“WALL-E” is a great film without a shadow of a doubt. It was aesthetically pleasing, the action was great, but the whole story should not have revolved around the two robots of WALL-E and EVE. It should have been more focused on the sheer fact that Earth has literally been taken over by a capitalist institution which inevitably led to the destruction of the world itself. Humans had to resort to living in a spaceship to where everyone lost the ability to walk, think, and do anything for themselves. Every human living on Earth was stripped of their innate abilities and later devolved into the worst version of mankind there could be. Pixar had the right intentions of what to talk about but it should have been done in a more serious atmosphere than the one that was offered in the original "WALL-E".
Firstly, as crazy as it sounds, I would not have WALL-E be a main character of the movie. The movie should still be called "WALL-E" because of the fact that he was the one that discovered the plant on Earth that soon gave Earth back its ability to be self-sustainable, but there is a different character that is more deserving of a center role: Captain B. McCrea. This movie can be told from his perspective and can offer a lot of development of his character. I would have the movie start from his childhood on the corrupted world of the Axiom. It would give Pixar the opportunity to start the movie by making the audience think that everything is taking place on another whimsical science fiction world but alas this is not the case as young McCrea goes to school and discovers the reason why they had to live on the ship. The teacher can say something like “Alright class we’re going to learn about planets! This one is Jupiter it has four rings”. The class looks in amazement along with McCrea who smiles. “This one is Neptune and it’s very cold there.” The class looks at amazement again with McCrea still smiling. “And this one is Earth and humans used to live there but not anymore because of unknown reasons.” The class looks in amazement except for McCrea whose smile turns into a look of concern. He wants to ask his teacher about it but the bell rings and the teacher refuses to answer his question.
This instance of McCrea in school then propels him into an investigation of what Earth is and why humans no longer live there. He starts to study human anatomy and science later into his education. He becomes curious and somehow discovers that humans do have the ability to walk and be physically fit whereas everyone else on the ship is not. I say "somehow" because the Axiom should have a thing where it censors the reasons why it exists in the first place and wants people to think that the Axiom is the only home that can house humans. McCrea becomes the lone wolf and becomes the only person capable of human actions. When he later becomes captain of the ship he discovers a way to get to Earth because to him it is still a mystery and he wants to know how it looks like. One day he sneaks out of the control room and rides on a pod (those things that WALL-E was on before it exploded and then we get that scene where EVE and WALL-E play in space) and now can go to Earth and he hates it. When he lands on Earth and steps out of the pod he coughs profusely because of all the debris that saturated the air. He walks around Earth and finds a bunch of broken down WALL-E bots, buildings, supermarkets, and then we get to the ad about BnL and how it took over world governments to become the superpower it became to be in the original "WALL-E" (this is also the same ad in the original the will be recycled here). We then see the whole landscape of the Earth with the dried up oceans, treeless forests, a couple of dead animals (which may be a stretch because it is still a children’s movie but this is just to drive home the fact that the Earth was pushed to disgusting limits). Along the way McCrea picks up one of the broken WALL-E bots and detaches its arm to investigate the technology. And then after days of investigating the Earth McCrea does stumbles upon WALL-E. This WALL-E is still intrigued by human behavior and understands the concept of love but when he comes across McCrea, WALL-E becomes a little ambitious. McCrea assures him by holding out the broken WALL-E arm and giving it to WALL-E as a sign of peace and innocence. WALL-E then brings in McCrea to his home to where WALL-E quickly befriends him and shows him the plant in the shoe. McCrea becomes excited and asks WALL-E if he can bring the plant to the ship and tells him that it can be used for the betterment of Earth. WALL-E at first is reluctant but later decides that this was the best course of action. Captain McCrea returns on the ship and tells everyone that they can go back to Earth. This is where the conflict ensues.
The citizens rebel against this idea. McCrea can show a presentation of his studies and show a world that used to be green and happy, it can go through the rise of BnL, and then he can present pictures that he took on the trip to show what it is now (if he were to have a camera because in this part of movie it would help a lot). The citizens can saw something like “Why would we want to put ourselves in danger? It’s just one stupid plant! How are you sure this is going to work? It’s a whole planet for which you are betting the whole fate for that plant. We can stay here. Everything is free and I go anywhere I want and not lift a finger. Why do you want to subject us to a life where we will have to work! I can’t even move my legs!” This can go into how the human race has literally devolved and became a species that has became wasted space and this can become a quite emotional scene of the most intelligent species just giving up. This is where WALL-E comes in. WALL-E can have his own presentation to where he shows his videos of humans dancing, holding hands, and pictures of his kind broken and scattered all over Earth and how humans can end up to be the same if action is not put in place. This can force the citizens to be convinced to do something and this can also force the audience to do something in the Earth we are living in now. After the success of McCrea and WALL-E we can have a time lapse to 1000 years in the future. Of course McCrea is dead but because of Wall-E being a machine, he still lives because the whole concept of his character is that he is fueled by the love and novelty of human beings. We can see WALL-E and couple of other people putting a flower on his grave and the camera can pan over the new world with water in the oceans and trees in the forest and humans on their feet helping each other sustain the world that they worked to rebuild. It can then fade into a statue of McCrea which was of course made in his honor.
“WALL-E” is a great film that needs to have a better approach. The audience needs to understand that the world we live in cannot be played with and through the lens of strong willed McCrea and innocent WALL-E can help supporting the word of environmentalists in addition to people who respect the human race. The movie itself accomplishes a few things. First it still puts WALL-E as one of the central characters and we do not lose his overall novelty which becomes the reason why people love his character. Secondly, we give more backstory to McCrea who I have been personally intrigued with. And most importantly, we make the environment more of the focus. The original movie focused more on the love between WALL-E and EVE and it almost distracts us of what is really being sent home to the audience. The world is dying and we need to fix it because no one else will do it for us. And although my version of I think the movie should be may raise a few issues, I think it is a film that is needed at this time and age and knowing the state of where life may take us later.
