WALL-EI know a few Pixar fans (and animation fans in general) were disappointed by Cars. I would respectfully disagree. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the movie upwards of 10 times thanks to the miracle of DVD and children’s ability to watch the same movie over and over. And over. And over. Regardless, it’s a pleasing little film and Pixar’s still coasting on an untarnished track record. In the mean time, a lot of attention is naturally being focused on the next Pixar project Ratatouille, but there’s also pixel-pushing happening on the back end as Pixar readies their next feature, Wall-E.

Enter Jim Hill. The dude is the one-stop shop for all things related to Pixar. The guy’s inside connected and animation fans are usually the beneficiaries of his guts-spilling. And he’s spilling.

In a pretty lengthy synopsis, Jim outlines the up and coming space/future/robots in love-fest with some purple-prosed superlatives like "mind-blowing", "radical departure" and "ballsy choice".

Apparently, all the superlative commentary is based around the idea this movie has a message Al Gore would be proud of (until we get to the part about fatties floating in space- then it would be plain offensive).

See, the earth has been abandoned as a giant junk heap and little robots called WALL-Es are on the surface cleaning it up, while the humans who made the mess are even fatter and lazier than we are now, and living in a space station orbiting the planet. WALL-E is the last of the robots, since they’ve all broken down, and (since this is a robot movie) has become self aware and curious. WALL-E is feeling a little lonely, despite havign a cockroach pal, when along comes a new, sleek and sexy cleaning model named EVE. Since no man (or sentient machine) can deny sweet womanly curves, WALL-E falls in love. EVE pretty much ignores WALL-E and is soon recalled to the space station. WALL-E sneaks aboard her ship and returns with her to the space station, where social commentary and satire ensues.

That’s just the first act of WALL-E. Apparently, the avante-garde part of the tale comes that within the first 1/3, there’s no dialogue. No cute talking robots- just soundtrack, beeps and ambient noise.
From what I read, it didn’t see anything more ballsy than what Pixar’s done to date (including their shorts non-dialogue shorts like the Jackelope song, the telephone wire birds or the one with the jokers on the Cars DVD). Even so, it’s Pixar so there’s bound to be something special about it.

Jim Hill gives a beefier version which you can find here, and you may find he gives it way more justice.