Wall-E Movie Review - Andrew Stanton

Wall Street Journal Speaks with Andrew Stanton Creator of Wall-E

 The following appeared in the June 26, 2008 edition of the WSJ.

WSJ: Though it's billed as a "love story," WALL-E takes a strong stance on our treatment of the environment. Is that the over-arching theme of the movie?

Mr. Stanton: In 2002, I came up with the idea of WALL-E finding a living plant and I liked the idea of a man-made object keeping something "real" inside of him. But there was never really an environmental theme to the movie. I'm happy that it happens to be parallel with something we're all conscientious of, but the last thing I'm going to try to do is make a "message movie." I hate being preached to when I go to the movies.

WALL-E himself bears some resemblance to the robot from the 1986 live-action movie "Short Circuit" and looks a bit like E.T. Coincidence?

Total coincidence. I'll own up to anything I truly made an homage to, but honestly WALL-E is not related to either. I think the E.T. thing is just because he has a skinny neck and there are lots of other cinematic robots that have a similar look.

Pixar's last film, "Ratatouille," had some elements aimed at adults and "WALL-E" seems to cast a wide net in terms of its target audience, so who are Pixar movies intended for?

The thing we learned from "Toy Story" is that we're family guys who love going to movies more than anything else. We selfishly make movies for ourselves that happen to be juvenile enough that they cover the kids' interests. We've learned to trust our own instincts about what we like and not rely on, or trust, what the outside world tells us is going to work.

How do you and Pixar keep the ideas coming?

We have four years to work on a movie. That's as long as high school or college, so that gives us a lot of time to sit around and free-associate. 

Are there any plans to increase the number of films the company makes?

When I started at Pixar, we had less than 10 people. Now we're 1,000 people making four to five films at a time, so we're on pace to release one film per year for awhile.

With the success of last year's "Persepolis," what do you think of hand-drawn animation versus computer animation?

A large percentage of us who work at Pixar were trained as 2-D animators and come from that world. So I don't like being the poster child for the death of 2-D animation. Movies like "Persepolis" and (2003's French film) "The Triplets of Belleville" worked because they had good stories behind them. 3-D was the involuntary scapegoat of the death of 2-D because the 2-D movies themselves weren't good stories. If they start making better movies like "Persepolis," then it will survive.

What do you think is the biggest computer animation breakthrough or technological achievement that occurred while making "WALL-E"?

The biggest technological achievement is that we improved all of our camera software to mimic much more exactly what cameras do in real life. We re-created almost completely accurately what real 70-millimeter Panavision cameras did in the 1970s. My favorite scene in the movie looks almost life-like when WALL-E and [his fellow robot] EVE are transfixed by the flame from a cigarette lighter. That scene looks so real and it pretty much encapsulated the epitome of what I wanted the movie to be.

Are we going to see you moving your director's chair into the live-action arena anytime soon?

I dabbled a little bit by directing live actors on this film and I got the bug, so I have a feeling that it's definitely in my future. But that's not to even remotely suggest that I am leaving Pixar. I'm not leaving Pixar until I am the last person standing.