WALL-E

WALL-E (styled as WALL•E) is a 2008 prophetic post-apocalyptic animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring a tiny free-willed Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class tasked with cleaning an Earth ravaged by pollution, he falls in love with another robot and travels into space to ensure her survival. The movie was near-universally acclaimed,[1] with the anthropomorphic romance compared to the silent films of yesteryear, and won everything including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[2]

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There were a handful of critics, however.

The wingnut reaction
Thanks for making WALL-E cry, assholes.

Never ones to miss an opportunity to look like laughingstocks, American conservatives immediately went on a witchhunt over WALL-E's "political" message.[note 1] Yes, against a Disney movie.

Angered by the portrayal of a consumer society gone wrong, sites from the National Review to RedState, to such luminaries as Glenn Beck and Jonah Goldberg, decried the film as having a "Marxist, Eco-Theological world view," "fascistic elements," "Bush Derangement Syndrome," "Malthusian fear-mongering," "leftist propaganda" and that "Goebbels [has] reached all the way to California."[3] Boycotts were called.

Noticing the potential Streisand effect developing, other right-leaning commentators declared their support for WALL-E and its commitment to family values.[4] Prepare your irony meters: one look at the Wikipedia pages of the production staff imply devout Christianity (at least one actor was a McCain supporter), and traces of Biblical influence are rampant.[5] There was a reason his love interest was named EVE, for God's sake. It is also worth noting that the conspiracy crowd went full-metal apeshit on theories over "the technocracy", humans are being dumbed down by machines, and similar fear mongering stories conspiracies. [What's the Difference?]

Scientific reaction

Scientific criticism was particularly focused on physics issues (sci-fi movie, duh),[6] but identified examples where WALL-E's dystopia is already more reality than the fringe want it to be.[7][8]

gollark: Orbital contraasumptive lasers?
gollark: I used a hash function.
gollark: They were DETERMINISTICALLY picked, palaiologos.
gollark: Your point is?
gollark: You are mischaracterizing the community, `<input type=file>` you?

Notes
  1. Learning to throw the trash in the right place, not get morbidly obese from McDonald's and addicted to the Internet is too much, apparently.

References
  1. Rotten Tomatoes
  2. All those awards...
  3. Conservative critics blast Wall•E, Christian Science Monitor
  4. Another Brick in the ‘WALL-E’, The New York Times in bad pun mode
  5. WALL-E ThemesFile:Wikipedia's W.svg
  6. "Classic blunders"
  7. Approaching “Wall-E” with Honda’s Uni-Cub personal mobility device, Scientific American
  8. WALL-E at Discover Magazine
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