It’s always refreshing to hear about men and women who hold their faith strong against the degradation of society that is so prevalent in Hollywood. It’s also always a surprise to find out who these believers are. One name that came across my path most recently is Andrew Stanton, the writer/director/producer of Pixar films Finding Nemo and their latest film, Wall-e. In two interviews he talks about his faith and the underlying message of Wall-e as one of discovering how to love. He relates it to the greatest commandment – to love the Lord with all your heart (and to love your neighbors as yourselves). After reading his interviews, I might just have to take Kayla to the movies!
Interview in Christianity Today
—UPDATE—
Kayla and I went with a couple of friends to see Wall*E and the film is very good. I’m still processing it a bit and I’m not sure I’m ready to put the “great” tag on it, but there are some definite points in the movie that are very profound. The plot is fairly straight forward – in the future the earth is abandoned because it is uninhabitable and Wall*E is a clean up robot left to clean up the mess. 700 years pass and Wall*E develops a personality and through watching Hello Dolly learns about love. Along comes Eve, a probe robot sent to earth to discover plantlife so that the humans who are lounging around on a galactic cruise ship can return to earth. Wall*E shows Eve the plant he discovers and when the ship returns to retrieve Eve (who has shut down upon finding the plant), Wall*E stows a ride. On the ship Wall*E and Eve, along with the humans who have had their eyes opened to the reality around them, fight the autopilot to place the plant into the receptacle that will immediately return them to earth.
There are a lot of great scenes and I would recommend seeing Wall*E. The best scene, at least from a theological perspective, is when the captain realizes that the life that he is leading is a mundane existance and that he longs for more. He tells the autopilot that they have to go back to earth, to which the autopilot responds that the ship has everything they need to survive. And then comes the line of the movie, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” How true! We are created for more than just survival – we are created to live!
Very good film. I hope you’ll check it out.
Here’s a link to the review from parentpreviews.com