Originally posted on a blog for a college philosophy class, Philosophies for Life
On WALL-E: Philosophers aboard the Axiom
WALL-E (2008 dir. Andrew Stanton) is probably one of my favorite Pixar movies (probably beaten out by Inside Out (2015) dir. Pete Docter though). It deals with themes such as consumerism and environmentalism, and cinematically it is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, as there's no real dialogue for the first 30 minutes or so. The words heard most in the film are "WALL-E", "Eev-aah" (character names spoken by robots) and "Directive". Unfortunately it got snubbed from a Best Picture nomination at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009, but it did take home the prize for Best Animated Feature (albeit, only beating out Bolt, another Disney film, and Kung Fu Panda, as 2008 wasn't the biggest year for animation, as the only other notable animated U.S. theatrically-released films that year were Igor, The Pirates who Don't Do Anything: A Veggietales Movie, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which beat out Wall-E for the coveted animated feature prize at that year's Kids' Choice Awards). Cinematic snubbing aside, the world and scenario of WALL-E presents interesting philosophical dilemmas and scenarios. Though the philosophy presented in the film itself has notably environmentalist and Christian influence (the film has been compared to the story of Noah's Ark from the Bible, and one of the main protagonists is named after the Biblical Eve), the scenarios presented in the film leave room for other philosophical interpretation.
A short synopsis
WALL-E follows the story of a robot named WALL-E, who is left as presumably the last working robot remaining on a deserted Earth, as all the humans left their trashed planet 700ish years ago aboard "5-year cruises" on space ships chartered by the corporate giant Buy-N-Large, which at that point had become so large that it ate up all the competition and bought out all the world governments, taking control of the planet and giving themselves absolute power over everything. One day a probe robot, Eve, lands on Earth to search for any signs of sustainable life, her "directive". WALL-E comes across Eve and leads her to his home, where she finds a plant that WALL-E has found, takes the plant, and shuts down, which leaves WALL-E extremely concerned. Eventually the rocket that dropped Eve off on Earth returns to take Eve back to the Axiom, but WALL-E tags along. Eve tries to follow her directive and takes the plant to the ship's captain, but the evil autopilot prevents this from happening in order to keep the ship in space instead of returning to Earth. After a series of events, WALL-E and Eve eventually get the plant to its designated place, defeat the evil autopilot captain, and return the ship to Earth after all this time. The humans set foot on a deserted planet and plant the one plant Eve found and the film ends (though the credit sequence implies that humanity, with the help of the robots, rebuilds instead of dying off).
The Axiom
The Axiom is the space cruise in which humanity lives. It is a ship of luxury. Robots do all the work for you, and all you get to do is enjoy yourself as you float through space. On the Axiom, Buy N' Large provides "Everything you need to be happy"as the "captain and autopilot chart a course for nonstop entertainment, fine dining, and with our all access hoverchairs, even grandma can join the fun". It is a floating bastion of eternal consumerism, entertainment, enjoyment, and excess. Humans who live on the Axiom need not worry about anything as they live in a land of fun and carelessness with all work done by robots. It's the ideal life. Or is it? All the people on the Axiom are overweight and in terrible health, barely able to even walk. At the time of WALL-E, humanity has lived on the Axiom for around 700 years and have devolved into barely human entities. Has 7 centuries of indulgence led to the destruction of humanity?
Philosophy
At the end of WALL-E, Eve fulfills her directive and returns the plant to the hub which directs the ship back to Earth. The question remains, however, if that was actually a good idea. Sure, humans returned to their natural home, but now they have to toil to rebuild the planet their great-great-great (x700 years) ancestors destroyed, instead of still living in the luxury of the Axiom. Was this a good idea? Imagine that, (though this is unlikely considering the circumstances of Buy N' Large and The Axiom) the humans on board were allowed to read ancient philosophy. Picture an Epicurean, a Buddhist, and an Existentialist sitting in their hoverchairs together at the end of WALL-E as all the humans aboard the Axiom are brought to the Lido Bay when Eve returns the plant. How would they feel and react as they learn that they must now return to Earth?
The Buddhist
I feel like, for one thing, the Buddhist aboard the Axiom would bear more of a resemblance to stereotypical Buddha than the actual Buddha.
