WALL• E

[Kal]

best pixar film ever. best film of the year. maybe best love story ever. amazing in every way!

[Redlum]

(((Spoilers)))

When Wall-e rebooted it was the most heart-crushing moment I've experienced in a film for a long time. It's a testament to the life that Pixar breathe into their work. For that one scene they unchecked the 'soul' parameter in their render box. It was a great way to re-inforce the macguffin of the fragile little sapling and the message of the film (which I don't think was heavey handed at all).

(((/end)))

I could watch this film all day.

[cron]

[Stefen]

lol

[Kal]

easy there mexicant, you dont want to start with me too!

also, i will rub that in your face when i start getting quoted on dvd covers... should happen soon.

[pete]

hey man, you should take yourself a little more seriously.

[Kal]

hey man, you should take yourself a little more seriously.

hey... there is my shadow pete! nice to see you buddy

[pete]

and don't forget to hide your anger! 

[MacGuffin]

Hey kids... so the big news today is that Disney and Pixar are dropping Wall-E on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 11/18. There will be a single-disc DVD (SRP $29.99), a 3-Disc Special Edition DVD (SRP $39.99), a 2-Disc Blu-ray edition (SRP $35.99) and a 3-Disc Blu-ray Edition (SRP $40.99). The single-disc DVD will include the Presto animated short, the all new Burn-E animated short, audio commentary with director Andrew Stanton, deleted scenes, the Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds from the Sound Up featurette with Ben Burtt and the Sneak Peek: WALL-E's Tour of the Universe featurette. To this, the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD will add additional deleted scenes, 3 featurettes (The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks, BnL Shorts and Wall-E's Treasures and Trinkets), the Lots of Bots storybook, additional "making of" featurettes, Bot Files and a Disney File (Digital Copy) version of the film. The 2-Disc Blu-ray edition will include all of the above (minus the Digital Copy) and will add a Geek Track viewing option, the Cine-Explore with Andrew Stanton feature, PiP enhancement of Burn-E with storyboards, and an Axiom Arcade suite of "retro style videogames with a twist." The 3-Disc Blu-ray will have all that and also include a Disney File (Digital Copy) version of the film. Whew!

[MacGuffin]

Q&A: WALL*E DVD Deleted Scenes!
Source: SciFi Wire

Andrew Stanton, director of Disney/Pixar's WALL*E, told reporters that the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release will include an unusual deleted scene--an early version of a climactic scene in which a different character is injured

"It used to be that EVE got hurt," Stanton said in a group interview at Pixar's headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., on Sept. 25. "WALL*E and EVE went down into the trash, and WALL*E jumped in after her and saved her from the air loft and fixed her."

Though it takes years to develop and animate a Pixar movie, it wasn't until the sequence was nearly finished that Stanton and his crew realized that the scene would work better if WALL*E himself suffered the injury, not EVE.

The DVD also features a second, smaller deleted scene dealing with WALL*E's revelation that he has saved the little plant from destruction. Again, the original scene was almost complete when Stanton was allowed to go back and change it for the final version of the film.

Stanton said that it is unusual for a Pixar film to have any deleted scenes, as final animation is completed only after the scenes and story are completely nailed down.

"It's just so expensive to animate that we're just not going to animate it until we're sure," Stanton said.

Following is an edited version of some of Stanton's interview about WALL*E, which drops on Blu-ray and DVD on Nov. 18.

Can you talk about the deleted scenes in WALL*E?

Andrew Stanton: Yeah, as a matter of fact, we have more of what you would expect a deleted scene to be on this than we do for the other movies. A lot of people don't realize that we only animate a section of a film when we know it's working, and so all of our second and third tries and cut scenes and scenes that we think are almost working are in storyboard form with the sound and the audio and stuff. People think that they're getting ripped off or something, that they're seeing early, early drafts or something, but no, these are later, later drafts. It's just so expensive to animate that we're just not going to animate it until we're sure. I screwed up big time on this film. There were two moments in the film that I had wrong all the way through to the finished animation. It's a testament to how great this place is and how great my crew was in that when I suddenly realized that I had it wrong and I had the right answer, they recognized it and said, "OK. All right."

What was the mistake?

