Anyone up for working on a Pixar storyform together? (Wall-E)

analysis
#41

To be honest, I haven’t thought much about this storyform lately. However, there are a few things I came up with while trying to figure out why the throughlines may not be where I’ve placed them.

  1. I think I’m getting caught up on the storyform representing the authors intent. It certainly seemed to me that the authors intent was to have the humans facing problems from a behavior of laziness and filthiness. However, when I think back on the movie itself, I don’t really remember this behavior specifically being treated as the problem. It never really says that’s the problem or even hints at it. In fact, I don’t really remember the humans having any real problems until Auto starts preventing the trip home. Everyone seems pretty okay with what’s going on other than a few minor annoyances. Which leads to the next point.

  2. It’s hard to really say what the problem all the characters are facing together would be. A few of the robots are broken or run down, the humans need help when they fall out of their chairs. Other than that, everything runs pretty smoothly and everyone seems pretty good. The humans had to leave earth, but other than being bored by spending 700 years on the Axiom, they don’t have much to complain about.

  3. This one goes back to authors intent again. Besides my wanting to put Eve in Fixed Attitude, I had read Andrew Stanton’s description of his idea behind Wall-E and I thought that he would for sure say that Wall-E was having problems because of his Situation. So I had decided that Eve was in Fixed Attitude and Wall-E was in Situation. But I had forgotten that Wall-E could be in Situation along with every other character in the film as well.

That said, I’m now starting to see Situation as a better place for the OS, just as @actingpower suggested to begin with. At the time, I didn’t see them as being stuck because, despite Auto’s attempts to keep them stuck in space, I still felt like they could choose to return home anytime. But tonight it occurs to me that the humans and robots are stuck in this relationship with each other. The robots are constantly doing their jobs and the humans never get out of their chairs or look at the actual world around them. The only one not stuck in this relationship, because of his Situation as the last robot on Earth, would be Wall-E (who follows his directive only until Eve appears). And any robot or human that escapes the human/robot relationship is literally snapped out of it by Wall-E bumping into them or doing something to otherwise draw them out.

And I didn’t see it this way before at all, but now that I’m seeing an OS Situation, I can see that there is a lot of Impulsive Responses dealing with Eve and Wall-E. He seems to impulsively abandon his directive, she impulsively tells him hers is classified. He sort of impulsively protects her, I guess, from the weather, and when she’s being loaded on the ship he impulsively chases after her. At this late hour, i’m unable to come up with what the Fixed Attitude between them is, however. Something to do with the love story, I guess.

The only thing I’ll point out in your description of the throughlines, @mlucas, is that all of the robots are programmed to fulfill their directives. Eve is the only one shown looking for plant life. Other eves are mentioned and even shown, but they never appear as actual characters in the film. So maybe something just a tad more specific, like Eve is programmed to fulfill her directive of returning to the Axiom with plant life?

#42

Sure that sounds good. I’ll edit the above post.

As for the humans and their problems, I think you’re mostly right, but I do think the film was trying to show the humans’ obesity and inability to care for themselves (or at least, thinking that they couldn’t care for themselves) as a problem. I’d focus on the Captain a lot as he’s a fairly detailed and fully OS character who probably demonstrates the OS Solution better than anyone.

Regarding OS Domain, I’ll consider Situation. I was thinking Activity – basically, the humans are not doing anything and it’s a problem; the robots are doing everything for them and that’s part of the problem too. Wall-E starts off doing something pointless (endless trash towers) and the Goal for everyone seems to be to wake up and start living – that’s even true for the rogue robots, the Earth itself, and Wall-E at the end.

But I can definitely see the argument for Situation too, so I’ll give that some thought.

I originally thought Manipulation / Playing a Role like you have above, and I don’t want to completely discount that, but it doesn’t really feel like a film about Manipulation. Auto’s nefarious plot to keep them from heading home isn’t quite enough of the root of the problem, if that makes sense.

#43

Gotcha. I thought you were going for Situation when you said something about the possibility of Eve’s Impulsive Response being part of the RS throughline.

I’d feel a lot better about thinking of the OS as Manipulation if I could have found anything I liked below the concern level. There was an Issue or two that worked okay, but nothing that felt completely right. So that’s probably a sign to look at something else. Clearly I liked the idea of OS as “not engaging in Activity” at one point, so I wouldn’t have any problem going back to that. I think the movie does want to suggest that as a problem.

