Wall-E

So Krista and I went to see Wall-E this weekend and we loved it. Loved it. I had every intention of writing a review but then I thought about something, so bear with me if this seems a little preachy.

The idea behind Wall-E is that we’ve consumed ourselves into oblivion, at least as far as Earth is concerned. The planet is literally covered in garbage and is now a desolate landfill that Wall-E spends his time compacting, stacking and sifting through for little treasures. The message is (theoretically) clear: waste is bad and will make things worse very soon if we don’t do anything.

The question is, is this a message or a plot device?

I was hoping for the former, I really was, because waste is a problem, especially here in good old North America. Yet in the credits there are ads for the new Wall-E video game. And one quick search for Wall-E over at toywiz.com give 40 results.

At shopping.com, you can get one of 22 shirts.

In ten minutes of searching I found 200+ Wall-E products including books, toys, clothing, posters, treat boxes (?), temporary tattoos, piñatas (ola, señor Wall-E!), magnets, costumes, invitations, and so on.

Think any of this will end up in a landfill?

Is it right to hold Pixar to task for producing these products? Many of these products are reusable and/or recyclable: clothes, paper, cardboard, etcetera. But realistically, much of it will be thrown out within two years. How many kids do you see running around in Toy Story shirts? Or even Monsters Inc. shirts? Technically, this isn’t Pixar’s problem: they’re in the movie business, and these days a lot of the movie business is merchandising (especially animated films, which are intrinsically seen as “kid” movies and have access to the lucrative parent market). But I would hope that a studio using the perils of overwaste as a plot point would do more to lessen the load.

I also tried running a search on Google using keywords like “wall-e” “environmentally friendly” and “merchandise”. I only got one hit back that noted any effort by Pixar to “green” the merch push for Wall-E: a cardboard recyclable slip for the soundtrack.

Like I said, I’m a big fan of the movie and will more than likely buy it on DVD when it comes out. I just wish Pixar had taken the concept past the screen.