(no subject)

[vivien]

Holy crow, it's hot as a firecracker out there, har har har.

No, seriously, it's hot.

I saw WALL-E yesterday with my six-year-old friend. I found it no preachier than Bambi leading kids to think, "Hmm, maybe hunting's not so great." It was very cute, and dystopian-lite with lots of room for hope in humankind. The very best part about it was asking six-year-old afterwards, "Who was your favorite character?" and hearing "The girl robot because she was cool. She was cool, indeed.

I also appreciate that there isn't a metric ton of WALL-E merchandise out there. Or at least there wasn't last weekend. Just a few books. Yay! ETA: Sadly, it is out there. It just wasn't at the Target where I shop.

I didn't do the "what you posted about on this day" meme, but I did look up the days. Three out of five entries warbled about Neil Gaiman books, and two out of five exhorted Milliways. I find this amusing and appropriate.

Happy 4th, fellow Americans. Stay safe out there on this Day of Patriotic Drinking and Setting Off of Explosives! *wry*

Comments

[tigerlilyaj.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think that is a highly inaccurate comparison. "Bambi" is not all about the grieving process and eventual recovery of a young child losing his mother. If it were, then the hunting scene and its effects would seem to hold a greater message. "Bambi" is about the general cycle of life, a theme more pronounced in the book. I don't know what feelings the author may have had about hunting, pro or con (which is part of my point right there), but I do think the mother's death is more about pushing Bambi to his next phase of development. No matter how her death occurred, the point is that the child must learn to stand on his own, be independent, and eventually take his own place in the wider world without his parents. Yes, some children do come away from the film thinking about hunting deer and worrying about shooting "Babmi's mama," but others don't, and I don't think that taking any ideas about hunting away from the film is a theme or goal or otherwise intended by the film.
I cannot say the same for "Wall-E" (or "Happy Feet," to be fair). picking up the trash, literally and metaphorically, of humans behaving badly, is the whole movie beyond the endearing Wall-E/Eve relationship.
I would posit "Babe" as a more nuanced, subtle example, where vegetarianism, in which some kids become interested after seeing the movie, seems like a natural outgrowth of the story, but you are not "bad" if you don't feel this way (or if you follow the movie with a dinner of ribs or a bacon cheeseburger). You don't hear or see anyone, including the Boss, swear off meat or say that there's anything wrong with it. You just know that Babe/Pig will not end up on a platter. Avoiding the smokehouse is not even a major driving force for him, like it is for the duck who is starving himself to seem unappealing as a meal. Yet the horror of Babe learning that his mother and all the other pigs have ended this way is very real, as is the fear we feel when a duck is slaughtered, later finding out that it was a different duck. And the only pro-meat statement we get is from our animal villain, the cat, who purrs about how "it's the most noble purpose there is" to be food for the Boss and the Boss's husband (as the cat sees it).
"Wall-E" and "Happy Feet" show the end of the world, or at least the penguin's world and existence, being caused by the actions of humans, far more serious repercussions of actions than one orphan, although I think the motherless animals have more emotional impact for the kiddies.

Toys/Future Trash

[tigerlilyaj.livejournal.com]

Wall-E! (http://www.toywiz.com/walle.html) TRU Wall-E! (http://www.toysrus.com/search/index.jsp?s=A-StorePrice-TRUS&f=Taxonomy%2FTRUS%2F2254197&sr=1&origkw=wall-e&kwCatId=&kw=wall-e&pg=1) Amazon Wall-E! (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-7068627-8737643?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wall-e)
I think we just hang at different stores. ;-)
And yes, I have an axe to grind against the filmmakers, mainly because of the uncritical praise being heaped on the film, which has lots to love but flaws as well. It also cuts off just when the really hard part of renouncing our lives takes hold, so we don't have to experience the hardships or see the very different lifestyles we need to embrace.

Re: Toys/Future Trash

[vivien]

D'oh! Yeah, I was at Target, so maybe they decided to pass on the fullscale marketing.

Oh, okay, good clarification! Yeah, I thought it was cute, but nothing to shout about. It was omg so much better than that awful Happy Feet which was appalling less because of the heavy-handed anvilness, but more because of the inappropriate use of pop songs - "Kiss" sung for little kids? I DON'T THINK SO!!! Plus it was just a weak story.

I much prefer Monsters, Inc and Toy Story.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[vivien]

I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree. ;-) When I saw Bambi as a small girl, the conclusion I immediately drew and recall to this day is the notion that people kill animals, and I didn't (as a kid) like that at all. I recall the other bits only dimly - there was ice skating or something. But the forest fire and the threat of man? That I remember experiencing vividly.

That being said, I don't think this movie will make any kid want to go green. They'll focus on the cute robots, and the human parts will be completely glossed over, as that is weaker part of the story. They won't be nagging Mom to recycle.

I won't get into the debate of examining human behavior, because it looks like you have way more faith in human nature than I do. I have, from a very early age, thought that people/society can be destructive forces that over history have wreaked havoc and destroyed other people (Holocaust, Native Americans) without batting an eye, much less animals. So I think I look at these movies from an entirely different worldview than you do. And that's okay!

[tigerlilyaj.livejournal.com]

I forgot about a forest fire. My memory of seeing it is more about our next-door neighbor, a boy my younger sister's age, who cried so hard he had to be taken out of the theater. So I don't recall my reaction so much as his.
"Babe," OTOH, I can easily remember (duh, I was, like, 20), thinking, "I really need to go veggie," a thought that comes up every few months for me and I try to honor with doing less meat.
ITA that no kid (under 10 anyway) will nag Mom to recycle based on the film, LOL. Or to stop heavy-duty fishing based on "Happy Feet." I feel more for me having to sit through it. ;-P (And my main prob with "HF" is still that the suspension of disbelief gets really stretched when the humans show up and they all start communicating and dancing, rather than any heavyhandedness in the message. Magic. Broken.)

How do I have any faith in human behavior? I agree with one review that described the trash cities as one of the most realistic sci-fi dystopian visions on film. (I also [heart] "Children of Men," too, which...well, there's a reason it tanked when it came out at Christmas.) What gets me is how much I dislike what I find to be the preachiness of the films as someone who is in line with the basic message. I can't imagine what it's like for the people who think we'll keep finding some ingenious way to solve every problem just before we have to suffer too much and everything will get to continue as is until the end of time. That's why I didn't post about it on my mom-blog; I didn't want to read Ms. Mrs. Republican telling me how much she agreed with me for her own reasons. (She's self-described as having "not being green or eco-friendly AT ALL" or otherwise being concerned about the environment at all.)

[agonistes]

Heeeeeeeeey. :D We're still looking at between 6:30 and 7 for events to start, if you're still interested? *in Laramie*

[vivien]

Sound smashing! Let me know if anything changes; I'll aim for 6:45.