#44

Cool! As you’ve already suggested too, Wall-E fits nicely in Situation. He’s uniquely defined by “being the last Wall-E robot” – his name is even the name of his model-type! And that situation dogs him throughout the film.

It would be nice if @actingpower, @brendon_oloughlin or @Prish would chime in at this point re: OS in Activity. But maybe we can go a bit further while we’re waiting … I think we’re already pretty sure on the Concerns being upper right, and Doing definitely fits all the “not engaging” stuff plus Wall-E’s trash cleanup, even the Earth’s lack of growing life. (I could almost see the Earth as a character in this film, with its angry wind-storms and its cute little pea?-plant.)

So, what do you see as the best fit for OS Issue under Doing – Wisdom, Enlightenment, Experience or Skill? Feel free to nominate more than one if you’re not sure.

#45

I agree with Auto being the antagonist. BnL the company has died out before the story starts, so it’s more like explaining why Auto and his pet robots are antagonistic, then being an actual antagonistic force itself.

Great thought! Knowing the Antagonist is very helpful for figuring out all sorts of story points! especially when that Antagonist is not IC or MC, it’s very helpful because it helps you focus in on the OS.

Story Goal is actually something I like to think about after the entire storyform seems solid, but yeah, it’s definitely something that Auto is resisting. Maybe getting the Axiom home and getting Earth re-settled.

Because Auto is scheming a bit (keeping secrets) it gives the OS a possibility of being in Manipulation. But I think if you removed his scheming you’d still have a problem in the overall story – the people of the Axiom needed more than just a truthful Auto to wake up and come home and be capable of re-settling the Earth. (Please chime in if you disagree with me though, this is a tricky part of the analysis for sure.)

#46

Could Eve be manipulation?

#47

Good point, Prish. If we are settled on the OS being Activity at least for the time being, we should probably look at the Domains of the other throughlines next, before deep-diving on the OS.

If Eve as IC was in Manipulation, that would mean the OS cannot be in Activity. I think Eve fits much better as Fixed Attitude – until she begins to Change she is just a hard presence, a brick wall to poor Wall-E. She doesn’t seem manipulative at all, just focused strictly on her Directive.

I think @Gregolas and @actingpower already gave some good arguments for Eve in Fixed Attitude as well.

#48

If she is fixed attitude - mind, would that make MC Walle psychology (manipulation)?

#49

No, it would put MC Wall-E in Situation (MC & IC domains are always dynamic pairs – as are RS & OS domains).

#50

Oh man, I might have to go watch it again before going much further. Haha. The humans seem to have lost the skills to care for themselves and the robots all have a specific skill they use to wait on the humans. The people have been floating around on the Axiom for seven hundred years and apparently haven’t experienced the ship enough to know it has a pool. Looking at the captain, he’s never experienced earth and the only experience he gets to have as captain is to read the morning announcements or whatever. It maybe feels a bit like an enlightenment when the humans realize there’s more than just the screen in front of their faces.

I think I’d have to say skill or experience.

#51

Yeah, I agree it either has to be Skill or Experience. I was leaning toward Experience because it’s defined as “the gaining of familiarity” which seems to be the source of the Overall Story’s problems, at least at this level. Everyone’s kind of stuck in a cycle of doing what’s familiar: Wall-E with his trash-cleanup and watching TV programs, the various Eve models always going on missions and never coming back with the olive branch, and of course the humans living out the same familiar lives on the Axiom. And your “never experienced the Earth” feels absolutely perfect, that feels totally like author’s intent there.

I can definitely see Skill being problematic in your example – losing the ability to care for themselves – but the conflict didn’t seem to be about that quite as much. It wasn’t so much about whether they had the Skill to defeat Auto, but rather, that they had to wake up and go against their life Experience. Once they all woke up you could sort of tell they were going to win. (Contrast that with Star Wars, where you’re on the edge of your seat until Luke hits the target, hoping the rebels have the skill to win.)

If you agree, maybe we could pencil in Experience as OS Issue, but keep Skill in our back pocket in case something doesn’t quite fit later.

Why don’t you (or anyone else participating) pick another Throughline Issue to tackle, and offer your thoughts?

Note: OS Issue of Experience pushes RS into Desire, which is sweet! But we can still consider the rest of that quad if you want.

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#52

I was going to wait before answering, maybe see if someone else wanted to jump in first, but something finally hit me about the OS Issue quad and now I want to share it.

