Wall-E

Much has been made in recent years about the ubiquity of screens and the negative effect they have on our lives. «Wall-E» takes this concept to an extreme as the passengers aboard the Axiom are never without a screen to look at. They zoom around the starship on hover chairs, a holo screen blocking their view of the world at large. When Wall-E inadvertently breaks two passengers out of their tech-coma, both are surprised to discover the ship has a pool.

All satire is a bit far-fetched, but in stretching to get a laugh «Wall-E» quietly comments on how often we serve technology instead of the other way around. Captain McCrea is purportedly in charge but is undercut and overruled by Auto, the ship’s AI, at every turn. When McCrea finally decides not to acquiesce to Auto’s demands, the AI locks the captain in his chambers. Only with this mutiny does McCrea recognize how much control he has handed over to the AI. This awakening mirrors what slowly happens across the Axiom as the passengers awake to how much of life they’ve been missing out on.

Shortly after Wall-E arrives on the Axiom, we get a glimpse of Captain McCrea’s personal quarters. Holograms of previous captains are projected on the wall. As the camera pans by, the obvious thing to note is just how much fatter each successive captain has gotten. However, the observant viewer learns an interesting tidbit that otherwise goes unnoted. The Axiom captains are all very long-lived. Their average years of service are 131 years, and that’s just time served!

Since we’re on the subject, let’s talk about those shakes. After Captain McCrea takes his position on the Axiom’s bridge, the computer runs through status updates on all of the ship’s major systems. Amid the sorts of stuff you’d expect — mechanical systems, reactor core, life support — there is one update that stands out because it is so wildly different: Regenerative food buffet. What?!

After Captain McCrea gets his morning status updates from the ship’s computer, he is alarmed to discover it’s already 12:30. He missed giving the morning announcements, which is the highlight of his otherwise boring day. It’s a problem McCrea solves for himself as he turns a time dial back three hours, to 9:30. This causes the artificial sun to change position in the sky and the lunch slurries to swap out for breakfast slushies. Those are the only material changes. Otherwise, life continues on as it was, as though time itself doesn’t actually matter.