I don’t have any particular thoughts. I believe I had Non-accurate as the Symptom in my own version of the storyform, so it looks like the analysis is going well! I think I’m also pretty sold on Activity being the OS Domain–it puts the relationship in Being, which I see as particularly appropriate.
I’m curious what we’ll see once we move into Benchmarks, Catalysts/Unique Abilities and Inhibitors/Critical Flaws, and Acts.
I wasn’t even thinking about all those yet. We’ve been on the OS, I guess we could look at the OS benchmark, catalyst, and inhibitor.
Im anxious to look at the other through lines too, but guess we might as well finish up the one we’re on. How do you all see them? I’ll need some time to go back and examine them.
Here is the storyform we’ve been going with (the recent problem-level choices got us down to 1 storyform), so you can check the Benchmarks etc. there: Wall-E Analysis (Google Docs)
The signposts actually look pretty bang on to me. The only thing I don’t like is I was hoping to see a Bump between OS signpost 1 and 2 (I think Act 1 -> 2 is when Wall-E & Eve leave Earth), but maybe that Bump I felt was really in the MC throughline, since the OS was more in the background in Act 1.
Actually if we can come up with good examples of Eve’s IC Problem, Solution, Symptom, Response, that would be great. Here are a few examples off the top of my head:
IC Problem: Determination
IC Solution: Expectation
IC Symptom: Unending
IC Response: Ending
It’ll be tomorrow before I can offer my own views on eve. Hopefully we can work through until we can discover whether the resolve change discussed by Jhull and LunarDynasty helped or hurt the story.
Wouldn’t this be more a robot’s built-in expectation to receive further directions and/or redirection to better serve humanity? Since Wall-e’s only directions from humans had been the films as an example of what he should do, he’s seemed to have internalized it, literally. It would make sense that robots had a built in expectation to learn from other robots what is best for humans, sometimes. Mulling things over, here
Regarding Eves problem/solution of Determination/expectation, I’m going to avoid listing specifics at the moment and say i generally see this in her determination to be a properly functioning, directive following, non-rogue robot solved when she stops worrying about what the other robots expect of her. She goes from frustrated with Wall-E when he messes up to blowing holes through the ship.
As for the unending/ending symptom/response, could there be something about Wall-Es unending attempt to get her attention and ending her way of being solely concerned with her directive? Or would that again be gettin too close to an RS issue?
Sorry all - been on an edit that has taken me out of action for a few days. Let me catch up to where we are and I will post shortly.
Just listening to @jhull 's podcast. I would have to agree with him - @mlucas you are quite verbose. Its a great thing! Very clear in your thinking, but how do you find the time?
I agree. I love Mike’s ability and willingness to hop on this page and talk to everybody. I’ve found his input to be really helpful. Thanks @mlucas!
Also, I haven’t listened to this weeks podcast yet, but it looks like we made the show notes!
Thanks guys. Glad to see my long posts aren’t wasted effort! I find the time because:
Isn’t it, just, the best hobby, ever!
Wouldn’t it have to be some directive more important? Somehow, saving Wall-e supersedes?
I might wait to watch Arrival before listening to this week’s podcast (it’s sad I haven’t seen it yet because my daughter’s friend from dance plays the little girl! small world!). But looking at the show notes where Jim says
It was worth a shot
I think Wall-E has a fairly solid storyform to the Issue level. Did you notice how excited we got and how many ways we found to illustrate the OS Issue of Experience? Eve’s influence around Value is totally solid (look how much conflict it creates for Wall-E when she values her mission over him), and Fact vs. Fantasy is totally at the thematic heart of Wall-E’s throughline. Then you have RS Issue of Desire, how amazing is that?
That feeling you get, which came at the Issue level of Wall-E, where you feel like you’re inside the Author’s mind and understanding the story at that level – that’s the feeling you should get when you’re onto the right storyform. It’s not so much about how easy it is to find examples of things; sometimes examples are tricky to come up with – but when you do find them you should feel, “wow, that fits!” and get a sense of understanding the story’s meaning better.
With Wall-E I definitely get that sense down to the Issue level but at the Problem level something is mixed up. There are some commonalities around certain things like Non-Accurate that are cool … but the other illustrations feel like stretching and don’t seem to give more understanding of meaning.
But maybe that’s okay. It may not make a complete argument, and there are definitely some missteps (where it feels like it’s trying to make a complete argument but something’s not right – the trash-compactor scene is good example). But overall it still feels like a pretty great story and worth watching, because it’s good down to the Issue level. My two cents anyway.
Back again, and after reading everyone’s posts there’s not a lot that I could offer that is different.
Be interested in exploring this further. This scene is where I felt that Eve “changed”. She gave up her directive and wanted to find a way of fixing Wall-E. It just so happened that fulfilling her directive (getting the plant to the receptacle) was exactly what Wall-E needed to survive. All of his components were back on Earth so it was necessary to get that plant into the receptacle getting everyone back, just so that she could save Wall-E. Interesting confluence of goals/events.