But regardless of what your image of Buddha himself looks like, I feel like the Buddhist would feel conflicted about returning to Earth. On one hand, the Axiom is arguably a place where striving has ceased, so there is no suffering. The goal of Buddhism is to end the striving that causes suffering, and with the lack of striving aboard the Axiom, it has become like a mindless type of Nirvana. On the other hand, it could be argued that the Axiom is a place of only striving. Everyone is striving to buy, striving to spend, striving to be a consumer and have pleasure. Is there much suffering seen aboard the Axiom? Not really. But are people living peaceful lives? Not really. It's a faced paced world of endless consumerism, but also a place where people are not seen suffering. While returning to Earth would almost certainly cause striving, as humanity toils to bring life back to the planet, staying on the Axiom could go either way, so I feel that the Buddhist would be conflicted about returning back home.
The Epicurean
The Epicurean would almost certainly desire to stay on the Axiom, as Epicureanism is hedonistic. The Axiom is a place of pleasure. Even though it's a place of bloated consumerism, it's also a place of endless pleasure. While Epicureanism is against destructive pleasure, unlike a lot of hedonism, it can't be said that the bloated devolved state of humanity actually is destructive in itself, as the destruction has already happened. Living on the Axiom is safe and pleasurable. Humanity has already destroyed itself, so you can't really get any worse or destroy yourself any more. Why would you want to escape the ship of endless pleasure to toil to rebuild a destroyed planet? The Epicurean would rather just stay on the ship, as the autopilot wanted.
The Existentialist
Conclusion
At the end of WALL-E, we see humans getting off the ship and the captain replanting the first plant found. The credit sequence implies that humanity successfully restores Earth. But it is unclear whether everyone is happy about this. Is the Buddhist happy about all the hard work and striving it took to restore Earth? Is the Epicurean happy about going from a ship of endless pleasure to an Earth full of hard work for food rather than the "regenerative food buffet" mentioned on the ship? Is the Existentialist happy they've been able to make something of themself? We can only theorize.
On WALL-E: Philosophers aboard the Axiom
WALL-E (2008 dir. Andrew Stanton) is probably one of my favorite Pixar movies (probably beaten out by Inside Out (2015) dir. Pete Docter though). It deals with themes such as consumerism and environmentalism, and cinematically it is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, as there's no real dialogue for the first 30 minutes or so. The words heard most in the film are "WALL-E", "Eev-aah" (character names spoken by robots) and "Directive". Unfortunately it got snubbed from a Best Picture nomination at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009, but it did take home the prize for Best Animated Feature (albeit, only beating out Bolt, another Disney film, and Kung Fu Panda, as 2008 wasn't the biggest year for animation, as the only other notable animated U.S. theatrically-released films that year were Igor, The Pirates who Don't Do Anything: A Veggietales Movie, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which beat out Wall-E for the coveted animated feature prize at that year's Kids' Choice Awards). Cinematic snubbing aside, the world and scenario of WALL-E presents interesting philosophical dilemmas and scenarios. Though the philosophy presented in the film itself has notably environmentalist and Christian influence (the film has been compared to the story of Noah's Ark from the Bible, and one of the main protagonists is named after the Biblical Eve), the scenarios presented in the film leave room for other philosophical interpretation.
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| What's left of Earth in WALL-E |
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| The Axiom |
A short synopsis
WALL-E follows the story of a robot named WALL-E, who is left as presumably the last working robot remaining on a deserted Earth, as all the humans left their trashed planet 700ish years ago aboard "5-year cruises" on space ships chartered by the corporate giant Buy-N-Large, which at that point had become so large that it ate up all the competition and bought out all the world governments, taking control of the planet and giving themselves absolute power over everything. One day a probe robot, Eve, lands on Earth to search for any signs of sustainable life, her "directive". WALL-E comes across Eve and leads her to his home, where she finds a plant that WALL-E has found, takes the plant, and shuts down, which leaves WALL-E extremely concerned. Eventually the rocket that dropped Eve off on Earth returns to take Eve back to the Axiom, but WALL-E tags along. Eve tries to follow her directive and takes the plant to the ship's captain, but the evil autopilot prevents this from happening in order to keep the ship in space instead of returning to Earth. After a series of events, WALL-E and Eve eventually get the plant to its designated place, defeat the evil autopilot captain, and return the ship to Earth after all this time. The humans set foot on a deserted planet and plant the one plant Eve found and the film ends (though the credit sequence implies that humanity, with the help of the robots, rebuilds instead of dying off).