Stanton: There are two sequences. One is very short. I don't know if you guys recall in the film when they're out in space, and the pod is almost blown up, and they reunite with the fire extinguisher, and he shows EVE that he has the plant still. She gets all happy, and then they sort of hug, and they start flying around the ship. Well, it used to be that she was just happy that he was alive, and it wasn't until after they flew in the ship that they had a scene in a closet where they were sort of sneaking back into the ship that he revealed to her that he had the plant. The whole same moment happened in this little closet, and he tried to confess that he loved her and stuff, and it didn't work. These were necessary beats, but it stopped the picture as far as its rhythm and flow, and we couldn't get our heads around it. It always seemed to make sense, and it always seemed to work as a scene, and when we watched it in one of our previous screenings in November of '07, it dawned on us that the showing of the plant should happen much sooner and much quicker in space, and then it would motivate her being that happy for them to fly around the ship and be much stronger. Before they're even finishing the sentence, you're like hitting your head going, "Of course!" You're like that all the time for three years working on this film. You just hope you have them before you animate. That one just got away from us. Then I realized that the proposal can happen later when they're trying to sneak up on the bridge, so we separated these two ideas and integrated them into two moments that already existed, and the whole movie just moved faster and smoother, and it's the kind of moments that you're always smoothing out. ...

The second [mess up] was bigger. It used to be that EVE got hurt. WALL*E and EVE went down into the trash, and WALL*E jumped in after her and saved her from the air loft and fixed her. Again, after the screening, something felt like it wasn't firing 100 percent, and we realized that this is a time now for everybody else to come to WALL*E's aid that he's affected. I said, "Wouldn't it be stronger if the three people that are going to motivate the whole tide turning--the Captain, EVE, and WALL*E--kind of met for once, and you kind of had this connection for a moment, and wouldn't it be stronger that everybody has to come to WALL*E's aid because he's so hurt?" It will just make him that much more noble and endearing for pushing whatever little energy he has left to stop the holo-detector from going down and going back.

So basically, the climax of the film?

Stanton: Well, the whole climax was the same. Once they got out of the garbage airlock, he was still carried and everything. We were still having him carried, because it was convenient. It made everything work. So I didn't have to change anything after that scene. It was just simply, "No. We should make her fix him, and he should be incapable of doing anything, and everybody else has to rise to the occasion."

They're both on the DVD?

Stanton: Yeah. So what's interesting is that you'll see a fully finished version of the garbage airlock lit and everything animated, but the roles are reversed, and that's fascinating and a huge embarrassment as a filmmaker. At the same time, I'm still like, "At least we recognized it, and we fixed it." We just fixed it so much later than we're used to finding those things.

[MacGuffin]

'Wall-E' Won't Be Charging Up For Sequel, Says Film's Director
Source: MTV

At the end of "WALL-E," the intergalactic Buy n Large cruise ship returned to an Earth freshly blossoming with life after several centuries of garbage-strewn toxicity. Our loveable title character and his high-tech hottie girlfriend EVE looked well on their way to some version of robotic bliss. What happens next we'll never know: there won't be a sequel.

"Personally, I never consider sequels," WALL-E writer/director Andrew Stanton told MTV News. "I think that takes a lot of hubris to think that your idea is going to live on and on, and I always love the idea of something just being contained and done." But didn't Stanton co-write the screenplay for "Toy Story 2"? Maybe there's a chance someday for a second go at WALL-E?

Pressed if he had any ideas in mind for the characters in the animated feature, Stanton was blunt: "Not for me, no."

"We work on these things for so long," he explained, "that we have a hard time simply thinking that the [first] film is ever going to be done. I'm not against sequels, and I've certainly experienced personally and seen secondhand great sequels, but I don't go in with that intent."

Alas, fans will have to console themselves with the three-disc special edition DVD which, in addition to the actual film, contains "Making of" featurettes, animated shorts, audio commentary, sneak peeks, inside looks, story books and deleted scenes. All that, and our—sniff—memories of the purity of WALL-E's romance with EVE.

[matt35mm]

I just found the script for this film after reading that Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon decided to write the scene descriptions in haiku-like style.  This is very unusual, but it works really effectively in getting you sucked into the action, which is often difficult to do in a screenplay.  It's an especially great choice when you consider that the first chunk of the movie has no dialogue.  Here's a great excerpt:

-------------------------------------------

EXT. TRUCK - DUSK

Robot and faithful cockroach return home.
Wally stops short of the threshold.
Stares at the ground.
Continues staring.

A RED DOT

quivers on the dirt.
A single laser point of light.
Wally moves to touch it...

...The dot races along the ground.

Wally drops his Igloo.
Chases after the dot.


EXT. EMPTY BAY

The dot leads Wally deep into the polluted expanse.
He is so fixated on it he doesn't notice

MANY LASER POINTS

coming from every direction.
All racing into the valley over the contour of the terrain.
Triangulating towards a center.