Just been re-reading all the posts on here and this is a GREAT THREAD! Gleaning a lot of new understanding from re-reading this.
Thanks for all the input over the months. It’s brilliant.
Wow - I never saw this before! So the issue can be on Variation, and the Problem, Solution, Symptom, Response can be Elements under a different Variation?
Yes – but only for the IC and RS throughlines. For MC and OS throughlines, the problem quad is always the quad under the Issue.
(Note: I gleaned this from the software, using the Theme Browser, not from the theory book!)
On re-reading the posts - I did notice that we haven’t expounded the RS story in great detail.
With the current story form - which I would have to say I have finally caught up with everyone’s thinking. (I hope it wasn’t too frustrating for having me be around 2 weeks behind everyone else’s thought processes.)
"A robot romance" concerning way of thinking.
RS Domain: Manipulation
I would hazard a guess that the problems stem from the way each see the other throughout the film. Wall-E at the start wants to drive the relationship into romance - yet Eve, at first, completely ignores him, driven only by her directive. Then upon spending some time with him in his container, warms to him a little - but it is still platonic.
Through the middle of the film, we see points where Wall-E still holds a flame, and wants Eve to reciprocate, whereas Eve is driven by her Directive - and wants Wall-E to help her fulfil it. The battle of wills is about what is important.
Things swap near the end, when Wall-E no longer has the ability to love, and Eve is the one wanting to establish the romantic relationship.
RS Concern: Playing a Role
Do we see this when Wall-E takes on the role of protector/boyfriend.
RS Issue: Desire
Definition: The central thematic topic of the Relationship as it concerns the motivation toward something better.
RS Problem: Cause
The relationship suffers because Eve is stuck in her Cause of finding life (her directive).
The relationship suffers when Wall-E reverts to the factory settings - as originally programmed. He no longer has the ability to love.
RS Solution: Effect
RS Symptom: Non-Accurate
Wall-E sees Eve’s responses to him as wrong (she doesn’t want to hold his hand). He seems perplexed as to her responses to his romantic overtures while in the container.
Eve sees Wall-E’s romantic overtones out-of-sync with her desire to fulfil her directive once back on the ship after the flying in space sequence. Wall-E plays romantic music. Eve turns it off- “Directive”
RS Response: Accurate
Thoughts anyone?
Hi Brendon,
I think you did a fantastic job describing the RS Throughline there.
Now, there is a caveat … you have probably noticed Jim talking on these boards about how the RS is really about the relationship itself, not so much the characters in it.
Reading through your illustrations, some are bang on about the relationship. Others are very close to talking about the relationship – you can use them as a springboard to describe the relationship.
Here are some examples that might help:
RS Concern: Playing a Role. Look at your point about the umbrella, the romantic sunset, etc. This is a relationship between robots that wants to play the role of a human relationship! It wants to “be” a human romance.
RS Issue: Desire is probably very closely related to the Concern … it’s the wanting part of the Concern, the idea that this robot-relationship wants to be so much more than just a robot relationship.
RS Problem: Cause. I think your first point (about Eve’s directive) is very close – it’s basically that they are robots and have no cause to love – the relationship has no cause to exist at all. (Focusing on why they are feeling and acting the way they do might also cause problems, but I’m not sure if that was ever illustrated in the film.)
RS Solution: Effect. Yours is bang on – the Solution is when the relationship embraces the Effects it has on them. It doesn’t matter that they’re just robots when you see love’s effects on them. If Eve’s kiss can wake him up, it must be true love!
Your illustrations for Symptom and Response are great, as for those story points it’s okay to talk about the characters, in the context of the relationship. I might also add:
That’s right…that’s when Wall-e must have gotten affirmation in his internal programming that they were doing what the video human directives indicated. Refresh? Not a computer person, here, but at my instinct level something is coming together.
@brendon_oloughlin, good descriptions. Can’t wait to get home and have a few minutes to really look over it. I particulary like the parts of the discussion about how the relationship wants to be more than it is, or something other than what it’s supposed to be. And I didn’t find it frustrating that you were looking at the OS in Manipulation at all. I did the same for quite a while, after all. I’m glad we could all get on the same page in the end.
So following up on what @mlucas was getting at, would you guys say the RS of Manipulation could somehow be about how the relationship between WallE and Eve is affecting, or Manipulating, their behavior as robots, rather than each robot trying to manipulate the other? Is that closer to what the RS should be? That seems like it would work nice as a larger version of Playing a Role where the relationship is playing out like a human one (or, to be more precise, is playing out the way WallE saw the relationship between the humans in the movie playing out).
The relationship issue of Desire, then, might be about how this relationship is about, or wants, more than just directives and the usual cold robot communication.
