of WALL*E toys? Still, a movie worth seeing and discussing.
Peace,
Jeff