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At first glance, the story of the 2008 Disney Pixar film, Wall-E, set in a future post-apocalyptic
world and featuring a lonely robot’s search for love, might give the impression of being
a type of kid friendly Black Mirror episode. Like the dystopian Netflix show, Wall-E puts
a central emphasis on humanity’s hubristic excesses and the related dangers of our rapidly
advancing technology. But whereas Black Mirror’s meaning frequently ends there, leaving the
audience with a nihilistic view of reality and a message that more often than not seems
to come down to, ‘technology bad’, Wall-E plays out a more symbolically comprehensive,
meaningful story about the gradual loss of connection with life, and of an overarching
search for reunification through love. In doing so it playfully showcases both the danger
of technology as well as its potential to help bring us back down to earth, reminding
us who we are as human beings in the coming together of the masculine and feminine for
the renewal of the world…
The opening shot of Wall-E shows us the image of a sick and exhausted world, suffocated
by an excess of coverings. We learn that in the distant future humanity has abandoned
earth after an apocalyptic flood, not of natural water, but of manmade objects. In this world,
material goods have swallowed up civilization as towers of trash dominate the skyline. We
find out how the world was governed not by genuine representatives of the people, but
by the CEO of a giant faceless corporation, aptly named ‘Buy ‘n Large’. A company
which not only governed the world, but also ruled as a monopoly over the market. In a
sense, the state of things before the exodus reveals how humanity became possessed by materialism
and by an extreme commodification of life, resulting in a superficial collectivized world
ruled by a totalizing system of control. And the final vision of this system was to create
a consumerist society of ultimate convenience, leisure and fun, a transhuman world controlled
by technology that aimed to permanently revert human life back to the safety and warmth of
the womb… The spaceship the Axiom embodies the manifestation
of this vision, and functions, as we shall see in more detail later on, both as a perfect
tower of Babel, as well as an inverted ark of Noah.
But amidst this deserted wasteland, we are also introduced to Wall-E, a robot who contrary
to the humans who left the earth, was made to stay behind to clean up their mess by neatly
organizing their garbage and by putting mixed objects back into their proper categories.
It’s both in his square appearance as well as in this ordering function, that Wall-E
embodies the image of symbolic masculinity. We find out that he’s a dreamer, fascinated
as he is by certain everyday human objects. In a sense, in his masculine spirit, Wall-E
is working the ground and attempting to plant his seed, but because the world has seemingly
become infertile, he’s unable to bring forth a renewal on his own, seemingly doomed to
forever produce lifeless cubes of trash. And it’s in this insufficiency, that Wall-E
ultimately and almost instinctively searches for love, dreaming of the reunification of
masculine and feminine as the image of the potential for new life.
And as we shall see, it’s exactly this coming together of opposites, of masculine and feminine,
of spirit and matter, of heaven and earth, that symbolically binds the story together
and runs through it like a golden thread. This overarching theme of a renewal of life
is then succinctly depicted in Wall-E’s discovery of a newly sprouted tree hidden
under the waste. This tree will gain great significance shortly after. In the story of
Noah’s Ark, Noah sends out a white dove to find signs of new life after the Flood.
And just like in the biblical story, the Axiom similarly dispatches a white reconnaissance
robot tasked with bringing home evidence of new plant life on earth. This advanced robot,
appropriately named Eve, takes on the role as the symbolically feminine counterpart to
Wall-E’s masculinity. Besides her female, biblical name and her more rounded appearance,
Eve’s femininity is depicted in her directive to function as a potential vessel for new
life. But as the force of chaotic potential, she also harbors the power for great death
and destruction if not guided properly. And so just like Wall-E, she is shown to ultimately
be incomplete, frustrated at her inability to fulfill her directive. It is only by bringing
these two forces together, that the seed for renewal can take root as Wall-E unwittingly
impregnates Eve with the plant…
In the following act, Wall-E follows the incubated Eve back to the Axiom, where the same pattern
of communion is about to play out on a wider societal scale.
We quickly learn that the Axiom is a place of complete purity, order and control, an
ultimate Tower of Babel. Everything in this society is accounted for by the system; movement
happens on set paths, everyone consumes the exact same products, and even the passage
of time and the changing of the climate are controlled by the ship’s captain. To maintain
this level of extreme purity, there is no room for that which doesn’t fit and belong
in the system. Of course, the irony of this situation becomes quite evident, as humanity’s
pretensions to godhood have in actuality had the opposite effect. Because even though technology
can make us stronger, and help us reach unimaginable heights, an excess of technological coverings
can also make us weaker and disconnect us from our center. In essence, the Axiom functions
not only as a tower of Babel, but also as an inverted Ark, as the ultimate safe space,
a transhuman world of complete convenience and leisure with the goal to revert humanity
back to a state of eternal infancy. Instead of standing and walking on firm ground, people
float around in permanent seats, their bodies over time having devolved into giant blobs
of mass, lacking almost any unique characteristics as their internal integrity is quite literally
dissolving before their eyes. Instead of paying attention to the world around them, they are
completely distracted by their screens, trapped in a seemingly never-ending cycle of convenience,
entertainment, and other superficial short-term satisfactions. Similarly, the materialist-consumerist
world they inhabit gives them the illusion of freedom and individuality, but in reality
promotes utter conformity to a sterile system. This is not an Ark that has saved its best
and brightest, and its intent isn’t really to return to Earth to go through the hard
work to renew the land, no, this is an ark that has willfully gone adrift, moving ever
further away from its center, inhabited by a people who may delude themselves to be Gods,
but who have actually been swallowed up and controlled by their own technology. And so
it comes as no surprise then that the Axiom also isn’t really commanded by a human captain,
but rather by the aptly named AI ‘Autopilot’. In short, this is a society that in its hubris
has unwittingly and quite literally made technology its God.