Wally's dot suddenly stops.
Slowly he reaches for it.
Can't grab it. Just light.
All THE DOTS converge in front of him.
The ground shakes.
Wally becomes confused.

Doesn't see above him.
The SUN growing brighter behind the cloud cover.
A noise. Building.

Rocket engines.
Wally sense he should look to the sky.

Now THREE SUNS are descending on him.

Wally runs for it.
An enormous COLUMN OF FIRE blocks his path.
A second column of fire.
A third.
Trapped.

Wally cubes the ground beneath him.
Working fast.
Noise deafening.
Heat rising.
Digs in just as a tide of flame carpets the ground...

...Then suddenly quiet.
Smoke clears.

CLOSE ON THE SCORCHED EARTH

Wally's head rises out of the dirt.
Glows red hot from the heart.
Trembles with fright.
Everything in shadow.
Something very big looms over him.
Wally climbs out of his hole.
Bangs his head on metal.

WIDE on a massive SPACESHIP.
Rests ominously in the empty bay.

A PORTAL on its underside opens.
Frightened, Wally tries to hide.
Nowhere to go.
He places a SMALL ROCK on his head. Boxes up.

A DEVICE lowers to the ground on a long stem.
Scans the surface.

Wally creeps closer for a better look.
The device unfolds.
Wally boxes up again.

A CAPSULE descends from a chute in the stem.
ROBOT ARMS emerge from the device.
Place the capsule on the ground. Press buttons.
The capsule falls away in sections, to reveal...

...a PROBE ROBOT.

It hovers gracefully above the ground.
White. Egg-shaped.

Blue-lit eyes.
Female.
Eve.

Wally is transfixed.
Inches closer.
Watches Eve from behind the device.
Tilts his head.
Time stops.
She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Eve hovers over the ground.
A BLUE RAY emits from her front panel.
Fans out 180 degrees.
Scans random objects and areas.

The device rises back into the ship.
Exposes Wally.
He rushes for cover behind the nearest rock.
Never takes his eyes off Eve.
Watches her float away from the ship.
...from the ship?
The ship!

Engines roar back to life.
Wally digging furiously.
The rocket takes off.

Smoke clears.
Again, a red hot Wally peeks out from the ground.
Looks for Eve.
She is watching the ship rise into the clouds.
Waits until it is completely out of sight...

...then Eve rises high up into the air.

She flies around the bay.
Soars like a graceful bird.
Does loops in the sky.
Zooms right past Wally's rock.
He is hypnotized.

Eve descends gently to the ground...
Wally sneaks up closer.
Hides behind another boulder.
Slips.
Makes a NOISE.
Instantly, Eve whips around.
Her arm converts into a LASER CANNON.
Blasts Wally's boulder to smithereens.

...Smoke clears...All quiet.

Eve, now cold and dangerous.

Scans the area.
No sign of life.
All business again.
Hovers away to probe more of the planet.

ON OTHER SIDE OF BOULDER CRATER

Wally boxed up behind what little remains of the rock.
Trembles uncontrollably.

----------------------------------------------------

It's pretty wonderful and I kind of want to try it, just to force me to write differently and see what comes out of it.

[Pubrick]

yeah that's pretty brilliant.

something like this should be a mandatory exercise for anyone wanting to make movies. if you try it, you'll find yourself actually thinking creatively instead of explaining it all in dialogue. FUCK dialogue. if you are an amateur, and everyone except like 100 ppl in the world are, DO NOT WRITE DIALOGUE. it always comes out like shit.

some young directors think they are naturally born storytellers and that's fine. but there is a HUGE difference between being a storyteller and a GOOD WRITER. not even Tarantino writes good dialogue - FACT. and there is no one in the world who thinks higher of themselves than that douche.

[hedwig]

that's an awesome way to write a script.

not even Tarantino writes good dialogue - FACT.

yeah hearing that basterds dialogue was bad enough, that shit must be sleep-inducing on the page.

back to WALL•E. my friend is in barcelona right now and she posted this photo of a chocolate sculpture from the Museu de la Xocolata:

[The Perineum Falcon]

^ that's pretty sweet.

On the haikus:
I'm not saying my writing is as good as the above, but a little while ago I had decided that writing action, themes, and dialogue in a poetic style actually helped me a great deal. Stripping everything down to the essentials, and each word holds more weight. It also helps to speed the process up, not only in the act of writing, but when proofing and re-writing, it's easier to see what doesn't work and what does. It's all about the flow. It's great to see someone else writing that way and what the outcome can be when executed correctly.