I hated Wall-E so much that when a Mefite posted a link to an old story about it; I found an equally old review and decided to take them down a peg:
The “good folks” over at Redstate.com loved Wall-E and posted a tortured set of reasons why Wall-E was all about the Reagan and the Guns:
1) The overthrow of fascist tyranny – The most direct conservative message in the movie is the uprising of the humans to throw off the chains of fascism. Humans on the Axiom have been subjugated to the soft fascism of the nanny state where the state provides all needs to all people, and they are all equal in their care. Everyone looks the same. Every gets the same food, clothes, media and activities. It is the perfect Marxist utopia, except for the French Revolution inspired construct of a ruling elite (Auto and his hench-robots) who have the ultimate freedom and authority to rule society and construct it to their ideal. Just because it is performed “for the good of the people” doesn’t make less of a tyranny. I’m sure Pol Pot’s forced march into the wilds of Cambodia was for the good of the people too.
Of course, when I think of Liberals, I think of Rigid social mores and Cool Uniforms. Or wait, do I think of Hippies? Yeah, the last thing. Also Fascism does not Equal Communism. These two things are not equal. I think they were trying to arge against authoritarianism; which I think is still a stretch, since there is really only one Authority and society as a whole (The land whales) were not down for it; they were just mindless consumers (like good Capitalists).
(Quick, examine that short Paragrah, did I say anything about a certain Austrian political figure? No, Give me a cookie!)
2) Failure of the Big Government social programs – We’ve had a lot of discussion of the anti-corporate message in the form of Big N Large. I contend that BNL is not a corporation, but a government. It represents the ultimate extension of the nationalized corporation as defined by Mussolini, and is a pretty close analogy to Great Society. In the end BNL has total worldwide societal control and all needs of the people are met by BNL’s “programs”. But just like the failure of the Great Society, BNL’s planned economy fails in a spectacular manner. Even the changes made to save humanity do not meet the promises. We see advertising, analogous to current PSAs, to take the Axiom on its 5 year cruise. But the promise of the Axiom is not met and we see the price of that failure early in movie when we see all the fat people on hover chairs. Just like the Great Society, once the liberal plan is put into motion, there is no option to change to a rational alternative. All that can be done is to maintain the status quo, without end. As a side note, the CEO of BNL makes all of his pronouncements from something that looks like the White House press room. This is reference to governmental power, not corporate power.
Simply stating that Wal-Mart , ahed, I mean BNL is not a Corporatation and then going on from there isn’t reasoning; that like saying “I don’t think the Green Goblin is a villan, so therefore Spider-Man is a menace!” good thinking there JJJ. So; yeah this whole section of the argument is out the door.
3) The effects of the Mainstream Media – Every human has a personal video feed that is used to pipe constant media brainwashing. We see the propaganda where they are all told that “Blue is the new red”. All of the mind numbed sheep dutifully go “oooohhh” and happily don the new color, while all continue to look identical. They dutifully do as they are told, including eating what they are told, until they have become an identical group of fat useless drains on the welfare state. A state which dutifully fills up the troughs for them to eat from. I found this theme to track with the current obesity problem in the welfare and food stamp programs.
I aggree; the mainstream media is a profit driven entity owned by large corporations who want money. How is this a Liberal thing. I get it; if you don’t like it (it’s Liberal) and if you like it (Like cool Stormtrooper uniforms) it’s Conservative. Tell me again how Fascists and Commies are Liberals again?
4) Propagandizing the education system – There was one scene where we saw the fat little children being educated through the use of media propaganda. This removal of parents from the upbringing of the children falls in line with the current drive to push children into the public indoctrination system as early as possible. While it is only an aside, the next time you see the children is when they are in danger thanks to the callous disregard of the elites. In this case, the state doesn’t save them, it is the actions of Josh and Mary acting as pseudo parents that save their lives.
Again, I agree. Using the Education of the young to put forth an agenda is deplorable. Of course, when the truth is that agenda and you don’t believe in it (like say Evolution and how the Mass Market is profit driven and not equitable…) wait what? Oh, my eduction by PepsiCo must have failed me again; no Pepsi for me tonight.
5) Triumph of individualism – Through accidental contact with the robots, Josh and Mary meet each other and begin a romance. We see one scene where the Lido deck is closed, and all of the hover chairs dutifully follow orders and head to the cabins. But Josh and Mary ignore the rules and stay in the pool. In another scene, we see Eve finally ignore the directive to deliver the plant to the bridge, and stay to help Wall-E when he is injured. Both of these short sequences demonstrate individuals standing up for self determination over the dictates of the state.