At first, I wasn’t sure about any of them. I was looking at all four for examples because all four can end up being illustrated in the story and I was looking for the strongest. And while I was leaning toward skill and experience, I felt like I was missing something but didn’t know what.

On the surface level, the lack of skill is the first thing you notice about the humans, and you notice all the robots with their specific skills, and I could see experience through the things I mentioned, but there was still something there that I wasn’t seeing. So I tried to remember the movie as best I could and it finally hit me.

The humans are really like a bunch of babies in a hospital all lined up in cribs with nurses taking care of them. Only instead of cribs, it’s those constantly moving floating chairs. And instead of nurses, it’s the robots. And I guess instead of baby bottles, it’s lunch in a cup or whatever the Axiom suggests not long after Wall-E arrives. And while the humans have problems from their lack of skills, just as a baby would, it’s not seeing the lack of skills that feels like a problem or that makes the story. When you watch a baby growing up, you see them developing skills, and that’s a great part of the story, but it’s really about seeing them experience the world for the first time.

And in the same way, I think that’s what Wall-E was going for with the adults. I may be stretching the analogy there, that may not be what the writers were thinking at all, but the big moments feel like when the humans have a new experience. That’s when the animation really starts to show itself off in a movie that already has some pretty great animation. It’s when the music picks up and gets all inspirational. And it’s not just for the humans. Wall-E experiences the beauty of space with the same beautiful animation and music.

I’m definitely liking experience as the thematic issue.

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#53

That’s really cool! Yeah it’s like the humans have been denied life experience beyond that of babies… Thanks for sharing that Greg.

#54

So that would make RS psychology-manipulation?

#55

Yes. If we are starting over with the OS in Activity and MC in Situation, then we have the IC in Fixed Attitude and the RS in Psychology/Manipulation.

If we’re going with OS concern of Doing, then the MC would be How Things Are Changing, the IC would be Impulsive Responses, and the RS would be Playing a Role.

From there, I like Experience as the OS Issue.

#56

When it comes time, I’d like to. Because it’s in the RS and I need the practice looking at the RS perspective, and because I can see desire, but I’m not sure how it plays against ability.

#57

Would love to jump in, just finding some time to work through the film again. It’s been too long and I would just be guessing from memory - which for me, is not a great thing.

Be back soon with some thoughts.

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#58

I’m going to chime in here without actually picking anything … because MC Issue seems a bit troublesome.

Out of the Fact/Fantasy/Security/Threat quad, I would have chosen Fantasy – Wall-E seems to fantasize about having human relationships, dancing and holding hands, etc. However, our choice of Experience as OS Issue has removed Security and Fantasy as options for MC Issue! Threat and Fact are the ones remaining.

So, perhaps Fantasy is not really the source of conflict in the MC throughline? For one, Wall-E’s beliefs kind of turn out to be real, so they’re not entirely fantasies (“belief in something unreal”). And they sort of keep him going. Meanwhile:

  • Fact (belief in something real): it’s a fact that Wall-E is the last robot on Earth, that he’s stuck cleaning up Earth’s trash by himself. It’s a fact that his model is not suited for space, that on the Axiom he’s considered a contaminant, etc. It’s a fact that he’s falling apart.

  • Threat (evaluation of potential negative forces): all the previous Wall-E models are long-dead, and Wall-E is constantly threatened by deterioration, only surviving by scavenging parts of other Wall-E models. The dust-storms threaten him.

Of the two, Fact sounds better … but I kind of like the quad of Elements under Threat too… so maybe we should park this and look at IC throughline next? Please chime in with your thoughts as I may be missing something here.

(We could also reconsider OS Issue if we get really stuck, but let’s keep that in our back pocket.)

#59

Threat does seem major.

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#60

We can change OS Issue if needed, but I really like experience as the thematic exploration.

As for fact and threat for MC, I really like both. WallE wants something else, but the Fact is, he’s the only robot, he has his programming, there are no humans around, and the earth just is not like it is in the movie he watches. Then Eve comes along and offers to fulfill a certain aspect of those fantasies allowing him to break free of his programming/directive and the life he’s been living.

I also see him as a very nervous character who sees Threat in a lot of things. Storms, breakdowns, Eves blaster, the ship that lands over him. Oddly, once he boards the Axiom, he loses a lot of that nervousness. It’s still there and he’s still careful, but his curiosity seems to have outweighed his nervousness.

Does he find security in the things he collects? He finds the plant and essentially secures the future of the Earth and mankind.

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