The arrival of the ‘foreign contaminant’ Wall-E on the ship, marks the start of a type
of revolutionary evangelization of the Axiom which cleanses it of false gods and gradually
realigns it towards its original purpose. Wall-E unknowingly does this by both literally
and figuratively touching people, thereby awakening them from their sleep and reminding
them of their identity. This image of rebirth and baptism is made even clearer as John and
Mary are shown to be playing in a pool, splashing each other with water, and in the process
quite literally shedding themselves from the control of their robot overlords. In as sense,
it is Wall-E’s and Eve’s dance of opposites in their quest to come into final communion,
which unwittingly evangelizes the society and inspires them to change their current
course. After returning to the captain, Eve, embodying the symbolic feminine, accordingly
presents him with evidence of the creative fertility of the earth, and Wall-E, as the
masculine spirit, hands him the manual or the written ‘Word’, to help humanity renew
the world. And if the meaning of this event wasn’t already clear enough, the captain
mistakes the book to be the name of an AI, and subsequently mispronounces its name as
he asks it for instructions. Of course, the captain soon realizes that he actually has
to do the work himself, he has to participate at the center of it, starting off by naming
and identifying things related to human life on earth. In doing so he slowly acknowledges
the responsibility we as human beings have as mediators of our world.
And just as Wall-E begins the cleansing of the temple at the top of the Axiom’s hierarchy,
so too does he lift up members of the lowest rungs of the society, as he unwittingly frees
a number of idiosyncratic robots who no longer fit within this system of complete order and
purity. After initiating this revolution, Wall-E is branded a criminal by the auto pilot
system, which has begun to realize the threat to its authority.
The captain on his part, realizes that he has never truly been in control of his ship
as Auto strikes down his authority and reveals the true purpose of the Axiom, which is not
to return to Earth, but rather to keep the people of this inverted ark asleep, drifting
ever further into the void of space. Functioning as an ark, the Axiom can be seen as the symbolic
mirror image of the church, as an inwardly focused center fortifying its congregation
from the chaos of the outside, but also as a place from which its followers move outward
into the wider world to renew the earth. Like Noah, the captain steers his ship or his church
in accordance with the Word of God. Of course, in Wall-E, the captain finds out that the
Axiom has unwittingly bowed down to the false God of technology. And in recognizing this
painful truth, he decides to rebel by attempting to wake his passengers up and help Wall-E
and Eve in their mission to return the ship to earth.
And so, if first we saw the planting of the seed by the masculine in the feminine play
out on an individual level, now we see it play out again on a societal level as Wall-E
inserts the plant into the center of the ship. For this mission to succeed the newly awoken
passengers have to proactively work together to survive and to aid Wall-E and Eve in their
directive. This decisive move out of a drifting sleep and into a grounded centered identity
is then shown in a comical sequence alluding to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the
captain retakes control and responsibility over his life as he learns how to walk like
a human being, on his own two feet. This final letting go of overdependence on technology
effectively breaks the authority of the false God Auto and leads the people of the Axiom
into the embrace and worship of ‘(Im)manuel’. And just like in the story of Christ, it is
through a self-sacrifice out of love for his bride, that Wall-E saves humanity from itself,
allowing them to return to earth to recolonize the land.
And so one last time the pattern is repeated in the planting of the seed of new life on
earth as the ark opens its doors and its reborn passengers walk out to renew the world. This
ultimate communion is crystallized in the resurrection of the martyred Wall-E and his
subsequent unification through his marriage with Eve. For it is love that started this
journey, and it’s love that ultimately renews the earth and reunifies humanity in multiplicity.
In the words of American writer, Rod Dreher: ‘Where humanity got into trouble was allowing
technology to exacerbate its own internal disorder — to alienate people from their
labor, from each other, and ultimately from themselves.’ ‘The film is wise enough
to know that we can’t go back to a pre-technology state, so it says the best thing to do is
to put technology in its proper place — which we can only do when our own souls and communities
are rightly ordered.’ ‘But you have to question the prime directive;
that is, you have to become conscious of how the way you’re living is destroying your
body and killing your soul, and choose to resist.’ ‘“Wall-E” contends that real
life is hard, real life is struggle, and that we live most meaningfully not by avoiding
pain and struggle, but by engaging it creatively, and sharing that struggle in community.’
‘It argues that rampant consumerism, technopoly and the exaltation of comfort is causing us
to weaken our souls and bodies, and sell out our birthright of political freedom. Nobody
is doing this to us; we’re doing it to ourselves.’
In the final analysis Wall-E isn’t just another dystopian story with little more to
offer than a simplistic and often nihilistic view of reality, rather it’s a story which
offers a comprehensive contemplation of our modern age, of the great potential and the
danger of technology, and of our place and purpose in the world as human beings. To paraphrase
C.S. Lewis: ‘The fundamental question ought not to be how we as human beings can conform
reality to our own desires and ambitions, but rather how we can conform our souls to
the world around us and thus be truly drawn into life’.