The Axiom
The Axiom is the space cruise in which humanity lives. It is a ship of luxury. Robots do all the work for you, and all you get to do is enjoy yourself as you float through space. On the Axiom, Buy N' Large provides "Everything you need to be happy"as the "captain and autopilot chart a course for nonstop entertainment, fine dining, and with our all access hoverchairs, even grandma can join the fun". It is a floating bastion of eternal consumerism, entertainment, enjoyment, and excess. Humans who live on the Axiom need not worry about anything as they live in a land of fun and carelessness with all work done by robots. It's the ideal life. Or is it? All the people on the Axiom are overweight and in terrible health, barely able to even walk. At the time of WALL-E, humanity has lived on the Axiom for around 700 years and have devolved into barely human entities. Has 7 centuries of indulgence led to the destruction of humanity?
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| Onboard the Axiom |
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| Inside the Dubai Airport Emirates terminal, a real-life bastion of consumerism, with a statue of a palm tree made of faux gold bars as the centerpiece. |
Philosophy
At the end of WALL-E, Eve fulfills her directive and returns the plant to the hub which directs the ship back to Earth. The question remains, however, if that was actually a good idea. Sure, humans returned to their natural home, but now they have to toil to rebuild the planet their great-great-great (x700 years) ancestors destroyed, instead of still living in the luxury of the Axiom. Was this a good idea? Imagine that, (though this is unlikely considering the circumstances of Buy N' Large and The Axiom) the humans on board were allowed to read ancient philosophy. Picture an Epicurean, a Buddhist, and an Existentialist sitting in their hoverchairs together at the end of WALL-E as all the humans aboard the Axiom are brought to the Lido Bay when Eve returns the plant. How would they feel and react as they learn that they must now return to Earth?
The Buddhist
I feel like, for one thing, the Buddhist aboard the Axiom would bear more of a resemblance to stereotypical Buddha than the actual Buddha.
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| Statue of Buddha at a temple in Vietnam |
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| Humans aboard the Axiom |
The Epicurean
The Epicurean would almost certainly desire to stay on the Axiom, as Epicureanism is hedonistic. The Axiom is a place of pleasure. Even though it's a place of bloated consumerism, it's also a place of endless pleasure. While Epicureanism is against destructive pleasure, unlike a lot of hedonism, it can't be said that the bloated devolved state of humanity actually is destructive in itself, as the destruction has already happened. Living on the Axiom is safe and pleasurable. Humanity has already destroyed itself, so you can't really get any worse or destroy yourself any more. Why would you want to escape the ship of endless pleasure to toil to rebuild a destroyed planet? The Epicurean would rather just stay on the ship, as the autopilot wanted.
The Existentialist
"I can't just sit here and do nothing! That's all anyone on this blasted ship has ever done!" -Axiom Captain B. McCreaI feel like the existentialist would be excited to land on Earth. They've made no purpose for themselves aboard the Axiom, All they've done is sit in their hoverchair and indulge. They haven't worked, haven't had hobbies, and haven't moved on their own right at all. They can barely walk. They are pretty much a worthless sack of meat floating adrift in space. Landing on Earth gives them purpose, especially if their following Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism, as Sartre said
"Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself" -SartreAn Existentialist aboard the Axiom would be excited to finally make something of themself. Instead of floating around indulging in worthless pleasures, they can now find purpose in rebuilding the natural home of humanity and restoring it to its former natural glory.
Conclusion
At the end of WALL-E, we see humans getting off the ship and the captain replanting the first plant found. The credit sequence implies that humanity successfully restores Earth. But it is unclear whether everyone is happy about this. Is the Buddhist happy about all the hard work and striving it took to restore Earth? Is the Epicurean happy about going from a ship of endless pleasure to an Earth full of hard work for food rather than the "regenerative food buffet" mentioned on the ship? Is the Existentialist happy they've been able to make something of themself? We can only theorize.
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| WALL-E and Eve gaze upon the original plant that grew into a mighty tree in the credit sequence |
A Buddhist, an Epicurean, and an existentialist walk into a bar...
ReplyDeleteWorst.Joke.Ever.