Wall-E is emulating something he saw in a Movie. If emulation is somehow being an individual, all those kids dressed as the Vampires from Twilight are downright rebels. Dumbass.
6) Elites fighting to maintain power – The Socialist concept of rulership by elites is often accompanied by the struggle to maintain power for the good of the people, even when the people are harmed in the process. It is all done for the good of society. Toward the end of the movie, we see Auto put the humans into danger by turning the ship and causing everyone to slide toward the walls (I promised I wouldn’t discuss the gravitational absurdity of this scene). Here the elite is trying to save humanity, but in the process is likely to kill a lot of humans. This parallels a common environmentalist desire of today to see a significant reduction in human population to save the planet.
What Elites? One Computer is “Elites” plural? Dumbshit can’t even count now.
7) Individualism must be suppressed – In the movie, the robots save the day. But the robots that do this are the “misfit” robots that have been put into a “reeducation program” to get them to perform within the strict tolerances defined by the state as acceptable. Once Wall-E uses Eve’s “blaster” to open the doors, the misfit robots escape. Instead of being a danger to society as the state controlled media asserts, they instead help Wall-E and Eve save humanity.
The “Misfit” robots are dangerously malfunctioning devices used to maintain the ship; some of which were endangering the ship. By this reasoning, a clinically insane person who threaten kindergartens because “Obama is gunna take his guns” is a real conservative icon! Again, Fail! Or WIN! Depending on which end of the spectrum your type of Aspergers ends up on.
8) Superiority of the classics – This one is a bit of a stretch, but the continual use of a “classic” image of the movie Hello Dolly made me think of the fight against cultural corruption. Wall-E (and eventually Eve) pine for, and eventually show the triumph of, the classical values shown by that movie. They reject the cultural mores imposed by modern thought as expressed by their directives that they are expected to blindly follow.
Yes, like CLASSIC Warfare (Raping and Pillaging) and CLASSIC Marriage (dowries) and of course the old Conservative Favourite, the Classic Lifestyle of the Spartan Army.
9) In the end Humanity embraces truth and does the right thing – The captain finally decides to take the Axiom home. But his decision is based on truly knowing what they face. He learns that Earth isn’t the happy wonderful place that his movies are showing him. Instead he directly confronts the bleak reality of the world that Eve shows him. But despite the knowledge of the challenges that faces them, he rejects the easy stagnation of continued life on the Axiom, and returns to earth to build a new world. Once faced with the lies told to him by the state, he rejects the state and embraces the hard road of struggle for independence.
The “State” told him to keep looking for life at home and then when said life is found, GO HOME. Which is what happened.
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SOMEHOW A LIE ON BEHALF OF THE STATE. THE FUCKING LARDWHALE CAPTAIN DID EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO DO BY A 500 YEAR OLD RECORDING. HOLY SHIT! THAT’S LIKE STONING SOMEONE BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAID TO DO IT.
Again, Wall-E sucks and this gave me an opportunity to relive some of the low-lights of this crap fest.
Caveat Emptor or Why Can't I get a refund for Bad Movies?
Published by NiteMayr on June 30, 2009I take offense at this:
“Or self-indulgent netizens who believe it is their God-given right to get all the music, films etc. they can stuff into their hard disks without paying the creators a single penny”
Caveat Emptor applies in many purchases, but when a product is defective or doesn’t deliver on it’s promised function, consumers can often return the product or at least obtain credit for their purchase. This is true for most physical purchases, perhaps not all.
However, when one buys media (music, movies, games) you end up in a hinterland. Say I’ve bought “Plan 9 from outer space” not knowing that it is camp and expecting a classic space horror (I live in a cave or something) I can’t return it to the store for a full refund. They won’t let me. However, if I watch it online or download it I can know if the investment was worth the money.
You may not agree with this, but at least you can see the sense of it. I think I’ve seen the basic content nearly 90% of the DVDs I own before I even saw the disc. Sometimes in the theatre (I vowed to never purchase the Transformers Movie (the first M bay one after that) and sometimes via other means.
However; in the cases where I went to the theatre I’m out 20-50 dollars depending how many people come along and the theater; I can’t recover that money in any way. It’s not just a foolish investment, it’s robbery. I was promised X amount of entertainment and instead I was bored or offended or even worse disgusted for X amount of time. I charge 60 dollars an hour for my wasted leisure time; where do I collect?
If groups like the RIAA can charge thousands of dollars for individually “stolen” songs, why can’t consumers have similar protections? These protections were invented for the Producers; the Pirate Bay and their ilk are the market reaction to these protections.
What I’m driving at is if consumers had the ability to receive refunds for bad media; it would go a long way to changing the mindset of people who download movies and music and so on.